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 ~

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 ~

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 ~

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 ~

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 ~