Sunday Fun Day.

Good morning, y'all! Happy Sunday!

For the past week, daytime temperatures have ranged from the mid-50s to 70 degrees. All sorts of high temperature records for February in Pennsylvania were broken.

Except for the mountaintops and a few shady areas, most of the snow melted. Neighbors were out and about working in their flower beds and walking the streets and trails. A few of the willows sprouted soft, grey kitty toes.

The birds came back to the feeders. Quite a bit of time throughout the week was spent at the kitchen window simply watching them feed. The feeders seemed to draw in a dozen or so black capped chickadees, a tufted titmouse and a beautiful, iridescent headed grackle (thinking the bronze race, but haven't seen it since it saw me, so can't be sure).

The transition from Winter to Spring can be devastating to our fine feathered friends. Many times they have to travel long distances with little forage. Keeping the feeders stocked and a suet cake available seems a small price to pay for all the enjoyment they provide. Waking to birdsong is on my list of favorite things in life.

Back to reality.

Yesterday the snow began anew. Tiny little pellets about the size of a glass-head pin top. This morning the flakes are the size of goose down.

The warmth was nice while it lasted. We took advantage by getting a bit of fresh air. Amazing how restorative sunshine and warmth in the great outdoors can be after a month of being cold.

Work continues on the Brown Bag Challenge quilt. All but one of the hand-quilted blocks was ripped out. Six of the twenty holly and berry blocks have been embroidered. Am hoping to complete the quilt by the end of March, but a painting project is due in two weeks and another (easier) quilt project is beckoning. (More on that later this week.)

We spent this past week running from Physical Therapy to the Doctor. Back to Physical Therapy. TOPS, Walmart, and getting the Jeep ready for inspection. Doesn't sound like much, but add crafting, chores and a physical disability...

Folks, we're just plumb worn out. Today is truly a day of rest. 

Where ever you are and whatever you choose to do: May you find something to laugh and smile about as you go about your day. Look for the good and chances are you'll find it!

Sunday: A Typical Day of Rest. It's Not Work If You Love What You Are Doing.

Back in 2013 I began this wall hanging as part of a Brown Bag Challenge at a local fabric shop (Little Fabric Garden).

The blocks themselves went together rather easily. I was rather proud of how crisp the points came out.

The holly leaf pattern is an original pattern. You can read more about it here.

The project was put on hold because my hand quilting of the leaves looked horrible on both sides. Because I'm working on finishing up projects, it was put back on the active work-in-progress pile.

After speaking with one of the ladies at the fabric shop and learning that to have someone with a long arm complete the quilting would cost more than budgeted, I decided to attempt machine quilting on my own.

That bright idea only got this far:

What a pain in the butt trying to quilt this small detail using a conventional sewing machine. Too much like work.

So...

Set aside for a little while until a solution could be found.

After weighing options, I decided to rip out the leaves already hand quilted and embroider them instead.

Rip. . . Rip. . . Rip. . .

It took about a half hour to rip out and then embroider the two leaves on this triangle. Although ripping is time consuming, it's the best solution because the embroidery really accentuates the leaves, as you can see from the first picture in this post.

After the leaves and berries are all embroidered, I will stitch-in-the-ditch using a similar green.

This is going to take a while. *sigh*

Good thing I find embroidery relaxing.

Here's hoping you have a wonderful Sunday!

Do-It-Yourself Quilt Template

There are a couple posts on this blog that deal with the Brown Bag Challenge so I won't bore you with those details. Once joined the blocks had some nice white space to add a quilting design. The templates found online and in my books didn't suit, so I decided to make my own.Because I'm naming this piece "Winter Picnic", I wanted to carry the holly in the fabric throughout the design.

First I plucked a couple holly leaves from the bush by the driveway to use as reference. I measured the available white space - one square and one triangle.

With sketchbook in hand I drew the square and triangle out and sketched a holly design. If I was going to re-use the template I would have made it on cardboard (the inside of a cereal box works great) or template plastic, but I'm just using it for this one project so heavyweight paper sufficed. 

I placed the sketch on a cutting mat and used an X-Acto knife to cut out the designs.

 

 It just took a few minutes to cut them out and wallah! An original quilting template. The photos below show how the design looks on  the wall hanging.

I'm using high-loft batting in the quilt to give it a bit of depth. I think it's going to turn out really nice. Don't forget that the design should be lightly penciled on the fabric prior to basting together the quilt sandwich (backing-batting-quilt top).

It's another rainy day here in Northwestern PA. Great time to quilt! Hope you've found these instructions useful. Let me know what you think of this project. Like it? Love it? Hate it? Suggestions?

Trapezoids and Triangles

Being new to machine quilting I have a tendency to bite off more than I can chew. The local Brown Bag Challenge has provided an opportunity to compete with other quilters that I eagerly embraced. The chosen pattern seemed simple enough - a nine-patch surrounded by trapezoids and triangles. Yet something didn't seem quite right after all the pieces were cut.

The central  nine-patches were simple to put together using strip piecing techniques learned earlier. The problem was the trapezoids and triangles that surround the nine-patch blocks. The triangles joining the trapezoids just seemed way too large. I put them together, but there was an awful lot of fabric left that didn't match up. After a bit of help from my friend the seam ripper four blocks were completed. The extra fabric was ignored.


These blocks were supposed to measure 12 inches when completed. Mine measured 11 3/4 inches.  I suspect that my cuts were slightly off.

My original plan was to put sashing between the blocks. The blocks looked fine when laid out against the sashing and background fabric. When joined it just didn't look right. So... rip, rip, rip.

Next I tried joining the blocks together, but the points were disappearing. So... rip, rip, rip.

After two failed attempts to make the points stand out I gave up and decided to hand piece them (in progress).


Here is a picture of the blocks right now (the vertical center seam is still pinned). My question is this: have any of you had problems with trapezoids and triangles? What did you do to fix them?