A Free Block of the Month 2017

Since I don't have time to create my own patterns this year and I love to sew up quilts I've a new found interest in free quilt block of the months.  Well when I saw Cindy Staub's new BOM I knew it was for me.   You can find more information about this FREE BOM at her blog QuiltDoodledesigns.  

Dresden's have long been my go to for a quick and easy quilt.  I absolutely love them and have made several over the years.  The fun thing about Cindy's dresden BOM is there will be some applique added to each block.  I see so many great possibilities for this quilt and I can't wait to see what she's going to add to the basic Dresden design.      

The best part of a new project is picking out the fabrics.  If you don't share my love of selecting fabrics Cindy has put together a bundle that can be purchase on her Etsy page.  Aren't they just adorable?!

Hurry on over to Cindy's blog for all the details.  The first block is going to be released tomorrow!  But there's no need to worry, there's plenty of time to finish it before the next one comes out in February.  Well I'm off to see what I can pull from my stash for this project.  See you soon with my fabric pull...or my first block!

~ Lea Anne ~

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It's all Bonnie's fault!

Here it is Monday morning again.  This last week flew by so fast.  I've made little progress on my Bonnie Hunter En Provence mystery quilt.  Finally last night while doing laundry I managed to get some cutting done for clue #4.  I might have over cut the background fabrics and under cut for the the main color.   

It seems either me or Bonnie miscalculated the fabric needed to complete this quilt.  So a purchase was necessary before continuing this mystery quilt.  It was a hard decision to make, buy fabric or not buy fabric?  Oh what's a girl to do?  Really Mr. Podunk I didn't want pretty new fabric in my stash.  I'm sorry Bonnie but I had to throw you under the bus in order to justify my fabric purchase with Mr. Podunk, I hope you understand and will forgive me.   Yes, Bonnie made me do it, it was her fault.  It's all a big conspiracy to boost fabric sales....that's my story and I'm sticking to it...LOL!

And to make matters worse I could only get one yard of this adorable floral by Pam Kitty.  Oh now isn't that just awful?  I guess I'll just have to do some more shopping to find something else that will work in this quilt.  It's a shame, really Mr. Podunk.

We wouldn't want all this hard work and pretty fabric to become another UFO now would we?  Well I guess for now I can try to make to due and finish clue #4 and 5.  But who knows what could happen with then next clue or two.  Bonnie might make me do more shopping.  

         

If your curious about this Bonnie gal who is promoting fabric buying, you can find out all you need to know about this devious(wink wink) gal and her mystery quilt over at her blog Quiltville.  Once you get to her blog click on the En Provence Mystery tab at the top.  You'll find all the subliminal messages you need for fabric shopping.

~ Lea Anne ~

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UFO's Why?

 I found myself with a little spare time this week and nothing to sew.  Can you believe it?  There's plenty of projects I'd like to start but I know they would end up as UFO's due to my limited sewing time.  So I started digging through my UFO boxes to find something that could finished in an afternoon.  This one was the best I could do.  Why did I start this?  I'm not a fan of black.  The fabrics are leftovers from a quilt I made for my youngest son.  He picked all the fabrics, and he did a pretty good job of picking ones I would never buy.  But I have them in my  stash so  might as well try to use them, right?  Well that's what I thought.  The problem is, if I don't like it the chances of me finishing it isn't good.  So this one even though it was super simple to make quickly became a UFO.

The pattern is called Snow-Kissed Star by Konda Luckau.  It's a free pattern over at McCall's Quilting Magazine.  Wanna make one?  Just click right here.  You can see why I chose this pattern, her version is so pretty.  Love the colors!  Mine...not so much.  TIP  if you make this quilt.  The pattern tells you to make your strip pieced blocks and cut them half diagonally.  DON'T DO THIS. It's a bear to sew them to the background fabric without stretching them out of shape.   Where she tells you to cut the stripped piece block  you draw a line on the background fabric in that direction, sew a quarter inch away from the line on both sides, then cut on the suggested line.  You know that fast and easy way to make Half Square Triangles.

So I thought there has to be a way to make me love this quilt, maybe adding a touch of WOW somehow.  After much thought and advice from other online quilters in a facebook group adding the red fabric is the quickest and easiest thing I could come up with.  Do I like it now?  NO.  But It will make a nice quilt for someone.  For nowit will go in the drawer marked "unloved".  Hopefully someday someone will need a quilt, and fall madly in love with this dark unloved eyesore.  Now I know many of you like the black and whites, and that's great, it's just not my pallet of choice.  The only thing I really like about this quilt is the the striped fabric I chose for the binding.  I think it's going to add a nice touch to the finished quilt. 

A pieced backing was made with some of the black and white fabrics but I forgot to picture them.  The quilt top, backing and binding are all tucked away in drawer waiting for that special someone to love them.

~ Lea Anne ~

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It's still a Mystery

Hi Quilting Friends!  So nice of you to stop by my little spot in Podunk.  I miss our time together and hope that things will get back to normal soon.  But in the meantime lets catch up on whats been going on since last week.  Let me tell you there's been a lot of stitching....and stitching....and of course a couple of rounds of ripping out stitching too!  That's okay, I can deal with the ripping out of stitches when I've a cute pile of chain stitching to remind me of the quilty goodness ahead.   Don't you just love it when the fabric piles up so pretty behind the machine?...picture perfect.

Those little triangle blocks below gave me a little trouble at first, but after the first two bad ones and a little quality time with my seam ripper it didn't take long to figure out what the problem was and that I didn't want anymore quality time with the seam ripper.  Quite the handy tool to have around when a gal needs it, but really...wouldn't we rather not need it!?

Well all the bad stuff is behind me(for now, anyway) and I'm loving how this coming along.  Now that the (221) white four patches, (168) blue four patches, and the (100) red triangle units are complete I can play with them.   Part of the fun of a mystery is trying to figure out where it will end before it ends.  Oh yes my Nancy Drew fans, it's just like that.  I'm more of a Steven King gal myself and you never know what kind of wild ride you're in for with him.  I'm hoping Bonnie Hunters Mystery quilts are more like Nancy Drew...a bit predictable.

Do you really think Bonnie's quilt could be so predictable as a simple star?  Oh surely not, I'm sure this weeks clue will put a real twist on the quilt design.  

Bonnie has named this quilt En Provence.  Lovely name, and I'm sure its going to be an amazing quilt design.  But I feel I need to rename mine.  My colors have given this quilt a whole new life.  Doesn't feel very French...no lavender fields...I'm seeing something a little more.....lets say...Hillbilly...Podunk.  I've scribbled down a few name ideas, hopefully by the time the quilt is finished I'll have settled on a name.  

Well my quilty friends that's all I have to share, but if you're in the mood for more En Provence inspiration just hop on over to Bonnie's Blog.   And don't forget this is a FREE mystery quilt and there's still plenty of time to join in the fun.  If nothing else save the patterns for a rainy day.  Bonnie sometimes will remove patterns from her blog so she can put them in a book.  Get'em while you can!  Just click on the En Provence tab at the top of her blog.  

For even more quilty inspiration you can hop over to PatchworkTimes for Design Wall Monday.  and FreeMotionbytheRiver for Linky Tueesday.

~ Lea Anne ~

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Breaking out of my Comfort Zone

I know by the looks of this first picture my loyal followers are thinking everything looks normal, what is this gal talking about.  She's pulled a bunch of happy bright fabrics that are well within her comfort zone.  

Now let's get to the uncomfortable part of this fabric pull.  It's for the Bonnie Hunter En Provence Mystery quilt.  That's right my loyal quilting buddies I've decided to jump on the board the mystery train!  It's a first for me.  Typically I don't do mysteries for fear of not liking the pattern.  To be honest I've never seen a Bonnie quilt I disliked, so why not make one?!  It works into my very busy schedule right now.  I mean she does all the quilty math and its FREE!  But I must admit I can't jump completely on board this train.  The paint chips below are Bonnie's color pallet for this quilt.  You all know the problem, right?  PURPLE!  I don't do purple very often, so I'm changing it to a more Podunk friendly pallet.

The purples will be replaced with these lovely blues.

And that magenta Bonnie chose as the focus fabric, well it's not sitting right with me either.  So with the wave of my quilty wand it was changed it to red.  By the way I had to order the red.  After digging through my stash I found one little piece of it and decided it was the perfect shade of red, but it's from an older line of fabric.  After a long search on the internet I found the Tasha Noel print at MixFabrics.  It was reasonably priced and arrived quickly.

The green and the yellow fabrics below are just a pull.  I'm sure some of them will not make it into the quilt.

I've already started weeding out the low volume fabrics.  Below is what I plan to use, but plans can change quickly in Podunk.

These little cuties were the first to make the cut.  I felt the print was too large or too bold on each of these.

 So the mystery has begun with this cute little 3.5 block.  It's clue #2....yes I've already fallen behind.  But I've a couple of days of free time to catch up.

 So how many of you are doing the mystery?  Are you at least saving the free patterns?  Bonnie makes it very easy to save them, she has them available in PDF format.  If all this is news to you and your curiosity is up, why not head over to Bonnie's blog right now to find out what all the hub-bub is about.  There's hundreds...maybe thousands of quilters making this quilt.  Today is the linky party for clue #2.  Just click right here to be inspired by so many quilters making the En Provence Mystery Quilt.  If you want the clues to this quilt you need to go to the top of her page in the link I provided.  You'll see a tab at the top that says En Provence, click it!  Hope to see some of you there!

~ Lea Anne ~

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Inspired Christmas trees and trucks

 Hi-diddly-o quilty friends!  I'm so glad you stopped by today.  I've missed hanging out in blogland.  Occasionally I get a chance to pop in and see what you've been stitching up on your blogs and instagram.  However there's not been much time for sewing here in Podunk.  I've managed to sneak in a few hours here and there.  Most of my time is spent away from home and my studio. By taking my laptop along I get my quilty fix designing quilts in EQ7.  This quilt was inspired by the Vintage Christmas quilt pattern I made earlier in the month.

The pieced part of the 24 inch blocks are made using a cream jelly roll, the blocks go together super fast.  The jelly roll used was custom cut for me by Claranna @ Coffee Cup Quilting, a local quilt shop near Podunk.  The red and green fabric also came from the same shop.  They're leftovers from the fat quarters used in my last quilt top, Vintage Christmas by Erica Arndt.    Hopefully I can get some pictures later today.  You can read more about it here.

Of course you all know I love applique but don't like to do handwork so my applique is done by machine using Superior Threads Monopoly thread and a tiny  blanket stitch.  Once it's washed you need to be super close to see that its not hand stitched.

The original plan for this quilt was 6 truck blocks.  That was far too much applique for my limited time.  The trees are much easier to make and stitch into place.

The background for the trees were also from the same jelly roll. 

Here's a shot of my Studio floor....

...and here's what it should look like....eventually.  If you have any suggestions for the name of this quilt I'd love to hear them.  

~ Lea Anne ~

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Quilt by numbers FREE editable, printable

Good Monday Morning quilting friends!  I'm excited to share my newest freebie with you this morning.  This weekend while cutting the pieces for the Vintage Christmas quilt I realized I needed to label the many pieces.   So why not make the labels cute.  Sure I could have quickly written them out by hand but they would have been tossed in the trash.  By making them cute they would always be on hand when I needed them.  It took very little time to work up a cute design.

Well why not share them with my friends!  If you would like to print out your own Quilt by Numbers sheet click RIGHT HERE.  This is a Microsoft Word 10 document.  It should open in all Microsoft Word 10 and newer.  When you open it this is what you'll see.

You can add more numbers and letters or change the font.  Just click inside the little scalloped circle.

I printed mine onto card stock.  You know the cheap stuff from Walmart.  I keep it on hand for making quilt templates.  And because my black ink cartridge was low I changed my font color to green.

After printing out your letters you'll need to cut them apart.  

*TIP....change out the blade on your rotary cutter with an old one so you don't dull your new blade on the paper.

  

After I cut them vertically I skooched the rows back together to make the horizontal cuts.

An empty pin box is their new home. 

 ~ Lea Anne ~

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Vintage Christmas Quilt

Since the very first quilt I  made I've always drafted my own patterns.  Occasionally buying magazines or books for inspiration.  Since my quilting time has become so limited, drafting quilt patterns and quilty math is not something I want to waste precious time doing.  Well when I saw this little cutie on Instagram I knew it was a must make. Below is the fabric pull(purchase) for this adorable quilt.

Of course I can't help but see so many different options for this quilt.  My quilters eye is seeing several different changes I could make.  Maybe a snowman or two, a little reindeer hiding in the trees, Christmas packages in the back of one of the trucks or some Christmas tree decor.  Fussy cutting little elf or Santa driving the truck.  The possibilities are endless!

Vintage Christmas was designed my Erica Arndt.  Not a well known quilter but I see a bright quilt future for this amazing Home Schooling mom.  

Below is her Vintage Christmas quilt.  You can find the pattern and fabric requirements on her blog Confessionsofahomeschooler.   Hop on over and give her some quilty love!

~  Lea Anne ~

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Applique Love and a quilty tip

Who doesn't love the quick and easy quilt pattern that gives us the instant gratification of a finished project?  I know I do.  I've several go to quilt patterns that will stitch up in an day and be ready for use in within 48 hrs.  But my all time favorite quilts are appliqued.  Just the tiniest of applique gives a quilt an extra kick and WOW factor.   Some say they are out of style and way to much work but I think every quilter needs to make at least one FABULOUS quilt in their lifetime.  Even though it may take a lifetime to make it!...LOL!  

So far my determination for finishing this quilt UFO hasn't diminished.  Stealing a few minutes here and there to make a few more applique pieces.

Many quilters say it's too time consuming to make applique.   True, it does take a bit of time.  So this week I decided to time how long it took to make one orange flower below.  From plain fabric to one finished flower it took 30 minutes.  Now you need understand that is three applique pieces for one flower.  This process could be sped up by using a Go Cutter or fusible applique.  You can even find some kits out there that the applique pieces are already cut for you.  All you have to do is stitch them in place. 

Applique is also very messy.  I cleaned up a little bit in the picture below so you wouldn't know just how messy I really can be.  The picture below was taken to show you my tip of the day.  See the rug under my table? That's a bath mat.  It's one of those really soft one's that has foam inside.  It also has a rubber backing that stops it from sliding across my tile floor.  The fluffiness of this mat keeps my sewing machine foot petal from sliding when in use.  And the number one reason for using this mat is...It keeps my bare feet off the cold tile floors. 

If you're interested in the quilt pattern I'm making you can find  it in the previous blog post.

~ Lea Anne ~

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Something to Tweet about

 In 2011 Erin Russek of One Piece at a time shared her My Tweets BOM patterns for free.  During 2011 the monthly blocks were free for the entire year but to finish the quilt quilters needed to purchase the center block at a very reasonable price.  How could I not make this quilt, it was love at first sight.  I quickly gathered my fabrics and began the My Tweets journey.   Well here we are 5 years later and I just finished hand stitching my center block. 

Each block is unique and with a few repeat applique pieces in the blocks.  Erin made my first attempt at hand applique so much easier with her helpful tips along the way.  You can find her applique lessons here.  

 For those of you that have followed me for a long time you know how much I dislike the color purple.  In this quilt it just works, I couldn't change Erin's choice in colors.

But in true Lea Anne style I CAN NOT stick with a pattern.   Block 10 was changed to suit me.  It's top right in the picture below.

Below is Erin's Block 10.   Absolutely adorable.  

Now I need to get started on the borders.  This is half of one side.  Another 5 years?  Lets hope not!

If you'd like to make the My Tweets quilt you can find the pattern here, it's no longer free but it's still a really good price for an applique pattern.   Erin is also working on a current block of the month Chocolate Bon Bons.  Below is the current free block.   You can find out more information on her blog One Piece at a Time.  Take a look around her blog she's giving some sneak peaks about next years BOM, it going to be pieced blocks with some applique, and you never know when she'll throw in some embroidery.

Take a look at this cutie below called Be Happy.  All of the the blocks below are still available for free on her blog here and here for the borders.  All but the center block, you'll need to purchase it here.   

Erin started out as a quilt blogger and quickly caught the eye of the quilt world.  She now works for Mcalls quilting.  I'm sure you've seen some of her patterns in there magazine.  Below is one of my favorite magazine quilt patterns, Miss Kyra.

Hope you found something today to Tweet about or make you do Happy Dance!

~Lea Anne~

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