A pressing weekend

Happy Monday morning!  Hope everyone had a beautiful weekend.  It was sunny and just down right gorgeous all weekend.  I finally managed to get outside yesterday long enough to mow the grass and plant some annual flower seeds.  Then it was back to the studio for tons of pressing.  All that's left is a few more scalloped swags.  By making the bigger applique pieces last it seems to trick my mind into a faster finish line.  Do you have a method to your quilty madness?

 The scalloped swag just tickles me pink!  So cute.  All the applique except for the swags were made from the scraps of the Glorified nine patches.  I'm using washable school glue to hold the pieces together before adding to the quilt.  Here's a great tutorial for pre assembly applique.  

In the tutorial Erin is using Roxanne's basting glue.  I used this until the bottle was empty and then added washable school glue to the bottle.  Works great and it's cheaper!

Today I'm linking up with Judy over at Patchwork Times for Design Wall Monday.  This is one of my favorite places to go for quilt inspirations.  And Judy is quite the blogger, posting three or four times a day about everything from quilting to farm animals.  Her canning and dehydrating posts are some of my favorites also.  So hop on over and take a walk around I promise you won't be let down.   She also has tons of FREE patterns!

~ Lea Anne ~

Today' freebie

http://www.nancyzieman.com/blog/quick-quilting-projects/american-flag%E2%80%93free-quilt-pattern-from-a-swn-viewer/

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Back to the drawing board

Finally the Glorified Nine Patches are complete.  The curved seams gave me some trouble, switching my piecing technique twice until I found a method that would give the best results.  Unfortunately I'm not one of those quilters that can pin in three place on the curve and end up with anything usable.  The method that worked best for me made a lot of scrap, but what the heck its just fabric, and can be used for applique in another quilt or maybe in this one.  That's the plan, but(there's always a "But") I've not committed to anything yet.

The quilt is boring.  So I've played around with a few ideas.  You can see some of them here and in EQ7 but nothing has grabbed me.  A few ideas came to mind at 1 a.m. while tossing and turning in bed last night.  It's back to the drawing board to play.  

~ Lea Anne ~

Free hex templates in half and whole sizes

http://www.fromthebluechair.com/2012/08/tutorial-cutting-accurate-hexagons.html

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Border talk

If you haven't heard there's a new linky party going on!  Val at Val's Quilting Studio has been partying for the past few weeks with a new theme every Tuesday.  You don't even need to write a post just link up an old one.  This weeks theme is Birthdays and Borders.  All my quilts have some type of border so I've plenty to share.  Instead of linking to several different post why not just put them all in one!

This has to be one of my favorite borders.  A friend taught me this technique a couple of years ago, you can find a tutorial here on my blog on the tutorials tab.  

 It makes sorta a flange but with a twist. This quilt is currently being quilted.

 Borders can make a quilt, don't you think?  This pattern is called Cherries Jubilee.  Any other border would not have given this quilt the same movement.  

 I designed this quilt last year.  The borders gave me a fits.  Nothing seemed right.  Then I had an epiphany!  Fussy cut the border.  It almost gives an appliqued look to the border.

The quilt below falls in both birthdays and borders.  This was made for my dad's birthday.  I called it Four Directions.   Alot of research went into every design element.  I won't bore you with the details other than the borders are applique.   The feathers were raw edge, but instead of taking the fusible webbing to the edge I left a quarter inch around the edge unfused, stitched about a quarter inch from the edge, causing the feathers to fray and look feathery when washed!

 Another great border technique that I learned from Erin Russeks Blog.  She also designed the quilt block(block 2 from MY Tweets BOM)

 Another one of my designs below.  I thought the quilt looked boring until I added the applique in the border.  

 Love the Dresden borders on this one, this was fast and easy, and a very dramatic finish! 

A commissioned quilt uses the Erin Russek tutorial in the center, and then a simple scallop border.  I'm not a big fan of scallops, because I hate the math part and the binding.  But it's what the customer wanted so....

 Another one I designed.   After weeks of struggling with what type of border I decided to the classic Log Cabin worked great with the classic Lone Star.  

Well there you have it several different ideas for borders.  Hope I've inspired some creativity!

~ Lea Anne ~

Today's Freebie  A block border tutorial from Twin Fibers

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Go fly a kite!

It seems that the key to flying any kite is wind!  We had big plans this weekend to reconnect with our old family traditions of Easter kite flying.  Sounded like a good project for using up some fabric.  I whipped this up in about an hour using some ugly fabric and a little scrap wood from Ross's play space.  Even though our kites never flew more than 20 feet in the air without crashing we had fun trying.  Running to make wind was quite a chore for this old lady!  And it seems my skinny young sons were just as out of shape.  We put together a new plan for Mother's day.  Hopefully the wind will cooperate.  

~ Lea Anne ~

http://www.ucquilts.com/bommarch2006.htm

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Attractive nuisance

After such a harsh winter even these wild violets and dandelions are a welcomed site.  It's so hard to pull them when they look so pretty.  Mother nature has a way with color doesn't she?

She knows just where to put the color and occasionally if you look hard you can find a surprise.

 Hiding the real beauty for those who will take the time to find it.

Quilters have been using nature as inspiration for quite some time.  These Dutchman's Breeches(britches is proper podunkian) inspired a quilt block (scroll down)years ago.  Here's another version of this block.  And another with some history.

 Who decides whats a weed and what's not?  Why are they consider a nuisance?  Reminds me of story my dad told when I was young.  He said  there was a new guy at work that had moved here from another state over the winter.  Dad asked him one day how he was liking the spring thaw.  The man replied with excitement that he was loving it.  He just loved all the pretty yellow flowers all over his yard, and how he felt lucky to be the only one on his block that had them!  Of course dad explained that his neighbors would be grateful if he treated his yard with weed killer.  But the man said they were just to pretty to kill.  Everytime I see a dandelion I think of this story and wonder if the man still has a yard full.  We leave ours also.  No we aren't tree huggers, its just a lost cause out here, mother nature is the boss when you live in Podunk.  

~ Lea Anne ~

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A Good Friday

When you buy new fabric do you lay it out for a few days?  Stack it and re-stack it?  Setting it up in different props for picture taking?  By the time I get done playing around its usually starting to fray.  Sigh...sad but true.    It's been so long since I've purchased from the LQS, well any fabric for that matter.  Limiting  purchases to only "Needed" fabric.  Today I found a NEED!  The closest shop is the The Back Door specializing in civil war reproductions.  A small section dedicated to brights.  The sad thing is that they rarely carry the whole line of fabric.  And they're scattered, sorted by color not by line of fabric.  So you really need to know the line in order to find them.  No precuts in the brights either.   The mission was for an older line called Delighted.  They had quite a few of the fabrics from that line but..... some new lines made my little ole heart go pitter-pat.

Another idea has been bouncing around in my head that uses hexes so grabbed up the Hex and More ruler.  The MORE sold me.  They had two other hex rulers but they only cut hexes or half hexes and one of them only went up to a 4.5 hex.  The Hex and More ruler goes up to 8.5 and can cut a variety of shapes, giving me MORE designing options.   After an hour in the shop I decided to GET OUT OF THERE!  So much stuff and so little money....BooHoohoo...

Stepping outside the shop I realized the birds were singing louder, the sun was shining brighter, a little pep in the step, a good day, a Good Friday indeed!

~ Lea Anne ~

Today's freebie, An Olive and Ollie house quilt block. 

 Follow the links in her post for the rest of the quilt!

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Bit by Bit

Still plugging along on the hummingbird blocks.  24 now complete, 172 more to go.  Yes you read the right.  The plan is for a 70 x70 quilt.  That means 14 blocks x 14 blocks.  It's a little more time consuming when using odd size scraps.  So I'm reconsidering using my white yardage instead of scrap white.

 In the spirit of no scrap left behind I've been tossing the bits into this tin.

 Now I just need a plan.  Well looky here what I found.  Little Bits patterns by Cindi Edgerton.  A couple of years ago one of the local quilt shops was going out of business.  When that happens you buy things you wouldn't normally buy at great prices.  I really wanted to make one of the two at the very top.  But my pieces were too small.  So I settled for the one circled.  Appropriately named Itty Bitty Square on Square.

 These little patterns come with great instructions that tell you what size to cut your fabric.  So I just tossed this aside since I'm working with odd shaped scraps.  

 The finished test block is 2.5 unfinished.  Holy Moly!  That was fun!  So much fun that I don't think I need to make anymore of these for awhile, it may be sensory overload(wink).

 If that wasn't enough to make you think I'm crazy, take a look at my leaders and enders project.  I've no idea what to do with them but it lets me say "I have a leaders and enders project".  You know every good quilter has one so they don't waste thread.  Guess that makes me a SUPER DUPER green quilter with no wasted fabric either.  So tell me how small is to small when it comes to scrap fabric?    

~ Lea Anne ~

Today's freebie 

http://thecraftyquilter.com/2014/04/patchwork-peter-rabbit-tutorial/

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A Little Shady

Finding just the right scrap white for my Hummingbird blocks has become a test of will.  They are such small pieces of white that cutting into the white yardage just doesn't seem right.  So let the digging begin.

UGGG!  It's a shameful site.  These are my two boxes of rarely used scraps. Literally exploding out of the box.  The only way to get them to close is to sit on the lids.  Not going to win any quilty organization awards anytime soon.  On the positive side of things I did find some bright scraps that could be put in my other scrap stash that I use more often.  And I might just have enough white-white for this current project.  White-White?  I've found that snow white is more like coffee creamer, white has a touch of gray, like a piece of paper.  And then there's the white that looks like it's been dipped in dingy dishwater.  All are very pretty when by themselves but when you put them side by side the color difference is very noticeable.  If needed I'll use the dingier whites to avoid making more white scraps.

 So here's my pile of white-white and a binding that I've lost twice.  Hopefully the binding will work for this quilt. 

Speaking of white it's snowing here right now!  What!  The weatherman said this is the fist April in 13 yrs that it has snowed and stuck to the ground.  

Today is also Linky Tueday over at Freemotionbytheriver.  Head on over and link up or just enjoy!

~ Lea Anne ~

Today's freebie is an Appliqued Raindrop pillow tutorial by Ashley at Make it and Love it Blog.

http://www.makeit-loveit.com/2014/04/raindrop-pillow-tutorial-a-great-project-for-spring.html#respond

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Taking it easy

Well we had a beautiful weekend here in Podunk.  Tons of sunshine!  So most of my time was spent playing around in the yard, moving some flowers and weeding.  Being the graceful lady that I am, I also managed to find a hole to put my foot in, twisting my knee.  Nothing serious, it's just a little hitch in the giddy up.  You know how it is with these older model of knees, sometimes they just need a couple of days to recoop.  So today I'm taking it easy and playing around with these Hummingbird blocks.  Using this tutorial for paperless paper piecing.  

Hope all is well in your neck of the woods! 

~ Lea Anne ~

today's freebie

http://sewfreshquilts.blogspot.ca/2014/04/guest-post-at-sew-can-she.html

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Did you hear me?

Yesterday afternoon I was totally sidetracked when this came in the mail. SQEEEEEEL!  Bev you're the best, Thank you so much!  The rest of the day I played with ideas for this panel.  I know that it's supposed to be a quick fun banner project, but I like to explore my options before doing the norm.  The last time I was in one of our local quilt shops they still had a few bolts of this Delighted fabric line. Maybe a shopping trip is order.  Until then I need to decide which new pattern to make first.  

~ Lea Anne ~

Today's freebie is a nice tutorial for a pretty spring tulip quilt

http://runnstitch.blogspot.com/2014/03/spring-tulip-quilt-tutorial.html

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Knick knack patty whack.....

This has been put off for far too long.  I've had this fabric for years and have been waiting for just the right idea.  Don't you find it easier to work on projects when you love the fabric?  You can see more of this one here.

My eyes needed a break from the intense tiny stitches.  Well it's beautiful day to be outside, so I took a little stroll with my camera.  I didn't get to far....This is my baby...Lobo.  It's been so nice having him here since gramps passed.  Pretty sure gramps thinks we spoil him, but I've no kids at home and no grandkids close, so Lobo gets all my old lady lovins!  He knows if he looks at me like this I'll cave...

Never have I seen a dog that loves dog treats as much as Lobo.  Homemade dog biscuts at that! That's real chicken, ham, and beef stock mix with scraps of meat, put it all in blender, add some flour and eggs...and you got dog bone heaven! Spoiled rotten!  I've even considered getting one of those dog bone cookie cutters.  You can't help but want to spoil him.  Gramps did the best he could taking care of him, but he was old and would forget to feed him for days.  I think the only thing that kept the dog from death is being and outside dog and being able to hunt.  He's been a blessing and make us both smile and laugh everyday.  

~ Lea Anne ~

Fabric basket from 2.5 strips/jelly roll tutorial

http://terryatkinson.typepad.com/atkinsondesigns/2014/02/woven-fabric-basket.html

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Jelly Bean Twist

Sometimes the best quilt ideas come from playing around.  Meet Jelly Bean Twist! Don't look to close or you'll find my 4 patch error. 

Coming up with quilt names can be a chore sometimes.  Before officially naming a quilt I'll google the name to see if any other quilter has used the name.  It took 3 tries to not step on anyones toes.  Why Jelly Bean Twist?  Simple... the blocks sorta looked like they were spinning, twisting, or twirling.   The colorful applique looks like beads, petals, or jelly beans.  As soon as the thought Jelly Bean Twist popped in my brain I started singing the song Peppermint Twist, replacing Peppermint Twist with Jelly Bean Twist.  Such a happy song!  I'm sure some of my blogland friends remember this!  If not here's it is.  I dare you not to dance!  

Free motion work around the Jelly Beans,  And that wiggle stitch is one of those fancy stitches on my domestic sewing machine.   You can tell I'm out of practice with DSM quilting.  The wiggle varies due to drag on the quilt.  

 I often get comments on my quilts telling me not to worry about mistakes.  Believe me I don't!  However I do like to point them out.  Why?  Because I also get comments from quilters wishing they could quilt like me.  Believe me I'm no Pro.   As bloggers we can hide these mistakes.  But I think it's helpful to others to see that all is not perfect.  Sure some quilts get more attention to detail. And some are just for fun and those little UH-OH's can be left as character.  

 Last week I talked about my favorite 100wt thread.  Here it is again.  It really is great.  It blends in with just about any color.  Look at the bottom of the red gingham, there's a few tiny stitches on the red that just melt right into the fabric.

That 100 wt thread blends in around the oval shapes.  Each petal shape has two quilting lines.  One is a very visible echo and the other is right next to the petal.

Love this threads blending powers!

  After spraying with water I still have blue lines....hopefully soaking will take them out.  They are under the fusible webbing, lets hope it's not one of those hard lessons learned.  

The backing is another oldy from the stash.  VIP fabric bought from an estate sale.

~ Lea Anne ~

http://www.junetailor.com/Creativity%20Center/CreativityCenter_ProjectSheets_BunnyQuilt.htm

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