Connie's Quilts...shame on me

Long, long ago a dear friend started making a quilt from her late husbands shirts.  Her progress was slow due to many unfortunate circumstances.  

It took her about 2 years to hand applique all the little shirts.

Her plan was to make several quilts for her and their children from his shirts.  Quite a job for a lady that had never made a quilt.  So after many discussions about how she thought she'd never get the job done I offered to help.  Oh boy did this man have a lot of shirts.

She trusted me to get the job done.  So I started planning for her quilt by drawing up an applique for the center of her quilt.   The plan has changed a little and there's 5 more quilts to make.  Oh boy,  I've got my work cut out for me.  One of the 5 quilts is already cut and ready to be pieced and another is in the designing stage.  Now to come up with a plan for the others. At this point I'm open to suggestions.  Over the next few weeks you'll be seeing more of these quilts.  I'm hoping to make them all before March.  Short deadline, huh?  I think it's doable if I keep the other quilts simply pieced and simply quilted.  Cheerleaders may be required!

  

I manage to get the wreath applique made and glued to the background fabric before losing interest(about 2 years ago)  The original background fabric we chose was way to dark and just not the right color.  This weekend I pulled a better fabric from my stash.  The little white flowers in the wreath kinda blend into the fabric but it staying as is.

I'll be doing invisible machine applique to stitch this down.  It will make this go along much faster.

 My favorite part of the quilt so far is these little love birds and tulips.

 This little basket is so darn cute I might just make a few for myself, in bright colors of course.

Designing quilts for me is more often than not a design as you go process.  The first plan for the shirt blocks was for them to be in a quilt all by themselves.  The quilt top was complete and I hated it, so I took it apart and let my imagination take over.   Now I'm obsessed with making these quilts even though it's WAY out of my comfort zone.  Quite the challenge.  So here's my plan so far.  I want to add their names and the date they were married.  The letters will be raw edge applique, much easier and faster.  She loves yellow and blue, so I'd like to add some more yellow and blue flowers somewhere.  The quilting will be simple because she's not a quilt it to death kinda gal.

Well I better get stitching, the clocks a ticking, wish me luck!

I'm linking up this post.  I've added all the blogs I link to in my blog list in the side bar.  The most current is at the top of the list, just click and go for inspiration galore.

~ Lea Anne ~

"Sweet Sixteen" quilt top is complete

At last she's together.  I can't tell you how much I ABSOLUTELY love this quilt.  What a sweetie.  It din't take long to come up with the name "First Kiss".  My thought when designing this quilt was to make a heart quilt that could be  Valentine and still be used everyday.  This will fit into my studio perfectly and not look too Valentiney-ish. 

The heart shaped blooms combined with the small stars in the sashing remind me of that first kiss.  Love struck and seeing stars!

Most of the print fabrics are from various lines of Pam Kitty.  There's a few fabrics from other lines as well.

Quite often when designing quilts my borders are an after thought.  But not this one, I knew from the moment I designed the block that the border would also include hearts.  LOVE! LOVE! LOVE!

Now I just need to come up a quilting plan.  There's plenty of room for custom quilting in all that white space.  Oh maybe a feather or two!

This last picture is just because I like it.  

Thanks for stopping by my little spot in Podunk, ya'll come back anytime.  I love  comments and I try to respond to them all, but lately I've not been able respond to the many blessing sent for mamma and I.  Hopefully things will be back to "normal" soon.

I've linked up this post to the follow lovely blogs.  Hop on over and share your creations!

Fort Worth Fabric Studio

and 

Confessions of a fabric addict

and

My Quilt Infatuation

~ Lea Anne ~

A quick kiss

Just wanted to pop in and share my design wall this morning.  Not much time for sewing but I've stolen a few minutes here and there in the evenings.  So here's a sneak peak at my quilt design called "First Kiss".  

I'm  going to suspend Podunk Pickin's for a couple of weeks due to Mamma's illness.  Thanks so much for all your kindness and support during this difficult time.

This post is linked up with some great quilt blogs, hop on over for inspiration and to link up what you've been working on this week.

Free Motion By the River

and 

Cooking Up Quilts

and

Patchwork Times

and 

Esther's Quilt Blog

~ Lea Anne ~ 

First Kiss

So tell me, do you have fabric that looks so cute sitting on the shelf that you won't cut into it?   Well I did until today.  This is some of my most treasured fabric.  Most of the fat quarters are Pam Kitty but there's a couple from other designers.  And the white cherry fabric....its not going in this quilt, it's being saved for just the right project.  But it sure looks adorable as a backdrop for this little stack of cuties.

 In the last few weeks I've spent hours upon hours in waiting rooms.  During this time I took my laptop and designed quilts.  How many?  Oh about 20, give or take.  Will I make them all?  Probably not, but they were fun to design.  There was one that really tickle me pink, I call it "First Kiss".  You guessed it, it's a Valentine quilt.  I spent the entire day going over measurements and double checking the quilt math, then I started cutting.  All of the 16 blocks are cut and ready to assemble.  Take a look at the little fussy cut heart....awe...so adorable!

Well since everything is cut, I might as well get in a little late night sewing.

See you in a day or two with my progress....maybe a finished top!  Wish me luck!

Linking up at some awesome linky partys, hop on over and join the fun!

Main Crush Monday

and 

Design wall Monday

and

Linky Tuesday

~ Lea Anne ~

Podunk Pickin's #18

Every so often we need to actually make something with all those leftover string pieces of fabric.  Well I've got a great little project that whips together in no time.

It's super easy, super quick and the results are so darn cute.  A clothesline fabric wrapped rug with all your favorite prints. 

You can make it as big or small as you like.  My plan was to use up the 3 bundles of clothesline.  Not quite there...

Finally! The end of the rope at about 25 inches.

Oh this is just too darn cute to be on the floor.  The little bowl you see below was made from a nylon rope purchased in the hardware section of the Everything's a Dollar store.  Around here it's called the Dollar Tree.  I'm sure there's something similar to it in your neck of the woods.

If you'd like to make one of these super cutie rugs you can find a great tutorial over at Vintage Ricrac

Now its your turn to show off what you've been stitching up this week.  The rules are simple....Anything sewing or quilting related.  If you don't have a blog that's okay, Inlinkz allows you to link up from other social media sites.  Don't forget to visit and comment a few other links, everybody loves visitors!

If you like linky partys here's another I've linking with today
Oh Scrap @ quiltingismorefunthanhousework

~ Lea Anne ~

An InLinkz Link-up

Unfinished business in 2015

Good Monday Morning sweet quilty friends!  While most of you are planning for the the new year ahead I'm still stuck in 2015.  This isn't a complaint, just stating a fact.   The past week I've been focusing on cleaning up the studio and completing my Strawberry Lemonade quilt.  Well the quilt top is complete, I'll share it with you later in the week when the lighting is better for full quilt top photo's.  And the studio....umm...not quite ready to keep it real by baring it all.  So let's just change the subject and talk about what was found while sorting though the pile of  "Needs to be Quilted".  Not only does this lovely little gal need to be quilted but it also needs the applique sewn down....How did that happen?

It shouldn't take long to get the raw edge petals sewn into place using invisible thread.  One of the tricks to quick machine applique is pre planning your stitching route.  What does that mean?  Well you want  continuous sewing without cutting the thread.  On more complex blocks you might have more than one start and stop.  Here's my plan for each block.  Starting at the red dot, stitch down the side of two petals until I reach the center of the block, then pivot and go up the next set of petals.  Just keep following the arrows until I come back to my red dot.

One row is complete.  Hopefully this can done in a day or two.  New projects and patterns are already in the works for this year, lots of exciting fun stuff planned for the year ahead, whenever I finish playing around in 2015.   Staying focused is so hard!  

Well here's the entire nameless quilt.  Hopefully by the time the applique is finished there will be a name, any suggestions?

Linking up with these wonderful bloggers, hop on over and join the fun!

Judy@PatchworkTimes for Design wall Monday

and

Beth@CookingUpQuilts for Main Crush Monday

and

Em@Em'sScrapBag for Moving it Forward Monday

and 

Connie@FreeMotionBytheRiver for Linky Tuesday

and

Heather@QuiltStory for Fabric Tuesday

and

Alyce@BlossomHeartQuilts for Sew Cute Tuesday

and

Lorna@SewFreshQuilt for Let's Be Social

and

Nudge@AQuiltingReadersGarden

~  Lea Anne ~

Podunk Pickins #17

The best thing about the new year for me is all new free BOM's created by bloggers.  Here's a really cute one I found at 

Quilt Doodle Designs designed by Cindy Staub.

Cindy's wasting no time getting this one started.  The first months block is ready for download.  You better hurry on over to get the pattern if you post the finished blocks on the flickr group you could win prizes!  Patterns are free for the month they are released. As soon as the next month is released the previous patterns will be still be available for a small fee.  So you better hurry!

Well that's my pick for the week.   If you'd like to see more pickin's  you can click on the Podunk Pickin's image in the sidebar to view all the previous Podunk Pickin's.

 What have you been working on this week?

  Link up anything you like as long as its quilting, sewing or craft related.  Old or new posts are welcome.  And don't forget to visit some of the other link ups.  Everyone likes visitors and comments.

An InLinkz Link-up