Goin' Round in Circles .....

Who knew that goin' round in circles could be such great fun?

I've just laid these out for the photo - none of them are stitched down to the backgrounds yet, and they won't be sewn next to each other in this order.  But I this might work as a Design Wall Monday overview of most of the ones I've chosen so far.

February 1 was my "official" Quilty 365 start date, but you may remember from this post that I had a cruise on my horizon?  Yep, I did!  And it came up much more quickly than I ever dreamed it would ... I just returned from my 7-days at sea last weekend!  I've already written up a post to share tomorrow with some of the fun details of that trip, so be sure to check back.

For today, let's keep it as Quilty as possible!!!

Obviously, I didn't spend time cutting circles on the ship, so I had quite a bit of catching up to do when I returned.  I'm sure you're not surprised that many of my choices reflect my adventures on the high seas!

Upper left of course represents the ship we sailed on, the Westerdam, and yes, I made sure I knew where the lifejackets and lifesavers were!  (Our lifeboat was just below our cabin - I could have jumped right in it if needed LOL!!!)  Upper right represents an amazingly talented singer who entertained us one evening (more about her tomorrow).  Lower right is a bathing beauty, which represents me, of course, sunning myself on those gorgeous Caribbean beaches ... well, okay, not so much LOL!!!  But a girl can dream, can't she?  Lower left is a beautiful Laurel Burch mermaid, which represents the gorgeous Mystery Quilt project we made in class.  Here's a quick peek at my finished top ----- you all know how much I LOVE Laurel Burch, don't you?  So you can imagine my squeal when I saw these fabrics!!!

I don't normally do mysteries, but it was part of the class package and we were told it would be a Memory Quilt project to commemorate our cruise experience, so I went along, hoping for the best.  I was so glad I had not passed on it when she revealed it our first night at sea!  I'll share much more about this and our other classes in a later post.

This next group of circles showcases some of my favorite sea creature prints .... granddaughter Sara was with me when I purchased that adorable octopus print ♥

And then a few circles chosen to represent those aforementioned Caribbean beaches....

The bottom is a tropical flower, although I have to admit, I didn't see many of these.  Even on our Rainforest drive, there were only a couple of flowers, and they weren't anything to ooh or aah about.  Top right is of course the incomparable Caribbean waters - yes, they really are absolutely clear and unbelievably beautiful ....

And upper left is the best I could do for the delicate white sand on their beaches - can you see the sparkles in this closeup photo?

I think it comes pretty close to the real thing.....

The next group of circles were for Valentine's Day week!

The first one is for the stunning vase of dusky-pink roses My Guy had waiting for me upon my return ... oh yes, have I told you he's a keeper? *wink*

And then the next grouping were chosen for the nonstop gloom in Tennessee for three days after our return....

We left beautiful 80 degree temps and sunshine only to see THIS on my roof the next morning .... followed by rain, rain and more rain - Ugh!!!

The bright colors and happy houses in the Bottom Right circle is about my JOY when the sun finally peeked out to brighten up my world!

I love, love, love that pink text print in the Upper Left ....

This was cut from a scrap left over from my granddaughter, Genevieve's, quilt a couple of years ago.  The words are about warming influences, illumination, brightness, "restore to freshness", rejuvenation - any wonder why I love it so?  It was pink, so a natural choice for the week of Valentine's, and it also makes me think of Spring - which I sincerely hope is right around the corner!!!

Last but not least are a few that represent daily life events ...

The first circle is about something fun which I haven't yet shared with you - I bought a new Pfaff Creative 4.5 sewing machine a few days after Christmas!!!  Yes, I love it!  She's quite a bit more noisy than I would like, but she sews like a dream, and I couldn't imagine giving her up.  I chose this circle last week when I went to my last class.

The middle circle is of course my beloved Carolina Panthers who sadly fell short of their Super Bowl quest this year.  There was a Super Bowl Party in the entertainment center of the Westerdam and we got to watch the game on a huge screen - it was awesome!  Well, except for the "losing to the Broncos" part LOL!!!  And of course, how could I resist a Downton Abbey circle there on the right?????  It's off center I know, but that was the only way to get the entire name on it.  When the 1/4" is turned under, the name will be just on the edges, so this will just have to do.

As I shared in a previous post, I'm using an array from white to black with various tone-on-tone light- to dark-grays in between for my backgrounds....

I managed to get all the 5" squares cut, starting out using a cutting die for my Sizzix machine.

It cut all the white squares beautifully...

But then, disaster struck on the silver squares!

That is the BLADE on the top, stuck in the cutting mat!!!  It was stuck so deeply that it broke off and then into pieces when I tried to lift the die.  My Guy had to use pliers to pull it out of the acrylic mat!

Look carefully and you can see the piece of blade still sticking up in the right-hand corner

This was a new die, just opened for the first time, so I'm not sure what happened.  Maybe it was defective, or maybe my acrylic mat was too scarred?  I'm hoping Sizzix will take care of making it right when I contact them - those dies are expensive!  Needless to say, I had to cut the rest of the squares the old fashioned way.

I'm happy to finally have this project well under way!  I love choosing a new fabric each day, and I'm finding that it's a bit of a challenge to keep it from becoming something of an I Spy project.  I'll catch up on stitching them down by doing several each evening until I'm caught up.

Hugs & Blessings!

Teresa

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Slow Sunday Stitching - Playoffs Style!

I'm so looking forward to watching the NFL Playoff games today!  I'm all set with my hand sewing project and joining my friends at Kathy's Quilts for some Slow Sunday Stitching ....

This is the top right section of the border for my Blue Collection quilt.  Both of these top sections are complete, and I am working on the first of two side border sections now.  The sides are long vines like this that will come out of vases in the bottom of the quilt.  (I'll show you what I mean in a later post!)

All of this quilt is hand appliqued, with the exception of these side border leaves and a few very intricate motifs in the vase blocks, which I've chosen to do as raw-edge fusible applique.  They have so many curves and valleys, it would take FOREVER to hand stitch all these leaves, and I decided I'd rather finish this quilt in my lifetime than worry about whether it is ALL hand stitched LOL!!!  I've indicated one of them by the arrow on the right.....

I'll finish them with a straight-stitch along the edges.  The flower buds indicated by the arrow on the left are little monsters to hand stitch all by themselves!  The fabric I chose for the medium blue in the center is too flimsy and it's almost impossible to make neat V's.  And the points on the stems are very narrow and steep, so it's hard to stuff the seam fabric underneath such a small space.  On some of the last pieces I prepped, I drew the points in a little bit wider V to make them slightly easier to stitch.

It's a great day to be inside stitching here in Nashville!  I'm under the weather a little, battling a sinus infection with the usual accompanying aches, sore throat and cough, so the order for the day is to take it easy.  We're having one of our coldest days so far - currently 32 degrees and woke to a light snow on the ground.  Here's the view from my front window ....   Brrrrrrrrr!

The only bright spot is my little Christmas cactus....

Love that beautiful fuchsia color!!!  I bought it a few weeks before Christmas this year because I loved all my friends cacti which were blooming.  For some reason, it finally decided to wait to bloom this week - I'll take all the bloom and color I can find at this time of year, right?

Hugs & Blessings!

Teresa

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Slow Stitching Sunday - 4/13/14

Today I'm planning to join Kathy over at Kathy's Quilts and all her friends who are doing some Slow Stitching.  The May Bertie block arrived this week, and I was SO excited to begin working on it.  For once, I am caught up on these blocks, and I want to stay that way if I can.

Here is my block ready for stitching :*)  It is one of my favorite Bertie's Year blocks so far - such a cute design!!!

Unfortunately, I had to make quite a few replacements of the fabrics included in this month's block. I know you don't always get the same fabrics in a BOM that were used in the original quilt, but I do expect something similar in color and texture.  I was glad I had some flannels in my stash that would work - yes I even have a flannels stash :)  Below is the picture of the original quilt on the pattern front .....

I love those bright colors!  Spring calls for BRIGHT and HAPPY colors, am I right?  Well, what came in the laser-cut set was not even close to those in the picture.  This dull mauvy pink (top fabric below) looked dead on the brown background and I decided to go with a new spring grass green instead of their darker choice...

And fall-like golds instead of yellows and oranges.... Really?  What part of that top flower says "spring"????  The bottom flannels are my replacements - can you see how much closer to the original they are?

The original also has a pretty deep blue wagon hitch, but they sent this rather blotchy, dull flannel instead .....

...... so I changed it out to a nice bright purple!  Okay, so I know that the color of wagon hitches is not normally the subject of hot debate, but I happen to be very particular about my wagon hitches! LOL :)  The bluebell piece on the very left is one that came with the package.  The violet was bright and would have been fine, but it really didn't work once I changed to the purple for the hitch, so the six petals on the right are the ones I cut from a brighter light purple that matched better.

So, that's enough complaining!  I'm delighted to have this piece ready for stitching.  It won't take very long to do the buttonhole stitch by machine, and then I can sit and do some embroidery embellishments with my lovely perle cotton threads.

I found this awesome box at Tuesday Mornings last week - and for only $2.00!!!!

(Just the box!  I already had the threads)

This sure beats them all tumbling around in a tin and getting tangled :*)

I also want to spend a little time working on my last Blue Collection vase.  Last night I prepared a new piece for the one on the bottom right that was not lining up very well....

This one is not perfect either, but since the pieces are at an angle, the lines are never going to line up perfectly, so it's as good as it's going to get!  I'm so excited to be this close to having all the vase blocks done!  True, they all have to be assembled with block sashing, the 3-D tree has to be wrangled in there somehow, and the borders have to be prepared and stitched.... whew, that's still a lot of work!!  But I'm a whole lot closer than I was when I started, right?  LOL!!!!

I think that just might be enough to keep me out of trouble on this fine Sunday :*)

Be sure to visit Kathy's Quilts HERE to see what others are Slow Stitching on today.

Hugs & Blessings to you all!!!!

Teresa

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Back to the Blue!!!

I've  really been down for the count this past week, sick with a sinus infection and bronchitis -yuk!!!  Hopefully this will be my "obligatory" sick session for the winter and I'll have great health for the rest of it :*)  Once I started feeling better today and was able to sit up for a while, I got out this hand-applique project to see what I could work on while just sitting...

The Blue Collection
Design & Quilt by Maggie Walker

This poor project has been sitting ignored for WAY too long!

The Bad News -----

I was pretty shocked to realize the last time I touched  Blue Collection was in March!!!  

Wow!  Really???

The Good News ----
Almost all of the blocks are done for this quilt - whoohoo!!!!  Last week I finished up the next-to-last standard block before beginning to put the center of the top together - this is the tall vase standing on the left-hand side of the quilt ....

I left the top un-sewn to allow for those wonderful vines that will flow from it....

I still have one more block, as well as quite a bit of tracing and template prep for the outer border features, so sitting in my chair while tracing off those pieces was not too taxing at all :*)  My last true block will be very intricate - I'm just crossing my fingers and hoping it won't be too difficult....

The center block that holds the tree that moves through the center of the quilt

Here's how it looks in Maggie's wonderful quilt....

Of course, you know I'm prone to make things hard on myself, right?  I'm using a border print for this pot, which will just add to the challenge!  

Where you could usually use one fabric for the bowl itself, I will need to cut individual pieces and fit them carefully together to get the right angles with this print.  And I don't have a large piece of it either, but I really think it will be worth the effort!

Something you might not realize either is that the tree - that's 3D!!!  Yes, it's is 3 fabric ropes braided together and appliqued down.  Now that I think about it, is it really any wonder I've been dragging my needle on this one???

I also have to make some upgrades to a few blocks before I put them all together.  I started this quilt before I really learned how to do applique well, so some of the blocks are roughly done :(  For instance, see these pathetic attempts at koi below? ...... aren't koi supposed to be beautiful, elegant fish???

Ugh!!!  Nothing graceful about these poor things!!!  I found a print of some koi that I will use to make a new template - hopefully these elegant fish will look much better when I'm done :*)

It's not 2014 yet, but my mind has already started thinking along the lines of finishing up some UFO's which is my plan for the year.  I didn't touch anything at all on my December To Do list, but when you're sick, you have to do what you can do, right?  Hope you all have had a much better week than I did LOL!!!

Hugs & Blessings!

Teresa

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Linking up with:

Slow Stitching Sunday
Design Wall Monday

Tuesday Linky Party

Works in Progress - 2/13/2013

Since finishing up Easy Street, I've been working on catching up on some of my other projects, and whittling away at my Get It Done list for February.

But first I thought I'd share this SO CUTE little Heart Basket I made for Valentine's Day!

Isn't it just the sweetest little basket?  

I gave this to my husband filled with his favorite candies for Valentine's Day.  

No, I couldn't wait!!!  He got it early :*D

Here are a progression of pictures as I put it together.  It was a lot of fun!
(And yes, that is a Pocahontas beach towel under there LOL!!!)

The base is sometimes the hardest part, getting it square and the right size. 
It's especially hard when you have these odd angles!!!
Then getting the strips to stand up straight - I learned that this process is called "upsetting".
Yes, it was definitely upsetting to me at times LOL!!!

You have to clip the corners together until it is far enough along to begin keeping the correct shape.

It's beginning to look like a basket!!!  Don't you just love that deep pink reed?!?

The finishing touch!

This basket took me about 2-1/2 hours to make.  The other girls in the class finished up much more quickly than I did because they make baskets every month.  I also got there late :)  So they were halfway finished by the time I got there.  By the time I left, they had finished their basket, as well as a miniature one just like it!  Donna Christian teaches these classes, and she is such a great teacher!  If you're local to Nashville and would like to learn basket weaving, Donna's your girl!  Thanks again Donna!!!

Basket making is something I enjoy as a totally different hobby than quilting.  Sometimes I tend to get in too deep with quilting, too intense, too obsessed, so that I eat, sleep, breathe quilting!  I'm sure that never happens to any of you LOL!!!  It's nice to totally switch off the quilting button once in a while and take a breather.

Knitting/crocheting is another way I like to switch it up and relax with something different.  As I shared in my last post, I am working on this scarf which is a free pattern from Red Heart called Shore Thing.

And this is how far I've gotten on it.  

It took a little bit to get started because I couldn't get the instructions right to save me!  But it finally came together and it's coming along nicely now.  It's not an easy pattern though, so it won't be one of those I just pick up and work on without thinking about it.  I'm loving the colors, especially since they are not colors that I've worked with recently - another nice change!

As I expected, I was able to get quite a lot done on my next blocks for The Blue Collection at sit-n-sew on Monday!  This first block is completed except for leaving an opening at the mouth of the vase for flowers to come later after the blocks are assembled.

This was a really easy block to do because I basically let the fabric do the work of embellishment.  All the fabrics have lovely goldwork in them.

Then, I began working on the second vase, which will require quite a bit more work because it is assembled with lots of layers...

I noticed when posting this picture that the brown section seems woppy at the bottom, but I went back to check the pattern and it is that way too.  I may have to go back and smooth that out anyway.  We'll see.

And last, but certainly not least, I need to decide on a back for Easy Street.  I have this wonderful wide-back piece of aqua that I just love with it...

The problem however, as you can see here, is that it is not long enough....  

I must have bought the end of a bolt in a sale when I got this, because I always buy at least 3 yards of a wide-back - this is only a little over 2 yards.  I thought about keeping it for a lap-size quilt, and I may still do that.  But if I decide to use it, I either need to find a similar or complementary piece to make up the difference or make more Easy Street blocks to carry the design over to the back.  Ugh!!!  Not sure I could handle making more ES blocks right now!  Having this quilt and the backing ready for quilting is one of my February Get It Done items, so I want to get it done quickly and not just put it on a shelf until later.

So that's what I'm up to this week - busy, busy, busy!!!

And what does Gypsy think of all my hard work?  

Something tells me she is NOT impressed LOL!!!

I'll be linking up here with these fun blogs - come join in the fun!!!

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Hugs & Blessings!

Teresa

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