April's Goal - A Phone Pouch for my Husband

I've met my goal for "A Lovely Year of Finishes" for April.  YAY!  It was down to the wire, let me tell you.
My husband has been wanting a new phone pouch for some time as the one I had made him before had gotten pretty ragged.
 

I'm actually in the process of writing a tutorial for this pouch but I wanted to go ahead and post my finish so that I could link up at Fiber of All Sorts for this month.

This pouch slips over your belt as you slide it through your belt loops.  So it doesn't clip onto anything.  There is no chance it's going to fall off and into the toilet, or out of your pocket, etc.  As long as your phone is in your pouch, you won't loose it.

Once, I finished this pouch my husband pointed out to me that the belt loop was too far down.  It needed to be as close to the top as possible.  So, (sigh) I took all the side stitches out and moved the belt loop up and resewed the sides.  Now it is perfect.  I'll have all the pictures and instructions with my tutorial.

And now for some spring pictures!

I love these flowers.  They are in my flower bed in my front yard.  We always called them phlox but I think they are actually oxalis.  Does anyone know?  They are an old flower, you can't find them at the plant nurseries.  

They like to spill out and spread.

And change colors.
 My husband mows them down and they come right back - the ones outside of the beds that is.

*Linking up with Fiber of all Sorts*

Tula Tuesday Blocks 3 and 5

Hi everyone!  This is going to be a quick post because it's late and I need to go to bed - us old people have to go to bed early. ;)

 Today is Tula Tuesday and I completed two more blocks to add to my collection of one - yay for me!  Honestly, I did not realize how hard and time consuming each individual block would be.  There are so many pieces.  I'm just not use to blocks that challenge me this much.  It's a good thing to be challenged though -right?

 This is block 5.  It really is yellow like in this picture.  For some reason, the other pictures make it look more of a cream.  I LOVE this orange butterfly print.  This block was actually fairly easy.

 Block number three.  I'm keeping track of the numbers by pinning a small piece of paper to the backs of each block so if you see part of a pin, that's what it's for.

 I love the colors in this block.  I fussy cut this flower from a scrap of Michael Miller's Pretty Bird fabric.

I've been wanting to buy and make the Gypsy Wife quilt.  Some of the blogs I read are even participating in a quilt along.  The way they have it broken down for the quilt a long makes it seem not so hard but since I've started the Tula blocks, I don't know if I'm ready for Gypsy Wife yet.  Maybe if I can finish the Tula quilt this year, I can do the Gypsy Wife next year,  It's something to shoot for.

Thanks for reading!
**Linking up to Tula Tuesday at Diary of a Mad Fabriholic**

A Friday Finish - Bird Mini Quilt

One month last fall, I can't remember which one, Karen K. Stone (author and quilter) came to our local quilt guild for a speaking engagement and also to teach a workshop. 

Her quilts are fabulous and all original.  I really enjoyed her talk and looking at the quilts she had to show us.  She does a lot of paper piecing, uses embellishments and does a lot of thread painting which I am in awe of.  She hand dies much of the fabric she uses and it was just beautiful.

Her book is wonderful.  The pictures are so great that I think it would make a wonderful coffee table book even if you aren't a quilter.  I love looking at the patterns and pictures.  I couldn't wait to snap up one after her speech was done.  

The workshop day was less impressive.  I'm just biting my tongue to keep myself from typing out all the things I'd like to say but I don't want my blog to come across as mean or snarky - unless I'm trying to be snarky which I'm not.
The online quilting community seems to always be so positive.  I rarely read a negative review about anything be it teachers or notions, books or patterns.  And lets face it, not everything is great.  Not every class you take is going to meet your expectations.  I also try to keep in mind that just because I didn't get what I expected from the class, doesn't mean everyone else was unhappy.

So that's all I'm going to say about that.  Here's my quilty finish that was started in Ms. Stone's workshop.  The pattern is her original pattern.  The outside sawtooth parts are paper pieced and the inside square with the birdie is fussy cut.  Her quilt, that used this pattern, had flowers that had been thread painted in the centers.  It was so lovely.

I ended up making just one block using the workshop material.  I decided to turn it into a mini quilt to hang in my sewing room.  I love the fabric that I used in the quilt - it makes me happy.  

I used it as sort of a practice block for quilting.  I did echo quilting in the center square.  

And free motion quilting on the rest.  I think it was my first free motion quilting project other than the sample sandwiches that I had been practicing with for some time. It's very densely quilted.  I think I was trying to get as much practice in as possible.  lol

 Here is the back.  You can see the echo quilting really well here.  This little quilt has lived in my sewing room for quite some time now because someone had never put the binding on.  Finally, someone - me - did.

 The little mini only measures 11.5 x 11.5 inches.

    The backing fabric is Wordplay from Benartex.  A lot of the fabrics used in the sawtooth paper piecing are from Michael Miller (Mirror Ball dots and the orange swirl), there are some Marblehead fabrics by Ro Gregg and the rest is just random from my stash.  The birdie fabric in the center is a clearance piece of fabric that I found at Hancock's.  I only bought 1 yard of it but I love it and now I'm afraid to use it.  The binding is from the Architextures line by Robert Kaufman.

This was a UFO that I was able to scratch off my 2014 list.  
I hope you liked my little quilt and thanks so much for visiting me at my blog.  Please leave a comment so I know you were here - even if it's just to say hi!
**linking up to Crazy Mom Quilts**

Tula Tuesday - My First Block

Last year in the blogosphere, many quilters were doing the Tula Pink's City Sampler 100 Modern Quilt Block.

 I wasn't able to participate although I wanted to. so. bad.

Well, this year I'm finally able to fit some blocks in - or at least I'm going to do them anyway whether I have time or not.  Sam, over at Diary of a Mad Fabriholic is having a Tula Tuesday Linky Party for all those people who weren't able to participate last year but who still want to make the blocks.  So, I'm going to try to get my blocks done each week by Tuesday.  I don't know how many blocks - maybe just one but hey, at least that's something.

This week I made my first block.  Yes, just one.  Her blocks look easy at first glance but each one contains about a hundred tiny pieces if you make them using her cutting measurements.  Yesterday, I spent some time going through and marking some of the ones that I could take shortcuts on, figuring out the math and making notes.  Plus, I pulled the fabric for 3 blocks but then only had time to make one.

 This is block 4.  I'm not going in order because I want to try to follow the color schemes she uses in each block and I'll have to add some solid colors to my stash before I can do that.

 These fabrics are all Tula fabrics and the solids are Kona Cotton.  I'm not only going to use Tula fabric though, I want to mix it up a bit.

This is the quilt I'd like to end up making.  It's queen size and I've never made one that big before.  I already know that I'm not going to be able to quilt something this big on my current machines, so I may have to send it out.  Hmm.
I love the rainbow pattern and the scrappy fabrics used.  This quilt is going on my bed - my husband has been asking why I haven't made one for our bed yet, so here you go. 

*Linking up to Tula Tuesday at Diary of a Mad Fabriholic**

April Goal and a Friday Finish

Ok.  First things first.
My goal for March for A Lovely Year of Finishes was to complete the Giant Starburst Quilt which I did.
So, now moving on down my to-do list, my April goal is to make a new phone pouch for my husband which he has wanted for some time (and I'm tired of listening to him complain).
I can't find a picture of the one he has now but it's similar to the one I made my FIL for Christmas which is this one:

 This was made from a lightweight cotton that looks like denim and I used a heavy interfacing to make it stiff.
 The belt loop is added on the back and he just slides his belt through it and that's it.  No clip, no worrying about it falling into the toilet, no carrying it in a pocket where it is uncomfortable.  My FIL uses his everyday.

Phone fits right inside and it kind of blends with his jeans that he always wears.

My hubby uses his everyday to and has since I made it about 2 or so years ago.  It is showing it's age.  I have this leftover UT Texas fabric that I'm going to try to use as lining or something.  We'll see how it turns out.

And now for my Friday Finish!
I made a new pillow cover for my front porch pillow.  The old one had faded really bad and was so sad that I was tired of looking at it.

So I bought this new fabric which is resistant from fading for up to 500 hours of sunlight.  Great!  
Anyway I love the colors in it, aquas, greens, and blues.  I made this cover a bit too big for the pillow because the last cover was really tight and was impossible to get off and on. 
But, as you can see from the picture of the back, it's maybe a bit too large.

 

 The back is just a white cotton duck I already had.

 My front porch.  The pillow looks great but everything else needs a makeover and it needs plants.  I'll have to see what I can do.  My son likes to spray paint, maybe he'd paint my table for me - a happy yellow?

 Welcome back to Amanda at Crazy Mom Quilts.
*Linking up to Crazy Mom Quilts and Kelly at My Quilt Infatuation and Fiber of All Sorts for A Lovely Year of Finishes*

WIP Wednesday - Cutting, Cutting, Cutting

Today is WIP Wednesday, and for the last 2 days I've been cutting my fabric for a project that the new members group is doing in our guild.  The group is called the Hive and they meet for lunch and to work on projects after our guild meetings.

This is a new project and it's a paper piecing project - YAY!  It's called Completely Dotty and you can find the pattern here.  Our guild meeting isn't until a week from Thursday but I wanted to make sure I was ready.   I normally don't like saving everything until the last minute.  Also, this week I made a list of the things I'd like to get done this week and I'm trying to stick to it.  Otherwise, I seem to just wonder around working on project after project and never finishing anything.

Our cutting task was to cut around 250 of each light and dark colored fabric.  So far I have 100 light colored and about 55 dark colored.  I'm not going to make the entire quilt.  I thought I'd try for a mini quilt with just four blocks.  At next weeks meeting, we pay for our pattern so we can get started on our blocks.

My fabrics are all random ones that I pulled and some are from my scrap bin.  So, no actual color pattern, just scrappy.

What is your work in progress this muggy, rainy Wednesday?

Thanks for stopping by my blog!
 **Linking up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced, Fabric Tuesday at Quilt Story, Show and Tell at Fresh Squeezed Fabric.**