Easy Street Mystery #1

Apparently I'm the last quilter on earth who hasn't heard of Bonnie K. Hunter's mystery quilts over at Quiltville! I just saw some posts about it on Monday, when I was looking at linky parties. After looking at the Quiltville blog, I decided to jump in, even though the mystery started last Friday. (Because I need another project like I need a hole in my head...LOL).

Although I love the colors Bonnie is using, I really don't have a lot of fabrics in those colors in my stash. What I do have a lot of is Christmas, Christmas, and more Christmas fabrics! So I'm going to make my Easy Street quilt with those. In place of Bonnie's lime, teal, and purple, I'll be using red, green, and gold fabrics. (I haven't had a chance to pull those out yet for a picture.)

Instead of Bonnie's gray, I'll be using several white-on-white fabrics.You can see some of them here. There are snowflakes, Santas, angels, Christmas trees, etc. A few of these are not Christmas-specific white-on-whites.

For my "background" fabrics, instead of using black on white, I'm using red on white, red and green on white, and green on white (well, I still need to go buy some green on white fabric...). I know these choices will change the overall look of the quilt, but that's part of the fun of making a mystery quilt, right?

Last night I cut several strips of fabric for step one, so now I've got lots of sewing to do. I hope to get caught up, but I don't know if that's realistic for this time of year, especially since I'll also be doing "December Daily" again with Ali Edwards. It's a daily scrapbooking project that I've done for the past three years.

I'm linking up to Quiltville's Easy Street Link Up #1.

Happy stitching!

AP&Q Mystery Quilt Border 1

Over the long weekend, besides piecing my November CQJP block, I was able to do more work on my American Patchwork and Quilting Mystery Quilt. I got the blocks in the center all sewn together with the setting triangles.

Then I finished piecing the first border and attached that to the center.

It's getting so big that it's harder to take a photo of it :) For this last photo, I put it on the floor and stood on the sofa to get far enough away so that the whole quilt would be in the frame! Unfortunately, it's getting dark so early these days that there wasn't much sunlight when I got home from work today, so the pics are a bit dark.

Now I just have the two other borders, neither of which is pieced. I might actually finish a quilt the same year I started it!!!

I'm linking up to Judy's Design Wall Monday, Linky Party Tuesday at Freemotion by the River, and Fabric Tuesday at Quilt Story.

Happy stitching!

November CQJP block pieced

I started piecing my November block for CQJP a few weeks ago and finished it this weekend. I will embroider the name of my city and state in the arc of the fan. I traced the words using a fine black marker, like I did for my kids' names and birthdays on their blocks. Then the embroidery will be in black floss. I've blurred out that part for privacy, which is why it has that black marbled-look. The fabric is actually a cream dupioni silk. You can see what it looks like over on the left side of the block.

I've been taking advantage of having extra time off work (or am I just procrastinating doing Christmas stuff? LOL). I'm off to go work some more on my AP&Q Mystery Quilt...

Happy stitching!

Christmas has come Early!

Look at the beautiful Christmas ornament I just got in the mail from Lisa's Crazy Quilt Ornament Swap! Peg S. made it, and she calls it "Victorian Christmas." The actual crazy quilted part is 5" long and 4" wide at the widest. Then that gorgeous fringe is another 4". You can't see real well, but the fringe has silver sequins all over it.

Here's the silver beading that goes on the upper right side of the orny, along with the stitched and beaded seam treatment.

The silver lame piece has more beading. Although it looks black in the photo, the fabric in the lower left of this picture is actually a navy velvet with more meandering stitching and beading. In the upper right, you can see where Peg stitched her initials and the year.

Here's the center patch. The fabric on the upper left is another shiny silver color, filled with beads and sequins.

This fabric is on the left side of the ornament. The fabric itself is sparkly, and Peg added stitching and beads.

 

As much as I love looking at all the eye candy online, I love even more getting to see someone else's crazy quilting in person. It's so inspiring! So thank you, Peg, for making this beautiful ornament and thank you, Lisa, for hosting the orny swap!

 

If you want to see the ornament I made for the swap, click here.

 

Now all I want to do is go work on my crazy quilt block, but unfortunately, there's housework calling my name. Maybe tonight?

 

Happy stitching!





October CQJP block

I hope all my fellow Americans had a wonderful Thanksgiving yesterday! We had a relaxing day at home. Although it was just the five of us, we still had a full, traditional Thanksgiving dinner. I had my husband and the kids help out with two dishes each, so it was pretty manageable for me. After we ate, we played Monopoly. Not my favorite board game, but if that's what it takes to have some family time with my teenagers, then bring it on!

Then in the evening, I had some time to work on my CQJP block from October. I finished it. It's not quite how I had envisioned it, but I still like it. What I first tried as a frame around the photo just wasn't working, so I opted for this lace instead.

Here's a closeup of the MOP buttons and clear beads that surround the photo.

I added gold seed beads, translucent sequins, and pearly-white seed beads to the seam on the left side of the photo.

I embellished the strip of white lace with pearl-white drop beads and larger "bubble" beads.

I bought these silver number charms at Hobby Lobby. 1990 is the year we got married.

Since I have today off work, I'm hoping to finish piecing my November block for CQJP. Hopefully I'll have it posted by the end of the weekend.

Happy stitching!

AP&Q Mystery Quilt Progress

 Last weekend, I was at a scrapbooking retreat with some friends in a small resort town about an hour away from home. Saturday morning, I went out running and saw this quilt block on the side of a house. I love seeing the wooden quilt blocks on barns, houses, and other buildings! Sorry for the poor quality of the picture. I took it with my phone while I was out on my run, and I don’t have a “smart phone” ~ mine’s a dumb phone!

 

I’ve done a bit of work on my American Patchwork and Quilting magazine 2012 mystery quilt. Before I went on my scrapbooking retreat, I sewed the setting triangles onto the blocks. I decided to use the same four fabrics for each block, using each fabric on a different side of the block. I think this is how I will arrange the blocks.

 

More recently, I made all of the 3 ½ inch hourglass blocks for the middle border. Here’s the stack of 64 hourglass units.

Here are a few of the hourglass blocks. For some of the blocks, I used the fabrics from the main blocks. I also used a few fabrics from some fat eighths that were given to me by my “secret sister” when I was a member of a local quilt guild a few years ago.

Just this weekend, I was poking around on some blogs, and saw that every Monday, Judy over at Patchwork Times hosts a blog linky party for what’s on your design wall. I’m linking up with her today. I'm also linking up with Connie's Linky Party Tuesday. Thanks for stopping by!

Happy stitching!

Crazy Quilt Journal Project 2013

If you’ve been to the CQJP 2012 blog recently, you’ll know that Kathy has put up the information to register for CQJP 2013. Even if you didn’t participate in CQJP 2012, you are invited to try the challenge in 2013. Basically, you just have to make a crazy quilt block each month that is equal to a 6 X 6 inch block (36 square inches) or larger. See the blog for all the rules and guidelines. You can participate whether or not you have your own blog. It’s a fun way to see crazy quilting from stitchers all over the world!

I’ve started thinking about what I want to do for 2013. If I stay on track and finish 12 blocks of my anniversary quilt this year, I will still have 10 blocks to make. My goal is to have 25 blocks done for my 25^th wedding anniversary in 2015. I made three blocks before CQJP started, then the 12 from this year equals 15 completed, so I will need 10 more.

I don’t really want to make all 10 of those blocks next year. We are already signed up to help chaperone another trip to Europe with students from my husband’s school in 2014, so I will want to make a block from that trip. I also want to include a block with a photo of the two of us from 2015. Not to mention that I am kind of tired of working on basically mono-chromatic blocks of white, cream, and gold all the time!

So, the idea that’s brewing in my mind is to make a wall-hanging crazy quilt of nine squares, probably 8 X 8 or 9 X 9 inches. I’m still thinking out the details, but I think this will be something I can hang up in the spring to celebrate Easter.

That will take me nine months and then I’ll have three months in 2013 to work on three more blocks for my Anniversary quilt.

That’s my plan for now, at least. I’ll keep you posted.

Happy stitching!

October CQJP block work

Here's the work I've done recently on my October block for CQJP 2012.

On this seam, I did a zig-zag stitch with a thicker "velvet" thread. Then I made straight stitches and lazy daisy stitches.

 I used feather stitch to couch down this thick, metallic gold "Radiance" thread.

Two rows of chevron stitch in different threads, topped off with silk ribbon French knots on the outer edges of the stitching.

I added a piece of lace to this seam to bring another element of texture to the block. I think I'm ready to applique the photo onto the center of this block.

 

Happy stitching! And if you live in the USA, please go exercise your right to vote today!

November First Friday UFO

Happy First Friday of November! This month, I made another block for my All Star (UFO) quilt. This one has a nine-patch in the center of it. I love nine-patch quilts. In fact, one of my other UFO projects is a red and white double-nine-patch quilt :)

 Here's a close-up of the white-background "USA" fabric.

In this picture, you can just barely see that the red fabric has "fireworks" in the background of the white stars.

For those hit by Hurricane Sandy, I am praying for you.

Happy stitching!