A Little Bit of Everything....

While working hard on getting my upcoming classes in order, I've managed to get in a little FUN too ....

I started sewing together the rows for my Blooming Nine Patch this past week using them as Leaders/Enders, and although I was suspicious that this might take awhile, you may be happy to know that I am no longer suspicious - now I know it!  I think there must be a million 3-1/2" blocks in this top!  I started from the middle, planning to do each side separately, joining the two halves at the last to eliminate some of the bulk.

One at a time.....  they sure do make lovely strips though, don't they?  I'm chain-stitching, but carefully, carefully!  I don't want to get these out of order - that would be disaster!

Friday night I took all of these off the Design Wall and bagged them up - carefully marked on each bag and pinned in the correct order! - to take to my Piecemaker's sit-n-sew.  I decided to further break the sewn sections up by the bag.  As usual, we had a lot of fun, but not much sewing happened for me....

Yep, that's all I got done!  ONE BAG, LOL!!!!

But I really enjoyed catching up and having a good chat with some of my friends :*)

In my defense however, I should also let you know that I did take part in a class on English Paper Piecing (EPP) and Hand Piecing taught by Marita Wolf from The Quilter's Path that night which took up about an hour of our time. Coming up in September, TQP will be offering a BOM on the Patchwork of the Crosses by Lucy Boston.  Finally, I have some Slow Stitching to share at Kathy's Quilts!!!

My center crosses - the black is hand pieced; the red is EPP using the templates shown by the arrow.

Marita had these already stamped for us to use the lines - such a great way to hand piece!
(I hope you noticed that the back is as neat as the front!!!)

I worked so hard on these, I bent my needle!!!

I've always loved this quilt block - you can do so much with it by fussy-cutting interesting fabrics :*)  I don't want to show pictures without permission from a blog, but you really should GO SEE THESE examples by 3 Dog Design Company using Jenny Beyer border prints - WOWZA!!!  One of my favorites using this block is the below design by one of my favorite designers, Postcards from Panama, (picture from Pinterest) - OOO-LA-LA!!!!  This girl has an absolute genius for using fabrics to create something gorgeous!!!!

I'm sure this will end up being another WIP, but it will be a fun process, right?

On Thursday, I taught a Raw-Edge Machine Applique class at Music City Guild ....

My little wagon helps me come well prepared 

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These were some of my samples for the class - you may recognize some of them....

The blue and cream quilt top, bottom right with the bees on it, served as my example.  It is one of the Calendar Quilts from Kim Schaeffer's wonderful book, and one that I've wanted to make for quite some time.  And since I didn't have time to do the Lime and/or Bright Green blocks for SoScrappy's Rainbow Scrap Challenge this month, I enjoyed playing with all scraps for this top!

Ahhh - gotta love those blues!!!

I used the bee section to show how to put together a section separately on an applique sheet and then transfer it to where you want it on the background.

These are the cutest little bees - and they'll show up better when I stitch around the head/antennae with white :)

One of the best perks for doing this class was receiving these AMAZING cards from the oh-so-talented Sylvia Ballard as her way of saying thanks for teaching the class!  OMG!!!!

Sylvia has been making lovely crafty items for a long time, and I treasure each item I have that she's made.  I admit I was absolutely speechless when she gave them to me at the end of the class!!!  Can you see the little scalloped edges?  And the cute tiny buttons?

Each one is a delicate work of art!  I don't think I'll ever be able to mail them to anyone... would you?  Perhaps, for someone really special one day - we'll see :*)

Thank you Sylvia - I can't tell you how blessed I feel to receive these from you :*)  

I also wanted to share with you the talent of another of my friends - Joanne Schlichting.  You've all heard me talk about Joanne, right?  She's a great quilting friend and also is my knitting partner in crime :*)

Isn't this an AMAZING quilt?  Joanne made this quilt for her granddaughter who has a heart to become a missionary in Africa.  Aly left for college last week, and this gorgeous quilt is now hanging on her wall there to remind her of her dream!  She has already visited Katie's kids in Uganda (see the book Kisses from Katie here) and would love to go back someday and help Katie in her work.  My prayers go with you Aly!!!

That's enough for now folks!  I don't want you going cross-eyed trying to read any more LOL!!!  I'll be linking up with the following fun linky parties!

SoScrappy's Rainbow Scrap Challenge

KathysQuilts' Slow Sunday Stitching

Patchwork Times' Design Wall Monday

Freemotion by the River's Tuesday Linky Party

Hugs & Blessings!

Teresa

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