Design Wall Monday 10 - 26 - 2015

Hum, I dropped out of view for a little over a week.  Nothing bad happening, just busy as all get out! I have sewn 4 seams in the last week +.  But I've been embroidering like crazy. Here's what I've done in the last week. 

Ellie's birthday party was Saturday so I had a lot of fun embroidering a cute little jeans jacket. Before I put the design on the jacket I stitched it out on white twill fabric.  I'm thinking that will be made up into a tote bag or maybe a sewing machine cover. Check out the next picture down.  I was able to stitch a design on the collar too.  Thanks to Dorothy for expert instruction.

Since no jacket is complete without a top and jeans, I embroidered some balloons from the same set on the shirt. The jeans didn't get any special treatment. 

I also made Halloween shirts for all the grands. Ellie got the dog pumpkin.  Hmmm, I wonder if I should have used a larger design on that one. 

Natalie got a kitty cat sitting in front of the moon.  Nice thing is these shirts get handed down so Ellie may get them in the future. 

Sophie got the cool ghost with the hat in her formerly favorite color, blue.  I hear she is now a "red" girl.  Good thing I found out before I do the Christmas presents.... 

The four inner borders for this quilt is the only actual sewing I did this week. This will be a donation quilt to the nursing home we support.   I am so ready to get back to my quilting.  But darn, I have several more ideas for embroidering. But no more embroidery for a while. I'm ready to actually do some more piecing. I have several quilts to quilt for customers so those will be up next.  

I  leave you with a pumpkin scene that was in front of a Mexican restaurant.  Someone has a good sense of humor.  

Since I didn't post last week I'll skip my review of my goals last week.  Yes, I did write up and tried to accomplish those goals. Here are my goals for the upcoming week. 

Week of October 26, 2015

Quilt one charity quilt

Finish current cross stitch project

Work on Easy Street Blocks

Start working on Christmas presents

Add final border to Zig Zag quilt

I'm linking up with Monday Making, Main Crush Monday and Design Wall Monday.  (I'll add Monday Making when it gets posted and I get back to it.) 

Happy Quilting All! 

It's Pumpkin Time

I'm making a big effort to get all my Halloween decorations up before the party on Sunday.  And, I've gone wild about pumpkins.

And then there are the ones I've made....

These may get moved around -- I need to figure out the table setting and before I can do that I need a new table cloth.  I'll be doing that today! 

I also made this cute tea light cover, Boo! I was never a fan of electric candles until I decided to make several of these cute covers.  Remember the spider mug rug?  This is from the same set. All of these designs are from Embroidery Garden.  The pumpkin face is a free file at Embroidery Garden using the Snowball set with orange fleece instead of white.  

Time to get on with the day.  I'll be out shopping for some more electric candles, a table cloth and maybe some new paper plates and napkins... The party may be up to 20 people which should be quite the squeeze in my little house! Of course I could fit most of them comfortably in the studio. 

I'm linking up with Can I Get A Whoop, Whoop?, Link a Finish Friday and Creative Goodness Linky Party, which isn't up yet.  I'll check back later today. 

Happy Quilting All! 

Design Wall Monday 10 - 12 - 2015

Several days at the beach is always relaxing but I sure didn't get much done in the studio this past week.  It's not looking good for this week either as we are having the church choir over for dinner/social time on Sunday.  Luckily, we purchased smoked barbecue from a great cook at the church auction a few weekends ago.  Should be delicious!

Saturday was quilt guild day so I spent a bit of time preparing for it in the days before the meeting.  Our program was learning to do Sashiko stitching.  One of our members has learned how to do it and has several stencils that look really nice in that technique.  We needed to bring a 12" square of fabric and a batting to go under.  I learned really quickly that a poly batt isn't the best for this project.  I'd already done more than I wanted to rip out so it stays a poly batt. 

I also learned that whatever size of pearl cotton I used is a bit too big.  I don't have the paper that it was wrapped in so I don't know the size.  Next time, if there is a next time, I'll use a smaller size thread. I've worked on this for the last two evenings for a bit.  I'm guessing it will be done in two more evenings, unless something takes precedent, like the counted cross stitch ornaments which are from 2014!  Luckily the grands are still young enough to not be upset by late presents. 

Here's what I worked on yesterday afternoon.  Too, too cute. The youngest granddaughter will get a bucket of snowballs for a Christmas present.  The older two already had snowballs, but not ones I made.  They are fun to play with.

 My trusty Featherweight was used to sew the seams together. Here it is stuffed with the seam in the back sewn up.  If you have an embroidery machine and would like to make some snowballs too check out Embroidery Garden.  This link takes you directly to the new faces.  And, yes, these really are easy.  The face below was under 3" square.  Today I'm trying to make some pumpkins to help with the decorations for the weekend party.  I'll let you know how they turn out! 

That's it for now.  I've got a busy week with not as much sewing in it as I would like.  But next week, I hope to get back to piecing and quilting.  Here's the goals report from last week and what I'll be doing this week. 

Week of October 5, 2015

Counted cross stitch√ nearly finished with another ornament

Knit on sweater √ made a little progress

Read a novel or two √

Find curtains for the sliding glass window Not needed

Make 2 pillowcases√

Week of October 12, 2015

Put retreat “stuff” away (really, I haven't done it yet!) 

Embroider stuff, start girl’s shirts?

Order new dp needles for mittens

Finish at least 2 more Easy Street Blocks

Clean house and studio, we’re having folks over for a party

Counted cross stitch - ornaments

I'm linking up with Monday Makings, Main Crush Mondays and Design Wall Monday. There's always something going on at these three web sites.  Lots of links to blogs across the globe.  Folks sharing their interests.  

Happy Quilting All! 

Retreat Review

Within 24 hours of getting home from retreat we were off to the beach house -- the first time I've been there since May!  Here are some more photos and commentary about retreat.  It was a great time despite 4 days of rain.  At least the hurricane didn't add more excitement! 

Quilters are in the building! (mine is the one farthest away. But it didn't stay the last one as more were added.) 

Mary brought a finished scrap quilt to show to the group.  Yummy!  I love the half square triangle borders. Nice job Mary! 






And now some of the finishes folks had while at the 3 and a half day retreat. 

This is Michelle's quilt top.  I can't remember what she said the name of the block was.  I believe a lot of the units were done before she go here.  Nice job getting the whole quilt top together.  I wonder if she will put borders on it or not?   Behind to the left is Mary's quilt that we had hanging the entire weekend.

Michelle also finished her galaxy quilt top.  She made the medium size.  She doesn't live in state so she did this one on her own.  It looks great. (Can I say she is incredibly fast and she stays up really late?)

MaryBeth finished another t shirt quilt. You can see another one she made at the FCQ June retreat here. Scroll down to see it. 

Sharon got her FCQ Cuddly Critter Challenge quilt top done.  Anyone who wanted to participate was given a bag of fabric to use. The guild was given a lot of fabrics to put to use -- thus the challenge.  Sharon will get this quilted at home and then turn it in.  I need to check out my bag more thoroughly as I have hardly even looked at it since I got it in June.  The quilts will be donated to Project Linus after the FCQ Quilt Show in April. 

Here's my set up.  We have narrow tables that can get exceedingly messy.  Or, maybe that's just my table! I did a fairly good job keeping the mess more controlled this year.  Behind me you can see half of Dorothy, my Row by Row buddy, and Kay.  We get together every few months to embroider or sew.  Lots of fun. 

I'll end this with a photo I took the last night we were in Nags Head. There was a rocket launch from Wallops Island Wednesday night.  We had tried to watch an earlier one but the rocket blew up.  (Seems to me we actually saw the flash of the explosion.)  This time the launch went well but we sure didn't see much.  Just one dot of light traveling up really quickly.  I tried to get a picture of the dot but, hey, this is a cell phone camera... what did I expect?  

This is what is waiting for me.  It is time to unpack, put the sewing machine back in place, unpack the bags.  And, get back to work.  Halloween is creeping up on me and I have several shirts to make for some cute little girls!  I'll share more photos from Nags Head soon.  The ocean was amazing!  Food was fabulous, although I doubt if I took any food pictures.  And, best of all I did some cross stitch and sweater knitting. 

I'm connecting up with Can I Get a Whoop, Whoop? and Let's Make Baby Quilts. 

Happy Quilting All!