Fun with the Kitties

It's almost Thanksgiving and I am still enjoying my roses. I just can't believe the weather. I cannot imagine decorating for the holidays with all the flowers that are still blooming in my yard. It feels wrong to cut them down when they look so pretty. However, it will only take one or two days of below freezing weather to take them out. When that happens I will be happy to compost whatever is left. Until then, I will enjoy the blooms as long as I can.

In the back yard we spend our mornings watching the squirrel action. It's better than television! 

I am getting a little longarming done. Although I am headed to a quilting retreat this week so this one will probably serve as a hammock while I am gone. I'm not sure what the Peyton likes best, the hammock feel or the warmth and hum from the longarmer when it is turned on.

Reading Pillows

Earlier this year a friend had asked me to make reading pillows to sell in her shop. I tried to make one up as a sample to send her and I just didn't like how it turned out. I altered it a few times and no matter what I did it was not acceptable. 

With a craft fair coming up soon, I thought I would give it another shot. I had this idea to use up novelty fabrics I had lying around. So I picked out my half-yard cuts. I chose some camping-themed fabric for my first try and I had this idea to use my embroidery machine to make the front pocket.

I didn't use a big enough piece of fabric so I ended up adding a band to the top and bottom to make it large enough. It really gave it a nice finished look. 

I used a free online tutorial to make the pillow. It helped me determine the right sizes for the pieces. The only real change I made is instead of using fiberfill stuffing, I used a pillow form. That meant I had to make a overlapping back piece to insert the pillow form. I discovered that was what I needed to do to improve my original pillow. It was the lumpy-looking fiberfill that was unacceptable. The pillow form really made a difference. 

Even from the back, the pillow had a nice finished look. Now that I solved the quality control issue, I needed to make some more. I had so much fun matching embroidery files with my fabrics that I ended up making a bunch more so I went on Amazon and ordered a bunch of pillow forms. 

While looking through Etsy for embroidery files I came across the cutest bird file. I fell in love with it. And now that I'm gaining experience with my machine, I conquered this file with over 34,000 stitches. It took a few hours to stitch out but I sure had fun with the colors. I chose them from the colors in the Tula Pink fabric scraps I had leftover from a quilt I made last year.

I made this little beauty into a reading pillow as well. 

I will put this one up for sale along with all the others, however this one will be a little more expensive. I'm not so sure any of these will sell but if they don't, I can always ask my friend who owns the boutique if she would like to put them up in her shop. It feels like a good business plan.

Wooden Gnome-like Santas

I used to do a lot of wood crafts. In fact, I sold many of them at craft fairs. I don't know what made me stop, but it's been years since I dabbled in woodcrafting. I saw a photo on Pinterest of these wooden gnome-like Santa and I thought I could certainly do that without purchasing a pattern or instructions.

After a some thought, I drew multiple sizes of triangles on paper using my 10-degree quilting ruler. I cut them out to get a real visual of the sizes I wanted to make. I then determined the base sizes from scraps of wood my husband had lying around his woodshop.  When he saw what I was up to he volunteered some pallet boards and dowels for the legs. I loved the idea of using pallet boards! This was going to be fun. It also made him clean up after himself so I had room in the workshop to cut on the bandsaw and sand my pieces. I did most of the work myself however I did ask Jeff to drill the holes for the dowels. After painting the pieces, I glued them together and stained them. Once the stain dried I took them outside and sealed them with spray matte-finish sealer.

And viola...

The real fun was choosing buttons for embellishments.

They are ready for my craft fair next weekend. I can't wait to see how they fare. Then I will know if I should continue with woodcrafts. I hope they do well because I had lots of fun making them.

Quilting for a Friend

I was really hoping to finish this quilt before we left for Orlando but I just couldn't make it happen. It belongs to my friend Cindy who will auction it off at a charity event that she supports. The charity raises funds for PKD, a kidney disease that her step-daughter has. It's a terrible disease that has put her step-daughter on the kidney transplant list. 

Each year she makes a quilt for the event and it continually makes lots of money. I'm happy to support her efforts, I'm sure it must be difficult to watch someone you care about suffer. Hopefully the transplant will happen in time to save her step daughter.

I used a feather pattern for the pantograph and I just happened to have a spool of variegated thread in blues and teals that match the fabrics perfectly. I love how it turned out.

My little helper was happy to watch me take the quilt off the longarmer. He just loves to hang out in the sewing room with me. 

And here's a photo of my granddaughter Avery at Disney World. We were there for her birthday where she had breakfast with the princesses in Cinderella's castle. It was supposed to happen for her 8th birthday but the pandemic pushed it off for a few years. It finally happened this year and we are glad we got to make it happen for her as promised so long ago. 

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. 

A Little Embroidery Work

A friend asked me to embroider a baby name onto her vintage quilt. I was very worried about ending up ruining it so I asked a few embroidery experts what I should do. Of course, that turned out to be a mistake. I asked two people and got two different answers. And I didn't like either answer.

So onto Plan B. I decided to just wing it. The worst that could happen is that I would have to rip it out. I can handle that. I offered up a few fonts for the name and thread colors. She made the same choices I would have.

I practiced on a piece of muslin with thin batting. It was the same thickness as the quilt. I likes the results so I loaded the quilt onto the machine.

I think it turned out way better than I expected. I guess I should follow my own instincts more often.

Daybreak Sock Monkey Christmas Quilt

I've been hanging on to a Sock Monkey charm pack for many years. Then one day I went to a Quilts for Kids sew day, started digging through donated fabric to find coordinating fabric that matches the charm pack prints. It was a nice. surprise.

All I had to do is find a proper pattern to use that would incorporate the amount of fabric I found. As I sorted through my many Villa Rosa pattern cards I came across the Daybreak pattern. It was a perfect fit!

I had just enough fabric to make this cute little quilt. I took the finished top to the quilt shop and matched it up with some nice, soft brown flannel. It was a great compliment to the Christmas themed prints. 

I free-motion quilted the quilt and added flannel binding. It's a nice addition to my growing stack of Sock Monkey themed quilts that I have going.