New Year and Lots of Changes

Hello all!

It's been quite some time since I've posted on my blog.  I've missed it.  This last year was full of moving into our new house which I had posted about in some of the 2015 posts.  The actual move was only 1 day but because of my health issues, it took me about 6 months to feel like I was settled into my new home.

I'm back on my blog now and planning some major changes.  I'll be posting pictures along the way of our new house and of course my projects, etc.  I've missed blogging and reading blogs.  I have fallen in love with Instagram and it has taken me away as it has so many.  I want to do both in the future, Instagram and blog.  Instagram is a moment in time but blogging tells a story.

In the mean time, I'll just post a very few pictures from 2016.  Why are they so few you ask?  Because my dear husband accidentally deleted most of my pictures from my phone which is where they all were.  I had not been taking pictures with my camera for some reason.  But now I've learned my lesson.  Never let your husband download pictures for you.

These first two pictures are the challenge blocks I entered in last years local quilt show.  The first is a pattern from 627Handworks on craftsy.  The second is from the book Sweet Tweets by Erin Cox.  I won First Place ribbons on both.  The challenge was scraps and we had to use at least 16 different fabrics per block.

 These next pictures are a mini quilt I made for an Instagram swap.  The geese are a pattern from Jelliquilts on craftsy and the butterflies are from an out of print book by Linda Causee.  This was also my first foray into big stitch hand quilting as you can see from the bottom three pictures.

I didn't actually get any large quilts finished last year because of the move and setting up my sewing room and then redoing my sewing room again.  But I have some things coming up that are almost done plus some stitching projects that I'd love to share.  I'm trying to get myself more organized and stay off the computer and social media so that I can get more done.  It's funny how you can spend hours looking at the sale fabric in an online store and then the day is gone and no sewing got done.  I'm trying really hard not to do that anymore.  (It's so hard!!!)

I'm looking forward to a future of changing and growing my blog and getting way more sewing done!

A Quilty Birthday Finish

I made up a sweet little quilt to give to my friend for her birthday.  I was 2 months late.  Sigh.  But that's okay because she liked it and that's really all that matters.

 My pictures stink.  Sorry about that.  I took them inside in low light and that was a mistake.  Especially, since I can't fix that.

Anyhoo, two of the blocks are paper pieced and the other two are regular pieced.  I've been itching to do the paper pieced circle of geese for some time now and I just love it.  She loved it too which made me wish I had made four of them in different colors.  The multicolored star on bottom is also paper pieced.  The green plus block and the scrappy patchwork are the regular pieced ones.  I used some of my favorite fabrics in the scrappy patchwork.  See the little yoga monkey?  That fabric is from Michael Miller and is no longer available.  The plus block is my favorite block of all the blocks I've done so far.  I don't know why.  Maybe because it's easy and clean looking.

The background fabric is Kona Ash and Kona White.  I quilted it on my home machine with my walking foot in a diagonal straight line.  I did mark all my lines so they are straight not "organic" like I usually do.  I used a white 50 wt. Aurifil thread, I think it was number 2021.
The fabrics are all from my stash.  We'd be here all day if I listed them all.  See the little elephants in the star fabric?  OH, how I LOVE that fabric.  I also have it in blue and orange but my blue is running really low and my orange isn't far behind.

This quilt measures approximately 24 x 24 inches.  It's bound with scrappy fabric binding that was the extra on other quilts but I made sure it all matched.

My backing is made up of more Kona Ash and some of the fabrics from the front.  See my cute quilt label?  I've been following the tutorial from My Quilt Infatuation for some time now and I just love it.  It makes a sweet little label.
I swear it wasn't all crooked in real life.  At least I don't think it was.

Thanks for reading!
Tricia
Linking up to Quilt Story for Fabric Tuesday**

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**