Autumn Medallion ~ Border 1

I finished my first border for my Autumn Medallion quilt (my One Monthly Goal for February). This is the quilt that I'm making for my guild's medallion challenge this year. For the first border, our assignment was to make at least one snowball block and include the color red-violet somewhere in the border (the red-violet does NOT have to be a snowball).

I have many fond memories of taking the kids apple-picking in the autumn. There is a wonderful apple orchard about half an hour northwest of our house. Since I'm making an autumn-themed quilt, I decided to turn my snowball blocks into apples. I had seen a few quilts with snowball-apples on pinterest, and I got some tips from Lori Holt at Bee in my Bonnet. In keeping with my asymmetrical center, I only made blocks for two of the four borders:

Although the apple core block looks darker in the photo, it is actually a good red-violet color. I decided to make different colored apples, to represent some of the wonderful apple varieties out there. Also, with the different colors, I think that the red-violet blends in with everything better than if I had made all the other apples red.

As a 1st grade teacher, I couldn't resist using this adorable yellow fabric with white numerals for my golden delicious apple! (This photo makes the background look more blue, but it is really more like the first photo.)

So, I've finished my One Monthly Goal for February. Stop by Red Letter Quilts to see what other quilters have accomplished this month.

Happy stitching!

Design Wall Monday ~ Christmas in February?

Hello, I hope you're not tired of Christmas blocks! One of my quilting goals is to make at least one block per month for my Christmas Sampler quilt. Here's a little mitten block I made this weekend:

I got the idea from Lori Holt over at Bee in my Bonnet. This is such a cute block, I may need to make some more pairs of mittens for this quilt, using different fabrics. Who knows, maybe I'll make 5 pairs, since there are 5 people in my family? At this point, the block will finish at 9 X 6 inches, but I might add some Kona snow borders to enlarge it. It will all depend on what size I need when it comes time to put my "jigsaw puzzle" of a quilt together!

Head on over to Judy at Patchwork Times to see what is on other quilters' design walls.

Happy stitching!

Hexie Stars Update

Happy Valentine's Day! It's been snowing here all afternoon. My husband took the dog for a walk to the creek in the back of our property, but I'm quite content to sit here in the living room, enjoying the nice fire he built for me!

I've been slow stitching on my second star for my Hexie Stars quilt. Here is the center rosette. The center looks really dark in this photo, but it's the same Kaffe Fassett grape shot cotton that I used for the center of my first star.

 Here is one of the rosettes for the star point. I have two finished and I'm working on the third.

 None of the rosettes are sewn to each other, but this gives you an idea of how this star is shaping up:

What slow stitching have you been up to lately? I'm linking up with Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching and Sarah's HeLP for Hexie-aholics.

Happy stitching!

Medallion Challenge

I have a few things on my "design wall" this week.

 

My quilt guild has started a new (optional) challenge for 2016: a medallion challenge. To participate, members had to make a center block (any size you want) and bring it to our sew-in last Saturday. Each month for 5 months, we will be adding a border to the quilt top, based on certain specifications.

I want to make an autumn wall-hanging, so I made this 12 X 12" center block:

I wanted to play with size, so I made the red maple leaf 6 X 6, the three orange leaves are 3 X 3, and the yellow one is 4.5 X 4.5. At first I considered making a white background, but I opted for Kona azure instead, to look like leaves tumbling in the sky.

At the meeting, everyone who was participating wrote out a quilt block or technique (9-patch, applique, etc), and put their papers into a bag. The challenge coordinator pulled out one paper, and that is what we must incorporate into the first border. She also pulled a crayon out of a separate bag, and that is a color we must use in the first border. So everyone has to include at least one snowball block and the color red-violet in border #1. The snowball block does not have to be red-violet, and you can use any other blocks/techniques and colors that you want.

I spent some time this yesterday planning out what my border will be. Based on the center blocks that women brought to the guild meeting, it's going to be really cool to see what everyone does with the first border.

We have to bring our quilt to the February meeting. Apparently, if you don't finish the 1st border, you will get some sort of "penalty" that you have to do for the 2nd border, in addition to what everyone has to do on border #2.

I recently heard about One Monthly Goal (OMG) at Red Letter Quilts, so my goal for February is to make the first border for my medallion challenge. If you're not familiar with One Monthly Goal, hop on over there and see what it's all about!

In other news, I finished another block for my Christmas Sampler:

 

While I'm not a fan of machine paper-piecing, I fell in love with this 12 X 12 "Lone Starburst" block at Six White Horses. Since it's only one block, I decided to give it a try. Don't pay attention to the fact that the centers don't all meet up perfectly! I haven't seen the quilt police show up at my house EVER, so I think I'm safe from quilt jail. Ha Ha!

 

I'm linking up with Judy's Design Wall Monday and Heidi's One Monthly Goal.

 

Happy stitching!

Hexi Star #1 finished

I've finally finished the first star for my Hexi Stars quilt. Well, I actually finished it a few weeks ago, but I'm just now getting a chance to post it!

We had a little plumbing issue, so we had to take almost everything out of my quilting studio for the plumber to get at the plumbing behind the walls in there. Thankfully, there wasn't any water damage! However, everything is piled up on the ping-pong table and the family room floor, so I'm a bit unorganized with the quilting supplies right now. Instead of spending my time working on quilts, I've been taking some time to organize and purge everything. Since the studio is basically cleared out, I do not want to put anything back in there that I don't actually want or need! My husband got the new sheetrock put up this weekend and he is mudding it as I type. Next we need to paint, then I can start moving everything back in.

I'm linking up to Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching and Sarah's HeLP for Hexie-aholics (jump over to Sarah's to wish her a happy birthday...she's offering up a little "prize" in honor of her birthday).

Happy stitching!

December stitching

Hello! Since I'm on Winter Break, I decided to jump into blog-land and show you a bit of what I've been working on lately. Although I haven't blogged much, I have been able to spend some time in the studio these past few months.

I've started a new Christmas quilt. I know, I know. I've already got several other Christmas quilts in progress. But you know how it goes: I just couldn't resist this one! And all my other ones are supposed to be Christmas gifts for other people (when I eventually finish them!). This newest one is going to be for me.

It all started when our quilt guild board (I'm the guild secretary) was talking about doing some "block lotteries." We give the parameters for a certain block, and any member who wants to can make a block. You bring the block to the meeting, put your name in a hat, and if you win, you get all of the blocks for that month. When we were talking about making Christmas blocks for our October meeting, our president mentioned a virtual bee quilt she had seen, where the blocks are various sizes. Here is a photo of that particular quilt, from Better off Thread. We decided to have our lottery blocks all be 12" finished blocks. This is the block I made for the block lottery:

I got the directions from Ellison Lane.  After I printed out her template, I realized that my Tri-Recs ruler would make the same size triangles, so I used that instead of her template.

Since I didn't win the blocks from the guild, I decided to make my own Christmas sampler. I'm making the blocks different sizes, but in multiples of 3", so it will eventually fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. I'm also using some of the more modern Christmas colors of red, green, pink, lime green, and turquoise.

Here are the blocks I've made so far. First up is a 12 X 12" improv star, with some of the polka dot fabrics that I adore :

Next is this ornament. After I trim it, it should be a 9 X 9" block. I had seen some similar ornaments, so I pretty much figured up my dimensions. The actual ornament, without the hanger, is a 6" snowball.

 Here's another of the trees inspired by Ellison Lane's tree. This time I kept the tree seams horizontal instead of angled. Since I don't need this to be a 12" block, I kept it rectangular at 9 X 12".

I really like the stack of gifts in Better off Thread's quilt, so I figured up my own measurements for each gift. This will finish at 9 X 15".

What is Christmas without hot cocoa? Here's a mug for the quilt. I found the pattern via Pinterest, that wonderful source of inspiration.You can find the free pattern here. It's a cute quilt that makes 9 different mugs, so I chose one to make. I adjusted the white borders to make this a 12 X 15" block, or I may trim some of that top border to make it a 12" square. I'll see when I get to that spot.

The last block I've made so far is this log cabin house block. It's another one which I can adjust the size down the road, depending on what I need. Right now it's 15 X 15", but it could go down to 12 X 15".

And that's all I've done so far on this Christmas quilt. I'm having fun making a large variety of blocks. Like most of my quilts, I have no deadline for it, but I would love to have it finished by Thanksgiving. Wishful thinking, I know!

I'm linking to Freemotion by the River's linky party.

Happy stitching!

Slow Stitching

Hello, Friends!

Now that the craziness of the first few months are school are over (including Parent-Teacher Conferences this past week), I feel like I can take a deep breath, relax, and check in with my quilty friends!

Although I haven't blogged since August, I have been taking time in the evenings and weekends to do some stitching. Even if I can only find 15 minutes to stitch one seam, I find that hand stitching is so relaxing, and I prefer to keep my hands busy when I'm watching TV ~ otherwise, watching TV seems like a waste of time to me!

I'm almost finished with the first star for my Hexi Stars EPP quilt:

 

Since the star is getting larger, I've been mostly working on it at home. When I'm out and about (or riding in the car), I've been basting hexies for the next star, although I don't have any photos of those yet.

 

I have been so focused on this quilt, I haven't really made any progress on my hexi QOV quilt or my redwork Winter Wonderland quilt. Not that I mind...none of these 3 quilts have any sort of deadline. They are for my pure enjoyment of slow stitching!

 

What slow stitching project(s) have you been working on lately?

 

Happy stitching!

 

I'm linking up to Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching and Jessica's Monday Morning Star Count.