Sprinkles on Top Quilt

I got a jelly roll for 40 percent off at my local quilt shop. The fabric line is called Dandi Duo and I just love it. I was surprised to get home and find the perfect pattern to use it up. That rarely happens. It's in a book called Jelly Filled by Vanessa Goertzen. 

The pattern I chose is called Sprinkles on Top and it requires lots of neutral yardage. Luckily my stash if full of whites and off-whites. I've been collecting neutral prints for many years and it's time I start using them.

I longarmed the quilt with a swirl to soften the look of the modern blocks.  

The backing was put together with some extra yardage of the same fabric line. It's prettier in person than in photos. 

As we head into the end of summer, it's canning time. I find it bittersweet. I absolutely love summer and I don't ever want it to end but I love canning season. Harvest time is my happy time. 

I canned a case of salsa today using all ingredients grown in my garden except for the garlic. I just don't like growing it so I pick it up at the local farmers' market. My garden is my second-favorite hobby after quilting. 

Summer Projects

I picked up some peaches at the farmers' market last Saturday. When the peaches are available at the market you have to get there early because the line is long but it doesn't matter because they are worth it. And today I thought I would give peach ice cream a try. 

I love summer so much. There is so much to be grateful for. The vegetable garden is thriving, the flowers are blooming, I can be outside all the time. I appreciate every warm, wonderful day. But when there are rainy days, I have taken the time to enjoy my embroidery machine. 

I'm also having some fun with some of the things we've collected on our antiques and barn sale shopping trips. 

This spring I wanted to paint my garden fence. In the process of scraping off the chipped paint, the boards just broke away. The fence was so rotten we ended up taking it down. I was sure I would miss the look of the white pickets, then Jeff designed a new fence using stuff we had lying around. Some cedar boards and leftover wire fencing made a really nice new fence.

What a nice, fresh look we have in the yard now. 

T-Shirt Quilt Project

I took on a big quilt job last week. The client wants 5 t-shirt quilts made out of her grandfather's shirts. Each quilt will be a gift for family members who are all currently in the military. I received the shirts in 3 boxes packed full.  Here are two of the three boxes.

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Cutting up the shirts to prep for making the blocks was fun. On these nice summer days I sat outside and did all my cutting.

I applied all the fusible interfacing on the blocks in just a few days. It will be a lot of work planning where to place each shirt so until then, I'm just going to enjoy this process.  

I will definitely have to have a plan to make sure each quilt has the same look and feel and there's fair distribution of shirts among all 5. That might be a little tricky. I'm glad they are not due until Christmas so I have some time to work on it.

I harvested all the potatoes from the garden today. I can't believe how big they got. I only grow a few in a small area and after looking at how nice they grew, I think I might want to expand to a bigger plot next year. 

Lots of Red White and Blue Fabrics

A generous donor dropped off 18 yards of vintage red, white, and blue fabrics over at Quilts for Kids. The QfK group did not want the fabric so they offered it up to me for my veterans' projects. It was all new fabric, still in the packages. The first thing I did when I got home was wash it and hang it out on the clothesline. It is a lot of fabric. It is definitely older, some of the selvages are dated in the 90's.

I got out my Villa Rosa pattern cards and started looking for patterns that would work well with three colorways. There were a few good choices so I picked the one that used up the largest cuts of fabric.

I quickly whipped up the first quilt top. Once I had one top done, I realized I will be able to make many quilt tops. I didn't even put a little dent in that fabric stack. 

The pattern I used is called Olympiad. These Villa Rosa pattern instructions are well written and easy to follow.

When I got tired of looking at red, white and blue, I moved on to longarming. I quilted a baby quilt for a client. She likes high loft batting which gave this little gem a nice puffy, soft look. How cute!

One of my favorite parts of spring is watching my lilac bush bloom. It's too bad it only lasts a little while. I always take photos of the lilacs in bloom, they are so beautiful. And the scent is amazing. Every time I walk by I have to get as close as possible to take in the scent. It certainly makes the walk to the clothesline more enjoyable. Haha!

Little Projects

A friend asked for a table runner that looks like wood planks. I came up with this. When she originally showed me a photo of what she wanted, I started collecting wood-look fabrics. It was fun to attend quilt shows with a fabric finding mission.

Since it is close to Memorial Day, I thought I would whip up this little Uncle Sam wall hanging. It's a kit from the quilt shop that went together very quickly.  I didn't realize until I hung it up, but I forgot to embroider the nose. I will wait until fall when I take it down and correct that for next year. I guess it went together too quickly - haha! 

A few months ago I got the opportunity to purchase a used barrel from a local brewery called Lakefront Brewery. It's a very popular spot and when they put the call out that they were selling their barrels I immediately responded to the ad in hopes to snag one. Luckily, I did get to go pick one up. Once the weather got better, my husband had to figure out how to cut it in half. 

After searching online, Jeff found a very creative way to cut the barrel. He took my garden wagon and turned it upside down placing the barrel between the wheels. Once that was done he measured to find the center then cut the barrel while I turned it. It worked perfectly. Now I have two new barrel planters to replace my old ones which are rotting away. And what a great story about where they came from to share with friends.

Vintage Shop Hop Birthday Trip

Twice a year (spring and fall) there's this thing called the Vintage Shop Hop. It's a weekend long event where flea markets, antique and resale shops, and small boutiques host a sale/open house all over Wisconsin and northern Illinois. 

Jeff and I always plan to hit the spring shop hop. It usually falls on my birthday weekend so we go out to dinner at a supper club in whatever area we end up in at the end of the day.

This year I bought another scale. I thought it would be cool to put a bowl-shaped planter in the arms of the scale and set it in one of the flower gardens. 

I saw this typewriter in one of the antique shops. It is pretty broken up and cost more than one I picked up for my granddaughter. I would say I got a better deal. But this sure would be fun to add to a flower garden.

I picked up a few little things that will be used around the yard and in projects this summer. The little bins will be used in craft fair displays.

Our favorite places are the barn sales. We like to pick up junk and repurpose it. This year we ended up around Lake Winnebago and there's a shop in New Holstein that I love. It has nothing to do with the shop hop but I couldn't resist since we were in the area. I loaded up on some artsy things there. It's called Hidden Hollow Garden Art. 

                                 

These are going to be so cute around the yard this summer!

                                                     

Salsa and Basketball

Yesterday I finally felt like myself again. So I got up with the attitude that it's a new year so let's start it out right. I am going to get all the summer tomatoes that I blanched and froze out of the freezer and make some salsa. 

That meant washing and sterilizing lots of jars followed by chopping lots of vegetables. 

It was a good day to get this done. I started around 8:30 and I was done by 10:30. That sure felt good. It's been on my to-do list for a while so I was very happy to get it accomplished. My husband was thrilled - it's one of his favorite things. 

We're trying not to push my post-surgical recovery too hard so we went downtown where we enjoyed a nice dinner followed by attending the Milwaukee Bucks game. It's too bad they lost but we had a good time getting out of the house.

A Busy Summer Week

I love the television show The Office. It is my constant companion while I sew. Since I can find it on a cable station almost any time of the day it's easy to have it on even if it's just background noise. So I wanted to make a project bag using The Office themed fabrics. I got it started this week.

At this month's basement quilters group I finished up the baby blankets and burp cloths I started at the beginning of summer. I am so happy to have all these done before my next craft fair. I completed 18 blankets and 38 burp cloths. I think I won't have to make more for a little while - haha!

Our beloved Milwaukee Bucks are world champions and we've been dying to go downtown and take a photo next to the Fiserv Forum. We chose to do so this week because there's an art fair in the Deer District. What better time could there be? 
 

I sold a quilt on Etsy so I decided I would spend some of my earnings at the art fair. Sort of a pay it forward kind of thing. At least that's how I justified my purchase. I bought this cute little business card holder from a welder who repurposed old metals into new things. The "hairs" on this little guy were made from political yard signs. I'm so glad those are something else now. Tee-hee.

On another note, I picked these vegetables from my garden this week.

It's hard to tell but the entire bottom of the bucket is full of carrots. My garden is doing pretty well this month. It's hard work, but I love it.

Summer Days

I love summer. It's my favorite season. I will spend afternoons napping on my hammock in the hot sun. It's one of my favorite places to be. I find it hard to stay in the house and do anything in the sewing room. And I struggle with deciding whether to attend sew days. Summers are short so I don't want to be indoors however, I love chatting with the ladies in my sewing groups. It's definitely a conundrum. Since it was supposed to rain, I did go to the Saturday Basement Quilters group sew day. I decided that that's where I will work on items for upcoming arts & crafts fairs. So I completed a bunch of flannel baby blankets and burp cloths while I was there. 

It felt good to get all of these done but it never rained. I would have rather been outside all day. 

Speaking of outside...

I was weeding my vegetable garden when I came across this:

Yes! That is a baby bunny. I am certain there are two babies nestled together, possibly three. I didn't want to disturb them too much so I spent very little time checking them out. They are hard to see as they are deep down under my lettuce patch but isn't that the point? 

My neighbors do this thing they call "Wine Down Wednesdays" where they invite all the neighbors to come and sit in their yard. All you have to do is bring a lawn chair and your own cocktail and you're welcome to hang out. It is great fun to sit and chat and it's a little something to look forward to each week. We have decided to make it an opportunity to try new cocktail recipes. This week we made Moscow Mules and wow, were they good.

The recipe is so simple, just 2 ounces vodka, 1/2 ounce lime juice, and 4 ounces of Ginger beer. Just put the ingredients in a mug full of crushed ice with a slice of lime and a spring of mint. I didn't have any mint but I knew our hosts from WDW had some growing so they kindly gave me some mint. The drink was perfect and I will be making them more than this one time. Yum!

My roses are looking so lovely these days. I paid $3 for each rose plant at Wal-Mart and they are hardy and growing without much care.

What's on the design board?

I finished my Button Collection quilt top and it's currently on the longarmer. I don't know when I will quilt it - hopefully soon but I'm just not motivated to do it today. I took the leftover jelly roll strips from that quilt to make a second quilt. This one is called Pencil Me In. It just happens to use the same amount of 2 and a half inch strips that I have left. I guess it was meant to be haha.

I have all the prints sewn together and I am working on the background now. I don't have enough fabric for the background so I will have to pick up some more next time I'm at the shop. But I will get as far as I can with what I have. 

I am enjoying the beginning of fall so I thought I would take photos from around the yard as it is today. The flowers are too pretty to compost so I won't be doing any fall decorating this week. Maybe after the first frost when everything wilts.