~Design Wall Monday ~ and a peek ~

Hello sweet friends! This past week has been a new adventure of learning to share my quilting space. I can admit I'm quite the selfish quilter.  My space, my tools, my fabric, and working on my schedule.   But my darling 4 yr old grand daughter has a way of melting my heart.  

And to be honest, letting her play with my scrap basket and design wall kept her busy while I did some quilting.  Of course as with any 4 yr old she chatted away as she played.  Chatting is the wrong word.  She asked question after question after question.  Why is this piece an oval?  How did you cut it like this grandma?  Isn't this the longest piece ever!?  Why do you have so many dot fabric?  Do you like dot fabric?  What's your fabric piece?  Are you going to cut more pieces for me to play with?  Can I cut some?  Can I take this piece home?  Can mommy have some?  Do you like fabric, grandma?  Why do you like fabric grandma?  Can I have fabric when I get big?  When can I sew? 

Grandma look!  Isn't this pretty!?  Grandma can I have ladder so I can put pieces up high?

Believe it or not I did manage to get something done besides answer questions.  

~ Lea Anne ~

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Little by Little

Happy Monday Morning!  It's another beautiful spring day here in Podunk.  I love these crisp chilly mornings when the windows have been left open the night before.  The smell of sweet honeysuckle vines goes perfectly with my morning cup of coffee while snuggling on the couch with my favorite quilt.  Not even the morning news programs can shake that feeling of sweet serenity.

It's gonna be another busy day of working in the gardens so these pretties on my design wall will just have to wait.  Can you tell I love dresden quilts?  One of these days I'll count just how many I've made over the years.  Each one uniquely different.  The dresden block is such a versatile and fun pattern that works well with my love of flowers and gardening.  The bright dresdens above are part of a free block of the month by Quilt Doodle designs.<---click there for more info.    Every month a new applique for the center is released.  It's not to late to join in but you'll need to purchase the first four months at a very reasonable price.  The rest of the year is free as long as you get them the month they are released.  Cindy's pattern are very well written and easy to follow.  And for the beginner she has added some in depth online tutorials on her blog.  She much more talented than I when it comes to curved piecing, so I had to make a slight change in my version of her pattern.  If you would like to see my alteration of appliqueing the center using her template click here.

The pastel dresden blocks are from a pattern called Sugar ~n~ Spice.  You can read more about the pattern and my alterations to this pattern by clicking here.

The little yo-yo's were time consuming but add a stunning effect to the dresdens.

Hopefully there will be some time at the end of each day this week to work on both of these projects.  Plus there's a new patriotic quilt I designed that I'd like to make a test block.  If I'm going to get all this accomplished I better get moving.  Happy Stitching, See you in a few days!

Oh I almost forgot to mention Design Wall Monday Linky party has a new host.  You can find the new party hosted by Judy Hansen over at Smallquiltsanddollquilts, hop on over link up or just be inspired.

~ Lea Anne ~

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DWM~ Plans for HST's

Morning quilty friends.  I'm still plugging along on the Flippy corners quilt.  A few more blocks were made over the long weekend.   The adorable little 5.5"  twinkling stars have been the highlight of my weekend. However I've barely made a dent in the basket of bonus HST's.  But this seems like a good stopping place.  So I started playing around with a few setting ideas for the blocks.

Using only 8 blocks is a bit of a design challenge.  I came up 10 different layouts for the blocks.  How about a peek at a few of the ideas?  The design below really makes those twinkly stars shine.  The background fabric would be linen left over from another project.

Oh but I'm a real sucker for the white background.  Simple, and the stars still shine.

Maybe a table runner ....lots of room for quilting.

Decisions, Decisions....I like them all.  Which one would you make?

~ Lea Anne ~

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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 ~

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Design Wall Monday

Strawberry Lemonade is her name!  Isn't she just delicious?  All that's left to do is sew the rows of blocks.  

Lets get in a little closer to see some of those 50 different prints in this quilt.

If you would like to make one for yourself, I made a very rude tutorial here.

I'm linking up today with all the blogs below.

PatchworkTimes for Design Wall Monday

Cooking up quilts for Main Crush Monday

Quilting is more fun Than Housework for OH Scrap!

~ Lea Anne ~

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Something to Crow About

Good Monday Morning quilty Buddies!  This weekend was a very productive quilty marathon.  After cutting 1652 pink squares, ( you can read about it here. ) I needed a little sit down time.  The pink quilt still isn't ready for the sewing machine so a quick dig through the UFO bin....and look what was found hiding way down in the bottom.  What a wonderful surprise!  These blocks had been totally forgotten.  How did this happen?  The star blocks were done and the green chain blocks were about halfway done.   It didn't take long to finish piecing the blocks.  Maybe I need more UFO's laying around for that instant quilty fix!

LOVE LOVE LOVE the prints!  The orange and navy blue are both from the vintage stash.  That orange is just sweeter than pumpkin pie!(you must say that using your very best Steel Magnolia southern draw)  They just don't make'em like this anymore.  Calico's....simple and sweet, reminds me of being a little girl and Momma making most of my cloths.  Calico shirts and big ole floppy Culottes(coolots).  Momma was doing her best and it was the style, but to a little chubby, redheaded, freckled face girl....Culottes were not groovy.  Funny how the things we disliked as a child are fond memories as an adult.  It would be even better had mom kept the hideous things.

  

Yep I'm liking this UFO busting.  Maybe I should do this more often....yeah right!  We all say that but we know the real truth.  The likelihood of this staying a UFO is more probable than me finishing it and working on another.  Oh but a girl needs to dream.  While I'm at it I'll dream up a little quilting fairy to help with the mountain of UFO's.  She's a cute little pudgy gal...wearing Culottes!

Alright enough daydreaming, that's the reason why I've so many UFO's in the first place.

The original plan for this quilt was to add some applique.  So what do you think?  Applique or more blocks?

Before I leave let's link up today's post with some very fine blogging gals.  Hop on over, be inspired, join the fun and link up!

Judy@PatchworkTimes for Design Wall Monday

and

Beth@CookingUpQuilts for Main Crush Monday

and

Beth@LoveLaughQuilt for Monday Making

and

Connie@FreemotionbytheRiver for linky Tuesday

~ Lea Anne ~

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Up to my elbows

Popping in on Mondays to share my weekend progress is my favorite post of the week.  It became a habit when I found Judy's blog a few years ago.  Every Monday she hosts a Linky Party called Design Wall Monday.  So what did I stitch up this weekend, not a thing.  Most of my time was spent in the kitchen.  But I did come up with another idea for my Lilies of Love quilt.  Yes I finally came up with a name!  You can see more design options here and find a so called tutorial for the quilt block here.  

While up to my elbows in fruits and veggies this weekend my mind was wandering around my Studio.  Tossing around more border options.  That's when I started thinking...this is a scrappy quilt, why can't the borders be scrappy.  The last time I used this inner scalloped border was on my Promenading tulips quilt. (below) Look at the super scrappyness!(is that a word?)  Cutting a piano key border doesn't appeal to me right now but I could do a different print on each side like in the picture above. HMMM...maybe.  We'll see what happens when I actually have time to be in the Studio.  

For now it's time to clean up the weekend canning mess and organize the pantry.  The canning season is almost over.  YIPPEE!  Just a few tomato's and squash left on the vines.   We still need to harvest the sweet potatoes but that won't be for a few more weeks.  It's been a good year for preserving, I actually ran out of jars and will need more before canning the potatoes.  This weekend was whole tomato's, acorn squash, apple pie filling, and apple butter.....YUM!  So here's my tip of the day for all my canning buddies.  A trick my momma taught me years ago.  Add a couple handfuls of red hots to your apple butter, when they melt it gives a little extra kick(not hot), everyone will want to know your secret for the most delicious apple butter ever.

~  Lea Anne ~

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Design Wall Monday- A need to create

Good Morning dear quilty friends.    I've had a need to create, to distract my mind from what's really going on in my life.  Quilting isn't really a distraction for my thoughts but a time of meditation and reflection.  Allowing my thoughts to go where they will.  I'm sure many of you can relate.  The HST's below were trimmed a few days ago with the plan of something simple....but

All it took was one phone call to put my mind in a total jumbled up mess of gobblity gook and chaos.   Just as an alcoholic would need a drink, I immediately knew I needed to create a quilt.  My auto pilot took over and before I new it there was a test block that you can see at the top of the picture below.  Funny how such chaos in the mind can produce something so pretty.  Would that be the beauty of chaos?  The plan is to add some applique...of course.   Maybe some petals between the second and third black squares.  And a possible appliqued border.  Any suggestions on a name for this block?  There's so much other gunk in my brain I'm coming up with nothing.

There's really no time to write a tutorial for this block or quilt.  But with the dimensions below I think you gals might be able to make one for yourself if you'd like.  It finishes at 10.5" in quilt.  As for pressing, my first block had a couple bulky spots so you might be better of with your own pressing plan.  

The rest of this post is non quilty personal stuff that you may not feel like reading.  If that's the case, believe me I understand.  A person can only read or hear so many sad stories in a day before you need your own meditation time.  

Our personal lives and blog lives effect one another.  And if you or I were to stop writing posts we'd be concerned even though we've never met.  This is basically just a little heads up that I may become a little MIA again.  The phone call I mentioned earlier was from my dad letting me know that moms test came back as cancer.  She's been admitted into the hospital for pain management.  Once the pain is under control she'll go home and the treatments will start until the cancer has shrunk enough to remove.   So  in a couple weeks I'll be spending a lot more time away from my studio.   You never know it may not effect my blogging. Only time will tell.

Just a quick reminder about my give away.  Click here for the details.

I'm link up to today with

DesignWallMonday@PatchworkTimes

Oh Scrap@QuiltingisMoreFunThanHousework

MainCrushMonday@CookinUpQuilts

MondayMakers@HugaBitQuilts

SewCuteTuesday@BlossomHeartQuilts

LinkyTuesday@FreeMotionBytheRiver

FabricTuesday@QuiltStory

~  Lea Anne ~

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That inner voice

The ideas have been flowing in like a tidal wave!  So many cute ideas.  The problem with that is I'm a visual/hands on kinda quilter.  Which means I need to see it, feel it, play around with it and that makes scrap pieces when there's several ideas.  I could use EQ7 to draft a quilt, but it can take longer, especially when drawing applique pieces.  So most of the time I use good old paper and pencil.  Another problem is my mind sees elaborate applique that me, myself and I have no interest in making.  The little pink mustache or grammar school bird shape was one of those ideas.

Here's the little birdy shape strutting her stuff.  Oh yes, a scallop around this dresden would be ADORABLE!  But the three musketeer alter ego's rejected the plan. What a lazy gang of naysayers.   They quickly put in their two cents of how long it would take to make the pieces, let alone stitch them down. (sigh)  So what's a gal to do but take the advice of a group that knows me so well.  They know if I go with this plan it'll become a UFO.  I tried my best to let them know that it's ONLY a four block setting, and they reminded me that it's canning season in Podunk, and free time for quilting is very limited.  The voice of reason, where were you when I buying fabric, templates I'll never use and what about during the expensive sewing machine purchases?   I don't recall you helping me out then!  Oh well what's a gal to do, this is a democracy. So me, myself and I have voted to go with the easier plan.  But I want everyone in bloggyland to know Lea Anne wants the scallops!

The one thing that we all agree on is linking up at these great linky parties.  We voted and its unanimous you should visit each of these links, and of course link up your lovelies too!  If you don't have a blog that's okay, because most linky parties let you link from other social media.  Me, myself and I are very powerful persuaders so...see you there!

Design Wall Monday@PatchworkTimes

Main Crush Monday@CookingUpQuilts

MondayMaking@LoveLaughQuilt

~ Lea Anne ~

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Excuse the mess

Good Monday Morning!  I'm so glad that you've stopped by, but let me warn you....it's a MESS in Podunk today.   So step over the sorted dirty laundry, don't look at the dishes in the kitchen sink,  and if you don't mind drinking from a styrofoam cup grab yourself a cuppa whatever you can find.  If your hungry there's some left over chicken in the fridge and a half eaten slice of watermelon with a fork still sticking out of it on the counter, help yourself while I go brush my teeth and try to get a brush through my grass entangled bedhead.  And if you want to sit down just toss that quilt and pillow off the couch, I'll fold it....eventually.

 Now that I'm halfway presentable I'll share with you what little progress has been made on my quilt.   To be honest I've not stepped foot in here since Thursday afternoon.  It feels good to be home and in my happy place even though I don't have time for quilting right now.... maybe tomorrow....we'll see.

 I know some of you are wondering where I'm going with these blocks.  Here's the EQ drawing.  Hopefully I'll get time to finish up the appliqued blocks tomorrow before I leave again.   I hadn't planned on hand appliqueing them but I think there will be plenty of time while I'm gone from Podunk.

Where am I going?  (sigh)  Well let me say this first.  I try to keep things upbeat and pleasant around Podunk Pretties.  Occasionally sharing the unpleasant  behind the scenes is necessary.   So....Dad is having triple(maybe five) bypass heart surgery on Wednesday.  Mom and I have been running back and forth from the hospital since last Thursday.  I'll be living with her and dad for as long as they need me.  It could be a week or months, it all depends on how well he bounces back.   He's home right now and doing fine, but isn't allowed to do anything but sit, eat and breathe.   That's why I've grass in my hair.  Me and my boys, their girlfriends and some aunt and uncles did mom and dads  yard work yesterday.  They've not been able to keep it up as well this year and refused to let anyone help.  Well he has no choice now!  Over 6 acres to mow, it took 4 riding lawn mowers, 2 chain saws and about 8 hrs total to get everything done. I was totally exhausted last night, physically and emotionally.  

 Since mom doesn't drive well or handle stress very well I'll be her chauffeur and emotional support until dad is released to drive again.   I don't have to tell you what the last few days have been like or what the next few months might bring.  I might become a little MIA from blogland.  But honestly I'm the type of person that likes to keep my mind and hands busy, it's my therapy.   I may not post as often or be able to respond to all emails but I'm sure gonna give it my best shot.  Also I had originally planned on  sharing the pattern for this quilt with you before the Fourth of July.  As you can see from the picture above the borders and insets triangles are a little complex.  I've not had time to make test pieces.  As soon as I can get those made I'll post them, but it could a few weeks.  

Well that's it, thanks for listening and caring enough to read through all my ramblings.  

~ Lea Anne ~

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Mini Scraps

How many of you are like me and struggle with throwing away the smallest of  fabric scraps?  Well if we save them we must use them at some point.  This project was started about a year ago.  Occasionally I take it out and admire my tiny little 4 patches that need to be squared up to 1.5".  That's a pretty difficult task with just about any ruler in my collection. 

My smallest ruler is 4" x 4", it works but seemed to take forever, trimming two sides at a time then re-positioning the template for the other two sides.  Matching the ruler lines to the seam on the blocks is harder than you think, not much room for error.  I decided after about 20 blocks to make my own 1.5" square up ruler from Plexi-glass.  I've shared my template making in the past here and here.  One thing I get asked is "How do you keep the black lines on them."  Well I've tried several methods, tape, clear fingernail polish and nothing at all.  But scoring the lines with a razor knife and using a sharpy marker to fill the score lines works the best.   If your sharpy marks are outside the line no worries, just rub them with your thumb and the excess comes off.

To keep the template from slipping I sprayed the back with temporary quilt basting spray.  This works great!  When the glue gets "unsticky" and filled with lint,  just run it under water and wipe off the lint, like magic the glue is still there and sticky. (This makes me wonder how well it actually washes out of a quilt)  I trimmed all of my 4 patches without needing to reapply the basting spray.  When I tried to wash the glue off  my template with Dawn Dish washing liquid it wouldn't come off with out using a Magic Eraser.  No more spray glue in my quilts that's for sure!  At least not the Dritz brand.

I took the picture below because I wanted to stop working and move on to something else.

But if I quit now I'll need to lay out all of these 4 patches again....well darn, just keep plugging along.

Whew!  The center is complete! I'll tackle the borders tomorrow.

I'll be linking this post to the following linky parties.  Hop on over, be inspired, and link up too!

Design Wall Monday@PatchworkTimes

MainCrushMonday@CookingupQuilts

MondayMakers@HugabitQuilts

LinkyTueday@FreemotionbytheRiver

FabricTuesday@QuiltStory

TipsandTutorials@LatenightQuilter

SewCute@BlossomheartQuilts

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Design Wall Monday

Here we are again, it's Monday and I've very little progress to share.  Excuse?   Oh you bet ya!  Tons of them, none of them really good but I'm a master at giving them.  The Posy's are all together, all that's needed is three more corner blocks we'll have a flimsy.   That is if I don't get distracted by other things.

Like this little stack of cuteness.  I also made my own 2.5 template for cutting scrap patches.  Quicker and cheaper than running into town to buy one.  I won't be using it with the charm pack.  But the other little template....maybe...it's still in the thinking stage.

My next excuse for lack of quilting progress is my garden.  In the spring there's just not enough hours in the day to get everything done.  Today is manure and compost day for the unplanted parts of the garden so I can plant the last of the veggies.

And we're still working on Operation Free Range.  Lobo is doing his best, he's had one little mishap.  Long story short, a chicken startled and attacked him.  By the time I saw him he had feathers sticking out of his mouth.  It was hilarious!  The chicken survived with only a few lost feathers.  He's very intense and takes the job of "watching" the chickens serious.  If they are out of the coop, he's got his eye on them.  Now the real question is...Is he watching or stalking?

Our dream....may not be a reality. 

~ Lea Anne ~

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