My Small World Quilt

Here is my finished My Small World! After 1 year and 2 months, it is complete. My daughter, Bailee bought me the pattern last year for my birthday and I started working on it immediately. I got hung up with each section that required hand applique. I don't know why. I can do it, I guess I just didn't want to hand stitch anything. But for a quilt like this one, it had to be done that way, the right way. So I muddled through making hexies by hand, Dresden plated by hand, and a some curved pieces. I learned a few tricks along the way and I have to admin, every time I finished a hand appliqued part, I wondered why I put it off. It was all so very enjoyable. I did cheat a little; I paper-pieced a few blocks which was not how the pattern was intended but I wanted to see if it made any difference in how some of the blocks turned out. I didn't. So I machine pieced most of the quilt just like the pattern said to. After lots of thought I quilted this with a pantograph called Breath of the Gods. It looks like the wind is blowing across my little world.

So now I'm on to my current crafty project - hanging deer antlers. My husband is a hunter and he had one of his deer preserved in a way called European-style. I don't understand why they call it that, it looks rather southwestern to me. Anyway, I dug out some pallet boards I've been saving and made a panel to mount the deer antlers on. Now that it's ready to be hung, I have to decide where. I think that part might take me a little while since we aren't quite done with putting things back after our new floors were installed. I guess I will leave it on the floor until I figure out where it should go.

My Small World Home Stretch

I've been very sporadic when it comes to working on this quilt. I am happy that I've finished all the sections of this quilt except one. Of course for me, it's the hardest one. It's the one that requires tons of hand applique and English paper piecing. I don't know much about EPP but I am ready to get this finished so I will figure it out very soon.

I hand appliqued the rainbow and the dresden pieces and stitched them to their background today. In the pattern these two pieces are supposed to be hills on a countryside but in my version, I wanted a sunshine and a rainbow.

The last two appliqued pieces are hexies and an arch made up of small triangles. I really have the desire to get this done I just wish I had more free time. 

What's on the design board?

As December starts rolling in, all I can think about is the upcoming craft fair I committed to do. I am just realizing that it might have been a bad decision. Even though I want to help my granddaughter's school raise money, December is not the time to have to concentrate on anything but the holidays at the end of the month. Unfortunately for me, I am not all that good at multitasking so I doubt I will get much Christmassy stuff done until after December 12th. But who knows...my mood could change tomorrow and I will feel more motivation. Let's hope!

With that said, my design board contains some fabrics I cut out to make toddler scarves. They will be cutesy on one side and solid flannel on the other. I also have some leftover Minion fabric and I thought I would try something patchwork-like - although I'm not sure if it will be a baby quilt or maybe even another toddler scarf!

I also signed up for a paper-piecing class and I decided to do one block in advance of the class. That does seem a little silly, however, I really wanted to make sure I selected the right fabrics for the project. Not to mention, I hate feeling totally inept when taking a class. So I figured a little practice would not be a bad thing.

What's on the design board?

The month of March was pretty amazing. Between a craft show, quilt show, and some sew days with both my church group and the Quilts for Kids group, I don't know how I got any sewing done of my own. Plus my brother and his family came to town over their spring break so we spent two days hanging out with them and enjoying their company.  All that plus I have a memorial t-shirt quilt in the works for a client and another small client project to complete this week. And my sister wants a lesson in how to can vegetables so I will have to plan that as well.

I can't say it has been easy. My spine surgeries are letting me know how hard I've been working and reminding me that I need to slow down. Some days the pain is so severe I am pretty medicated by the time I go to bed but I find that the more I try to be productive, the less depressed about my condition I become. It really is a trade off....feeling good physically and mentally at the same time is something I have not been able to achieve but at least I have a group of people who strongly support my efforts and are always ready to help me out. My family is incredible.

Enough with the pity party, it's time to start another month of sewing. On the design board today I have a Quilts for Kids project in the works. During our last sew day I found a large chunk of white fabric and I decided that I would keep making modern kid's quilts until the white ran out. I started this one based on a photo from Pinterest - no pattern or instructions, just a caption on the photo that said it used charm squares. So I cut 5-inch squares of prints in half, sewed them to half square triangles of the white then rearranged them and sewed them back together to make the blocks. Easy enough. 

I also started a quilt using a Summersville layer cake that I have had in my stash for a few years and Jaybird Quilts' pattern, Stereo. I took out some low volume text fabric from my stash to start putting the quilt together. The rows are completed and I've started to sew them together but I have many rows to go so they are piled on top of each other since there's just not enough room on the design board. Still don't know what to do with that paper-pieced shoe block. Hopefully inspiration will come around in the near future.

I think I should take some time out from sewing and do my taxes soon!

What's on the design board?

Over the last few weeks I have been voraciously sewing quilt tops for Quilts for Kids. I've made 3 tops that are ready for quilting and this one makes 4. The fabrics are from a sample collection so I did my best to use the almost fat quarter sized pieces of fabrics to make something cohesive.  It's not very large but I do love the butterflies, bees, apples and flowers found in the little prints. It needs to be a bit bigger but I only have small chunks of the fabrics left so I will have to get creative to figure out how to add some substantial borders to it.

I also have my completed paper pieced block up on the board as a reminder to do something with it. I'm not sure what, but hopefully it will inspire me to make something out of it. It is too cute to go unnoticed.