A Blessing In Disguise, Quilting Time!

 Well Hello Quilty Friends!  It's been awhile since our last chat.  Things have been quite busy out here in Podunk.  Lots of planting, puling weeds, picking wild berries and many other fun in the sun chores.

I'll try to share more on all those things later.  Right now I'm happy to be stuck inside for a few hours a day.  Why am I stuck indoors?  Well two bad reasons that in reality turn out to be a blessing in disguise.  

1.  I sneezed and knocked my back out of whack.  Now I have a hitch in my hip along with some pain and loss of mobility.

2.  The temperatures for the next 2 weeks will be at least 94 with a heat index of 100.

Not my idea of fun in the sun.  That's more like shake and bake.   I'm not going outside after 10 am for the next few days.  The plants can be water early in the morning when the temps are more Lea Anne approved.  

While I wait for the weather to break I could work on one of the many UFO's but I'm feeling the need to start something new and quick.  Something I could quilt on my domestic machine since there's a quilt on the frame that I have no interest in quilting right now.

 So here's the plan....

RED, WHITE AND BLUE!  Designing a new quilt and doing math doesn't appeal at the moment. A  quick Google search for free quilt of valor patterns brought up just what I needed.  Now to pull the fabrics.  I'm thinking scrappy is a good plan for whittling down those scrap bins.

The pattern I choose needs 2.5" red and white strips,10.5" blue squares and some large white squares for stars.  I thought I could find all that I needed in these bins.  Wrong!

I didn't have any blue print fabrics large enough.  A quick dig into the the fat quarters and yardage and TADA!  This is why when making a scrap quilt the scraps never decrease they always multiply.

The red and white fabrics came mostly from the scrap bin but I still needed to pull from my larger cuts of fabric.  Well, I didn't have to until I decided I didn't want any repeat fabrics in the quilt.  Mission accomplished with the whites.  I had to open a much treasured original Bee Basics fat quarter bundle. That's why we buy fabric, right?

Then it was time to dig for the rest of the reds.  Even with digging through the loose fat quarters and yardage I'm 17 fabrics shy of what is needed for no repeat fabrics.  Today I'll start cutting the white and blue fabrics.  I don't think I'll get it all done but it's a start and will give me time to make a decision.

Here's my treasured fabrics cabinet.  I pulled what I could from the red.  What's left in the red is duplicate fabrics and wrong shades of red.  Then there's my backings.  I could get 3 prints from the backings but then I would be adding a bunch of fabric to the scrap bins and possibly making a backing that I can't use in the future.  Now for the top shelf.  There is more than enough red fat quarters in my much loved FQ bundle stash.  Most still have the plastic and ribbons around them.  It makes me sick to my stomach to even think about opening the plastic in order to pull out the reds.  Then I think, why not just open them all and separate them by color?  The greedy side of me says, they are more valuable if you leave them alone.  I told myself I would never open a bundle unless I planned to use them all in one quilt.  Sigh...what is wrong with me!..It's just fabric!...I'll cross that bridge later in the week.  For now I'll cut what I have and let my mind toss around the idea of fat quarter bundle separation.

Let's move onto the quilt I plan to make before I have an fabric bundle separation anxiety attack.

The Stars and Stripes pattern has a free pdf that can be found here.  Scroll down on the page and look to the right for the picture of the quilt in the sidebar.  You'll find the pdf link there.  This picture is not my quilt. It's Suzy's from Suzy's Quilting Room Blog.  The quilt finishes at about 61 x 71.  The size and the simply design should make a for an easy to cut and quick to finish quilt.

See you soon with my progress and red fabric decision.

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~ My Good Fortune ~

        Well I'd love to tell you I won the recent massive lottery, or that a huge bag of money fell out of the sky into my backyard.  But my good fortune has nothing to do with daydreams of sudden wealth.

 Now that I have your attention lets talk about a new mystery quilt along called Good Fortune. 

The hostess is Bonnie Hunter of Quiltville.  Most of my followers know Bonnie but for those of you that are new to the quilting world let me tell you a little about her.  Bonnie a super talented quilt designer that breaks all the rules.  She rarely drops fabric manufacturer names, she doesn't lead you astray on new gimmicky notions or products.  She will however help you in your quest to make beautiful quilts from whatever fabric you have on hand.  Her most famous books that put her on the map with quilters all over the world were about cutting up men's shirts purchased at thrifts shops....and yes...making quilts out of them!  She also has developed a scrap saving system that makes scrap quilting easy(if you apply it).  Click here and Here to read about the best scrap system ever.

Bonnie's tutorial for cutting fabrics correctly change my quilty life, check it out here.  

After you catch the Bonnie Bug you also might want to look at her free patterns page here.  Make sure you go all the way to the bottom for clues to past mystery quilts still available for free.  It will give you an idea of how this years mystery will play out and weather or not you'd like to join the fun.

Back to the Mystery quilt along.  It's a yearly event, I say event because thousands of quilters make these quilts every year.  Quilt shops put together bundles of fabric for the mystery.  And Lowe's hardware has been known to get kinda mad at quilters taking too many paint cards.  Bonnie finds paint cards to match the colors she used in the quilt.  She even tells you what numbers are on the cards.    Quiltville's Open Studio on Facebook is where all the Bonnie stalkers hang out, waiting patiently all year for the next set of clues.  Joining the group is a must, there's so much going on all year long. 

  A couple of years ago I played along with the mystery.  It took a year or more for me to finish.  Not because it was a hard quilt to make, but because that's how I roll!  My finished En Provence Mystery quilt can be seen here.  

The introduction for this year quilt, Good Fortune, was released on Halloween.  The colors are a little more in my color pallet than in past years.   The one mystery I did make I changed the colors.

And by the looks of these oranges there may be a change this year also.  Two of my latest quilts have had orange in them.  I was looking forward to putting those orange fabrics back on the shelf.

 I'm starting to feel like my home is wrapped in orange. 

I can do this, just one more quilt with orange.  So I started pulling fabric from the yardage and fat quarters.  Plenty of orange, red and green. But lacking blues and loving the pinks with the reds.

 Since pulling from fat quarters and yardage didn't produce the needed colors I decided to pull out the scraps.  Now let me say I love Bonnie's scrap saver system.  It looks amazing and I'm sure it works well.  In order for it work you must apply it to your scraps....I do not.  Why?   Phobia #158...cutting scraps then needing a different size.   Yes that's right, I'm afraid to cut fabrics that rarely see the light of day.  Well they aired out really well a couple of days ago.  The pictures are blurry but who needs to see a mess clearly.

By 7 AM Thursday

 9 AM Thursday total chaos. The feeling came over me to throw all of my blue scraps in the trash.  What a mess! So I quickly put them all back in the scrap bins. 

9 AM Friday- all was back to normal, new fabric was ordered to make up for my lack of colors in larger more uniform pieces.  The scrap bins are a job for another day.

Are you making the Good Fortune Mystery quilt? Are you changing the colors? 

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~ One more for fall ~

Howdy Happy Quilters!  A couple of weeks ago while looking at my cutting table full of scraps from several different fall quilts I came up with a quilt plan to use those scraps.  After doing the quilt math it became clear more fabric was needed.  With a few clicks of the mouse the fabric was on it's way.  When it arrived there was a sweet little surprise attached.  How cute are these little buttons!?   I've ordered from Simply Love fabrics several times over the last couple of years.  It's one of my favorite Etsy shops because they put together adorable fat quarter bundles and have sales often.  Browsing the sale bin for end of bolt fabrics is one of my favorite things to do while taking a break.   

The original quilt plan was to use plain ole creamy white for the background fabric.  Until this darling calico peeked out of the stash cabinet.  The selvage is lacking the normal information, all it has is the color dots.  But I do remember where it was purchased, Coffee Cup Quilting in Trafalgar, Indiana.  So if you live close by and want a sweet little calico pop into Coffee Cup Quilting and tell them "Podunk sent me!". 

Another quick quilt, out of my color comfort zone, and I love it!   When I say quick I mean quick.  The cutting began 6 days ago,I took one day off for shopping and chores.  It will come off the frame today, the binding is cut, sewn together and ready to be added.  It doesn't get much quicker than that!  See you when it's done!

~  Lea Anne ~

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~ Save the Bees ~ Block 2 ~ GIVEAWAY! ~

***GIVEAWAY CLOSED***

Happy Monday Sweet Bee Lovers!  I'm super excited to share my Block 2 of the Save the Bees BOM.  Once again my fabrics are from my scrap box of Lakehouse Drygoods.  

This month I thought I would try something a little different with the stitching.  It's not a drastic change but it is out of my comfort zone a little bit.  On block 1, I used gray thread to stitch down and outline the bee.  The rest of block 1 I tried to match the thread to the fabric.  

Block one

This months bee is also outlined in gray.

But this month I decided to use a darker thread for ALL the applique instead of being so matchy-matchy.  The thread I choose for the flower and leaves isn't quite as bold as the gray around the bee but it is darker and stands out a bit more than my usual style.

It really makes the leaves and stems stand out.  All of my stitches are machine stitched.  A tear away sticky stabilizer was used on the back to reduce puckering.  If you don't have stabilizer you can use newspaper, tissue paper or copy paper.  If you have a little quilt basting spray it helps to hold in place but not necessary.

Now for a word of caution.   Even though I know how to make half  rectangles, I still made a biggie mistake.  I had the music blaring, just singing and stitching not paying attention and as soon as I made that first cut it hit me...UGG...I stitched them wrong....BOO-HOO-HOO.  Well at least it was only one cut, I picked out the stitches on the rest. 

If your just finding out about this BOM and would like to join you can find all the information you need to get started over at Jacquelynne's blog by clicking here.  Your blocks can be share on social media using #SaveTheBeesQuilt and #SaveTheBeesBOM  You can also join and share them in the Jacquelynne's Facebook Group here.

The prize for September will be a copy of the Carpenter's Apprentice pattern courtesy of EvaPaige Quilt Designs and Clearly Perfect Slotted Trimmers courtesy of New Leaf Stitches.

Make sure you visit all the bloggers for block inspiration and to enter the giveaway on each blog.  That's right you have multiple chances to win this awesome giveaway!  GOOD LUCK!  Open to everyone from everywhere! Giveaway ends September 9th 10 A.M. EDT

 The Crafty Quilter

Podunk Pretties

The Quilting Nook

The Sewing Loft

Flamingo Toes

Kathy's Quilts

Freemotion by the River

A Quilting Life

To enter the giveaway on this blog.  All you need to do is click on the blue button at the end of this post  that says "Add Your Link".  It will look like this but smaller.

Just add your name and email address.  Leaving all other fields blank.   Your email not be visible to anyone but me.   

 Leaving a comment in the comments section of this post will not enter you in the giveaway but you can still comment!  

~ Lea Anne ~

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***Patriotic Picnic and PDF SALE!***

Hey! Happy Quilters!  I'm so excited to finally share this quilt.  It was one of those quilts designed a few years ago with no intentions of writing a pattern.  But after several request for a pattern....here it is, all 95 inches of Patriotic Picnic!

The name came about because of the red gingham in the quilt.  Perfect for those summer holidays.  Yes, I can imagine me sitting on this with a picnic basket full goodies as Mr. Podunk and I OOH and AHH at a colorful display of fireworks, while sipping on a sweet glass of Strawberry Lemonade.  Speaking of Mr. Podunk, he rarely says anything about my quilts.  But while helping with the photo shoot of this quilt he said "this is a nice quilt, can I have it?"  UMM...how do you tell your sweetie absolutely not, I love it too?  You don't.  My quick thinking swooped in and promptly told him he needed to adjust his end of the quilt...shew that was a close one!

Don't let the name of this quilt fool you.  It looks great in every colorway.  Here's a few EQ drawings for inspiration.

I'm loving this blue and yellow!  Another quilt might be in my future.  With these over sized blocks the quilt comes together quickly.  Hmmm...what about a Christmas version in red, green with a little gold.

It's a perfect quilt for using up scraps.  This 95" x 95" monster would make a big dent in the scrap bins.  Are you digging through those scraps?  Well let me tempt you a little more.

From now until Monday May 21, 2018, this pattern as well as all my other PDF quilt patterns are  20% off in my Etsy shop.  I've changed the prices instead of using a discount code.  It makes it so much easier for you.  The price you see is the price you pay.   You can also purchase most of my patterns as a mailed pattern.  The best thing about the mailed pattern for this quilt is the large applique placement sheet, it's one large piece of paper.  No taping or gluing paper together.  Both versions of the pattern include a quilt coloring page and the separate applique templates sheet.  The template sheet is great for fusible applique.  You can print it from your computer onto the fusible webbing sheet or freezer paper if you choose to do turned edge applique.

Well it's time to put this big beauty to good use in my guest bedroom.  Sorry Mr. Podunk!

~ Lea Anne ~

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