Some X and Plus Blocks

As is normal, every morning while I am boiling my tea water and getting my breakfast ready, I turn on my computer and read a few of my favorite blogs.

I've been following along recently with Krista Stitched on her X & Plus quilt that she's doing with another blogger named Elizabeth.  I don't know either of these girls but they are doing the quilt as a "friendship" type thing and it got me to thinking that I wanted to make a quilt like theirs and cut strictly from my scrap basket.  God knows I could make quite a few quilts from the scrap bin!

This is a portion of Krista's quilt.  She's not done yet but isn't it something??????  I LOVE it!!!

I followed the link from her blog to the pattern and decided after dinner to get to making a sample block to see if I even wanted to do it.

This is my first block............I think I'm hooked!!!

I woke up this morning "thinking" about these blocks.  I wasn't even dressed when I came into my room and started putting pieces up on the design wall for 3 more.  Here's my first 4 side by side.

I LOVE THEM!

      I think I'll make 4 a week or 4 a month until I get a nice size top.  If there's anyone out there that wants to do a swap of some blocks drop me a line.....

                                                  PEGGY

This is my scrappy Trip Around the World quilt.  It isn't a huge quilt, really just a nice size for throwing over your legs or for a little girl.             I used some Bonnie & Camille flannel from my stash and if you look at the picture of it rolled up, you can see the dot binding........that was left over from another project I did early in the summer.  

This quilt I got back from my quilter Sarah about a week ago.  This is a Great Granny quilt using Lori  Holt's pattern and fabrics.  I used the leftover fabric to make the scrappy binding and then this morning I washed and dried it.  It came out of the dryer so nice and crinkly...Made me want to crawl right under it!!!

My Week

     Well, my week was not much different from last week.....sleeping, coughing and hanging around A  LOT!    This was week 2 of the flu and I'm happy to report that I'm feeling about 90% better, thank God!   There's nothing worse than wanting to do something, anything, and just not being able to.

     After some breakfast today I decided to clean my clothes closet out and now have a nice size bag of Goodwill clothes.  Then I came into my sewing room and organized all my fabric.
Now, this may not look neat to some but I now have fabric all color coded in bins, kits organized into holiday, baby, etc.

In the process of sorting piles and piles of fabric, I came across this Alexander Henry "sewing themed" yardage so I recovered my ironing board.

I love how it looks!

I tend to make quite a mess of my cover so I usually recover it 2-3 times a year.  I'm hoping I'm a little neater and can keep this one on for a while.

Since I haven't gotten a lot done, it's easy to recap....quited and bound my "Whit" quilt and also cut some scraps and made a few churn dash blocks.  No project set for them, they're just my favorite block and felt like making a few.  

 

     Since it's a gorgeous day here in NJ, I'm going to now sit and work on a few small projects with windows open and the sounds of my neighborhood coming in the windows....

                                          Peggy

Saturday Wrap Up

     I've been sick all week with flu like symptoms so there wasn't much going on in the old sewing room.

     I finished my SWOON quilt back in January or February and immediately had it quilted by my new friend and quilter Sarah in NY.  Well, that particular quilt came home with 3-4 others so it was at the bottom of the pile and it proceeded to be the quilt that all others were popped on top of.  I finally made it to the bottom of the pile and decided once and for all to get it bound and in the finished pile.

    I also did my 2 "Little Letters" from Temecula Quilt Co.  This week the letters were C & D, and I swear, with cutting and sewing, they took a whole 10 minutes tops!  I love how they are looking so I'm predicting a super cute quilt when I have all the letters!

   The only other thing I accomplished was taking this strip of apples that I did as a sew long with Lori Holt's blog back about 18-19 months ago, and added a border around them.  I was thinking I'd do the entire sew along except that I don't have a place in my house for this type of quilt so I will make the apples into a table runner for my daughter's coffee bar in her kitchen.

I'm not expecting to get much done today since we're taking our youngest daughter to Newark Airport for her London vacation.  She's got a fun itinerary of all the things she has to see and photograph.  She's going off by herself on this adventure which is BIG in my mind.  I would never do this alone....but then, I raised some independent children who know what they want and will do it alone if they have to~   Happy Travels Sarah!

Peggy

Harvest Pumpkin

   

 WOW...this kit is from 2009!

I have to preface this post by saying I am NOT a big fan of Halloween.  I dislike the trick or treating part so much that over the years I've been known to lock the doors, shut the lights out and not answer if some overzealous child rang the bell and on at least 2 occasions i've actually planned vacations around this holiday.
I do, however, like to decorate my tabletops and walls with pumpkin-like quilts.

I was talking to my friend Robin the other day and was asking her about an old Thimbleberries Club her and I belonged to and she reminded me that there were quite a few Halloween-like projects the one year so I went in search of them and came across this 24 inch square table topper and proceeded to cut it out and get it assembled this afternoon.  I'm amazed that in under 2 hours I had it cut out and done!!!  Now, the big question here is "WHY" did it take me 5 years to do it?  

     This particular project was 1 of 4 called "Celebrate the Seasons" and it came with a spring basket, summertime star and a candle/log cabin block for the winter.  The kits come with everything including the backs and bindings!!!

     I'm not sure I like the goldish/orange print that was sent for the one pumpkin strip since it's really glaring to me but it's finished and will look nice once I get it quilted.

     If there are any Thimbleberries fans out there and you think you'd like a project, let me know.....I have 3 of those 25 gallon Rubbermaid bins FILLED to the brim with them!
I'd be happy to help you out with a kit  :)

     Onto the quilting...........


PEGGY

"PURGE"

    "PURGE" has been a word I've been using a lot of since January.  It's come into play both in my sewing room and other parts of my life.  I'm purging clothes that don't fit, food we don't eat and even the garage has not been left alone.  I've been in this house a little over 20 years and I had a couple boxes that I never opened from the previous move!  

     I've been going thru sewing room cabinets, taking fabrics out and either cutting them up to use, sell them, give away or make something from them.  This week I had had enough of  kicking and moving a pop up bin in my room....enough!  I sat on Saturday morning and dumped the pile of fabric out and started to make piles.  I had some fabrics that I decided to sell (and did), some that I cut up into useable scraps, and I even took a pile of 1 and 1-1/2 yard pieces of fabric and cut them into pillowcase kits.  I had 21-1/2 yards of fabric!  

I was able to assemble 15 pillowcases from that bundle.   I used some fabrics for both the body and the leftover I used for the accent strip.  

I'm going to contact my LQS this week and see if they're collecting for the million pillowcase challenge and then bring them over to her.  The only one that won't go is the Union Jack/blue polka dot.  That one I made for my daughter and her obsession with Union Jack's.....

What amazes me about this process is that it barely made a dent in my stash!  

All in all a nice PURGE weekend......

Modern Building Blocks

     Are you doing the Moda Modern Building Blocks?  There are a lot of shops doing it in a variety of fabrics but I wanted to do mine in the original Moda Bella Solids.  I received my kit in the mail last week and I was thrilled with the fabric colors!    The finished quilt will finish up at 84 X 96 and with all the solids I am thinking I'll have to find something interesting for the back.

     The kit came in a nice box which will come in handy for holding all the fabric, the block cards and a color chart so we use the right colors for each block, and don't run out because of an "oopsie".

       I finally opened the box and took out the fabric and labeled each of the 21 pieces and decided I NEEDED to cut at least one block out yesterday.

      Block #1 is 36 X 36 and to give you some insight into the actual size of the block, here's a picture of the star points....

That star point is next to a table topper where the geese are 1-1/2 X 2 inches...that behemoth measures 9 X 18-1/2!   The corners of the star are 9-1/2 X 9-1/2....That's the size of a lot of the blocks I make for quilts!!   CRAZY huh?

I enjoyed the whole process of block #1 and I'm thinking that I'll do a block every week or so and just take my time with this project.  

Here is Block # 1 in all it's glory!

Peggy

13 Years- NEVER FORGET

Good Afternoon Wednesday

     I just thought I'd check in with a few updates today on some small projects I've been working on this week.

     Lets start with my "A YEAR OF SCHNIBBLES" project called Whit.  I started cutting this project out last week but had a busy weekend moving our daughter to her new house so I didn't get much done on it.

 

Carrie Nelson the "Schnibbles" designer has you make your geese a little larger than you actually need and then trim them down so you accumulate a small pile of scraps but it's ok as far as I'm concerned since I got some nice geese.  This project will end up being a tabletopper for my new kitchen once we remodel in January.   How do you like the little pop of red?  I thought it needed something and was going to add green but I had some urging to do red and I'm glad I did....red is more "me" than lime green.

The next project is called "Red Letter Day" and it's by Camille Roskelly.

I've had this pattern for a while....I just couldn't decide what fabric to use.  I finally decided that I'd just use the April Showers bundle I got for Mother's Day from hubby since it's Camille's pattern and her fabric.  Each of these blocks measure up to 22-1/2 inches which is huge!  I'm going to do these like I did my SWOON blocks, one a month.

The next project is called "Little Letters" and it's by Temecula Quilt Co.  

 With a new grandbaby coming in November I knew I wanted to make this one as soon as I saw it advertised.  Temecula did offer a kit but I had this black pin dot on white and this big bundle of solids that needed using so I opted to just do it from my stash.  Each letter is 4 inches and let me tell you, they work up super fast!   I would say with the cutting, sewing and pressing, maybe 30 minutes for both.  Not bad.....

They put the cutting and sewing directions on their blog on Sunday and Wednesday.  If you have a little one on the way or just want something for charity, this is a nice project.

     

The last update for today is this tumbler quilt project found in a fairly old SEW SCRAPPY magazine.  I just loved how it looked in the picture and I knew I had the pattern somewhere so I went in search of it and actually realized late last night that I'd taken that issue of the magazine apart and kitted up 4 projects from it, the tumbler wasn't one of them so I went online and ordered the computer version and printed off the pattern pages just for reference.

I happen to have the GO cutter in both 3 and 6 inch size as well as templates in both sizes so i'm going to keep the GO set up on a table in my sewing room and as I get a scrap strip that will work I'm going to cut some and use them as a leader/ender project.
I actually did a few passes last night to see how easy they come out and I think I'm hooked!
I'll show some progress as I go along.

OH...and an interesting fact....the designer of this quilt happens to live in New Jersey as well and if you want to see some more of her quilts, just pop over to Inspired by Antique Quilts and say hello to Kathie.   I think you will be inspired by her quilts!

Peggy

Happy 26th Birthday Sarah

What can I say?  You were the cutest little baby and grew into a gorgeous young lady!!!  Look at these pictures of you from different times in your life......

Your sister's wedding last year with me and Shannon your best friend and cousin.

Here you were on a boat ride in Florida with I can only think is a sleeve of crackers?  LOL

 Here you are with Gram......

 Another boat ride with Dad, Uncle Richie, Jen and Dan.....

Dress up!  You loved dressing up....

This picture was always a favorite...You and Shannon on your first Christmas

 You and Grandpa Dave

 You and Dan, Jen and Eeyore at Disney.....

 And this is how you always were when you were little...in that little green dress with bare feet....You loved to dance around the kitchen!

I hope you have a great 26th year!!!!

Love, MOM

Another Year of Schnibbles- the 2014-2015 Version

     I posted my Schnibbles parade a few days ago and when I woke up this morning I found Sinta at Pink Pincushion had also posted some of the other girls pictures too so if you'd like to see what it's all about, head on over and have a peek.

     The next parade will be October 1st (or thereabouts) and the next pattern picked was "WHIT".  The pattern has 3 versions and we can pick any one of the 3 to do.  At first I was leaning towards the top pinwheels and then my eye was drawn to the dark background with the criss cross geese, and then of course the white strips of geese......
I'm still not sure which one I'll pick yet but I'll be looking thru my stash later today and making a final decision so I can get started on it!

     Sinta was also nice enough to let us know what the October project will be.  "Harvey"....and he's a biggie, that's why we get advance notice....
I LOVE Harvey and I'm thinking I'll make mine exactly like Carrie did....I'm going to look for a nice dark grey/black and pull all the "low volume" fabrics from my stash and I'll be good to go.
I'll keep you updated....

As I sign off I want to wish all the teachers out there a great first day!  Schools open in NJ today and this is my first "First Day" in 19 years that I will not be opening.....  Retirement has settled in and I'm a happy gal!    Miss all of you!!!