Gerriann in Progress

A long, long time ago (at least 5 years ago)

I bought the pattern and some of the orange batiks

to make this cute giraffe wall hanging.

Since then, the pile has been sitting in my cabinet.

This past week it was time to make her and

release her from cabinet jail.

It took me about three hours to trace the pattern pieces

onto Wonderunder, cut them out, play with the

fabrics and make the top.

 The pattern is helpful in figuring out which

pieces need to be cut from light, medium and dark fabrics.

Playing with the fabrics and piecing the giraffe was lots of fun.

Borders will be added to the outside after I figure out what fabrics to use.

The pattern has a border closer to the giraffe,

stitched onto the background,

but I'd prefer them to be around the outside.

 

After the borders are added,

it will time to machine applique the pieces in place.

I'm thinking of using monofilament thread so the thread

isn't what one sees when looking at this.

I'm excited to have Gerriann come to life and hope to get her finished soon.

This pattern, along with many other cute animals and

designs can be found here.

I am linking to Design Wall Monday today.

Happy quilting!

Pastel Baby Quilt Finish

When I started this quilt last year,

I did not like it much at all.

These are so not my usual colors of fabrics

and I thought it was dull.

There were two charm packs that needed to be used

and I was going to get those out of my stash.

This week was the week to get it finished

and I have to say...

I am really liking this little quilt now.

Half Square triangles were made from the charm packs

and then sewn into squares on point and chevron blocks.

 

I could not find a fabric for the border that didn't take over the

entire quilt,

so I decided on this butter yellow blender.

 

It was quilted with meandering swirls

with white thread.

 

I practiced my feather quilting on the borders

and am pretty pleased with the results.

 

This photo shows the true colors of the fabrics.

They are very pastel and sweet.

 

This little quilt will go in the pile of quilts

waiting for babies.

Another pile has been removed from my Hidey Hole!

Happy Quilting!

Hawaiian Quilt Table Topper

Six years ago we went to Hawaii to celebrate

my youngest daughter's graduation from graduate school.

While we were there, I visited a wonderful quilt shop on Kauai.

It had one of the best selections of batik fabrics, as well as

 a number of Hawaiian quilt designs cut and ready to applique.

I bought one and appliqued the design onto the background right away.

Then it sat. And found it's way into my box of shame.

It has been released and finished!

I know why I didn't finish this one years ago.

I do not enjoy hand quilting and the traditional Hawaiian quilts

are hand echo quilted around the design.

In order to get this out of the box and in the finished pile,

I machine quilted the echos.

This batik was a great memento of Hawaii because of the shells in the design.  

It is finished and resides on a side table in my family room.

I'm linking to Design Wall Monday today.

Happy Quilting!

Snowman From the Box of Shame

Some of you might remember the

Box of Shame

I found in my closet last year,

filled with partially finished projects

that had been forgotten.

After the box was found,

I finished a few of the forgotten projects

and released them from the box.

Another project has been completed from that box.

Mr. Snowman was so close to being done!

Why did I not finish him instead of putting him in the box?

All he needed was his face and the binding to be finished.

The time consuming part was done!

In the original, his nose and mouth were buttons, in addition to his eyes.

I decided to just use buttons for his eyes and am pleased with how he looks.

I finished him just in time, as we are supposed to be

getting more snow this weekend.

 He will hang out on the front of my quilt cabinet for a while.

My amaryllis was a little late to the party this year,

but it is still beautiful.

Wouldn't this make a gorgeous quilt?

Happy Quilting!

Polka Dot Baby Quilt

During our latest snow the other day,

I was able to get a lot of the quilting done on this

baby quilt made from scraps and left over

fabrics from other quilts.

I love it when an entire quilt is made without purchasing anything.

These polka dot fabrics came from a box of pieces

I had cut to make a larger polka dot quilt years ago.

It's amazing what is found when cleaning!

 

This was a fun quilt to put together.

Most of the nine patch squares were already cut from

making the previous quilt.

The sashing was left over from the wedding quilt

I had made for my daughter and son in law.

I just needed to cut the cornerstones and the setting triangles.

 

This baby quilt will be donated to my church.

 

There are still some tiny pieces of these fabrics

left in the box, but I'm not sure I'll do anything with those.

Never say never, though!

Happy Quilting!

Snowy Sewing and Such

Snow storm #2 came this morning and,

thankfully, wasn't as bad as predicted.

We have snow, sleet and ice,

so it's a good day to stay in and

get things done on my to-do list.

Last night I finished sewing the wool circles

into the garland and am very happy with it.

It's draped on my quilt cabinet and won't stay here, but it was

a good place for a photo.

I'm not sure how long it ended up being.

Those books on the shelf....

The top one was my grandmother's cookbook.

There are recipes that she and my great-grandmother

hand wrote in that book.

The books under her cookbook were her father's

cookbooks when he owned a bakery.

I haven't used his books since the recipes call for

5# of flour, 2 dozen eggs, etc.

They are fun to look at, though!

Last night I finally sewed the blocks of the

pastel baby quilt together.

They have been waiting patiently for months!

These colors aren't accurate... to dark and muddy,

but I can't get a good photo with true colors.

A border may be added, but I have to buy some fabric.

I don't have any of these colors in my stash.

While I was photographing the wool garland,

I took a photo of this piece that sits on top of my quilt cabinet.

This was made years ago from wool and cotton.
I really enjoyed making this, except for those half square triangles.

They ended up 1/2" finished!

Thank goodness for Thangles!

I'm linking to Design Wall Monday today.

Happy Quilting!

Slow Stitching

2019 started off with some travel up north to visit family

and with all three of us getting bad colds.

At least we've taken care of that for the year.... I hope!

Since we were traveling, not much has happened in my

Hidey Hole, but I have big plans for this year.

Now that the Christmas decorations are put away,

I hope to do a deep clean of this mess of a room I have.

Things have gotten a bit out of control and I know that no one

else has this problem. :)

While the sewing machine has been quiet,

I have been doing some very mindless hand stitching.

Years ago I purchased a bag of scrappy wool circles.

The circles came in two sizes with about 200 in the bag.

Back in the fall I saw a garland made with wool circles and stars

and knew I had found a project for these wool rounds.

Aren't these wool pieces beautiful?

 I stitched the small circle onto the large circle using silk thread.

The buttonhole stitch is not my favorite to use,

or maybe I should say MY buttonhole stitch is just not pretty.

The circles were pinned to a black ribbon,

stitched and stuffed as I sewed along.

 

I'm not sure how long this will end up being,

but it will be fun to use at Christmas.

I'm off to clean and hopefully play some later!

Happy Quilting!

Scrappy Finish

The week between Christmas and New Year's

I pin basted four quilts,

preparing them for machine quilting.

Today I am sharing the third finish of the four.

I made this quilt from rectangles I found in a box of

scraps from a quilt I made a number of years ago.

There were a lot more rectangles than I remembered,

so I started randomly placing them on my design wall

and created this top.

This was pure mindless sewing,

which is needed on occasion!

 

The machine quilting was purely mindless, too.

I was listening to a book on Hoopla while I quilted.

No measuring, no counting, so stopping and starting.

Just quilt and move the fabric.

 

It was fun making this quilt from the box of scraps.

The binding is also from my box of binding scraps.

I would not usually put all of these fabrics together,

but it seems to work here.

 

The backing peaking out from the bottom corner

was left over from a larger quilt.

This finish will go in the "to be given" pile.

Happy Quilting!

Canyon Dance Baby Quilt Part 2

Last year I started making blocks using some blue batiks

and the Canyon Dance templates.

A baby quilt was made from a little over half of the blocks,

so I had a bunch left to use.

A few more blocks were made

and another baby quilt came from these blocks.

This pattern is addictive!

As soon as I finished quilting this,

I have the urge to make another one.

 

It's a good thing, too, as my daughter has asked for a 

queen size Canyon Dance for her guest bed.

 

This one will be put away and wait for a baby to whom to gift it.

 

Happy Quilting!