Monday Meandering 6 - 5 - 2017

Here's two more of the pinwheel tops that I was able to put together while at the beach house.  (That's 3 out of 4 tops together.) Almost all of these blocks were done for me as part of bee blocks.  I had to add a couple of blocks here and there to get enough of the right colors.  So, when I finish these completely I won't be showing a huge amount of fabric use.  Sigh! 

I may decide to add borders to any of these quilts -- it depends on what I have available at home that might look good with the top.  Then it is on to finding backings and bindings for them. 

I did really well on my goals this week.  (Hey, I definitely plan goals based on what else is going on.) 

May 29, 2017

Package and mail off Scrappy Stars√

Make enough extra pinwheel blocks to make 3 quilts√

Sew three sets of blocks together into smaller quilts√

Enjoy the beach√

June 5, 2017

Add the borders to table topper

Enjoy spending time with grands

Clean up front of cutting table

Find backing for one pinwheel quilt

Make blocks for one more pinwheel top

Not as many sewing oriented goals this week as we are spending several days up in Maryland.  I may drag out one of the two quilts I am hand quilting and see if I can get some more time on one of them. (I say I'm hand quilting but I don't spend all that much time doing it!) 

I'm linking up with the regular linky parties: Monday Making, Main Crush Monday and Moving it Forward Monday. (I'll link up as the other two blogs are posted.) 

I want to close today's blog with a picture of the sunset over the sound in Nag's Head, NC.  Beautiful! 

Our time at the beach house is almost over. Spent time at the beach and at the pool, ate many a great sea food dinner, sewed like a fiend for 3 or so hours in the morning, did some shopping and read several books.  Definitely a great 5 days here this time.  We probably won't be able to get back until September but more likely October.  Sigh. 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 
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June OMG

It's time to come up with June's One Monthly Goal.  I want to get several sets of blocks into quilts.  Many of these blocks were made by bees I was/am in.  I was going to make one large quilt and one smaller quilt.  Except -- I didn't have enough fabrics.  These have been languishing in my UFO piles for way too many years.  So, my goal is to make several smaller quilts from them.  I know I will make at least 2 quilts and probably a third one.  

Here's the first one already sewn together:

 We're at the beach house so I'm using the quilt that hangs in the main room as the backing for my design wall.  I have a piece of flannel fabric carefully pinned to the quilt and the top pinned on to the flannel. (No, this isn't the best way to get a design wall but it works here and I am very careful when I pin blocks or quilts.)  

My goal is to put the blocks together, border (if needed), quilt and bind at least 2 of these quilts.  This one was sewn together this morning.  It is probably the largest of the possible 3 quilts.  Hopefully by the time we leave I'll have all three tops done along with some other sewing. 

Here's a little pigeon who came to visit our deck at home this past week.  He (she?) is a gorgeous color especially all fluffed up.  Notice he is banded.  When we tried to get closer he "unfluffed) and then flew away.

Pat found out that a banded pigeon might be a racing pigeon or homing pigeon.  We have no idea which this one is but I do get a kick out of seeing some wild life around home.  

I'm linking up with Elm Street Quilts, Needle and Thread Thursdays and Can I get a Whoop Whoop? (I'll add this link when it is posted.) 

That's it for me today.  I'll be back in my little sewing nook tomorrow morning then spend the afternoon at the beach or shopping. 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Monday Meandering 5 - 29 - 2017

First up this week is the block of the month from Faithful Circle Quilters.  It has a lot of cutting up and restoring but it sure looks good.  (Sorry about the dull photo -- I'm sure I took this late in the day with not much in the way of natural lighting.) The block is called Avant Garde Double Disappearing 9 Patch. Scroll down almost to the bottom to get the directions for this block. 
   

Next up is small wall hanging Sharon made during the retreat.  She found the pattern at Crazy Cousins in Fredericksburg when she was down here for the in-home retreat.  The pattern is by Bloomin Minds. This wall hanging will be available for purchase at the 2018 Faithful Circle Quilters show.  Sharon does think ahead of the game.  I'm trying to emulate her.    

I also want to share the finished Scrappy Stars quilt.  I was so thrilled to see how this 2 color binding perked it up.  This binding sure gave a little zing to the finished quilt. You can also see the quilting pretty well in this picture. (Click on any picture to enlarge it.) 

And a close up: 

This binding is called Susie's Magic Binding and you can find the directions to make it here.  It does take a bit more fabric and time but the results are stunning. Have you ever tried two color bindings?  Have you used Susie's Magic Binding? 

Up next is my goals report. Last week looks fabulous because I was very dedicated to getting the Scrappy Star quilt finished.

May 15, 2017

Sew Scrappy Stars rows together√

Load Scrappy Stars backing on Ruthie√

Quilt Scrappy Stars√

Make and bind Scrappy Stars√

Plan project for beach house visit√

Who knows how I'll do this week but these are the plans:

May 29, 2017

Package and mail off Scrappy Stars

Make enough extra pinwheel blocks to make 3 quilts

Sew three sets of blocks together into smaller quilts

Enjoy the beach

Pick OMG project and start it

That's it for me today.   I'm linking up with Monday Making, Main Crush Monday and Moving it Forward Monday.  Take some time to see what folks are doing this week by visiting some of the bloggers listed at these linky parties.  

Also I hope you take some time to reflect on the men and women who have served our country in the military, including my dad, Robert A. Rowe.  He began his service in the US Navy as a member of the ROTC at the University of Southern California.  His group was moved through quickly because they were needed in the World War II war effort.  He rose through the ranks to retire as a Captain in 1973 after 30 years of service.  Both of my grandfathers served in World War I and my brother was drafted during the Viet Nam War.  I am sure my family is just a small microcosm of many families across the country.  We were very lucky that none of our family members gave the ultimate sacrifice.  

Happy Quilting All!  Bonnie 

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Hands 2 Help

I'm so close to finishing my Hands 2 Help quilt -- I just need to add the binding which is actually started.  Hopefully I will have it finished Friday afternoon and in the mail no later than Monday.  Today I'm sharing pictures of the whole process.  Some of the pics have been shared before so just keep looking until the end to see the almost finished quilt. 

Squares cut, packaged and ready to go to retreat to be sewn.

4 rows of 8 laid out at retreat.  I made a couple of errors sewing the blocks into rows.  At that point I decided to wait to finish this at home.  Once I got home I moved some of the rows around and also added one star. 

Quilting is done!  Time for binding. 

It's hard to see the quilting here -- click on any of these photos to see a larger picture.  The pattern is Yarn Tangle.  Thread is Teal So Fine by Superior.  Batting is Pellon Natural 100% Cotton with scrim. I used a 104" backing from Connecting Threads.  The navy blue is Kona. 

UM, oops!  I didn't bring any paper with me to retreat nor did I bring my pins with the ABC's on them to mark my rows.  So I carefully tore an envelope we were given and wrote numbers for each row with any pen I could find.  

Now you see it... 

Now you don't! Hum, writing with a Frixon pen on paper that just might be ironed wasn't my best idea. 

That's it for me now.  I'm linking up with Confessions of a Fabric Addict, and  Needle and Thread Thursday.SaveSave

Happy Quilting All!  Bonnie

Monday Meandering 5 - 22 - 2017

Just a quick post this morning before I head back home.   I can share a pic of my Scrappy Stars quilt that I worked on almost exclusively at retreat.

This shows the rows laid out but not sewn together.  As it got later in the afternoon/evening as I was working on this Saturday I started messing up where the stars were being placed.  (I had an EQ printout of how I wanted the quilt to look.)  When I finished all the rows this is how it would look. (That beige on the side is carpet!) 

Um, no, I absolutely do not like those two light aqua squares together.  I fussed around with the layout once I was back at Sharon's house and came up with a new layout and I'm going to add one more star as it seemed bare of stars in the middle.  I'll get a new picture of it once all the rows are sewn together.  But first, I need to drive home. 

Goals were almost all achieved last week. 

May 15, 2017

Finish backing for “May” Wallhanging√

Measure finished tops to buy backing √

Make 14 spool blocks for retreat√

Go and enjoy retreat! √

Make Scrappy Stars quilt top eeek—still need to sew rows together but √ anyway

This week's goals mostly focus on getting Scrappy Stars done.

May 15, 2017

Sew Scrappy Stars rows together

Load Scrappy Stars backing on Ruthie

Quilt Scrappy Stars

Make and bind Scrappy Stars

Plan project for beach house visit

Sit around, read and relax

I'm linking up with the regular Monday lineup: Monday Making, Main Crush Monday and Moving It Forward.  Take some time to see what folks are working on this week. 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

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RETREAT WEEKEND!

Sharon and I got to the retreat center right at lunch time Thursday.  Exactly when we could set up and get sewing. We packed fairly lightly and were able to put the pedal to the metal within an hour or so.

I've gotten a decent start on Scrappy Stars.  It's great not having to cut out anything -- I can sew and sew.   Sharon, MaryBeth, Nancy and I took off mid afternoon to find a fabric store or two.  The retreat center is in the middle of no where -- or so it seemed.  45 minutes later we got to the first store, Obies.  No parking so no shopping for us.  Luck was with us as there was another shop minutes away.  Zincks Fabric store was wonderful.  Much of the quilters' cotton was priced between $4.99 and $6.99 a yard. BONUS.  I went a bit wild although I had planned to add to the stash if I found someplace with good prices.  I'll share the fabrics in another post. 

From there we drove to Shady Maple General Store.  You walk in and see seeds, garden tools and the like.  But in the back is a pretty decent fabric department.  I picked up two cute prints off the flat fold table to make pillow cases.  

Next stop was dinner at the Shady Maple Cafe.  Here's a photo of Sharon, Nancy and MB with an Amish buggy. We saw a lot of these on the streets going to and from the retreat center.  We are having fun on the first day of retreat.  

Once we got back we all got our machines humming.  I'm working on the star blocks instead of the 9 patches.  Sharon's doing a cute little wall hanging, MB put the binding on a quilt and Nancy -- er, I'm not sure what she was sewing on but later she was laying out this quilt. 

Nancy talking with Linda about her quilt.

Stephanie was finishing up a Tumolo Trail quilt from one of Bonnie Hunter's books.  She is planning on using a dark binding and not adding a border.  Hum, do I want to make one of these quilts too? 

That's it for today at the FCQ spring retreat. I'm linking up with I May Have a Scrap Problem at Confessions of a Fabric Addict and Needle and Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation. 

Happy Quilting All!  Bonnie

Monday Meanderings 5 - 15 - 2017

Now I can share my ugly fabric challenge quilt.   You can see other pictures and information about it here.   The first picture is when I was trying to decide whether to leave space between the flowers and the bunnies and what to do about a border.  The rules of the challenge said 20" minimum.  I didn't want a huge piece so a small border is all I did.

And the best news was I was done before I needed it.  (Ok, so many readers know I was done early because I thought the guild meeting was a week earlier than it really was.)  Now the bunnies are hanging on a wall in our great room.  Unfortunately, there are windows on both sides of the wall and the lighting was too bright today so the quilt looks a little washed out.  I used the ugly flower print for the binding too.  Unfortunately I believed the rule that said not to use the ugly fabric on the back.  I would have been happy to get rid use up all of it that way.  See if I follow the rules next time! 

That brings me to my goals for last week.  It was a very good week for ticking things off of my list.  I'm especially happy I finished cutting out over 425 4.5" squares.  Thank goodness for my Go cutter -- I could cut 6 squares at a time. 

May 8, 2017

Make 2 more pouches√

Finish binding on bunny wall hanging√

Cut more fabric for Scrappy Stars√

Choose fabric for “May” wallhanging, fuse and cut√

Knit on Jenny’s scarf√

And this week I'm on retreat so everything has to do with it. 

May 15, 2017

Finish background for “May” Wallhanging

Measure finished tops to buy backing while shopping

Make 14 spool blocks for retreat

Go and enjoy retreat!

Make Scrappy Stars quilt top

Zig zag the elements for the "May" Wallhanging 

I'm connecting up with Monday Making, Main Crush Monday (now back to the right day!) and Moving It Forward Monday.  Enjoy the eye candy folks! I plan to! 

I'm linking this post to the May finishes linky party on Elm Street Quilts.  Yep, I finished my goal really early this month.  Maybe I can do the same next month! 

No duck photos today but they continue to hang around under the bird feeders on our block.  One was calmly sitting in the middle of road as we came home this morning.  They may be getting too used to the people around here! 

Happy Quilting All!  Bonnie