A FINISH OR TWO

On my last post I showed you a quilt top for my grand daughter.  It's now quilted with beautiful texture but I have yet to do the binding. I love doing binding so I should get around to it soon.

I'm enjoying puttering on the second one now

I finished the slouchy hat and my daughter agreed to model it for me : )

This girl.............love her

The texture shows so well with the reverse stocking stitch.  My daughter wants one now but in a turquoise yarn.  I have just the one!

These little socks are so fun to knit. The pattern is 'rose city rollers' and is free.  The yarn is by Smith and Ewe here in town in the 'liquorice candy' colour way.  I added in the orange

And lastly,  this little hoodie.  Oh my goodness I just love it ! The yarn is Merino and Alpaca. It will be so cozy, soft and warm for a baby

the bubble wrap is kind of creepy but it works : )

Look at all my blackberries!!!

So cute!

Thanks for reading again.  Enjoy your week

Carla

METRO AREA 10

June 5!   Here we are a week into June already.  How are your blocks coming?  This is month number 10 

I have to admit these long skinny points nearly got the best of me : )

loving these little 1" squares.

Enjoy this coming week.  I am really hoping to carve out some sewing time. I have blocks to make for last month yet.  Oh dear.........

Carla

METRO AREA MONTH 9

It's that time again!  Don't the days just fly by.

This month the greens are so bright and fun. I love these blocks

Lots of scrappy goodness going on here

That's it for today. I would like to get a picture of all the blocks together so far, but they are hanging at the shop.  It won't be long now and I will be assembling these blocks into a quilt. Can't wait!

Happy stitching,
Carla

SPELLING TEST

This year I have pared down my sewing commitments to two groups.  One of them is a Spelling Bee group that I just couldn't resist.  I love words on fabric and sewing words into quilts sounded even better.  This month Elizabeth is piecing together a poem with our help.  I offered the words 'woman' and 'man'.  The W was a bit of a challenge, but turned out ok I think

After the first few letters it was easy.   Improv piecing is kind of fun : )

Elizabeth wants all shades of pink/red and light backgrounds.  I thought this little print made the perfect background for this word, and it's been in my stash for a long time. Good thing fabric doesn't go bad

Once I was on a roll, I pieced a few letters for a little project I'm working on for myself

It's going to be a fun year seeing what other words I have to piece.

Enjoy your week end!

METRO AREA

December is just around the corner so I thought I would post month number 4 a few days early.  I know of someone who is anxiously awaiting this post.  Hi Miriam !

previous months are here  and here

This months blocks relied on the black and white scraps from previous months.  Lots of choices

Four months in and I am loving this project.  I hope to start adding sashing just to see what it's going to look like.

I've been teaching a beginner quilting class this week.  I have 8 ladies happily learning the ropes.
Maybe they will let me post a picture : )

Enjoy your week end

Carla

LITTLE MAKES

With two new grandsons in the past three months, I realized that I needed to make two more stockings before the big day.  So.........avoiding everything on my design wall, I did just that.
I went to my go to stocking pattern by Imagine Gnats.  I made mine a bit smaller tho

After piecing the feathers for this baby's quilt, I had oodles of fabric left over so I made his stocking from that.

The little bug bias tape was perfect for the hang tab.  Nothing girlie about THIS stocking

and just look at this backing.  I found this on my travels and new it would come in handy for one of my axe wielding, plaid flannel wearing boys!  I wish I would have bought more. Why didn't I buy more ???

I did the same thing for the other baby's stocking.

These are all Art Gallery fabrics except for the backing.  It is a Dear Stella print

details : )

both of the stockings have polka dot lining----for the win

and as if on cue, it snowed.  May as well roll with the punches and use it for a photo op : )

Thanks for stopping by

Carla

linking up with Scraptastic Tuesday 

3 LITTLE FINISHES

After 11 years of sewing on a little Kenmore with a 6" opening, I got a new machine.  I didn't want one that had a multitude of stitches that I will never use, but it HAD to have a large throat.  I decided on an Elna eXcellence 730.  Wow.  I'm still figuring things out, but I'm super happy with it so far.
The other day I decided to do some quilting with it, so I gathered three little quilt tops that needed finishing and got to work.

This first one is from Erin's book Sweet Tweets.  I used the squiggly stitch and my walking foot.  I specifically asked if the machine had this stitch and was told 'yes'.  Sold!
I really like the look of this quilting and it's fast : )

Next up is a foundation paper pieced quilt from back in the day.  This is a free pattern on Badskirt's blog. I just did a simple outline for this one, and now it's done and ready to be sent off to a swap partner

When I made these foundation paper pieced horseshoes, I had in mind to do pebble quilting in the background right from the start. I do like the way it turned out. Love love love the texture : )

So there you have it. Three finishes. Three mini quilts.  Three things off the sewing table.

Three new starts ?

linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts 
My Quilt Infatuation

A TISKET A TASKET

Blessed. That's how I'm feeling right now. Not sure if i've mentioned here already that my second oldest son and his wife are expecting their third little one early July AND our oldest son and his wife announced the other night that they are expecting their first baby late October.  Hurray for babies!
I hosted a dinner recently for my hubby's birthday, and there were 15 of us. By next Christmas, we will be 17.  This calls for a bigger table,  and maybe that wall down I've been harping hinting about!
This is shaping up to be quite the year with a wedding and two babies  : )  Life is about to get even busier!

Anyway, this month is my turn to get blocks from two of the groups I'm in. The other day I was looking through some saved photos and decided I'd like to make this quilt

so I started making blocks---no measuring per say, just playing

and in a short time, there were 10

I've seen a peek of a few blocks that are coming my way already, and they are really cute.  This is one of those projects that helps use the ever growing pile of scraps on my table.  They are fun to sew too so that's a bonus. After piecing I squared the blocks to approximately 8 1/2 x 10 1/2

Have a fabulous week end!

linking up with scraptastic Tuesday

SCRAPS ON THE SHELF

This past week I worked on two projects so I would be able to link up with the Choose Your Own Block-Along with Cindy.  First up are these scrappy blocks.  Last time I showed you these they looked like this

and now.........

they are coming along nicely

If I did 25 blocks, my quilt would measure 70" square. That's some serious scrap busting   : )

Also I worked on my City Sampler blocks

I turned the page to work on the next one and discovered I was finished with that chapter. The next chapter deals with stripes so I think I will get lots of practice with my 1/4".......

What about you?  Do you have a project you are working on and need some encouragement? Why not link up  : )

linking up with Live a Colourful Life
Scraptastic Tuesday