Skittles Explosion

182 blocks on the wall, 182 blocks 

take one down, stitch it down

181 blocks on the wall

Good Morning Quilty Friends!  Welcome to my messy Studio.  It looks like a truckload of Skittles exploded here in Podunk.  I've been working on two different projects over the weekend, the Hummingbird quilt and the Lori Holt tulip quilt.  For those of you that are new to my blog, Lori Holt designed the single tulip block for her Quilty Fun book.  I took that single tulip block and designed a 4 crossing tulips block and the rest of the quilt.  

 I've been bouncing back and forth between the two quilts.  The Hummingbird is coming together really fast, just chaining along...and singing.

But remember when I started quilting the Tulip quilt months ago.  Well I ran into a issue.  The blocks on this quilt are larger than the space I can quilt on my frame.   I've done this several times without premarking and had no issues.  Long story short the quilt had to be taken off the frame and premarked.  Which meant I lost interest and moved on to less frustrating projects.  Well I'm back in the groove and hope to have it back on the frame by bedtime today.  Wish me luck, I'm really excited to have this one back on the project list, it's such a fun and colorful quilt.

So what are you working on that excites you this morning?  Anything that you'd care to share at Judy's Design Wall Monday?  Hop on over and link it up!

Let's add another linky party  WIP Wednesday@freshlypieced

~ Lea Anne ~

Today's freebie from Magnolia Bay Quilts

Click here for tutorial

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DWM, Time flies

My goodness, it's Monday already.  It's hard to believe a week has passed by with so little quilty work done.  The tomatoes are ripening in the garden faster than they can be preserved.  So that's taking up all the quilting time.  And then there was the bright idea to make homemade pizza sauce instead of the usual easy canned tomatoes.  After about 10 hours of simmering tomatoes and herbs, 2 quarts of sauce!   Pardon me for being a little cynical but the bragging rights aren't worth the effort.  Oh my almost vegetarian son and his vegetarian girlfriend were impressed  Saturday night when I made homemade vegetarian pizza with cauliflower crust.  Of course I sent them home with a grocery bag full of fresh tomatoes( Less for me to preserve) and gave them a jar of sauce.   

Well here's what been accomplished in the studio this week.  Not much!  These Periwinkle/Hummingbird blocks finally put on the design wall.  Maybe by next Monday they'll be a completed top.

182 blocks = 65 x 70 quilt.  Sometimes I wonder what was I thinking! 

The Scrappy Baskets quilt is almost done. (block tutorial here) 4 more blocks to quilt, I'm hoping for a Friday finish.  Do you think Red gingham binding would be too much?  Can you have to much gingham?  Not in my world!   While  quilting this I thought about how this basket block would look so cute with strawberries instead of flowers...a little hand embroidery for the strawberry vines....I may need to make a wall hanging from this pattern.  

Linking up with Judy@patchworktimes for design wall Monday.  

~ Lea Anne ~

Today's Freebie from Scapbook Etc.

Click here for pattern

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A Little Shady

Finding just the right scrap white for my Hummingbird blocks has become a test of will.  They are such small pieces of white that cutting into the white yardage just doesn't seem right.  So let the digging begin.

UGGG!  It's a shameful site.  These are my two boxes of rarely used scraps. Literally exploding out of the box.  The only way to get them to close is to sit on the lids.  Not going to win any quilty organization awards anytime soon.  On the positive side of things I did find some bright scraps that could be put in my other scrap stash that I use more often.  And I might just have enough white-white for this current project.  White-White?  I've found that snow white is more like coffee creamer, white has a touch of gray, like a piece of paper.  And then there's the white that looks like it's been dipped in dingy dishwater.  All are very pretty when by themselves but when you put them side by side the color difference is very noticeable.  If needed I'll use the dingier whites to avoid making more white scraps.

 So here's my pile of white-white and a binding that I've lost twice.  Hopefully the binding will work for this quilt. 

Speaking of white it's snowing here right now!  What!  The weatherman said this is the fist April in 13 yrs that it has snowed and stuck to the ground.  

Today is also Linky Tueday over at Freemotionbytheriver.  Head on over and link up or just enjoy!

~ Lea Anne ~

Today's freebie is an Appliqued Raindrop pillow tutorial by Ashley at Make it and Love it Blog.

http://www.makeit-loveit.com/2014/04/raindrop-pillow-tutorial-a-great-project-for-spring.html#respond

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Taking it easy

Well we had a beautiful weekend here in Podunk.  Tons of sunshine!  So most of my time was spent playing around in the yard, moving some flowers and weeding.  Being the graceful lady that I am, I also managed to find a hole to put my foot in, twisting my knee.  Nothing serious, it's just a little hitch in the giddy up.  You know how it is with these older model of knees, sometimes they just need a couple of days to recoop.  So today I'm taking it easy and playing around with these Hummingbird blocks.  Using this tutorial for paperless paper piecing.  

Hope all is well in your neck of the woods! 

~ Lea Anne ~

today's freebie

http://sewfreshquilts.blogspot.ca/2014/04/guest-post-at-sew-can-she.html

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Lots to share DWM

I'm taking momma to the doctor tomorrow, so lets have design wall progress  today.  

After a day and a half of hand stitching the small red circles in place.  This quilt came together quickly.  I took so many pictures!  Luckily for you I picked out just a few.

 Some of the perfect circles didn't come out quite as perfect as I would have liked.  They were perfect before stitching.  What I found is that needles make all the difference.   My first needle of choice was one of those quick threading kind.  Bad choice, the larger eye pulled my circles out of whack.  After changing to applique sharps needle things looked better.  

 If you not familiar with the how to make a perfect circle you can find a tute here.  

 LOVE LOVE LOVE the border fabric.  It took about a month to find just the right color indigo blue to match the blue of the oak and reel block.  I know it looks darker but really its not.  The small print on the blocks makes it appear to be a different shade of blue.    Since the border fabric is such a large print I had to do some fussy cutting on the length of the fabric instead of cutting on the width.  Lots of scraps were made by doing this but the outcome is worth it.  

 I wanted to share this pattern with you but the oak and reel has a copyright.  After searching for hours to find where the pattern, I finally found it in Inspired by Traditions by Kay Mackenzie.  Mines just spruced up a bit with the circles.  The alternating block is just a basic Irish chain block that can be found on my tutorials tab.  

Inspiration has struck and I'm stuck in the darker colors.  Here's what I've made today from a Primitive Gatherings layer cake and some yardage.  Those little squares finish at 1.5.   The red center fabric is from the oak and reel quilt, and don't tell anyone..... but that gingham.....its a baby sheet I scored at the Goodwill for $1.  

 Hopefully I'll have time to shop for the sashing fabric after momma's doctor appointment.

 You know I can't go very long with out playing with the brights.  I made this itty bitty cutie(5.5").  It's a freebie tutorial from Red Pepper Quilts that you can find here.  If you have EQ7 it's one of the basic patterns.   This will become my leaders and enders project.  Some of you may recognize it from Jenny Doans Youtube Tutorial from last week.  Jenny requires you buy her papers and a template to make the quilt.  Red Pepper lets you print it out for free!  I set my printer up for fast printing which makes it use less ink.  Either way it's going to cost something.  

Want more quilty inspirations?  Its just a click away!  Judy at Patchwork Times hosts a link up every Monday morning.  Anyone can enter their blog.  So hop on over, link up, and check out others Design walls. 

~Lea Anne~

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