I am in LOVE!

And the object of my affection is my new Sashiko machine by Baby Lock.

You can find out more about them here.

My good friend, Lin, and I drove up to Prescott last Friday to check them out and I came home with one.  Lin's comes in next week.  Needless to say, I came home and immediately tried it out.

I had made this little 6" block to demo a Tri-Rec ruler and thought it would be perfect as my first subject.  I used a 30 wt. Aurifil cotton thread in a golden brown hue.  I was so excited I just could not wait to quilt something else, so I rifled through the now infamous closet and found a UFO that would be perfect for this style of quilting.

Count Down to Christmas, a Monique Dillard pattern, I had pieced last year.

Here is a close-up of the stitch.  It looks like hand quilting on the front and a straight stitch on the back of the quilt.  I am fascinated by how it works.  The only thread is in the bobbin, and a ingenious industrial engineered combo of a hook and needle pull the thread to the front to look like hand stitches.

Needless to say, I am itching for another project to quilt.

So, I searched my bucket of future quilts and found the fabrics and pattern for a darling small quilt called A Rainbow Garden, designed by Glenda of Liberty Homestead.

You can see her designs here.

I forget that a small quilt can take as long as a full sized quilt to construct, so it will be awhile before I can use Sashi again.  

The pattern is from her book, Farmhouse Quilts, The Scrap Basket.

You can find it here.

It is the quilt in the center at the bottom of the page. Oops, it is the one in the top left corner!

Here is my first block:

Only 46 of those little 2" finished pinwheels to make!  And then there are the 6 baskets, the embroidery and then the wool applique. It will be awhile before I am back with a flimsy.

I have kept up with my monthly goals.  My pile of flying geese is growing, another set of blocks for my red and white quilt are done and my Le Jardin block is close to completion.

This one has been hard for me to keep on task with.  It is not my favorite block in the quilt from a design standpoint and all those tiny leaves!  Only 4 more to sew down.

Finally,

the beginnings of my red and green quilt.

Yes, I have been a busy bee.

Between the Australian Open Tennis Tournament and football playoff games, I have had a lot of time to sew!  Very sad my 49ers did not make it to the Superbowl, but I am a chameleon who now wears the Seahawks colors!

Back to making pinwheels. 

 Hope I can keep up this productivity with all the projects I have in the works.

Spring on my mind

First, another Kim Diehl flimsy from her book,

Homestyle Quilts.

I decided to machine applique this project, so it went pretty fast.  I am debating on quilting it myself, but I sure would love to see some fancy quilting in those borders.  I will finish it up with a scrappy binding.

Then, a small quilt designed by Lori Smith.

It is wool on flannel.  My plan is to quilt it with big stitch quilting and then frame it. 

Now time for a little humility.

People do not believe me when I tell them I sew in chaos.

The other morning I had to laugh at the level of chaos that existed in my sewing room.

My main sewing area.

Quilts in various stages draped over the chair, beckoning me to work on them.

4 different projects on the design wall.

The infamous craft closet! Believe it or not, this is when it is looking fairly organized.  I know where everything is in there.  If I clean it up, I cannot find a thing!

Well, I have sufficiently embarrassed myself, so I am off to watch the 49er's football game and do some handwork...lots of it to be done.

Hope you are enjoying a pieceful day!

A new year and a new project!

 Another Geoff's Mom pattern.
Karen, the Log Cabin Quilter, is where I first saw this quilt and then my friend, Lin, also made it.  Her's hangs at TOWQS and has been a huge success. The kits for the quilt have been flying out the door!
 I will be helping a group of ladies construct this quilt over the next 4 months and this is my first row.  The lettering is done in wool and I used Aurifil's Lana 12/2 wool thread to machine blanket stitch it down. I had wanted to try it and this was the perfect project to do so.  It handled so nicely and did not fray or break. It made quick work of what could have been a very long process if done by hand. I will be machine appliqueing this one as well.  You can see the full quilt here. My version will not be as prim as I will be using more cotton prints and fewer homespuns.

We spent the first week of the new year in Colorado rollicking in the snow. I purposely left all my sewing projects behind, but managed to make a little progress on a McKenna Ryan landscape quilt I have been working on for several years.  It is made from batiks and is all raw edge applique. Really just lots of detailed cutting, but choosing the fabrics is the best part. Sorry, I did not take any pictures of it.  I won't work on it again until this summer.  

Here is the stocking my DD and I designed and constructed for my granddaughter in those last days before Christmas.  Quick, simple, but we love it.

During the holidays, I loved seeing all the red and green quilts in blogland and on Pinterest.  Therefore, I have added one to my blockhead projects and will start on the first block today.  I have the solid red and cream fabrics, but have not found a perfect green yet.  Any suggestions?
Here is the EQ7 image.

The perfect pairing of piecing and applique for me.  It was inspired by Kim Diehl's Idaho Lily.  I am still keeping my eyes open for her new club. 

Oh, it is nice to be home in my sewing room! 

Handmade gifts...

Nothing better!

A pincushion for my friend, Deb.

This was a freebie from Whimsicals.

And now, those cross-stitch ornaments.

One for each of my children and my granddaughter.

I originally blogged about my goal to stitch one of these ornaments each month back in December of 2011.  Mary of Quilt Hollow and Darlene of Quilting Daze thought it would be fun to do the same.  When I mentioned my new blockhead goals, Mary teased me about our ornament goals way back when.  

Ah, the gauntlet had been thrown.

So I just had to finish up the one I started in Feb. 2012 and then made the other three this last month. It was fun mounting and finishing them with a little help from a friend.

My DD and I started two simple stockings for my SIL and granddaughter today.  

Yup, that is me...the procrastinator.

And I did get my blockhead blocks made this month!  Finished another row of my red and white quilt, but I have only pulled the fabrics for the next LeJardin block.  I will not get it stitched, but hope to at least get it all prepped soon. 

Have you seen this:

As you know, I am a big Kim Diehl fan.  I love the Idaho Lily in the upper left.  I have been looking for a red and green quilt pattern...this could be it, at least a small one to start with.

I wonder if it will be run like the Jo Morton club.

Baking, stocking making and yes, Christmas shopping starts tomorrow, 

so I will see everyone in the New Year. 

Snowbound

is an official flimsy!

I decided not to include the embroidered snowflakes that were on the original.  

I'm not that good at embroidery, so I would not want to ruin it at this point.

While searching for a lost quilt in my "quilt closet," the one with the warning sign on the door, I decided it was time to make something out of all the random blocks I have collected.

I choose my favorite house blocks and put them together into this little fellow.  I was inspired by Temecula Quilt Co.'s version.

I also quilted and framed my twisted heart from a few years back.

Now I just have Farmer's Wife blocks, Barbara Brackman Civil War blocks and two collections of exchange blocks to figure out what to do with. 

We had a lovely visit over Thanksgiving week in northern California. Now it is time to decorate for Christmas!  I don't think I will get to any of my blockhead projects until the end of the month, BUT...I am working on 2 cross-stitch ornaments!  Stay tuned.  Mary and Darlene will get a laugh out of this one.

Blockhead Project

I went back to Anna's original post about her blockhead idea, and reread her concept. Although she states you can make up your own rules, I like the idea of using the concept to work on quilts I have hanging around my sewing room, but have never started.  

Christmas Magic by Kim Diehl is one such project. 

 I bought the background yardage the first time I saw the project, but that is as far as I got.  

The project requires 88 of these blocks.

 And each block has 2 flying geese...that is 176 flying geese...YUK!

A total of 8 different fabrics are used to make theses units; so if I make the blocks out of one fabric per month, at the end of 8 months all the tedious piecing work is done!

Of course, my enthusiasm for a project is always its greatest at the beginning, so I already have 2 months worth of blocks made.

Four of the blocks are used to make these units that will be in the center of the quilt.

I am using Open Gate's Fit to Be Geese Ruler to make my flying geese.  I am a big fan of making things over-sized and then custom cutting them to the desired size. I think these are coming out pretty darn good.

I will also continue to make one Le Jardin block per month and a set of red and white blocks per month, but those were actually WIPs and her concept was not really intended to finish up UFOs or WIPS.

The final border of Snowbound is done, so I'll be back soon with a finished flimsy.  Might be awhile before I get anything to the finish line.  My favorite machine quilter retired and one of the best longarm quilters in the state just gave birth to her first child. I am one of those quilters who likes to quilt by check, but will do some of my smaller projects myself.  

Hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving!

 I get to be a guest this year!

A Few Finishes and I am a Blockhead!

It's A Grand Old Flag is an official finish.

As I was putting on the binding, I noticed the machine quilter had missed one of the leaves.  Then I noticed she was not the only one...

I had not blanket stitched around 4 of the red stars!

I had a good laugh and will try to correct my error...some day.

Anna, over at The Woolie Mammoth, came up with a great motivational idea...Blockheads.

I don't know all the details, but I decided to use her idea to help me finish up some WIPs. 

If I understand the approach correctly, once a month I will work on just one block each from the projects I want to complete. So my projects are Le Jardin, my red and white quilt and the hexie quilt.

Here is my progress.

Block #7

I am doing them in a strange order, AND I made a mistake on this one too.  After I had the house appliqued down, I figured out I had cut the background the wrong size.  No way was I going to start over, so I cut the side strip a little wider.  Hopefully, I will not notice it too much.

Wish I had drafted this one as a full size quilt.  I will finish it off with a wide solid border of either the red or the white and applique some birds and berries on it.  Like Le Jardin, it is definitely a long term project.  Working in just two colors and repeating the same block over and over again is not my favorite type of piecing!

Unfortunately, I did not get a hexie block made today.  Ah, but the month is young!