WIP Wednesday-a little of this, a little of that...

I haven't worked on a quilt all week!

Still waiting for the backing fabric to complete A Groovy Kind of Love

as well as Starry, Starry Night.

So instead,  I played with a few simple projects!!

The top of the dresser in my sewing room has served as a home made ironing board and works out so well. Just a piece of shelving, some batting and fabric .

However, the fabric is quite ugly and has become scorched and stained over time.

So, it was time for a re-do!

  I love this Keep Calm and... fabric by Timeless Treasures!

Brightens up the whole room.
In order to preserve this fabric from the drips, smudges and snorts out
 of my very old iron :-),
I ordered a new iron!

 EEEK!
This will be my Birthday and Christmas presents from now until the end of time!
*sigh*

The Modern Scrappy Bits Swap
 is nearing the mailing deadline, so I had to get busy and make something for my partner.

After finally deciding on a pincushion, I found a great tutorial at Moda Bake Shop for a Cathedral Window project.

Very easy pattern to follow and great instructions!

I used some scrap pieces from A Groovy Kind of Love.

Unfortunately, I stuffed it too full and it is hard as rock!

So, it stays home!

I used crushed walnut shells for stuffing.

Which brings me to a lesson well learned!!!!

Stuff over a sink.....not your cutting table!

I had these tiny little bits of shell everywhere! Thank goodness, I wasn't near my sewing machine!

So, on to pincushion #2

I really like this one...and the red button!

But...then...Chicopee arrived!!!

How could I resist doing another one...

I wasn't sure about the button, but it seems to meet  approval by some comments on Flickr, so I'll leave it ! Easy enough for my partner to change.

I really love this one! Only one bundle of fat quarters arrived, so I can hardly wait to see the other colours!

So, I'll wait and see if my secret partner comments on it, and if she likes it!

This next project is tutorial by the always fabulous Amy Friend @ During Quiet Time. She has designed some of my all time favourite paper pieced patterns, like the Garden Boot I used for my Market Tote!
Anyway, she did this great Christmas Stocking tutorial for Basic Grey.
Here is mine...

I used Laurie Wisbrun's Brrr! with a few fabrics from my stash.

For the cuff, I used Countdown to Christmas by Sweetwater.
It is lined with Kona Tomato!
Took me all afternoon to make this! Cutting all those 2.5" squares and then sewing them all back together again! Well worth the time, I believe.  Some days I'll do anything not to empty the
dishwasher!

Now I need to get busy and do my block for Jen in our Star Of Africa bee. Can I just say how much I adore the ladies in this bee! So talented and so much fun!
Since it's Wednesday, it's time to link up at
Freshly Pieced with this weeks guest host, Michelle!


And with Monika at The Needle and Thread Network which is celebrating its one year anniversary!


Have a great sewing week!

Lucky, lucky me!

Lady Luck has made one more visit to my house!

I won a fabric giveaway from Very Berry Handmade and it just arrived. Thanks Ali!

4 half metre cuts of this beautiful Kokka fabric.

The owls are so cute and the fabric is amazing. It is a cotton/linen blend but more of a canvas weight. Perfect for bags....which is what I thought when I actually purchased this fabric last winter to make a Two Zip Hipster bag!

So how cool is it that I won more, and in 2 other colours as well as a gorgeous solid.

I'm not the only lucky Canadian winner lately!

Heather @ Crafting... has been winning Christmas fabric and is having a giveaway of 2 different panels of Kate Spain's "Joy"

So head on over there and enter to win.

WIP Wednesday-finding my Groove!

When I first saw the pattern being used for the Totally Groovy Quilt Along, I though it would take forever!

It is the Groove pattern by Emily Cier at Carolina Patchworks

The Quilt Along is being hosted by Alyssa @ Pile O' Fabric.

I decided not to use all solids in my quilt, and instead ordered three prints from Pat Bravo's Bohemian Soul Collection.

Love the Paisley print!

I added 2 Kona solids-Orange and Avocado.

 I hadn't read the piecing instructions before ordering my fabric, so I was a bit horrified at the thought of trying to piece my printed fabric!

Thankfully, Amanda @ A Crafty Fox came up with an alternative piecing method using a log style which allows for directional fabric!

Thank goodness!

I worked on it all week-end and finished the top yesterday.....

A Groovy Kind Of  Love

 

 I really love how this turned out and especially love having prints in it!

I am waiting for my backing fabric to arrive....

Melody Miller, Ruby Star Spring 2012 Records

I think it will look amazing with the Groove front.

This is my only finish this week.

I ordered more Kona Navy to re-do( make larger) the borders on

Starry, Starry, Night

  Linking up this week at

Freshly Pieced with Rebecca!

 

 and with Monika at The Needle and Thread Network.

Have a great sewing week!

WIP Wednesday-Starry, Starry Night

Well, I'm no Van Gogh!!

But a song from my youth which I have always loved- Don McLean's song, Vincent...

or

Starry, starry night as it is quite often called, came to mind as I was making this quilt.

Come on, who still has the American Pie album.........

Jeez, I'm old!!!

Anyway! The quilt name evolved!

 I am so happy with the choice of navy too.

It was just a whim...saw it in my stash...and as it was a spur of the moment quilt in order to dig into my huge box of scraps, it was a good choice.

At least I think so!

Each block is 10" square finished.
I tried to offset it with the navy borders, but my math skills apparently suck big time and it looks terrible!
Now I have to decide if I take the borders off and just make the darn thing square, or order more navy and try again using much more fabric. :-).
I have some AMH voile waiting to be used for the backing.
It remains a WIP until then.......

I do have a finish for this week. I did a marathon of hand quilting while watching the Olympics!
Who's Your Granny?

I posted the details about it here.

*****

The second WIP I have here is a  little disappearing 9 patch using vintage striped sheets-maybe they are from the 1970's too!

Framed them with 2 different shades of minty-ish green.  

 Not exactly a favourite, but I'll add some borders, quilt it, and find it a good home!

 That's it for me this week.
Linking up at Freshly Pieced with guest host, Cindy!


and..
Monika at The Needle & Thread Network

Have a great sewing week!

Putting Granny To Bed!

I just completed my quilt for The Great Granny Along!

This was hosted by Lori Holt at Bee In My Bonnet

and

Jodi at Pleasant Home

The pattern has an extra round which makes the  blocks measure 12`` finished.

Here is my completed quilt!

Who`s your Granny ?

Granny measures in at 47x62.

The blocks are all made using Flea Market Fancy and Katie Jump Rope.

The background fabric is a white on white flowered pattern that I had in my stash.

The sashing and borders are grey and more white on white.

I did three different kinds of quilting!

FMQ in all of the blocks......

Stitch in the ditch around all of blocks using the even feed foot on my Horizon.

then....

a whole lot of hand stitching using 17 different colours of perle cotton!

A diamond pattern in all the sashing and borders.

Good thing I had the Olympics to watch while doing it!!

For the back I did a really large granny block with more grey and a small top and bottom border of another FMF print.

The binding is one of my favourite fabrics.....

Lush running stitch in lime green!

So, that`s it! 

NOW, I can start to get groovy with another QAL!

with Alyssa at Pile O`Fabric.

Are you joining in??

Here are my fabrics.....

Three prints from Pat Bravo`s Bohemian Soul and two Kona solids.

Can hardly wait to get cutting!

WIP Wednesday

Happy Wednesday to all you stitchers out there!
I was lucky enough to be accepted into  do.Good Stitches and our circle is called Happiness!

 

Marika asked us to do wonky Bento Box blocks with fushia, aqua, lime green and grey.

She is certainly getting wonky from me!

 I am also in an international block swap called Star of Africa.

June was my month to be Queen and my blocks are all starting to arrive. I'll show them when they are all here.

July was May's month and she asked for a block using pink. Because we are doing blocks that represent our country in some way, I decided to show her what livestock looks like here on the Prairies!

Sorry, May! Miss Piggy is my first attempt at applique!

 I am getting closer to a finish on Who's Your Granny? which I am doing as part of the Great Granny Along.

I made a very large Granny block for the back and surrounded it it grey and another Flea Market Fancy fabric.

Sorry for the crap photos!

I did some FMQ loopy, swirly kinda thing in each block, and the stitched in the ditch around each block....

close-up...

Bound it using Lush running stitch...

I'm not done though!!

I am still going to do alot of hand stitching in the white sashing and border!

Good thing the Olympics are still on!

However, I have company that arrived last night, so I'll see how much I get done this week!

Linking up @ Freshly Pieced with guest host Bethany.

and Monika at TN&TN

Hope you have a great sewing week!

A visit from Lady Luck on my birthday!

Yesterday was my birthday and I had a really great day!

I got taken out for a delicious lunch. Yum!

On the week end I was treated to an Il Divo concert...fantastic!

then....Lady Luck came through big time for me when I won several giveaways. They arrived on my birthday!

Can you believe I won We Love Color book and fat quarters of all the NEW Kona colours!

This win was from Kathy Mack at Pink Chalk Fabrics.

Then ...

This gorgeous zip pouch arrived as the prize I won in  the giveaway from 

Colleen @ The Busy Bean.

Love the typewriter fabric!

then....

I won another giveaway!

These great fabric scraps are from

Cheryl @ Naptimequilter.

Yup! I had a great birthday!

This haul doesn't even include the Aurifil thread I won, which hopefully is on it's way! Or my win from 2 months ago that I never received. :-(

I'm not feeling too bad though, right!

Getting old(er) ain't so bad!
A non giveaway arrived this week as well.
I finally ordered a Kona colour card. Now, I will finally be able to match colours properly. It was on sale at Fat Quarter Shop, and also has the new colours on it. Yay!

 

A Google+ quirk!

Last week I found out that I had recently become a noreply@blogger.com commenter!

Apparently Google+ decided this for me.....yeah, thanks for that!

Luckily for me a couple of regular followers let me know.

Thanks Fiona and Carly!

Carly kindly let me test my fix on her!

So, I hunted for days looking for a fix from Google, to no avail.

Then, Finally!, I found a great post on a fix...

Rachel at The Tattooed Teacher has a great tutorial for fixing this.

So, if you are on Google+ and are wondering why you aren't getting replies to your comments, check your status.