~ Christmas Memories Winners! ~

It's crunch time, I'm marathon sewing a quilt designed for my 8 yr.old grandson.  

Hoping to get it in the mail by next week so he can use it before Christmas on his bed.  My daughter said not to make it cute or in bright colors.  Geesh that's way out of my comfort zone.  EQ and me whipped up a couple ideas and sent the images to my daughter.  She choose the one below.  I think the name panel will be switched to the top and a red nose added to the deer. 

Most of the fabrics were pulled from my older stash, and a couple I had purchased for another quilt Christmas quilt that has been pushed aside to make this one.  

Thanks so much to everyone that participated in the Christmas Memories giveaway here on my blog and on Instagram.  The 2 lucky winners of the Christmas Memories PDF pattern......  Congratulations to....

GranChris

and

edithcsokmay

Could both of you please send me your email addresses so I can send them out ASAP.  If you do not respond by Monday December 11 I'll choose new winners. 

~ 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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"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 ~

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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 ~

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Podunk Posy

 After running into a couple of design snags in my string quilt  I decided to take a short break from it this morning and do a quick Studio clean up.  As I was putting away some scraps I ran across the sweetest little scrap of pink posy fabric.  The little posies jump started an idea....  That's all it took to side track my mind and whip up a quilt block design on some graph paper.   Well what the heck let's go ahead and make a test block.  I need several more of these!

The adorable Podunk Posy block finishes (in quilt) at 6 x 12.  The design wheels are turning for a super simple, quick and easy, scrap busting quilt using a few of these Podunk Posies and scrappy charms.  Can't wait to get started!  But...I've a string quilt calling me back to the Studio.  Actually screaming load!  Wait till you see the colors...sunglasses required!

I found the perfect spot for her while I finish up my string quilt.  Maybe I should make a couple more, there's plenty of room on the curtain rod!

~ Lea Anne ~

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Bountiful Baskets

She's coming together nicely.  So far no major uh-ohs(crossing my fingers, knocking on wood).  Not sure about the set in fabric and the border. 

So I played around in EQ last night and came up with these.  The lemony yellow is much better than whats in my stash.

 I'm leaning towards this one, which would mean I need to buy more white for the borders.  Now I'm thinking the baskets may need some flowers!  My mind says to use the K.I.S.S. (keep it simple stupid) method, but my quilter ego says MORE! MORE!  3-D flowers would add a WOW factor, a bluebird or two...sigh...which is quilting out of my comfort zone?  Its hard to say, am I comfortable adding more?  Or is leaving it simple the one that makes me the most uncomfortable...makes you really think about your quilting process when you start asking questions.  

For those of you that use EQ and are wondering how I got those full cornerstones on the outside sashing,  I used this tutorial.  

 See how the cornerstone below is cut in half, EQ makers need to fix this issue don't you think?

However when you do this it's just for visuals.  EQ will not tell you the correct side triangles.  That's when this handy dandy little tool is helpful.  The regular price is around $40 but if you have a Joann's 50% off coupon it's not so bad. Sure I  could have just worked up another quilt in EQ with the block size the same dimensions as the sashed block but I have this tool so I might as well make use of it.  It stays in my purse most of the time its great for border yardage and cost of fabric.  If you have 100 HST's at 3 inches it can tell you how much of each fabric you'll need!  Great tool once you learn how to use it.  There's a larger book and  there's a small pocket in the back that holds a mini calculations book.  It also comes with a DVD to explain some of the more commonly used functions. 

Well I'm off to my Happy Place

Until next time "Quilt out of your Comfort Zone!"

Lea

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Pocket full of Posies

Last year was a year of trying to quilt.  Due to so much illness in the family I became a taxi service for several friends and family.  Not that I'm complaining.  Every time I thought it was okay to take a commissioned job something would come up.  So I ended up turning down several.  Well the cloud has lifted and it seems that there's light again.  Recently a friend of a friend contacted me needing a baby quilt.  Her requests were simple...

1.  It must be pink, mint green, and cream
2.  It must have posies
3.  Just as long as it's done by March or April

Pretty easy guidelines.  With the help of EQ7 I came up with around 30 different quilts.  But I only sent her pictures of 4 and the fabric I choose, letting her know that it was okay to reject these and offer suggestions.  Believe it or not she picked one!  So easy.

              This first one is my pick out of the four

                                                                         She likes the one above

No need to fabric shop she loved what's on hand, all pulled from the stash.

Now I'd like to talk a little bit about EQ7 because I'm asked often if I think it's worth the money.  For me its a handy tool and more often than not I go to EQ to help with the designing process.  I'm a visual person so seeing it makes all the difference.  And now that I can scan in my own fabrics its even better.  However EQ doesn't tell you how to put the quilt together, it will give you templates for piecing, you can print out paper piecing, and rotary cutting directions and yardage. I find this to be the most helpful.  Normally I'll print out the yardage and the rotary cutting directions just for reference, and to scribble ideas and measurement on.  So if I need to  make a flying geese it's not going to tell me how to do the quick method of 4 at a time.  But it will give me a measurement for the flying geese so I can do the math for myself.  For this quilt I'll also print out a template for the Posie.  So is it worth the money, I think so, it cuts a lot of time off the design process and makes it easier to show a customer what their quilt will look like.

However I still from time to time use the old fashion method of paper and pencil.  Sometimes its just easier.

Until next time "Quilt out of your Comfort Zone!"
Lea

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Weekend project

I've been playing around in EQ and this is what I came up with.  The pink looking flower is actually a coral color that the camera washed out.   And that yellow really ties in also.    It really does all tie together.   Well maybe I should've used the larger print florals on the baskets instead of the center.  Oh well whats done is done and I'm still pleased with the outcome.

Of course I had to add another picture of whats going on here in Podunk.  Everything is blooming and it's so gorgeous!  Spring is here and I'm lovin it!  This is one of our apple trees.

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