A Finish!

Hello everybody!

You know what I've been working on today?

Yep that's right.  I was working on my Ph.D. or UFO whichever is easier for you to say.  I usually say UFOs but I couldn't resist using this meme.  :)

So what was the UFO that I worked on AND finished?  Before showing you, let me say that I couldn't sleep last night so I did something that I normally don't do.  I sewed early into the morning.  That was because I finally had made up my mind on what thread to use and how to quilt it.  So here is the results.

This is my Birthday Banner that I will use at work.  I will try to hang it up on the wall or over the window at work in May when we celebrate the May birthdays.  We don't have anybody's birthday in April and May is the month where MY two co-workers in the Dean's Office have their birthday.  So I thought to use this.  I might try to make them some mug rugs for their birthday this year too.  Perhaps ones which have cupcakes on them.  We don't exchange presents but I do like to give them some little thing each year.  Last year it was glasses from Dollar Tree which had cute little balloons on them and said Happy Birthday.  :)  It's not the best picture so I will try to take a better one in May.  Irregardless, it is one finished and no longer a Ph.D. or UFO.

Remember me saying that I was going to do Victoriana Quilt Design Stained Glass Striped quilt?  It starts April 5th but I have my squares of batting all cut out.  They do look kind of nice all neatly stacked up.  Now to look over and decide if I want to have specific colors in the quilt or if it will be totally scrappy.

(36) 6" squares

That's it for now.  My hand is hurting and I am having trouble gripping due to one finger hassling me.  We will come to some sort of an agreement sooner or later.   In the meantime I will do some crocheting, because I don't have to use the finger for that, and also some cross stitch.

I'll write more later and until then...

Have a great day/night.

Bug Off! Block 3

I have finished block #3 of Angie's Bits n Pieces Bug Off! BOM. 

It will be cute and look good with the other blocks.  Can't wait for April.  These are so much fun to stitch.

I think that I might also do the Victoriana Stained Glass Strings BOM which starts in April.  In getting ready for it, I have started to cut 6" blocks of batting.  This is a good chance for me to use up some of those scraps of batting that I am forever cutting off of my wall hangings.  I would have taken a picture of them but I'm still trimming them.  Let's face it, batting isn't THAT exciting.

This is just a small post because I have a lot to do so I'll stop here for today.

I hope everybody has a great evening/morning.  

It's Toot Your Own Horn Time Again

I just got word from The Quilt Pattern Magazine that I can toot my own horn again and show everybody my little umbrella.  This pattern will appear in the April Issue of The Quilt Pattern Magazine and is called April Showers.  It is a cute little pattern and I so loved making it.  It will hang up by my desk once April arrives because we all know that April showers are suppose to bring May flowers.

You can find information on The Quilt Pattern Magazine at:

http://www.quiltpatternmagazine.com/about.html

Some day I might make more of them (it's only around 9 1/2")  and put them into a wall hanging with the umbrellas tilted in all directions. 

That's it for now.  Time to get back to work.

Bonni

Update and quandary

Hi everybody.

I thought I would post some update pictures from my organization of scraps.  These will do for now but I will eventually have to get a better container for them but for now, until I finish (IF I finish) sorting these will have to do. 

The red/pink/blue/green box didn't have a lid so I had to make some dividers for it.  I was going to throw out the old and warped poster board that I had from Dollar Tree but instead used it to divide and label the box.  I also used a taller box because I use those colors a lot.  I will also put all of my 2 1/2" squares in a separate box in preparations for a watercolor quilt or just "because".

That is the easy part.  The harder part is my quandary.  I finished appliqueing a Happy Birthday runner which was put out by AccuQuilt YEARS ago.  I had Rose Hall from Custom Quilt Kits choose my fabric and cut out everything so all I had to do was fuse things down and stitch it.  So why did it take so long to get to this stage?  Because EVERYTHING takes me that long to do.  LOL.  Anyway, now that I have it ready to start to quilt, I'm not sure what color of thread do I want to use.

I only do straight line stitching so I have it marked on a diagonal. 

I am not sure I want to use purple on the white sections (the back is white so a white bobbin will be used) but I also don't want to use a white on the purple...or do I?

HELP!!!!!!

So help me decide.  Think there is little enough purple that the white won't matter that much?  I have a hard time using different color thread than the material.  As I get more confident in my quilting, perhaps that will diminish somewhat.  Also, what is your opinion of stitching through the letters and cupcakes.  I'm not going to stitch around all the letters.  Stitching the idea of stitching around the cupcakes was tossed out when I went with diagonal lines.  I'm getting tired of seeing this so I probably won't do a cross hatch either.  Just one line of diagonal.  It will be used at office birthday parties and put on the wall so food shouldn't get close to it...nor people to see it close up.

Awaiting your comments!

Bonni

PS:  Ignore the messy work area behind the Happy Birthday Banner. 

Snip Snip

I didn't get much done today because I was called to help Proctor Exams to high school students.  That took all day but after I got home, I started to pull out some scraps and decided it was time to get them cut and organized a bit more. 

My white/cream section need to be done and I might do that tomorrow.

I think that I will try to put them in containers by color groupings.  The pinks and reds might go in the same container etc.

This will be in preparation to making a wall hanging out of a book that was sent to me.

I will be using 2 1/2" squares for anything I make since that is what size the squares are on the fusible interfacing.

I need to cut some more fabric though.  I can see that one of my boxes or containers will be for "novelty and What The Heck fabric (WTH)".  WTH fabric is the fabric that I can't decide what color grouping it should go into.  I have to put it some place.  :)

That's it for now.  Time to get something to eat and then probably to bed.

Have a great day/night everybody.

Weekend Progress

I actually managed to get quite a bit done this weekend.  Since I didn't work today, my Monday was part of the weekend.  I finished my test pattern (YAY), finished the February BUG OFF!  block, fused the March BUG OFF! block and am half way done stitching that down, finished the teapot I showed you the other day, AND tried out my 2 1/2" pre-gridded interfacing.  So here are the results (minus the test pattern pix).

Charlie the Claustrophobic caterpillar in disguise as an inch worm 

The colors and layout for the March Bug Off! Butterfly

And now...to do some show and tell with the 2 1/2" pre-gridded fusible interfacing.

The proposed pattern (blue stripes are iron board cover)

I found some precuts of 2 1/2" squares so decided to use them.  THEN I found some left over 2 1/2" HST so I decided to test how they would work .  So I cut out a 4 x 4 grid pattern in the fusible interfacing.

Then I laid out the pattern on the fusible interfacing (bumpy side on back side of squares).

This required me to be careful and make sure that I "pressed" and not "ironed" the squares and fusible interfacing so that they would not get "out of order".  I still had a couple of them shift on me  but not enough to redo it.

The next step is to sew all vertical columns.  I folded it over and just lined up on the pre-gridded lines.  Notice that the other squares stay in place because of the fusible interfacing.

Repeat with the rest of the rows.

 When done you can see that it makes little waves.

Before stitching horizontally, you need to take a sharp pair of scissors and clip up to your sewn line.  That way when you fold back the horizontal rows, they completely fold back.

This little project is all sewn down.  Now to flip it, iron it, and see if all those points lined up as advertised.

 It worked!  Here is the picture after it was quilted.

I messed up on the binding but it will be ok for this little project.  It will be far enough away that people won't get up close to it (unless they want to climb over my desk and printer and scanner).  LOL.

How's that for making progress? 

That's my progress for this weekend.  Let me leave you with another one of the beautiful sugar creations. 

I hope everybody has a great weekend!

PROGRESS!!!!!!!

Yes I'm that excited.  I finished my test pattern and sent off the results.  I tried a new to me method of doing the binding on it and I have to say that I think it turned out quite well.  You'll see it after it has appeared in the magazine.  This method isn't new but I have, up to this point, always sewn my binding by hand (both the front and back).  It's only been within the last year that I have even started to mitre my corners!  Guess I must be learning stuff huh?  THIS time, however, I sewed the front on by machine and then stitched the back of the binding down by hand.  I had found a tutorial on it that made sense to me.  I am still having problems in joining the two end pieces together but I will figure it out eventually.  In the meantime my seam ripper isn't far from me.

That triumph lit that spark in me again and I looked at how far behind I am on the BOMs that I wanted to do.  Sigh.  I did realize that in Angie's Bug Off! BOM why I haven't finished the caterpillar.    I didn't like it.  Oh it's cute and I sort of liked how I had it laid out and stuff but not enough to continue to work on it.  Hello Mr. Seam Ripper.  I unpicked what I had fused on and then had a brainy idea.  I found some fabric that I wanted to use because in MY mind, Mr. Caterpillar was actually an inch worm.  I know...I know...inch worms don't have antennae.  Still I had to use this fabric!  So I think Mr. Caterpillar is either auditioning Halloween costumes or, because of the notoriety he is getting from being featured in Bug Off!, he is going undercover. 

I will work on him this weekend and even put in his antennae.

Another BOM block that I will be working on is the Tea Party BOM.  I might be redoing the tea cup, I'm not sure yet, but I did find material that I like for the teapot which is March's block.  I chose this fabric because it is similar to the pattern on one of the teapots that I have from my grandmother.

This is the BOM that I did that cake/cake stand for.  That might be redone because I found a fabric that has hummingbirds on it and my sense of humor says my cake might end up being a hummingbird cake.  LOL.   Plus I'm not happy with the background fabric so might have to change that out.  I am thinking I will both white on white and offwhite/beige on offwhite/beige for the background blocks.  Give it a little different look and dimension.

The other thing that I did different this weekend was that I printed the teapot up on Heat n Bond....pre-cut sheets.  I use Heat n Bond but haven't used the pre-cut sheets before.  The directions say to take out the copy paper and put one sheet of the Heat n Bond in the printer.  My printed didn't like that.  The Heat n Bond was too thin and the rollers wouldn't grab it so I put the regular copy paper back in behind the one sheet of Heat n Bond and it worked quite well.

I won't use the pre-cut sheets often because most designers spread out the individual pieces you need and it would have too much waste.  I wouldn't normally use it for this either since the opposite problem exists.  There wasn't ANY space between the pieces.  That's ok.  Even though some people think that I wasted paper and fabric, I can trace over the paper that is fused on the fabric for another project.  Did that make sense?  I'm sure you know what I meant to say anyway.  :)

I'm going to stop here so I can rest my wrist.  Yesterday, my wrist popped when I was stretching.  It's ok but tender and I want to take it easy on it today.  It is wrapped up for more support. 

So everybody have a great weekend and I'll check in tomorrow.

A Busy Sunday

This is going to be a short post but I wanted to show my small mini wall hanging that I finished. 

It's only 12" but I wanted something for March to put on the door to my office or to hang up by my desk.  I was going to make a table runner with three of the shamrocks but wanted to finish it.  Tomorrow I will take it to the office with me and hang it up.  Maybe next  year I might go ahead and make that table runner.  Don't hold your breath.  I can squirrel soooo many times in a year.  LOL.

I had made a list of things I wanted to work on and I think I have been somewhat successful on working on it.  Here's the list with my notations next to each item on my progress.

downloading and printing up patterns for the BOMs that I am in - I am caught up (until tomorrow when another pattern comes out).

trying to catch up on a block or two from February's BOMs (grins) - I am working on them but am making progress.

working on a test pattern for The Quilt Pattern Magazine which is due in a couple of weeks - I am stitching on it while at the computer.

cooking for the rest of the week - I put some meat in the crockpot last night, took it out this morning and put potatoes and carrots in the juices.  Took them out when they were done and then put in rice which finished cooking 30 minutes later.  Gotta love Crock Pot cooking.

Post on my blog  -  https://bonnis-life.blogspot.com - Yep.  Obviously I'm working on that now.

read part of a book - Yep.  I'm reading book 4 in the Annie's Attic Mystery series - Broderie Curse.

listen to part of a book on Audible - Probably right before bed.

I think that is pretty good progress.  I need to get back to it though so I hope everybody has a great night.

Before I go, a friend (Thanks Helen) sent me a link which had pictures of fantastic sugar work.  Since you all are so sweet I thought to share a couple of pictures with you from time to time.  Here are two of them.  Sugar work supreme!

Happy Stitching...

Bonni