Short and sweet

My Apron Strings block is finished for the Farm Girl Vintage Sew Along.

I'm ready to start the next two blocks tomorrow.  Hope to see you there!

A Beeutiful week of quilting ahead

It's going to be a fun week!

It's the beginning of the Farm Girl Vintage Sew Along.

I've never participated in one of Lori Holt's famous sew alongs on her blog A Bee In My Bonnet and I'm excited to be starting my first.

The month of April was spent debating which fabrics to use and pondering different background choices.

Pre-made bundles or totally scrappy?  That cool, new Gardenvale line? Low volume backgrounds or solids? The choices were endless.  

So endless that I almost gave up!

You see, my experience with sew alongs hasn't been the best in the past.

Once a long, long, long time ago I was stuck close to the end of a sew along, a few blocks away from the finish with only fabrics left that I didn't like.  

All the blocks I had made were from a line that wasn't available anymore, so I was at my wits end. What to do?? 

I never did finish that one. Those blocks and that extra fabric went into a box never to be seen again.  

Well I take that back, I have seen them again, only out of the corner of my eye.

I just glance in the other direction and quickly close that box.  I'm determined not to let it happen again.  Thus, the stressing about picking out the fabrics for this whole thing.  

Last week finally I thought, "Good grief, get it together! If everyone else can do this, you can too!"

Part of my trouble was that my time spent cutting up so many charm squares, you know I love them, has left me with very few scraps appropriate for this sort of thing. 

You don't get too many scraps leftover after using charm packs, so some fabric purchasing was in order and I had to get the book too.  Can't complain about that!

    

In the end I went with a bunch of brighter scrappy bundles, some from single lines, and some that are a mix that I plan to going to combine, so I don't back myself up into a corner at the end.  

I figure this will allow me to easily add new fabrics to the mix if I need to, instead of being locked into one fabric line, that may or may not be readily available by the time I finish.

Now I'm excited about it!

I wasn't planning on dragging you through my whole thought process on this.

It was just going to be a cute little, "I hope you are doing this sew along too" post, but that's not how it turned out.

Sometimes I put more thought into picking out the fabrics for a quilt than maybe I need to. That's just how I do it!

See you at the sew along on Farm Girl Friday!

   

April Showers

Only when I started thinking about writing this post, did it occurred to me that it was really timely to be starting this quilt right now.

A few weeks back I started cutting April Showers fabric to make Camille's Puddle Jumping pattern.  Definitely a great pattern and fabric line to be working on when April begins! And with all the clouds and rain we've been having, Puddle Jumping is what we've been doing lately.

I loved this fabric line and this pattern from the beginning. Maybe so much so, that I hesitated to start it for fear I'd mess it up.  Does anyone else do that?  It sounds silly as I'm typing it, but sometimes I put off doing the things I'd like to do, because maybe they won't go as well as I think they will, or because I want to have something great to look forward to working on.

I decided this quilt was going to the top of my to do list no matter what, and I'd start cutting in-between completing a few UFO's.  Cutting is my least favorite part of the process, so I figured cutting some of it here and there would make it less painful for me and sure enough, before I knew it I had most of the quilt cut and ready to go!  

And now we've come to the block above, my first one!  I was planning to be able to show you at least two completed blocks, but in my haste to get the other finished and photographed last night, I sewed it together wrong and ran out of daylight. Ugh!

One picture of one block will have to do for today!  I'm looking forward to making more.

Another thing I'm looking forward to is the AYOS And A Little Bit More Parade coming up in the next few days.  Although I didn't make the Sampler quilt designed by Carrie Nelson that was chosen for the AYOS pattern this month, I can't wait to see what everyone else has done with it!

Visit the blogs of both Sinta and Sherri to see the entire AYOS parade in the next few days.  I'm eager to see what these kind ladies have in store for next month's pattern.

Maybe you'll join in too! 

February

What a quick month! And not even a blog post over here!

I was thinking I would do a post today and give you an update on what I've been doing.  

When I went to take the pictures off my camera, I realized that I've hardly been taking any.  I need to catch up!

Anyway, this month I've seriously cleaned up my quilting area and I've decided it's time for me to tackle some UFO's.

Then I finished a big UFO quilt that I needed to put borders on, and I quilted my Mini Shine too, but I haven't taken pictures of either one yet.

It's dark and rainy out right now, too dark for decent pictures so I'll have to wait to show you those until the sun comes out again and I'm just not sure when that'll be.

Here is some of what I did have on the camera from this month. 

Look at his amazing flying geese infinity scarf from Target!! 

Run, don't walk over to Target and get one if you can.

With so many colors in it, it goes with everything.

On last check, my Target still had some, maybe yours does too.  What better accessory for a quilter?

And now here are a few pictures of my totally completed Dimestore Schnibble.

I did show some pictures of it quilted but not bound, a few posts back, so if you're tired of seeing this one, I understand.

Just know, I like to post totally finished quilt pictures at some point so I can refer to them later, so this had to be done.

The label is on and everything!  Sadly no label pictures here.

Also know, that the binding on this quilt is straight, even thought it looks wonky in this picture.

Trust me its very straight.  I probably spent way too much time making sure of it.  The lumpy grass was just not my friend here.

Now that I've thought about what I need take some pictures of, the next sunny day I'll be sure to get that done and fill you in,

What did you work on in February?

Mini-Kaleidoscope Quilt

This month's AYOS project was a Mini Kaleidoscope Quilt from a tutorial found on Julia's blog, My Rainboots Are Red. 

It has to be one of my favorites!

April Showers by Bonnie and Camille was the primary fabric line I used. There are a few of their other prints in the quilt, along with some low volume fabrics I picked out for the background.

I really love the effects that this quilt gives.  Close up it looks very different than far away.

 There are two different blocks here, but once you get them all sewn together it's difficult to see the blocks individually.

When I start the quilting I'm going to emphasize the pattern the blocks create when they're joined together.

Plenty of seams and points to match up here!

 I was a little concerned about how that was going to go, but it went together so easily!  I was amazed! 

A pin stuck through each point took a little extra time, but it helped get the quilt sewn together with very few redos!

I used the Smart Plate Kaleidoscope Ruler by Sharon Sebrow to cut both sets of blocks rather than the paper piecing method.

The ruler is wonderful!  The directions are so clear and it can be used to cut both sets of blocks. 

 Painters tape on the four inch block lines, as Julia suggested in her tutorial, made the cutting go very quickly.

The larger size ruler is what I ordered, because I can definitely see more of these Kaleidoscope quilts in my future!

Thanks to Sinta and Sherri for hosting the AYOS parade!

Check their blogs in the next few days to see some beautiful versions of Mini Kaleidoscope Quilts that have been made by talented quilters from all over the world!

Mini Shine

Hello everyone! I hope you had a great holiday season!

My Mini Shine, the Another Year Of Schnibbles quilt for the month, is finished.

The fabrics are Nine Dots, designed by Carrie Nelson, and the background I used was from the Confetti Basics line by RJR.

I really loved how they went together.

Awhile back, I mentioned my interest in using backgrounds other than white, just to shake it up a bit, and I think this Confetti Basics fabric does just that.

This Mini Shine pattern, designed by Sherri McConnell, was a perfect one to do in the month of December.  

It was quick, fun, and addictive!  Very easy to fit in between holiday wrapping, decorating, and baking.

I'm looking forward to the next month of AYOS.  Be sure to visit Sherri and Sinta to see the AYOS Parade in the next few days.

Have a Happy New Year!!

Dimestore Schnibble quilted

What a month!

It's a busy time of year for everyone, and we are no certainly no exception!

My days have been full of Thanksgiving, and now Christmas preparations.

Turkey cooking, tree trimming, wreath hanging, college student visiting, you know, the whole works!

I did manage to squeeze in some quilting time and I'm here to give you a peek at what I've been doing.

This is the quilting on my Dimestore Schnibble designed by Carrie Nelson.  I pieced it with the AYOS quilt group last year.

The fabric is Mama Said Sew by Sweetwater. 

I have to say I'm pretty pleased with the feathers I did along the border!

That's a surprise to me because I generally don't love my quilting as soon as it's done. 

I guess it takes me a bit to get used to the difference between what the quilting idea looked like in my head, and what the quilting looks like that actually made its way on to my quilt.

Does that happen to anyone else??  Or is it just me??

When I finish up the binding I'll be back with more to tell!

Happy weekend!