Sew Sunshine

Two words about this photo shoot...Windy and Weeds!  Dry sticks actually. I clomped through some pretty sketch areas but really it was an excuse to enjoy the superb weather that day. I was not going to try to shoot this quilt out of doors but 58 degrees called to me. :) So my January A Lovely Year of Finishes = The Bead quilt. I think I am going to call it paper beads. It reminds me of the magazine print roll up beads I used to make as a kid. The more I walked the cooler the areas there were to explore.  Back from my walk...see the crinkly goodness? This is a simple wavy line quilting that I thought would sort of add to the abacus spinning on the bars. Eh, not sure if it worked but I like how crunchy it is. Urban Abacus Quilt Pattern from SewKindofWonderful  using the Quick Curve Ruler Size = 50 x 60 approx. pieced and quilted with Aurifil 2600 my fav Wavy stitch on my sewing machine used for quilting All scraps and stash except f...

  Last night at a guild meeting I gave a demo on using the Quick Curve Ruler by Jenny and Helen @ SewKindofWonderul . I don't have many rulers but I purchased this one to do a sewalong that Jenny was doing on her blog. I quickly fell in love with the easy piecing. I was sewing curves and they were turning out every time.  No I am no affiliated with them at all but the ruler really makes curve piecing so sew easy! Some of samples from the class. I really love the stacked wave piece and I think that has lots of possibilities. There is my finished Abacus quilt that I will blog about for my Lovely year of finishes so far this year! The demo was fun and a few actually sat down and tried piecing it and all were successful! :) One new member, won the QCR giveaway. She was afraid of curves but no more...... Linking up with WIP Wed over at Freshly Pieced and Lorna at Sew Fresh Quilts There is still time to vote for the Sunrise /Sunset challenge at Persimon Dream...

After talking about wanting to try something new yesterday during a Sew-In with one of my guilds, I went home and got out my fabric and pencils. 100% stash fabrics, thread, and pencils. I am not going to pretend it is great but I love it anyway. I used Inktense watercolor pencils, did some stitching with variegated thread and then hand stitched with another variegated thread and there you have it. This is my progress last night but it was getting to dark to see well.  The fmqing was really quilt fun but the tension was off over half of it before I knew it. Still, I was able to do something new and fun for me.  Bring on the hand sewing too! I never really liked embroidery when I was little but I think I would like to do some more sloooow stitching! :) I don't mind hand binding so maybe this is my new thing...who knows? Linking up with  over at Project: Leasa   and also new this week for me  over at Kathy's Quilts

Here is my Project Quilting season 6 project #2 entry held by Kim of Persimon dreams . The challenge this week was Sunrise/Sunset.  I used this tutorial from Melissa Correy over Happy Quilting . It is her Off Kilter quilt. I loved it when I saw it so I knew it was a dream quilt for me. This PQ challenge allowed me to do the theme and do a dream quilt. Bonus: all the fabrics including the backing and batting were all in my stash. You only have a week to do the challenge so this was extra easy this week. I drove over to the park by my sisters house and the sun was so bright I could not see so I went under this tree to shoot. In those few minutes the clouds rolled in and that was the last of my sun. So this version with the yellow to the top is my sunrise side....and if you flip it over  ....you see my sunset!  A park walker stopped to help me since the wind came up too. :) Thank you park walking lady!!!! Sunrise.... Sunset       ...

A little blurry..sorry! I am working on a project and not sure of some of my color choices so stay tuned. :)  Not sure what I am doing or if this is a go but one must go for it!  ...lots of kona solids Linking up with WIP Wed with Lee Freshly Pieced and Let's Bee Social with Lorna HERE

I made this quick little tote bag out of some Sew Mama Said fabrics I had left over. I used the main part of the tutorial from Very Shannon Reversible Box Tote . I did my own twist on binding the edges with some left self made binding. In hindsight I didn't look at the placement of the dots so on the binding around to the back it looks slightly different.  I also made another iPad rest/ pin cushion based on a tutorial from Michelle at Factotum of Arts . Super easy and so cute! The tote is reversible but it is pretty stiff with the interfacing I put in it. It stands up by itself.  I love the mix of fabrics. Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts Finish it up Friday  and   Where Valerie is hosting today at Val's Quilting Studio

"Mighty Scrappy"   Time for Season 6 of Project Quilting with Kim over at Persimon Dreams ! I saw the first challenge go up Sunday and I was not sure I could do it fitting with my goals to finish some things laying around here. I thought about it until Wed or so and decided I could do this challenge " Trees" with scraps and that would be a win win!!!  So here is my " Mighty Scrappy". Mighty Scrappy 18w x 22l all scraps fmquilting made in Ne If you pop over to Kim's site her first photo of a tree was my inspiration. I tried to add some shading but the scraps are pretty bright. If I do it again I think I would try some applique over the dark side. Stay tuned I think she is going to open up for voting by the public later this week. VOTING till Jan 16th click.   linking up with Sherri over @ A Quilting Life for Scraps Monday

  A Friday Finish!! This is my little wall hanging made from the free pattern over at SewKindofWonderful HERE  using the Quick Curve Ruler. I wanted to make a scrappy (from my stash and scraps) wall-hanging using the ruler.  This was super fun AND......drum roll please! I tried two new techniques for me on this. First, because I spiral quilted it, it was pretty wavy. I was able to figure out how to block this since it was so small. super easy and now it is very flat even though in the photo it looks wavy on the bottom. That is because I launched it out in front of me in the snow..haha! Second, I tried the fake piping binding. Super easy!! This is scraps of AG Indian Summer fabric. It has such a soft hand. I love the fun way the pieces are just shades in this scrappy piece. I am calling this one : "Black-eyed Susan" 24" x 24" spiral quilting fake piped binding scraps/stash fabrics     Here you can see a bit better the binding...

      Starting the year off with an easy one I hope!   This is the Urban Abacus pattern from SewKindofWonderful  using the Quick Curve Ruler.                      Linking up with Fiber of all Sorts and Bittersweet designs HERE also linking up with      WIP Wed   with Freshly Pieced and with Lorna Sew Fresh Quilts