A finish.......

I completed the binding on my Starlight Wishes quilt and was able to bring it outside for a couple of pictures today. I went with a blue binding.

A close up of one of the swirls in the stars and the echo quilting in the border.

CanuckQuilter will have this pattern for sale soon on her blog. It was such a fun pattern to make. Thanks Joanne for letting me test out your pattern.

Design wall Monday....

The lawn desperately needs mowing.... I did try to start the riding lawn mower but it did not even try to turn over for me. That told me I should be inside sewing instead of outside doing yard work! =)

I finished the quilting on Starlight wishes - three walking foot lines outlining the prairie points on the outer border and nice swirls in the stars. Then came the binding color decision. I took pictures and sent them to Mom....and the email was not going through. Oh well, the coin toss and enough fabric had one of these three winning - yellow, blue or red. Which do you think won?

Starlight Wishes.

My hugs and kisses quilt has been sitting patiently for the borders to be added for a while now. I counted them up and needed 8 more peels as of last week so I prepped them and did them up last Wednesday. Today I sewed them together and added the top and bottom border......... Now I am not sure I like it! I think it distracts from the rest of the top...... I think there will be a bunch of unpicking in my future of those border peels.... and then I can prep this quilt for hand quilting, without those peel borders. Hmmmm. Maybe a plain border in between the two? What do you think?

With peel border

Without peel border.

Slow Stitching Sunday....

I have no clue what I will be slow stitching later today. It might be some hexagon flowers..... the pink ones in the baggie. The orange are all made into flowers already.

It might be some appliqué if I prep that second Century Quilt December block...

It might be some hand quilting - Little T quilt ...

Whatever I choose I am sure it will be a nice relaxing time with just some needle and thread.

Head on over to Kathy's Quilts and see what other slow turtle stitches are being worked on today. As for me - I get to work the last day of our fall sale - a short four hour day but I expect we will be hopping.

I'd also like to wish my darling hubby a Happy 8th Anniversary today. It has been a fun ride so far and I am so looking forward to the rest of our lives together. A big thank you to Grandma H for keeping the kids overnight last night. It was so nice not to be woken up around 6 on a Sunday morning.

A busy week....

Not much to show this week on the sewing front. I am working on machine quilting the Starlight Wishes quilt and have done the out lines of the black in the middle section. I have a few diamonds left to go - maybe 9 or so. Then I'll attempt swirls...... then the outline of the prairie points on the border.

The kids are off school today so I plan to put them to work weeding and prepping a garden this morning... a little late but we should have a few months of good weather to get some beans, peas and hopefully some cucumbers to grow down here.

I got a box of tomato's this week and canned 14 pints of tomato's and then made pizza sauce with the rest. 8 half pints and two pint jars of that was canned. Looks like everything sealed so it just needs a wipe down, marking date and what it is and then put up in the pantry. Em wants pizza tonight to test out a little that did not make it into a jar. The other 7 jars of tomato are already in the pantry. I see Mom's tomato soup in my future next week =).

Aidan had his allergist appointment on Tuesday. He is only allergic to two things - mold and dust mites. We are trying Allegra twice a day and a nasal steroid once a day for a few weeks and we'll see where we go from there. He has been able to sleep without issues and no humidifier and the sneezing has gone way down so hopefully this will work. I do notice he sneezes more after coming in from outside - Florida humidity so I'm sure there is mold growing everywhere out there.

I did get a chance to hand stitch this week and got my 10 hexagons done..... ok I have one more hexagon to add to that leaf one. I did find a jelly roll (2.5 inch strip of width of fabric-  Mom) of peaches and orange in the closet so I'll use that to make my other 3 or so. Just need to cut and prep my 12 churn dashes for stitching next week.

I also finished the latest dish cloth in the car line yesterday. I got a new light pink yarn from Joann's a while ago on sale for $1.99 and it is so soft. Em was playing with it and the tag with information was tossed so I have no clue the name but it is so much softer than the sugar and cream yarns I usually use. I think the rest will be making a crochet dish cloth with a new to me pattern.

Time to use up some of the pumpkin puree in the freezer - I'm going to try pumpkin-apple streusel muffins this morning. This is the haul minus the one I had to eat right after they came out of the oven. All I can say is..... these will be made again very soon. Oh, so yummy! I wonder if any will be left to take into work tomorrow? I'm guessing not. Now... do I dare to make the pumpkin cookie recipe I found yesterday? I think I'll wait for next week on that one. Until then... must not eat more of the muffins this morning - three should be my limit!
The kids are playing 'farm' with trips to the store for creamer, the vet for animal checks and now Emily is baking in her kitchen - a peach cobbler with extra ketchup! It is her secret ingredient =). Think I'll put them outside to pull weeds from the garden so we can plant before the rain starts.

Around the World Blog Hop....

Kathy over at Empty Nest but Full Heart nominated me this time to do the Around the World Blog Hop. I have been asked a few times over the last month or so to do this but life was a little busy. It has calmed down to my 'normal' busy so I figured I'd give it a go this week.

What am I working on? 
I like to have various projects in process so I can work on whichever one I am in the mood for! I always have to have some sort of hand work ready to go since I have five days of waiting in the car line at school for about 20+ minutes. It is amazing what you can get done in 10-20 minutes here and there during the day if you are prepared. There is always some yarn in my busy bag with my trusty #8 bamboo knitting needles for dish cloths.

I do a Tiny Tuesday which originated with Midget blocks of 4.5 inches but this year I am doing a 6 inch block in red/maroon, white/cream and blue from The Civil War Diary book.

I join in with Angela over at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge on Saturdays where she selects one color a month for us to play with our scraps and create whatever we like. This year I am making churn dashes, a 16 patch block  - which I seem to be missing dark blue and purples! and hand piecing hexagon flowers in each color selected. I am also sewing along with her to create a Rainbow Scrap Sampler where she will pick a block and post the instructions for us to follow along with.

12 churn dashes a month in the color selected.

16 patch block made with 2.5 inch squares.

Hexagon flowers hand pieced (not EPP) 13 or so flowers a month with yellow centers.

On Sunday I join in with Kathy over at Kathy's Quilts and do some slow stitching - either hand stitching my hexagon flowers, appliqué on the Century Quilt blocks or hand quilting. I finished this hand appliqué block last Friday - time to put those 12 blocks together. There will be a dejavu of this one on my blog as I picked up two of this block from the Joann's BOM back in 2000. The extra block will become a pillow to go with the quilt.

Last week I was testing a pattern called Starlight Wishes by Joanne at Canuckquilter. It came out beautifully and I just got it pin basted today so I can machine quilt it the next time I have a block of kid free time - looks like Wednesday morning while they are in school. She will have this on sale later this month through her website.

My leader and ender project is doing one of the steps for Bonnie Hunters Celtic Solstice Mystery from last year. I am doing her color way of green, orange, blue, yellow and creams. I can't wait to start putting my blocks together but I have two more steps to go first. My goal is to have this quilt completed before the next mystery starts the day after Thanksgiving.



How does my work differ from others in its genre? 
Difficult question. I have been quilting since I got out of college back in 1992 and my style has evolved over the years. I have more fun playing with scraps to make my quilts rather than using just a couple of fabrics in a quilt like I did when I first started quilting. I tend to prefer the traditional patterns and fabrics rather than the new modern fabrics and patterns. I am trying out new techniques and ideas every month to try and grow as a quilter. I have gone from simple machine piecing and tying my quilts to machine and hand piecing as well as machine and hand quilting. I've taken the plunge and tried my hand at appliqué over the last few years and once the prep work is done it is very relaxing to run that needle through some fabrics.


Why do I write/create what I do?
I sew to relax and keep me sane! Well, as sane as I can get =). I have been told to 'go sew something in your sewing room' so even my loving family knows that Mommy is much happier after she has had a few minutes to play with some fabric in her sewing room.

How does my creating process work?
 I am just starting to be brave enough to try my hand at 'designing' or getting ideas from my head into a fabric form to make a quilt. I did this last year with my little apple quilt - which reminds me of home in Vermont (I relocated to Florida in the fall of 2011) and is hanging in my dining room. I was coloring with my kids and decided the apple would make a great little appliqué block. The color of the RSC Challenge that month was red so it fit perfectly. I hand appliquéd those onto fabric while waiting in the car line to pick up the kids from school. I love the nine patch so used that as my alternate block. Then I decided to hand quilt it... another fairly new skill. After much encouragement from my blogging friends over at Slow Stitching Sunday I had a completed wall hanging I am very proud of.



Like most others I also troll the web and get way too many ideas from other quilters and magazines. As you can tell from my long list of UFO's on the sidebar I have a lot of projects waiting for a finish (and sadly that is only some of them sitting out there patiently waiting to see the light of day again to get worked on to a finish!). To help me stay focused I have started joining Kathi over at DesignOriginals by KC at the end of the month for her list goals - link blog - party time. You make a list of things you would like to accomplish in the coming month and review how you did for the current month. It is a fun way to keep you on track and don't worry... there is no pressure if you just HAVE to start that new project that we seem to find every month!

Thanks so much to Kathy  for nominating me to do this. I did not tag anyone as most of you have already participated in the hop. If you would like to join in the fun, just leave me a comment and I'll point people towards your post next Monday.

Slow Stitching Sunday....

Today I will be doing a little prep work to make my orange hexagons so I can start my 13 hexagon flowers for the RSC Challenge quilt I am working on this year. I am going to have to dig and be creative to get my 13 I think. I've cut out the first six - time to mark my sewing line so I can start sewing. Of course, I'll be next to a Joann's Fabrics tomorrow while I pop into the store so maybe I need to get a few more oranges? ... I'll need them for Celtic Solstice too =).

I finished off the appliqué block from last week and you can see it here. That quilt is ready to be pieced together sometime soon.

Head on over to Kathy's Quilts to see what other slow stitching is going on today.

Are you feeling Orange?

Another Saturday of orange fun! I did not plan ahead with the orange this week so after work and a nice dinner with Greg I got to sew a little while he went to pick up the kids from Grandma.

My 16 patch block was cut and sewn together.

I also made this week's posted RSC sampler block.

Next week will be hexagon flowers I think and some of the churn dashes. The busy bag is down to knitting so those hexagons need to get prepped for car line and Aidan's allergist appointment next week.

I have been working this week on making this Starlight Wishes top. This is the completed top with the prairie points. My first time at the prairie points and I think I really like them! I went with black borders so I could use all my colors for the points. There was a little miscalculation by me in the amount of black I had so I had to piece some edges from a kaleidoscope quilt a few years ago to get the last 8 inches I needed. Thank goodness for that scrap bucket.

I hope to prep this one for some machine quilting next week. What color binding do you think I should go with? All colors or just one to end it off? I know I have enough of the bright blue, yellow, green or red to bind it with a single color. You can purchase this pattern over at Canuckquilter later this month. All her patterns are so clear and concise they are wonderful to work with.

I'm linking up with Angela at SoScrappy this week. Head on over to get inspired by some lovely orange projects.