Snowflakes and Peppermint

Happy Monday morning sweet friends!  Is everyone ready for Christmas?  Or are you like me pushing things out till the last minute?   Things are looking pretty festive in Podunk.  Luckily I've a couple extra days to get things ready before everyone arrives on Saturday.   We've decided to keep the holiday simple and easy for everyone by postponing it and serving pizza instead of the traditional Christmas meal.  The only cooking planned for the week ahead is a few cookies.  The sweet little quilt below is inspiring me to make some chocolate peppermint cookies....YUM!  

Now to come up with a name for my latest creation.  What about 

Peppermint Posies?

The quilt below was loaded to the frame with no border quilting plans.   It didn't take long for inspiration to strike...TADA...lots of ruler work and a little free motion on the snowflakes.   See you in a few days with a finish!   I can  do this...I know I can!  Wish me luck!

~  Lea Anne ~

Quickly Quilting the handwork

It's been a test of patience all week long in Podunk.  I won't get into the personal issues except for I came home after a long day of baby sitting momma to a flooded laundry room....the water heater dumping most of its contents on the floor.   Well that same little Gremlin made his way into the studio yesterday morning and decided to stay for the entire day.  He twirled his sticky little fingers around my thread causing major tension issues on the last border of my Chocolate Covered Cherries quilt below.  I'll never understand how almost a entire quilt can be quilted with no issues and then BAM out thin air a major issue.  It took 3 hours to quilt a 12 inch section of the border.    I'm pretty sure that this Gremlin came from Barbara's Blog!   So be careful he's on the loose, I ran him out of the studio around 8 pm last night.  

The quilt below is the last of the Quickly Quilting Quilts.  The last two quilt tops had minimal quilting except for the borders.  This one will have a little bit more detail and custom work.  All the applique on this quilt is done by hand so I thought it needed a little more WOW.

 The fussy cut borders are giving me quilting design issues.  Since I went to all the trouble to fussy cut them I feel the quilting should also make them stand out.  At this point I'm open for suggestion!  It's going onto the frame with no border plan...just flying by the seat of my pants with hopes of inspiration.

~ Lea Anne ~

Let's play dressup

 Just popping in to share progress on the scraplique quilt.  The creative juices started flowing last night.   It just seemed so boring with all the blocks pretty much the same.  Time to dress this girl up a bit and put some SASS in that Sashing!  Nothing dresses things up quite like applique.   

Applique is the Stiletto heels of quilting.

I had a few basic ideas....  The original below would have tons of open space for custom quilting.

 But a girl always needs a few other backup plans.

 Blah blah blah .....BLAND

The candy striped fabric just might add the YUMMY to a otherwise boring quilt.

Before making my decision on the candy stripe I auditioned other options.

More scraplique was my first choice

then lace, which made it look too 70's for me

and some ribbon...it too was BORING to the eye.

Changing the border fabric also helped.  The floral fabric behind the graph paper(below) was the original idea.  The large polka dots I purchased last week at 44th Street Fabrics(in first picture above) added more visual interest.

Well it's back to work!  I might be able to have this small quilt finished in time for Christmas.

~ Lea Anne ~

Scraplique Play

Quilting on the frame is so boring.  I'll quilt for a few minutes and then I'm off doing something else.  And there's been so many great Christmas quilting projects on social media .....It's driving me nuts!  There's to many UFO's laying around to start anything new. So....

A little play time is just what was needed to get my mind off of starting a new project.  These petals were made a couple of years ago from scraps.  Since they're a UFO it's okay to play with them!  If you look closely you can see that they are tiny pieces of fabric that were sewn together until I had a piece big enough for the petal template.

 Somehow I even managed to find the quilt pattern I designed two years ago.  Must be my great organizing skills!  NOT!  It just the inability to throw away anything quilt related, with the hopes that someday I'll make all the patterns my scrappy brain can imagine.

Here's one of the quilts made from this fabric.  Another one of my designs that was drafted after seeing so many Christmas bulb quilts around the internet.  I also wanted to have an "ELF" feel to it.  Who doesn't love the Christmas movie "ELF"?  

The quilt below is the first quilt made from the "Joy" fabric bundle.  I've pulled it out to quilt it.  We'll see.....

  Potholders would make a quick finish for the two orphaned blocks made from some of the scraps.  

So what are you working on this weekend?  Anything Christmasy?

~ Lea Anne ~

Sugar and Spice

Just wanted to pop in today and share a the Sugar N Spice kit I purchased at the LQS.  So sweet.  What can I say....I'm a sucker for dresdens and bright colors.  

 How could anyone walk away from this, it was like a little puppy staring at me, giving me the eye as I browsed the shop.  Admitting that I picked it up and put it down several times before actually making my decision.  I was hoping someone would see me put it down and run to get it since it was the last kit.  No such luck.  Oh but luck was on my side.  Our shop gives a $25 discount after you buy a certain amount of yardage.  This kit put me over the top with some to spare and they gave me the $25 on this purchase!  It was meant to be.  

Storing this one away for someday.  

I found a couple of pictures of this quilt via pinterest.  However the links take me to a photo and not a website.  So once again I can't give credit to the owners of the quilts.  I can tell you that this picture was found at Red Geranium Cottage.  After searching this lovely blog the location of the picture is still a mystery.

It's also super cute in blue. (no location for pic)  

Finding a copy of the pattern for sale was almost as tricking as tracking down the source of the pictures above.  Finally finding the pattern  at Black Cat Creations for sale.  Who would have thought to look there!?  Never said I was bright gal.

  found here http://www.buzzinbumble.com/2014/06/i-love-lucy.html

~ Lea Anne ~

44th Street Fabric Sale!

Look what came in the mail!  44th Street Fabrics on Etsy is having a 50% off sale on fabric!  and 30% off patterns. You can read more about it at

44th Street Fabric Blog. 

 Look how nicely these are packaged.   I love that Beverly took the time to protect my lovelies.  Now let's rip these babies open!

 Oh so pretty!

 This Millie's Closet by Lori Holt panel is my favorite piece. 

Not only is Beverly having a fabric sale but she is also selling a few quilt tops.  And let me tell you she makes the most adorable bright and happy quilts.  Look at this cutie below!  You can read more about it HERE.   Will power overload!  It has all my favorite colors and the gingham border...sigh...silly budget.  

Hey Santa Claus...I've been really good this year! (most of the time)

~ Lea Anne ~

Quickly Quilting Part 2

One down and 2 more to go...maybe more.  Even though the quilting isn't coming along as quickly as planned, I'm still pretty pleased with the progress.  The binding is attached and ready to be hand sewn to the back.  I'm going to wait and do all the binding handwork in one huge hand stitching marathon.

Prepping for the next quilt top was a little more involved than the first one.  But necessary in order to make things a quick as possible.   Feathers are a really quick way to fill a border.  However I didn't want every quilt to have the same feathers.   So on this one I decided to make a curvier spline on the feathers.  A first for me.  Drafting them first on paper was a must.  This gives me practice on feather placement.  To keep things quick I chose a circle template that proportionally looked good to me.  Then whatever happens...happens.  Well what happened is the template will not evenly fit in the border.  So the feathers will start in the corners and end in the middle of the quilt sides instead of being one long continuous feather all the way around the quilt.

On the short border side the feathers end up at the center mark pointing in towards the center of the quilt. 

 ( Pardon the bad pictures, I'm quickly doing everything)

 And then on the long sides they will point out in the center.  It's not ideal but it's QUICK and I'm learning a new feather all at the same time.

 Now for a few quick markings in the blocks an this one should be loaded on the frame before noon.   

Linking up today with 

Design Wall Monday @ Patchworktimes

and

Anything goes Monday @ Stitch by Stitch

~ Lea Anne ~

Quickly Quilting

Finally!  I'm back in the studio quilting my little ole heart out.  I've pulled three quilt tops from the large pile in hopes of getting them quilted in record time.  They will be displayed in the newly painted living room.  I got a wild hair the day after Thanksgiving, painting, steam cleaning the floor...spring cleaning a few months late!  Look at the backing fabric...LOVE LOVE LOVE IT!  It's one of my afraid to cut it pieces.  The plan was to someday use it for a quilt border but plans change.  

Hope to see you all in a few days with at least one finish.   Momma's having surgery so that will slow things down a little.

~ Lea Anne ~