Hearts and Gooses

 I have been a sewing fiend.    Lots and lots of work done. 

First I have made great project on my Broken Heart quilt.  All the patchwork is put together.  Yeah!!!!!

About 45 inches square.   I am abandoning borders. It can be a wall hanging, baby or toddler quilt. 

I really stewed and stewed on the color arrangement: 

Here are only a couple of them.  They laid on the floor for a couple days and I would switch this or that. And then I took more of the whites out and just decided it was done.  I don't think there is a perfect arrangement for  this with so many colors. 

On to the quilter.  ( Although I could have done it at this size.)

Additionally, I spent lots of hours putting this together.  This is my gooseberry patch quilt started in February if 2018.  These are the components that I have been assembling and putting together over the several years. It is a Kansas Troubles pattern. And although I have fat quarters accumulated for a different quilt, I added a few more specifically for this quilt as I needed more greens and reds. 

                

I finished that last 2 sections of lots of half square triangles, and then stated assembling.  It was pairs of borders one after another.  And fortunately they have all fit. 

Well until the very last black one along the long sides.  At this point it is 64 by 84 inches.

I have 2 more borders to add around the whole thing.  ( It was meticulously ironed yesterday until I scrunched it being frustrated with the math.) 

New finishes, new projects

First of all, this is on the wall in the front hall.     A UFO DONE! 

 And much as I love hexies and piecing them, this is made from yardage of different fabrics. 

The whole piece is comprised of 11 strips of different fabrics WOF.  

Then I trimmed it to a much narrower piece.  The only real piecing I did was to make the leaves and applique them. It all came in a kit from McCall's and included the pattern, fabrics, and the ribbon. 

Next is an ironing board cover. The photos are in reverse order.

Here is the finished board mounted on top of a normal ironing board. ( just set over the existing one)

This is the finished board on top showing the heat resistant fabric on top after completed.

This is the underside of the board.  Notice the raised pieces of wood framing a rectangle. 

The 3/8 inch board was cut 22 by 61 inches total. 

I had purchased the frame many years ago from a fellow quilter whose husband had made her one and then she took orders for others.

Here is a finished corner. You can sort of see the raised framing boards as well as the batting underneath the heat resistant fabric The boards are 2 and 1/4 inches from each side. 

Sorry, I don't have the directions to make it. 

We just had to cover it and did so with 1/4 inch staples. 

My husband was the handyman of the job.  I just followed a video on Youtube to know how to apply the batting. My job was to help stretch and hold the batting and fabric prior to his staples. 

We used 3 layers as it was fairly thin and then heat the resistant fabric.   

Two steps: First the batting was stapled down around the whole edge and I folded  hospital corners.

 Then we did the same thing with the silver fabric  only mitering the corners a little more.

The batting was a twin size and the fabric was 2 yards, trimmed at the end. 

Here is a better picture of the board standing on end. 

New Project: Stitched from the Heart

This is a free pattern from Fat Quarter Shop having 2 sizes 12 by 12 or 35 by 35.

There is also a video tutorial where 8 gradations of pink and white fabric was used with triangle on a roll paper. 

There is also a free cross stitch pattern to go with it. 

I am making this as my donation quilt for Hands2 Help on Confessions of a Fabric Addict.

But I am donating this for Healing Hearts which is an organization my husband volunteers for which has 2 seasons of 13 week meetings with kids and their families who have deceased or incarcerated members. This is for their fundraiser in 3 weeks. 

Here is a photo of part of the pattern with the layout. Sorry, my printer streaked. 

These are the colors I am using.  I did a rainbow heart quilt last year as well and it made 150 Dollars. Wow!

Here is the start of the half square trianges.

And I love how all the trimmed sections made such a colorful pile. 

And here is the layout so far.  As I only used squares not the 2 blocks together on the triangle paper, I came up short.  So I have a 2nd pack to start on. 

Then I ordered more charm packs for the borders as I have increased by blocks to 4 inches ( from the 1 or 3 inch ones in the pattern).  I plan to make it lap size. 

 

Getting things done!

 

😊

It has been a somewhat productive week.  I hate that the weather turned cold again and we even had an incredible snowstorm. It accumulated for a couple inches and melted all in the span of a couple hours.  So weird and slushy and wet!

But I did finish this cross stitch.  I just need their eyes and nose a whole 3 crosses per Peep. 

Then to mount it on a wood block for my tier tray.

Then I attacked the UFO project to get it done.  I cut the width down to make it more suitable for a wall.

I did applique the leaves by machine and felt pretty good about that.

Then I spent a couple hours quilting it. I found a lovely pink gingham to back it and have the binding attached as well in the same fabric. I was careful to free motion the outline of the hexie design for each flower and  all the way up and down the stems and leaves in one pass. Then just some horizontal lines. Yeah for my walking foot. Super slick! And tonight I will hand sew the binding. 

Lastly I saw some of these vinyl project bags for cross stitch on Fat Quarter Shop.  There are several tutorials on Youtube.  This is the one I used :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NI8xqwexL8Q

It is a Riley Blake one and was well done. 

I made mine a little smaller only 10 by 12.   I did quilt the layers myself. 

This is really a nice lime green. Sorry for photo issues. 

The polka dots created a great line for following to quilt again using my walking foot. 

This is the back once it is done.  The binding was sewn to the back, wrapped to the front and then machine stitched.  For this  I did not want to sew through the vinyl by hand.  It was a little tricky to machine sew and having the tissue paper that it came with between the vinyl and feed dogs on the machine was essential. 

But I really loved how it turned out and look forward to using it. 

I might even make some for our guilds boutique then we have our sale this summer. 

A little of this and that

 On the needlework front, I have been working on this cross stitch for a few weeks as in starting it before Easter. Originally it was a much bigger piece with a Peeps quote on it; however, the painted canvas with acrylic and fabric medium proved difficult to stitch on as a larger piece.   I love the color. But I reassessed, and then made it much smaller using only 3 peeps.  It is about 3 by 4 inches.  And I should not have used 3 strands of floss. But hindsight is hindsight and I will not start it a 3rd time. It will be done very far in advance for next year. It will still make a great addition to my tiered tray. 

And as I enjoy all your favorite projects on the various blogs I browse over the week,  I am following Maggie Fellow's advice  on Making a Lather to get out a WIP to finish.   I made this small wall quilt top last year. It was an easy top with 11 various fabrics stitched from selvage to selvage.  It was a McCalls kit with preprinted  and coordinating fabrics.  I love the hexie print and tried making some solid color smaller ones for additional flowers and abandoned that.  So now I am just going to add some bright leaves and quilt it. Perhaps I will add to the picket fence with a vine and small flowers?  Waiting for inspiration to peek its head. 

Here are 20 bright green leaves using Lori Holt's method of using an interfacing product, sewing on the lines, slitting the back and turning it right side out.  In my photo you can see the tool I used for poking the edges.  It's purpose was more for paper crafting.  But it worked out well.  There are 2 tones of lime green. 

Lastly,  I put together my pieces for my rounded log cabin blocks.  This is for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge which color is blue for April.  I selected only light and medium shades, saving darks for later. I made 8 blocks total.  One was missing for the photo. 

Four of them were sewn into a circle. The leftovers will either become another one or be used as half circles or settings around the circles: to be decided at layout time.   Each small block is 5 and 3/4 inches at this point. 

It is so nice to have my machine to work on again. 

Missing in Action

 Dear quilting friends. 

I feel like time has flown.  But my absence was due to a few reasons. 

First, my spouse and I had a wonderful trip to see our grandboys in Louisiana.  It was absolutely wonderful weather and I wore short sleeves all week.  Such heaven.  But of course the best part was being with those 2 giggly little guys.  I got to hold them in my lap and read books and create projects and share meals.  And I just got to hold and love them.  Oh, that is truly the best. I had missed them so. 

                             

Selfies are not the best way to take pictures.  But I love them just the same. 

                               

We planned this week as the kids were off school.  One day we had a great hike and wading in a stream at the Kisatchie National Forest.  So pretty. Here is my HB, the boys and my daughter in law. 

We had to eat the local food and our favorite dinners were fried catfish and crawfish. Yum!

                         

Here is the Easter hat we designed for school. Jensen and I painted the white hat orange. And then we added all the sports shaped eggs. He even helped string eggs. 

The time passed much too quickly.  And my boys and I had a few tears when it was time to leave. 

But we already have a vacation planned for us all in June. 

Then upon returning, I worked on some projects not requiring my favorite sewing machine which had been in for a "spa" treatment.  

I made more hourglass blocks for the Timeless Tidbits quilt from Temecula Quilt Shop. Lots of half square triangles realigned to make the hourglasses. 

I not have 230 blocks completed, which were made in groups of 10 of the same colors. 

Only 170 more to go before assembling the quilt. 

Here are some of them.

Then I thought I ought to protect the spa treatment to keep up from becoming too dirty. 

I know it really needed a good cleaning and adjusting. 

So I had this pattern from Thimble Blossoms. 

                                         

I used a charm pack and some Thimbleberries fabrics. More half square triangles assembled and joined 

Then I added the remaining strips of fabric, adapted the size for my machine. 

I wanted to quilt in cross hatching.  And as I contemplated it.  I noticed the print already had that design built into it.  Bonus!

I then added the ties and the binding, my first attempt at doing it by machine.  It turned out just great

And voila!  it is done!