I'm keeping busy with little bits of sewing and knitting..
I love cleaning up the slow way by making things out of scraps, leftovers, and single balls of yarn. I'm hoping to see some visible progress on the sewing room soon. It should be getting tidier, right?
Every Last Piece - featured quilt - Solar Flare
Solar Flare is another of the string quilts featured in chapter one of Every Last Piece. In this quilt I built the string pieced units to fit the 45 degree triangle rotary cutter ruler.I played with the pieces for a long time trying to decide on a layout. I had them in various settings on the design wall as I was working on other projects. I tried vertical zig/zag strips, horizontal rows, random placement, circular blobs, small stars, and several others.
My son was home from school one weekend while the parts were on the design wall. He asked if he could play around with them and I assured him that would be fine. I came into the sewing room later to find a huge starburst filling the design wall. That yellow ring really sparkles. I tweaked it a bit and added some coordinating fabrics and ended up with this quilt. I love it!I had a bit of fun with the quilting too. The yellow/golden star ring is quilted in a flame design.
The string pieced sections are quilted with an overall serpentine design. There are a few random strings that break the pattern. I love the added interest in the quilting.
The main background is quilted with a turbulent swirl reminiscent of Van Gogh's Starry Night.
I am grateful that my son spent a little time playing in my studio that day.
Finished size: 67'' by 67''The pattern and directions for Solar Flare can be found in chapter one of my book.You can purchase an autographed copy of the Every Last Piece from me here.
Modern Style for Girls
Miss P and I LOVE Mary Abreu's book, Modern Style for Girls. The book includes basic patterns for bodice, pants and skirts that are just right for preteen girls. Each of the three chapters focuses on one of the patterns and its variations. The different styles for each basic pattern allow you to be your own designer. After reading through the different adaptations of each garment you get to know how the parts go together and gain confidence to make your own adjustments and try your own styling. The patterns are not complicated and work well for a confident beginning sewer.
P enjoyed looking through the book and chose several garments from the book that she'd like. First up were the pedal pushers featured on the cover.
The fit was PERFECT on the first try. Don't you love this vintage button P chose for the waistband?
We also added a bit of embroidery to the bottom. The chainstitch is stitched with aurifil floss and the french knots are in aurifil wool.
I know we will be making more garments from this book! Next up for Miss P is the Kicky Pleated Skirt.
Wordless Wednesday
Wordless Wednesday
Advent Tree - a collaborative effort
I've been eager to share this project with you!Both of my grown sons always enjoyed counting down the days to Christmas on the advent tree I made when they were small. They would fight over who got to take turns putting the ornament up each day. As the sole child at home now, lucky Miss P gets to hang an ornament on the tree for 24 days! She and I decided that now that D and his new wife have their own place, they should have their own countdown tree.
P came up with the original design. She improv pieced the green tree parts all on her own.
The star tree topper in her original design ended up being a fancy button.
I built the background pieces from my neutral scraps
and put all of the parts together to make the quilt top.
The background is quilted in a breezy design and the tree quilting resembles needles or branches.
P and I worked together to make the ornaments. P made a couple of really cute beaded ornaments, aren't they great? 
We also included a 2015 penny, the year of their wedding.
We didn't quite get 24 ornaments made before Christmas but we have almost a year to make the last few.It was quite a pleasure to work with my daughter on this gift. She did a wonderful job on the design and sewing and had great fun choosing all of the buttons!I know D and M will enjoy using this in their home next year.Now I want to make a new tree to update the one we have been using for more than twenty years.
Every Last Piece - feature quilt - Circular Reasoning
This quilt, Circular Reasoning, uses the same idea for varied value placement as Bow Ties that I shared earlier. I chose to use a solid red for the circular pieces and solid black for the "crossing" segments. The other parts of the block vary in light medium or dark fabrics. 
The variation in value placement results in a high energy quilt and keeps your eye moving.
When building the blocks I first tried a more scrappy look with a different fabric in each area of the block. I tried fabrics that read the same from a distance instead of repeating the same fabrics as I did in the finished quilt. Even with the consistent black and red there was a bit too much going on.
I like that here, with the same fabric repeated symmetrically in the block, you can see each block as its own unit.
I'd like to try this design again but keep the diagonal cross lines as a constant fabric instead of the circles.
Finished size: 60'' x 75''The pattern and directions for Circular Reasoning can be found in chapter two of my book.You can purchase an autographed copy of the Every Last Piece from me here.
Every Last Piece - feature quilt - Bow Ties
Bow Ties is a quilt I finished in 1993. It is a true scrap quilt and is made with the scraps from many of my old 4-H sewing projects.
I was inspired by an antique bow ties quilt I had seen in a magazine. I love the way the placement of light and dark fabrics varied in each block and wanted to create the same energy in my own quilt.
I am glad that I took the time to make the block the traditional way with the set in seams. The square set on an angle in the center of the block really looks like a knot in the bow, especially with stripe, plaid, or checked fabrics.
This quilt is a real trip down memory lane for me. I'm having a bit of a 1970s flashback here.
My grandmother hand quilted this quilt and I gave it to my oldest son for Christmas back in 1993. I'm secretly glad that he hasn't taken it to his apartment.
Finished size 71'' by 100''.Bow Ties can be found in the gallery section of my book.You can purchase an autographed copy of the Every Last Piece from me here.
Modern Elegance
Miss P and I have enjoyed coloring together since she was quite small. Even in preschool, P prefered the "fancy" style coloring books and pointy colored pencils. The last couple of years we haven't spent as much time coloring as we did when she was smaller.We jumped at the chance to review fabric designer, Amanda Murphy's, new adult coloring book, Modern Elegance.
Amanda sent us the digital version of the book. We looked through it and printed off a few of our favorite pages, broke out the big girl prismacolor pencils, and had some quality together time.
The designs in the book are line drawings of some of her fabric designs. You can look at this post on the Benartex website and see the coloring pages paired with the corresponding fabric design. How cool is that?
I love all of Amanda's designs, we will be using our colored pages as gift wrap for small gifts this month.Thank you, Amanda, for helping us get back in our coloring zone!
Every Last Piece - featured quilt - Bar Scene
Bar Scene, a quilt in chapter three of Every Last Piece, features a strip of hourglass blocks made from some of my favorite scraps. The column of color is set of by the surrounding solid paprika fabric.
I had fun with the wavy, loopy quilting.
Finished size 51'' by 68''.The directions for Bar Scene along with some suggestions for other variations of this design are in chapter 3 of my book.You can purchase an autographed copy of the Every Last Piece from me here.
Helmet Hat - with extended cables
In my attempt to tidy the sewing room I knit another hat, a variation of my favorite hat pattern. Earlier versions from this pattern can be seen here, and here.
On this hat the cables go all the way to the top.
The hat was knit from the top down. When enough stitches had been added between the first cables, I added more. You can see where the second and third sets start near the top of the hat.
This is project 13 in my efforts to knit 100 items from my stash! Go me!!
The yarn is a hand dyed wool by Briar Rose Fibers.I gave it away to a very special person. I hope it keeps her head warm this winter.
Every Last Piece - feature quilt - Beach Balls
On this cold, dark, and rainy day, I'm sharing the colorful and sunny quilt, Beach Balls.
The background is string pieced with sandy colored neutrals.The beach balls are string pieced using color coordinating scraps.
I had fun digging through my scraps and building the color wedges.
The binding is pieced from a variety of the background fabrics.
This quilt is the perfect size for a child's play quilt.Fun fact - this was the first quilt I quilted on my longarm.
Finished size: 42'' by 48''. The directions for Beach Ball are in Chapter 1 of my book.You can purchase an autographed copy of the Every Last Piece from me here.
Stash 100 continues
Last winter I was on a knitting roll. I challenged myself to make 100 projects from my yarn stash. I quickly knit four pair of lined mittens, two pair of slippers, two hats, and three pair of socks. The knitting frenzy slowed down towards the end of winter and I switched back to quilting.This weekend miss P attended an all day cello workshop in a neighboring town. I packed my bag with a variety of projects to work on while sitting in the back of her classes. Happily, I finished a pair of basic crew socks I started last winter from Knit Picks Stroll.
I also cast on a new pair in this fabulous Sanguine Gryphon Skinny Bugga I had been hoarding.
I'm glad to be knitting my stash again. I hope to add a few more finishes before the end of the year.
Tiny Pieces - Tiny Quilt
I've been experimenting with the little one inch cut squares I can cut so quickly with my custom Sizzix die.
When piecing the tiny squares together, the seams can end up making the squares look a little lopsided and lumpy so I'm taking the time to twirl the seams for a flatter finish.
Even with careful piecing and pressing these squares seem to have a life of their own.I learned a lot in making this 16 inch mini and now have some new ideas and techniques to try in future small scale piecing projects.
This is the first in a series of tiny pieced mini quilts that I have planned.Now, I'm trying to decide how to quilt it. With such small pieces I don't want the quilting to muddy the overall effect. I'm thinking of a variegated for the print squares and white, red, and black in the solid areas to keep the colors there clear and crisp.
Fabulous Fall
We have had some wonderfully warm and sunny fall days the last couple of weeks and have been doing our best to get out and enjoy the sunshine while it lasts.
I have plans to take some hand stitching out to the back porch this afternoon.
Every Last Piece - featured quilt of the week - Butterfly Effect
Butterfly Effect was a long time in the making.
I enjoyed working on it with miss P. Here she is in May 2010 helping match the scrap pieces with the solids. I had gone through my solid stach and cut squares in groups of four from each color. It took four squares to make each butterfly block. Miss P loved to sit across from me and match the fabrics while I sewed.
After making all the blocks we tried quite a few different layouts.The quilt was inspired by a photo of a polyester double knit quilt that my friend Jessica Wilson purchased at a thrift shop.
The inspiration quilt is on the left, and my quilt top on the right.
I love how each print gets to be showcased a little with the surrounding solid fabric. Isn't that toaster print fun?
I am glad to have this one finished, back from the publisher, and finally photographed so that I can put it on our bed. It will be nice to have a colorful quilt on the bed this winter.
Finished size: 95'' by 95''.Butterfly Effect is shown in the gallery section at the beginnning of my book.You can purchase an autographed copy of the Every Last Piece from me here.I can't compete with Amazon's low prices. But if you want to save a little and purchase from Amazon, please click here. This is an affiliate link and clicking through to purchase will allow me to earn a few extra pennies.You can also ask your local quilt shop or book store to get the book for you.
Corn Harvest
We took advantage of the warm, sunny weather this weekend and spent most of the day outside yesterday. We continued putting away our fall harvest. P and I shelled sunflower seeds while B packed the carrots in sand and put them in the cellar. After that, we finished shucking this year's Indian Corn harvest. I always enjoy seeing the variety in color on the different ears of corn. Some have purple shucks and some have cream color. It is always a surprise to see what each ear looks like.
It was nice to finally be using the barn for farm and garden activities. We can now leave the corn in the barn and close the doors. It is much better to store it in the barn than have it spread all over the back porch where the chickens can get it as has happened in previous years.
We'll choose the best ears to save for planting next year.
We'll store some for grinding to make corn bread this year.
The remaining corn will be fed to the chickens.
Miss P made a corn husk doll with some of the corn husks.
Fiery Fall
Our beatiful days of sunny skies have continued well into October. I've been out trying to soak up as much sunshine as I can.
Our zinnias are still putting on quite a show.
The marigolds are not slowing down at all.
I know I'll want to remember all this fiery color in the coming dark months of winter.Miss P was channelling her inner Andy Goldsworthy while B and I harvested this year's Indian Corn over on the weekend.
I hope you are able to get out and enjoy the out of doors these days.
Keeping Focused
I can't seem to stay focused on any one particular project lately.I've been playing with the tiny squares,
joining rosettes on the passacaglia quilt,
and prepping this red and white quilt from last year for quilting.
What have you been working on?
Sunny Days
We have been enjoying an unusually warm and sunny week. I've been spending much time outside soaking it in.
Our late summer flowers are still going strong.
Earlier this week I purchased our first ever comfy outdoor furniture. The couch and chair with ottoman make the back porch more like another room. I may have even had an afternoon nap or two out there.I'm beginning to feel reenergized and ready for fall.
