Fun Bright Wall hangings

I have been playing with my bright fun colors. I still need to hand sew the binding on the Smile Outloud one.
I just love these chickens.
Played with the machine quilting.
And a bit of liberated pieceing.
I had help while I was working.

Sunshine and Summer Pinwheel Done!

This is the first completely traditional quilt I have ever pieced, quilted and finished myself. (I have done tons of raggy quilts) I have been so intimidated by machine quilting that I have a bunch of flimsys . Thanks to all the encouragement I have gotten from my followers and on line friends I did it.

I saw this machine quilting pattern on a mini quilt (sorry I can not remember who posted it) on one of the blogs I was surfing.
It was an easy pattern, I am not real straight and perfect as on the mini quilt I saw but that is what adds charm and shows that it was hand made not factory made.
I love the bright colors and it could be a boy quilt.
DH filled up the large stock tank with water and re potted some of the plants from another pond. We want to put cinder blocks around this one then face them with stones.We will put a floating heater in it for winter. DD brought over some polliwogs yesterday to help start the ecosystem before we put in gold fish later this week.
Skys are gorgouse today and it is heating up. We have had almost record breaking rain so far this month. Amazing thunder stroms ( I love them so full of energy) but it is time to see some pretty blue skies. Makes it easyer to take quilt pictures too.

Getting some stuff done.

I joined a pin cushion swap on one of my chatting groups on Ebay RQQ. I was looking around on the Internet and got sucked into a couple of flicker groups that had 100s of pictures of really cute pin cushions. I am not one that follows patterns. ( recipes either) I just look at something and take it apart in my mind and go for it. So I decided what I was going to make. It is really cute. I can't show pictures as The lady this is for may follow my blog and I want her to be surprised. So here are some unfocused pictures.

I received some much needed advice from Beena and Sewmeow for my frustration on FMQ. I have decided to throw the quilt in the corner.

and do some practicing on 12" string blocks and make them into another raggy. No pressure that way. I have so many quilt tops lovingly pieced that I am afraid to mess up the machine quilting and mess them up. Maybe after some more practice and can get my guts up to dip my toe in the FMQing on a larger scale. (grin)

Quilting Frustration

I have been trying to free motion quilt this on my sewing machine. hmmmm it isn't working. The thread keeps breaking and knotting up with the bobbin thread and I don't have quilt enough room to do the spiral design I want. See here it is making birds nest. I have put in a new needle and re threaded everything over and over again, Plus it is hot! So I'm going to put it aside for another day and then figure it out.

Maybe I will just quilt it by hand! ARRRGGG! lol

I got a nice surprise in the mail today. I had forgotten about a give a way I won from http://quiltingonabudget.blogspot.com/2009/06/free-quilting-graph-papers.html?showComment=1243911123762#c1212549082415258763 Quilting on a budget. I love this blog so my wonderful ways to save $$$.

This is a good magazine. So my great ideas for space saving and organizing in my sewing cave.

School is almost out!

I have been driving a school bus for 24 years and each year goes by faster and faster. I have less and less patience. 7th grade boys are driving me crazy! LOL I have been doing a lot of field trips so haven't had much free time to get on line and blog. Only 4 more school days. Oh Hurray! As a stress re leaser at night I have been working with my batiks and scraps. I've been making bags. I have a flea market show to do next weekend.

I will be posting these on Esty also.

I also have been playing scraps and little scrappy Annie.

And a Scrappy Poppy

Fabric Creeping out in the Sewing Cave

Something strange in my Sewing Cave. I just cleaned up all the crumb quilt scraps and now look. I think all my batiks have been creeping out of their nice neat organized drawers and sprawled out on the sewing table. I guess you could say I am procrastinating on putting a border on the Crumb quilt. Out of sight out of mind. I finished the purse. I had to use my dear friend Jack the Ripper only once. I messed up putting in the zipper so ended up unsewing almost the whole purse but was able to fix it. I loved the way this purse turned out so well I started laying out more batiks on the ironing pad to put together another one.

Yes Shannon I'm really using my Batik favorites.

This purse turned out so well, all the machine quilting made it even stiffer than the others I have done and it stands up so nicely on it's own.

Mushroom bag, silly cats and spring storm

I had a special order for this raggy tote. A friend of my daughters wanted a mushroom bag in greens. It still needs to be washed to get raggyer. Notice the stitching I did on the straps. Back to kindergarten cutting out shapes.

I used fusible scraps to baste the inside, batting and front together. Worked really well and not pins to pick me.

Blanket stitching the mushrooms raw edges down.

I put a pocket in it, and Velcro to hold it closed.

I did some I did some fun free motion quilting on the back with bright green thread.

I brought in one of the cats from out side because she was in heat and I don't want more kittens. I hope next month to budget to get her fixed. She is so funny rolling around.

Here is my indoor cat Princess hunting worms after the spring storm.

The spring storms make some amazing pictures. The storm is behind me just coming in.

Here the storm is just pouring but the sun shinning on the other side.

It was just pouring here. Everything is so green and reminds me of Ireland!

Look what a clean Sewing Cave can do

Last weekend I organized the Sewing cave. While I was going through the scraps this is what I made. I love making funky stars and a had a couple wonky houses so there you go. I had some black squares, different sizes and a couple different prints. I still used them in the stars they went together ok. The white sashing I had to bring out of the stash and still need to finish it. As you can see the strips are not yet sewn together.

I still need to figure out what color I want to border it with and how I'm going to quilt it. I want to try free motion quilting with my sewing machine. I have never done free motion on a project this large. I have quilted many 12" blocks that I made into raggy quilts.

Now on a different subject. My beloved ER ended last night. The retrospect they did before the show was more emotional then the show itself. I thought it was anti climatic, I was not impressed. I will miss my ER friends of 15 years.

Well it is spring. Rainy, windy, hale, then sunshine and rainbows. Still cold but this is spring. Front yards have turned green like over night.

OH YEAH! IT'S FRIDAY!!!!

Liberated churn and dash!

I had to put away my daughters word quilt. (inspired by Lazy gal Quilting check out her tutorials) My son is home for spring break and I don't want him to see it as I want to make him one also and he isn't very good at keeping secrets from his sister. So I started playing with making some liberated Churn and Dash.
And playing with scraps making wonkey houses and playing with other kinds of pieced blocks.

I was thinking of making a couple of baby blanket size so I could easily free motion quilt them. If you check out Quilt Messing Around Feb 16 Broken Stained Glass quilt. I love the look of her quilting.