Scrapping and Stitching!

Sunday is the day I always enjoy sitting and stitching with my friends over at Kathy's Quilts.....

And today I'm still working on finishing up my Bertie's Year blocks.  Above is the November block - all ready for sandwiching and quilting.  And October is done too.....

I have to say, I'm not as happy with this one.  It just seems dull to me.  I looked at maybe using the orange fabrics for the border, but that was too much.  And with 3 more still waiting for their embroidery and embellishments, this one will just have to stay the way it is!

I'm currently working on the embellishments for July Bertie.....

All the stitching is done except for Bertie's claws in gold.  The seeds and fly stitch on the watermelon were a lot of fun!  If you look closely, you will see that I had already done a decorative fly stitch by machine, not realizing that the pattern would call for that in off-white by hand later.  After the hand work is done, I'll pull out that green machine stitching.  (And then again, maybe I won't *vbg*)

I also did a little touch up work on the berries.  The sample picture shows pretty blueberries in a nice blue-purple color......  you can see the original looks like actual wools, not flannels :)

Original sample quilt by Bonnie Sullivan

But the flannel they sent with the kit is a blah gray.  I really didn't want to have to take them off, find another fabric, trace ..... right - all that nonsense!  Then, last night I spied my colored pencils on my desk - the pencils I paid a fortune for last year because the teacher in one of my classes at Quiltfest required that we bring this exact brand of pencil, and we NEVER TOUCHED THEM! - yes, those pencils :)  And I thought, why not color them a brighter color?

I think it worked just fine!  You can see in the picture on the right where I had begun to color them, first with a bright blue, then a purple over that.  The bottom left berry just has the blue and is waiting for the purple top coat :)

I hope to get the hst borders on this one today, and that will leave only these two for me to embellish.

If I work quickly, I  may even get them done before I receive the last December kit!  Of course, they all still need to be sandwiched and quilted, but that really doesn't take very long.  One day ought to do it :)

I've also done some machine sewing!  I've joined in on the Scraptastic Tuesday fun with Nicky at Mrs. Sew and Sow and Leann at She Can Quilt  - here are the two blocks I made the other day out of my RED crumb jar....

Aren't they cute???

You can read HERE about my determination to empty out my crumb jars.  Since I've discovered that no project ever gets done unless I actually start the process of working on it, I thought it a good idea to pull out one of the jars and get to it .... amazing how that works, isn't it?  LOL!!!  

So I dumped out some crumbs....

..... and began haphazardly sewing a few pieces together - working two blocks at a time so I could chain piece of course :)

And before I knew it, I had sections big enough to trim down to a uniform 6-1/2 inches!

Wow - this was really, really fun!  So freeing!  No worrying about whether the fabrics "matched" or were the "right size" or even about having a perfect 1/4" seam!!!  Just put a couple of pieces together, sew, and repeat.  I loved it!!!

This is my November NewFO Challenge project - getting in there early, right?  For sure, this will be my Rainbow Scrap Challenge project to use up my crumbs next year!  I may even have to cheat and do a few more before then :)  They are like potato chips, you can't make just one... or two .... or .... well, you get the picture!  Be sure to check out the other projects linked up at Scraptastic Tuesday!  And don't forget the RSC at SoScrappy - November projects are going to be in Baby Blues - and you know I love me some BLUE!!!!

Linking up with:

Rainbow Scrap Challenge
November NewFO Challenge

Slow Sunday Stitching

Design Wall Monday

Tuesday Linky Party

Scraptastic Tuesday

********

Hugs & Blessings!

Teresa

=^..^=