Another UFO

While I was on my kick of re-purposing UFOs, I hauled out this little applique picture that I had started a few years ago. 

It was a project inspired by the work of Janet Bolton, 

who you can learn more about on her website, , or you can google her name and look at images of her work, such as this one, 

she is amazing!   

Any how, a few of us had gotten together and started little applique pictures in her style.  

I had gotten quite far with it, and I liked parts of the picture, such as this little corner,

but on the whole I wasn't too excited with it. 

I decided to sew it into a pencil case.  in order to do that, I had to finish a few more petals, and add some lines of quilting to the beige area of background. 

Oddly, after I finished those things, I liked it much better.  So I have decided to leave it as a small picture, rather than make it into a pencil case.

Quilting

I am spending a little time relaxing with some hand quilting. Although I rarely do this, I love the look of it. I did mostly machine quilting straight lines along the edges of each of the borders and sashing on my bonnet ladies quilt but still needed something in the blocks too. So I'm just outlining each of the 12 ladies. Looking forward to getting this quilt finished..

Bonnet Girls progress

 I spent some time with the bonnet girls quilt.  It needed a border, so I decided on a pretty simple strip-pieced squares on point.  It is a seminole technique where you cut up strip sets and sew them together in a staggered way, like a staircase, and the extra fabric on the sides is later cut away.

 To get the pattern to go around the corner, I had to add a little strip of yellow at the top and the bottom of the central unit:

 and then I added a one-inch border of the gray, and a 4 inch border of white....

now it's all ready to baste!  and I pieced a back from some fabrics from my stash, so I don't even need to go shopping for the back... I guess that means no excuses for not basting it today (or tonight, or tomorrow...)
Actually, I do have another quilt that has it's binding ready to be hand-stitched to the back, and maybe that's what's beckoning to me now.
Hoping you are having a nice Wednesday!  It is the Wednesday link-up to see what others are working on....

Sunday Morning Reflections

Aren't weekend mornings the best time to think about all sorts of things?  things that happened over the past week, what you might want to accomplish over the next few days, gaze out the window and see what show nature is putting on today...

 My orchid is blooming like mad right now, and it even has a double bloom- like an egg with a double yolk.

I sewed a bit on my bonnet girls quilt yesterday, and pieced the center quite simply:

 I decided to use only 12 of the blocks, and so I have 3 leftover,

they are pretty too, and could be nice sewn into another project, but I'd rather stop at just making one project with these blocks.  If anyone else would like to have them, either to sew something, or just to study the way the applique was done, just leave a comment below, and send me your snail mail address in an email and I'll pass them along. 
The applique is done quite nicely, you can see some pencil outlines on the white background to show where to place the pieces, as well as on some of the lighter fabrics, I suppose to show where to turn under the cloth to sew it in place.  Sort of like a match-up puzzle.

I started a new knitting project,  (well, actually two of them)
It is going to be a cardigan for me.

 It will be a tweedy dark blue.  This picture shows how far I got with the first ball of yarn.  It is on 4.5mm needles and it is a simple stockinette stitch-- that's about as easy as you can get!
This is a photo of the goal:

from the book, "Knitting at Home, 60 Classics from Ella Rae Designs", by Leanne Prouse

 It is going to be quite a big project for me, and so I am not going to take any chances in it shrinking later, so I am using a Superwash wool!

 You can see that at the moment, the live oak trees are shedding their old leaves.  Every day Richard blows off the deck, and every day more leaves drift down, pushed off the tree by the new leaves,

 And this morning, there were several cardinals darting around,
I tried to get a photo of them but I was quite far away, and I don't have a zoom lens on my camera, so I apologize for the blurriness,
Cardinals are quite new to me, since they don't travel as far north as Saskatoon.  I had only seen them in books before, and I think they are really pretty birds.

I hope you are having a great weekend too, and storing up lots of energy for the week ahead!

Bonnet Girls

Yesterday I did a little bit of sewing,
I wanted to do a few more reference swatches for FMQ (Free Motion Quilting), 

 and so I did these four, but then my embroidery foot/FMQ foot, broke, so I had to stop.  (The metal bar just broke off!)

 However, I am getting quite a library of swatches!

I moved on to another project-- the antique Bonnet Girls.
These are a group of applique blocks that I bought one year at Houston Quilt Market.  There are 15 blocks.  They were sewn into a quilt top with plain white fabric as a checkerboard, but it was really wonky, so I took it apart and washed the blocks.

 I decided finally to just start something using them.  So first I am sewing a 3/4" border of yellow, and then a 3/4" border of light grey around each of them.  (Oh, I trimmed them all to 10 inches, since they were pretty uneven). 
As I was handling them, I appreciated all the lovely fabric combinations that were made,
I also noticed the embroideries in the little bouquets were not all done the same:

 My personal favorite, with tiny little bullion knots,
Plus, this ladies bodice and umbrella is the exact same shade as the grey I am using for the borders!

I'm not sure what I'll do with them next.... thinking of various types of pieced sashing,  maybe I'll need to do some embroidery!! Who knows...
Any ideas would be welcome. 

Applique!!

 This morning I just started in on my applique like a crazy person,

 I have only 7 blocks from the Art to Heart Saturday Surprise blocks from last year, since I also made this pieced quilt using some of the blocks:

At the Show and Tell in September I fell in love with this quilt by Kathy.  Yes, I know that we've used this setting before, but not with those skinny little frames around each block!  Yay Kathy.  I loved the effect of them floating in that light colored background.

So, that's what sparked my plan for my quilt-- I've put a little frame around each of the blocks, and I'll use a lot of white background, on which I will applique a lot of birds and leaves.  (Fusible!)
Definitely fusible, because just yesterday I finished the needle-turn applique on this project:

 Big, isn't it!  Not just the photo....
Actually, the dresden plate blocks are mostly pieced, but I did hand-stitch them to the background.  I love that I was able to use a lot of my Westminster prints that I had collected over the past few years, as well as a lot of American Jane fabrics which I love!

 These blocks with the arcs are pieced:

 However, these blocks were all hand applique:

 The designs are by Sue Spargo, ( yes, we do still have some of her books at the store!)

 Her quilts are usually a melange of cottons, wools, applique, beads and embroidery that make them really rich texturally.  I don't plan to add any wool to this one, but I am contemplating some embroidery.  We'll see.  Right now I have set it aside in order to work on the other project. 

 Whatever you choose to work on this weekend, I hope you have fun with it too!

Store News:
this is sort of an afterthought, and directed at those of you who like to know what's arriving and happening at the shop--
We got in a collection called Aviary, by Nancy Gere for Windham.  There are 14 fabrics in grey, white and black,  you can see them all here,

Plus, we have a new quilt kit! Val sewed it from a pattern called Sweet Pea,

but in beautiful soft greys, yellow and ivory,

These are some from a new collection called Taza, and I brought a whole bunch of them with me to Savannah to play with, because I just love them.  Not sure yet what to do with them though.
(Oh yes, we got in about 12 more colors of Kona Cotton, so don't forget to print off the coupon (below) and use it before Friday to get 25% off of them)
Again, have a great stitchy weekend!