JUST COULD NOT RESIST ONE LAST JOANN'S SHOPPING SPREE

 Our JoAnn's is closing for good on the 17th of this month.  I did make a trip early last month when the closure began and purchased a few pieces of fabric.  Last Friday with them advertising 60% to 80% I decided I would make another trip in and see what was left.  Actually a good deal of fabric was still on the shelves.  Did I need more fabric no, but who could resist that sort of savings.

This unit was the real bargain.  Normally $120 at 60% off right out the door with me for $48.  I do have a wonderful sewing room but there never seems to be enough storage.

They did still require 2 yard cuts, but at 60% off it was pretty hard to resist.  I considered most of them pretty much staple colors that one will find useful, and for some reason despite lots of scissors I am constantly searching for one when I need one.  Of course ran into at least one friend with the same idea I had.  Still a little bit thinking I have a few more days, one could still manage to squeeze in one more shopping trip.  

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A WEEK OF ALL SORTS OF ODDS AND ENDS

 After weeks of working on my guild's quilt show boutique items I am finally back to working on my own projects.

I finished a runner with the Tulip & Vine pattern, now just to hand sew the binding down.

Last week I posted on my blog this finished scrap quilt top.  I just did not like it at all.  After a couple of days I took it off the design wall and cut the blocks into 2.5" squares and strips.

The results are this quilt top with all the rescued 2.5" pieces.  Now I really like this one.  

I had this wonky blocks ruler stashed away in a drawer and decided to try it out and see what would happen.  I am really happy with the results.  

I saw a pattern on line by Cotton Street Commons, but was reluctant to purchase yet another pattern.  I have more patterns and books than anyone should have.  So decided to give it a try on my own.  Not really unhappy with the results, but decided to purchase the pattern after all.  

Going at it on my own looked more complicated than I figured, so waiting for the pattern to arrive and getting to work on it.

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TULIPS & MULTIPYING SCRAPS

 I spent this past week finishing up the last of my guild's quilt show boutique items that will be sold during the show.  The show is in January, but we do a great deal of early prep and I wanted to get my contributions out of the way.  Now I can get on to some fun projects for myself.

The last two runner and the fabric was fun.  Could not resist the tomatoes and strawberries fabric.  These last two compete my contributions to the show.  Yes, 72 table runners, 16 table toppers, and 40 zipper pouches.  

Last week I started working with my Tulip & Vine pattern by Sherri McConnell and a fun fat quarters set.  A second fat quarter set in greens finally arrived and I was able to finish off these two 8.5 by 17.5 blocks. These are fun to make.  Not sure if I am going to just do a table runner or a full quilt yet with them.

I also pulled out some left over scraps and I am playing with using them up and moving them out of the scrap bin and on to the charity group with a quilt top and bindings.  I had hoped to rid myself of them, but find that even after getting these 25 blocks finished up I still have an awful lot of fabric still left.  Back to the drawing with this idea I guess.  I am convinced scraps multiple at night when you turn out the lights and leave the sewing room.  

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SPRING PROJECTS

We finally have spring here, lovely weather in the 80's.  Now can leave the front door open with just the screen door.  Zoey are little yorkie can now get back to work being Neighborhood Watch.  No one is allowed on her street and if they have a dog with them she makes sure she barks at them vigorously to move them along out of site. 

 

I purchased a really large fat quarter set of Americana from Connecting Threads, plus some yardage of green recently.  I have been working on a good deal of items for my guild's quilt show boutique and I am finally finished with that chore and plan to make something for myself.  

I have these two patterns but have not decided which one I will use.  The Tulip & Vine quilt and maybe the runner with the Flower Shoppe pattern.  I might even dig around in some of my old patterns and books and see what happens.  

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WONKY HEARTS

A crazy week again. Lots of fussing with the dishwasher.  It kept coming up with an error E15  which means it is leaking.  Service man out twice can't find the problem, but will not wash the dishes either without flooding the house.  It is only 5 years old and go figure the purchased plan ran out in February.  So yes, had to purchase a new one.  Needless to say I did not get a lot done, other than washing dishes by hand.  

I am still making a few table runners for my guild's January quilt show boutique.  This runner was fabric that was in a scrap bin I was given to sort through.  It is 13 by 28 inches.  I found the wiggly pattern of the fabric interesting.  And the fabric is cut on the straight of grain, the fabric lines are wonky.

I have lots of rulers, in fact I am an admitted tools hoarder.  This little beauty has been in a drawer for years, never used it until I decided to quilt that heart runner.

I am not a free motion quilter, just have never been able to get it.  I use the serpentine stitch for small items on my sewing machine with variegated thread.  Normally I will do straight lines but the wonky lines on this runner just did not seem to look like it would work well at all.  So I figured just to try out that ruler.

The result really looks great.  I plan to remember this trick.

These last two quilts on my agenda are ready to do the handwork on the bindings for my charity group.  This process is that last step for completing them.  They were pieced by someone, quilted by another person and then handed out to others like myself to finish the binding.  The perfect evening TV watching chore.

      

  

   

THE ELEMENTS QUILT AND ROCK GARDENS

 I have been back into the sewing room a bit this week.  We are still doing a major overhaul of the garden.  I have been cutting donated yardage into 1/4 up to 3 and 4 yards of fabric and pricing it for the guild's quilt show as well.  My quilter finished my elements quilt so I want to get the binding on it.  

I love the elements fabric in this quilt, lots of different fabrics went into it.

The back with typewriter keys seemed perfect for it.  

The major part of the backyard garden overhaul is finished.  We carted 2,800 pounds of rock into the planter areas and now the tomatoes, bell peppers, and spinach are in planters with a drip watering system.  We live in a drought area of California and many of us have converted from lawns to rock gardens.  We are only allowed two days a week watering in the fall and winter and three in the summer months.  Neighbors with lawns water bills can easily mount up to $600 a month and higher in summer months as our temperatures often get into the 100's and last summer often up to 110 and one day 115.  Looking forward to lots of fun veggies this summer.  

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THE JELLY ROLL TWIST

These last few days our cold and rainy weather finally seemed to take a break and we have been out in our backyard doing an overhaul of the planting areas and generally just cleaning up and scaling down the clutter.  So I have not had a great deal of time to spend in my sewing room. 

My daughter sent me a pattern and it seemed a really great idea to make into table toppers for our upcoming January quilt show's boutique.  I will measure 17" square when finished.

While the pattern supplied by The Fat Quarter Shop uses Jelly Rolls and Charm Packs I have a good supply of red fabrics that could be cut in the 5" squares and 2.5" strips.

Oh yes, lots of red fabric left overs and yes I did pop in to Hobby Lobby and pick up an additional 7 half yards.  More is always better!

And I have a good supply of blues left over from a Jelly Roll Race quilt top I finished off a couple weeks ago.

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THE WILD ONE AND THE THANK GOODNESS IT IS FINISHED

This last couple of weeks I have been working on two projects.  One for my charity group and one just for fun.  Fabric is taking over the sewing room so I have been trying to get around to just doing something with some of these fabric collections besides them just sitting on the shelves in the closet or wire bins.  

This wild print collection has been hanging around for probably years in the closet.  The idea was to just put something together and give it to my guild's charity group.  Somewhere along I sort of fell in love with it.  Not my normal fabric choices.  The blocks are 9 inches finished, the top three rows are sewn together just finishing up the bottom two now.  At 45" square finished it still seemed a bit small and needing some calming down.  I decided to find fabric for a border and binding and did get that purchased just this past week.  It is going to be a keeper at least until I find another home for it.  Stay toned for its finished over the next week or two.  

Chop Stix5 from last week is finished.  It was somewhat of a challenge for some reason.  There were several trips back and forth laying it out on the bed to figure out all those sides and corners.  This project was a charity group request for me to put together for them.  There were a few days when I bundled it up and set it aside thinking it might go back to them half finished.  In the end it worked out well and will probably quilt up beautifully.

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JELLY ROLL RACING

 This week I decided to tackle my 2.5" strips.  I am in the habit when making bindings, to take the left overs and keep them.  I also when cutting strip for binding find that if I have just a bit of the fabric left over and it is enough to cut just one more strip I do that as well.

My method is this large glass jar.  I just toss them into it.  Sometimes there are even bags with 5 to even 7 matching strips in it.  Those are the ones that I cut for a quilt, and then forgot I did that and cut more later when the quilt returned from my quilter.  Over a period of time the jar has become very full.

And this is what I end up with, except the blue piles were much much lager than shown here.

The end results, it measures 56" by 60" and a binding prepared to go with it.  Off to my charity group and looks like those red, yellow, purple, green, turquoise and yes still some blue strips left over are next.

Yes, definitely need to do something with the other colors and prints.  And I am off to the Jelly Roll Races with 10 rows done and 40 to go.

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WONKY WALL HANGINGS AND CHOP STIX5

 I finished my wonky block wall hanging this past week.  A fun project using left over fabric from the previous week's pleated quilt top craziness.  I gave the pleated blocks quilt top to my charity group admitting to them it was likely to be one big headache to quilt.  Go figure, they loved it and the group had all sorts of quilting ideas for it. 

Quilting the wonky blocks with a straight line diaginal pattern every two inches seemed like the best way to  handle it.

I put a larger binding on it 3" rather than my usual 2.5".

It was finished off with a hanging sleeve on the back.  I think it will make a nice wall hanging next winter for our entry hall.  I was happy to make good use of the fabrics I really liked so much in the pleated quilt.

After turning in the pleated quilt project in to the group they handed me another charity group project.  This pattern and all the fabric to make it in a bag ready to go.

I have had the project home since Wednesday afternoon so decided to start working on it right away.  Fun project with fun fabrics.  the white fabric does have a light gold yellow floral print in it.  Hard to see here.  Should have this ready to return to them by next month's meeting in April all finished and ready to go to a quilter.

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