This and That

Hope everyone had a pleasant weekend.  I spent mine sewing ~ On Saturday my LQS sponsored a Pillowcase Challenge Day.   I precut a bunch of novelty fabric and ended up using it all, 10 pillowcases, which means 10 yards out of my stash!

Then while waiting for my fabric to finish my Patchwork Party sampler quilt to arrive I started another kit in my stash.  Another one I have no recollection of buying nor can I summon up why I would want to make a kite-themed quilt.

Here's the fabric,

I decided to use this pattern from Moda instead.

The blocks are large ~ 15 inches. And I like them better than the kites!  My fabric came on Saturday late afternoon so I was able to add the sashing and cornerstones on Sunday. 

I love how it's turning out, so soft and feminine looking.  All I have left is a light pink tone-on-tone floral for an inner border and then the purple for the outer border.

And a pocket tissue holder I made for my daughter.  I made the quilted fabric and somehow it came out all askew and with squares rather than diamonds. 
Lastly, the back of a quilting book I found at the library featuring a men's quilted vest that I thought was a hoot!  Can you imagine... LOL.

Thanks for visiting.

Salute to England

Several years ago I spent 3 weeks touring England in a rental car.  A country filled with archaic cathedrals,

historic castles, bad food (sorry) and a plenitude of roundabouts!  So similar to our traffic circles (or rotaries in Massachusetts) but so confusing and comical to negotiate driving on the left-hand side of the road.  There's a huge one in London, I can't remember the name of, that had us going in circles for what seemed miles! Definitely not for the faint-hearted nor humorless!
Anyway, this Roundabout was a lot more fun, it was the Year of Schnibbles pattern for the month.  The Parade of the participants' quilts will be  April 1 over at Sherri's and Sinta's blogs.

I made mine with one charm pack of American Primer by Minick and Simpson and assorted stash fabrics.  It was such an easy pattern.

  

Thanks for reading my blog.

An Annoying Quilt

Hi everyone,
Just a little sewing going on here, first up is my (Fig and Plum) block 2 in the Jelly Roll Quilt Along over at Konda's blog.
Then in keeping with my personal challenge  to start sewing the many quilt kits I've accumulated~

I started with these.  They are from  Patchwork Party 2007 Spring edition.   If you're not familiar with the concept, you visit 12 different online shops to purchase 12 different sampler blocks.  Each shop offers their own finishing kit for their own rendition of the finished quilt.  Each block makes up a 12 inch block.  The ones I purchased used Sanctuary fabric by Three Sisters.  So I got them out and what an unpleasant surprise!  I assumed that the instructions would be for using a rotary cutter to construct them.  Uh, no.  To be fair, there were templates printed on the instruction sheet, but clearly the intent was for customers to purchase a template set by Marti Michell, who designed the blocks.  This little bit of info was not shared before purchase.  I might add the templates were weird sizes not readily duplicated through simple measuring.  I hope that's clear.  Anyway, I cannot stand working with templates so I made 12 different blocks and simply tried to keep the gist of the blocks similar.

Here's a few blocks,  Rolling Pin,

Foxy Grandpa!

Chinese Block,

and Four Crowns.
Now for the setting, I got the not-so-brilliant idea to set the blocks alternating with stepping stones blocks,  and bought some more of the red tone-on-tone fabric.

Too much red!  Tried another setting using a white floral,

and thought it too plain,

added pink which makes the already cut white floral the wrong size!  Yup, had to order more of the white floral.  Thank goodness for the one online shop that still has Sanctuary fabric.

I'll leave you with this little tree frog, cute on the shrub, not so cute when attached to your leg!  Thanks for stopping by.

Celebrate Trees

Although I don't subscribe to the "carbon neutral mentality", I happened upon this worthwhile enterprise and thought I'd share if anyone would care to join in.

Here's the deal, if you have a blog and sign up the,

              "...Make it Green” and “Arbor Day Foundation” are planting a tree in Plumas National Forest. With your support, we are helping reforest Plumas National Forest with as much trees as possible. In the spring of 2010, Douglas-fir, red and white firs, and incense cedars will be planted alongside ponderosa pine and sugar pine trees. These new trees will help prevent soot and soil runoff into Plumas’ precious water supplies..."

The Plumas National Forest is located in Northern California and thousands of acres burned in 2007.  Seems like quite a beneficial project, more info can be found here.

~ ~ ~

And just to keep things quilt-y here are some pictures of quilts I forgot to share after attending a quilt show in the fall, first up Pickle Dish and closeups, don't you love all those polka dots?

And this one had the most wonderful applique,

Thanks for stopping by!

Quilt Along

I joined the Jelly Roll Sampler Quilt Along a few weeks ago over at Moose on the Porch Quilts and just finished the first block.  New block instructions are posted every two weeks by a different designer and with over 400 participants signed up, this should be quite fun!

 I'm using Fig and Plum for my quilt blocks, group pictures here.

 ~ ~ ~

I made this quilt last year from a fat quarter bundle I had received as a gift.  It was the complete collection of Violet Patch by Debbie Beaves for RJR back in 2004.  I was never really nuts about the fabric line and was anxious to use it up so here's the second quilt from it.

I used the Blue Lagoon pattern from the Jelly Roll Quilts book that I love so much as I had loads of 2.5 inch strips leftover.  It measures about 70 inches square and I still have fabric left!

 I think they'd make some nice HeartStrings quilt blocks.  If anyone would like them, along with some other HeartStrings blocks I've already made from other fabrics, leave a comment and I'll send them to you.  Or if you just want the fabric, let me know.