May Flowers

One of my objectives for 2015 has been to finish up some of my favorite wall quilts - Calendar quilts!

I started Kim Schaeffer's May Calendar Quilt in 2012 - yes, three years ago!!!!  I traced off the pattern pieces onto fusible and chose happy, bright fabrics - and promptly forgot about it when something more urgent called my name.  Yeh, that happens to me a lot *very big grin*!

But I am happy to say I finally finished it recently and it is proudly hanging in my living room, cheering me up each time I spy it =^..^=  Kim gives her Calendar Quilt designs such cute details.....

Kim's pattern version stuck to reds, oranges & yellows for her quilt, but you just know I had to add in a little spark of blue - right?

And then I decided that a big-stitch hand-quilted "path" for the blue butterfly was a necessity to fill in some much needed quilting in that open area .....

One thing I did that was new with this quilt was to applique the pieces down as I quilted instead of before quilting.  In other words, I fused them all down in their proper positions, but instead of stitching them down as I usually would, I next sandwiched the quilt layers, and then used the applique stitching as my quilting.  It went SO MUCH quicker that way!  I also tried out a few of my decorative machine stitches around the flowers.  I just love that orange raggedy zigzag stitch around the outer part of the center!

I wasn't happy with the blah look of the yellow flower petals, so I got out my colored pencils and added a nice orange "blush" to the edges and tips .....

And after adding a black-and-white rope trim around the center of my red flower, I needed something to cover up where the two ends met rather messily.

Now I ask you, what could be cuter than this little caterpillar???

My usual choice for a binding is darker than the quilt to add a "frame" around it, but for this one, I fell in love with a simple, spring-like yellow and blue plaid, cut on the bias ....

A binding finish to share at
Julie K Quilts' Binding Blitz!!!

Of course, I used lots of GREEN scraps in the background, so I'm linking up with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge at SoScrappy! 

I love changing out these quilts each month, adding a fresh new look to our home.  Each little quilt helps me to transition into new seasons and holidays.  I finished up the June calendar quilt two years ago and it is one of my favorites!

I don't seem to have a picture handy of it bound and quilted, but trust me it is :*)  I have July and August in progress, so I'll be sharing those with you soon.

My outdoor spring flowers are very happy that we have actually had quite a nice spring here in Nashville this year.

Usually we get about one week of spring and then the summer heat hits hard and fast, not letting go until sometime in October.  It's been much cooler, and we've gotten some nice rain showers too.  I sat on the porch this morning and enjoyed the soothing sounds of a gentle drizzle while watching my favorite Oriental Lillies begin to open up ..... ahhhhhhh - Life is Good!  My Guy does such a wonderful job of keeping our lawn and yard looking spectacular, doesn't he?

I'll leave you with a picture of the lovely spring flowers my son sent me for Mother's Day this year .....

It is the first time he has sent me flowers, and I have to admit I was charmed and delighted :*)  They lasted a good long while; I reluctantly disposed of the last of them just a few days ago.

Hugs & Blessings!

Teresa

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Linking up with:

Patchwork Times - Design Wall Monday
Freemotion by the River - Tuesday Linky Party
Julie K Quilts - Binding Blitz
Quilting Reader's Garden - WIPs Be Gone
Confessions of a Fabric Addict - Whoop Whoop! 
SoScrapy - Rainbow Scrap Challenge

Friday Finish!

Lots of sewing got done this week!  I enjoyed several sit-n-sew days with friends, and I always get a lot done on those days.  This week, I finished the April Calendar top and it’s all ready for the big reveal….

Kim Schaeffer - Calendar Quilts

Don’t you just love this spring calendar quilt?  I think it is my favorite of all of the quilts in this series!  I tweaked it a little from the original pattern, adding Hello Kitty ribbon to the tops of the galoshes as well as little boot straps, and I’ll add little red heart buttons to hold them down once I’m finished quilting it.  My granddaughter Emma picked out the ribbon when she was here last summer, and my friend Mary gave me the buttons, so I'll think of them every time I see it :*)  Isn't that the best kind of quilt?  The ones that have lovely memories attached to them?

I just LOVE all the color in this quilt!!!  It’s going to make my heart smile every time I walk down my stairway and see it on the wall! =^..^=  This quilt is my March NewFO for the 2012 NewFO Challenge over at Cat Patches. 

I’ve been working a little on Moonglow too, not as much as I would have liked, but progress nonetheless.  I’ve begun work on the alternate Irish Chain blocks… and hit a snag!  

Can you see where I made my mistake?  The blocks on the right are incorrect.  The colors should flow, but I've got green following blue on the bottom and blue following green on the top - yikes!!!  SO glad I caught it early!  The blocks on the left are the corrected ones. 

Here is the next couple of logs added once I got the blocks corrected.  

Hopefully these will come together for me nicely from now on and I can get them all finished this weekend.  I have retreat next week, so I have some chance of finishing this quilt up before March is over!!!

And speaking of retreat – guess what I got yesterday?  A new iPAD!!!! 

Yep!!!  One with a camera - oh my!!!  And it is a lovely fresh white with the lime green cover… YUM!!!  Don thinks I'm crazy for wanting the lime green, but it's my color of the moment right now, along with anything aqua, so naturally that's what I chose.  It's bright and cheerful, so I'm happy :*)

Isn’t my husband the greatest?  I kept whining that I couldn’t blog when away at retreats or traveling because my iPad was the first one out that didn’t have a camera.  So he took pity sake on me and said if I sold my old one he’d buy me a new one – yippee!!!!  I’m also getting a keyboard so blogging will be a little easier, but that will have to be ordered so I won’t have it for this retreat.  I’m looking forward to blogging from Camp Widjiwagan (yep, that’s a name!) next week, so look for the posts via the new toy!

Gotta run now – Joanne is letting me come over and quilt another quilt on her longarm – Yoohoo!  Another fun day in store!!!!  And hopefully a new finish to show you soon :*)

Hugs & Blessings!

Teresa

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Linking this post with 2012 NewFO Challenge at Cat Patches, Can I get a Whoop Whoop! at Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Link a Finish Friday at Richard Quilts, and Find a Friend Friday at Sew Many Ways.  Click on the names to check out these fun sites!

Design Wall Monday - 6-16-14

There are a lot of projects going on in the Ivory Tower this week!

And I'd better get get crackin' too, because our sweet 16-year-old granddaughter is coming next Friday for a nice long visit with us, and I want to spend as much time as I can just being with her!

First of all, I'm wrapping up a few little designs for Jacquelynne Steves' adorable new fabrics from her Cottage Charm line ....



Just a few peeks....

My mother always taught me to make lots of pockets - in everything!!!!

You won't believe how easy this pocket zipper can be!!!!

Yep, this fabric line makes me "Imagine" all kinds of wonderful project ideas!

The completed projects, along with instructions to make your own, will be included in Jacquelynne's new summer e-magazine, The Art of Home, coming out in July, so be sure to sign up to receive it HERE!  The magazine is FREE and contains all kinds of wonderful ideas for you to enjoy .... recipes, sewing and craft projects, printables, and much, much more!

Next up, I'm putting the final touches on a pattern that I will be teaching at Runaway Quilters Retreat in September - Amish Beauties!

Another sneak peek!!!!

And of course I can't forget - the new July Bertie BOM came in the mail last week!!!  Boy-oh-boy, does Bertie play the part of "hayseed" this month, or what?  Love her spitting out that watermelon seed!  And these red fabrics are so deep and rich - such a joy to play with!

Google defines "hayseed":  A person from the country, especially a simple, unsophisticated one.
Just sayin' >^.-.^<

I hope to at least get started on that today, but I'll have to see how the day goes :)

To Do List for the rest of the month:

*  Get Baby Bargello quilted and bound....

This little quilt is for Phyllis' Angel Babies,

a Music City Guild charity group that provides quilts

to Down Syndrome babies born in Nashville hospitals.

*  Yellow Hootie!

*  Get busy stitching down my pieces for Tree O' Life!

*   And maybe somewhere along the way get this July Calendar wall quilt done ...

Quilt by Karen Schaefer
Copyright Calendar Quilts

I love Karen Schaefer's Calendar Quilts!

I've made a good many of them, but I've been wanting to do the July quilt for quite a while now.  This will take care of my NewFO and Let's Book It challenge projects for the month if I can manage to squeeze it in :*)  (If you're new to my blog, see my sidebar to learn more about these fun challenges!)

So included in this post is a camera lesson for you - free of charge LOL!!!  Today's pretty pictures come to you courtesy of some research I had to do on the web because I was so unhappy with how my camera was taking pictures last night!  Yes, it was nighttime, but usually if I get some decent lighting on the subject I can get decent pictures.  Last night, everything had a dingy cast to it, no matter how much light I put on it.  Then I noticed that the same dingy look was happening this morning in the bright light! This is a fairly new phone too - the camera is supposed to be a really, really good one for a phone camera.

Ever feel like you're getting "pooped" on?

(I followed this truck down the road the other day and 

couldn't quit laughing long enough to take a picture LOL!!!!)

So I did some research on the web, and guess what I found?  OPERATOR ERROR!!!!  Yes, really.  I know some of you are totally stunned that I am not a knowledgeable, professional photographer, but so it is!  What was my problem?  Somehow, inadvertently and without even knowing there was such a thing, I had turned on the Yellow Filter on my camera!  See the below "Before" and "After" pictures.....

See the colorful dots at the bottom of the left picture?  That was supposed to tell me that a filter was in place on my camera.  What did I know?  I thought that was just for me to push if I wanted to split it into 9 different pictures!  The picture on the right shows the corrected camera view (notice the dots are now colorless).  To fix the problem, I touched the colored dots and got this menu....

Then I chose "None" - and voila!  

My pretty unfiltered view was back!!!

So I'm wishing all of you a "Poop Free" week, my friends!!!

Hugs & Blessings!

Teresa

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Linking up with:

Design Wall Monday - Patchwork Times

Tuesday Linky Party - Freemotion by the River

Design Wall Monday - August 6, 2012

We've been very busy here at our house this past week!  My poor husband blew out his knee on Tuesday and had to undergo arthroscopic surgery on Friday.  Poor dear is hobbling around on crutches and getting very bored with no activity!  And this weekend my daughter and granddaughter drove in to visit, and the three of us girls went school shopping to take advantage of the tax-free weekend.  I'd forgotten how much fun it is to shop for back-to-school things :*)

On my Design Wall .... I thought I would be done with Raney Days & Mondays last night, but it just didn't turn out that way.  I realized that my Twister Tool class is THIS Tuesday afternoon after Guild and that I had not done any of the fabric planning or cutting, much less sewing the pieces together as assigned - yikes!!!  So I had to put aside Raney Days for a few hours while I took care of the preparation for the Twister class project.  Today, I'll get Raney Days to the point that it is all ready for quilting, and sew up the squares for the Guild project.

The Twister Tool project is a Christmas-in-August type of project, which works really great for me, because I tend to put Christmasy things off too long and end up with no quilty projects done in time for the season.  *sigh*  However, this year I'll have a Twister Tree to display!

So far this is what I managed to get done yesterday.  All the 5" square pieces are cut and arranged in their places.  I should be able to get all the squares sewn together today and be ready for class Tuesday.  Whew!!! I know it doesn't look like much now, but it will look much better the next time you see it.......(wait for it...)

I used a lot of sparkly fabrics in this, to give it extra pizzazz!  These are for the ornaments and the star at the top of the tree.....

Then I went really scrappy with a lot of gold sparkly neutrals for the background - I just LOVE scrappy, don't you?!?  And these sparkly fabrics are some of my favorites in my stash.  I realized as I was cutting that I'm running low on them and need to restock :*)

 

The fun thing about this project is that if you are very careful in cutting the shapes, you can then use the tiny Twister tool and get a minature tree out of the remaining pieces!  Two trees instead of just the one - that just makes my thrifty soul sing!!!  And just wait until you see that cute little teeny-tiny Christmas Tree!! :*D

I have finally begun work on a new Calendar Quilt.....

Kim Schaeffer's August quilt from her book, Calendar Quilts

I don't know if I can finish it up in time to hang this month, but it is one of my favorite quilts in the collection, so I've decided to give it a priority and see what happens.  I'm really trying to practice not rushing through a project just to get it done, and making sure that I take time to enjoy the journey.

So far, all I've managed to get done is trace off the pattern onto the fusible, so I definitely have my work cut out for me - pun entirely intended!  :*)


Both the Twister Tree and the August Calendar Quilt are part of the 2012 NewFO Challenge for August going on over at Cat Patches.  Barbara would love a visit from you, so click on the cute button on my sidebar to check out the fun over at Three Cats Ranch! =^..^=

What's on your design wall today?  Go to Patchwork Times to see some of the amazing quilts others are creating :*)

Also linking up with....
Linky Party at Quilting by the River
Fabric Tuesday at Quilt Story
Try It On Tuesday at Jo's Country Junction
TNT Thursday at Happy Quilting

Hugs & Blessings,
Teresa
=^..^=

Hooray for the Red, White and Blue!

Happy 4th of July!!!

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I'm so happy to have my new calendar quilt, Flowercrackers! decorating my home this holiday :*)

This is the 6th quilt I've made from Kim Schaefer's Calendar Quilts book, and I still have to finish the August project before I will be finished making all of the ones I really love.  I have used this book of patterns more than any other quilting book I own!

This quilt is made almost completely from scraps too!  Many of the fabrics are pieces left over from my Dear Jane quilt.  I really dug deep into my scrap bins and anything red, cream, or blue was fair game.  I only used yardage for the binding and backing.  That green plaid leaf you see near the bottom is from a recycled men's shirt :*)

I quilted this one very simply, choosing once again to stitch down the applique as I quilted, cutting out that one step and speeding up the finish considerably :)  I always love picking out yummy threads for quilting!!!

For the borders I just did a simple straight stitch following some of the lines, using painter's tape to cross from one section to another in straight lines ....

I did a buttonhole stitch on the star flowers to give them a frame ....

 ..... and a quick straight stitching on the stems and leaves.  I had fun playing with freemotion sloppy-by-design circles around each of the flower centers ....

Deciding on the binding for it was not easy.  I really wanted a nice plaid, but didn't have anything on hand that worked and certainly wasn't going to buy fabric for that!  Kim put blue on her original quilt, but it looked too out of place on mine, and red was too much red all by itself - no clear separation from the quilt because there was so much red in the borders.  So I decided to use one of my favorite binding techniques - a tiny flange of blue to stop and frame the quilt between it and a red binding ...

I love that Debbie Mumm selvedge!!!

Can you see her logo on the very left?  

There's no date on this one, but it's a few years old :*)

I began by stitching down my blue strips all around the quilt, a little less than 1/4" away from the edge....

Then I stitched the red binding strips on top of that using a full 1/4" inch which covered the previous stitching on the blue ....

Don't you just love it when the join lands smack dab on the top of the corner???  Grrrrrr!!!!!  I had to stop, tear out several inches of stitches, cut out the join and start it further back before the corner ....

Next, I machine stitched the binding down by stitching in the ditch between the blue and red ....

I use wonder clips on the sides and very fine pins at those tricky corners to keep the binding in place on the back so it is caught neatly in the stitching.....

I just love the look of this technique and have used it on several projects.

It is very effective at providing a frame for the center of the quilt by that line of color as a stop before the red comes in again in the binding.

The backing is a fun, summery sunflower print on a bright blue sky background .... not at all patriotic, but definitely playful and happy, and I think it complements the quilt nicely :*)

Now I need to get busy on my August calendar quilt!

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This is the first of my Q3 Finish-Along projects to be completed - woohoo!!!!  I'll be linking up with Adrianne at On the Windy Side.

Also linking up with SoScrappy for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge ... lots of fun happy RED scraps in this one!!!

And I'm happy to finally  have something to link up with the awesomely fun Scraptastic Tuesday!!!!

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I hope you all enjoy the 4th by doing whatever it is that you love most, 

with those whom you love the most -

and that we will all remember the men and women 

who have fought so hard to give us the freedom to do so!!!

.... and please celebrate safely my friends :*)

Hugs & Blessings!

Teresa

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