Baby quilts and more

Wow, I was surprised to see how long it has been since I posted but with all the babysitting and a bout of flu last week not much sewing has been done.  While at baby's house I took a few pictures of quilts I made for his room.  His mommy helped with the owl quilt and we had great fun working on it while awaiting his arrival.  The final photo is of a quilt I made about a year ago to hang in their entrance.  It is so nice to be able to share with them and I see many fun sewing days in my future with my wonderful DIL.  Her last day of work is tomorrow - I will miss seeing my sweet little guy so often!

It's all in the details

Here is the next block in the BOM "Forget Me Not" by Esther Aliu.  It is a Calla Lily. I selected the color after checking out various color options on the computer. What a great tool the computer is, all I had to do was Google Calla Lily and look at the images and voila. Who knew these flowers came in so many colors!  If you look at this block in a previous post, you will see that it looks a little flat.  It really didn't come to life until all the embroidered details were added and I even did a little extra shading inside the flowers with Prisma colored pencils.  I wasn't sure about the color combination til the block was complete - this really is a case where the details make the block.  I'm looking forward to prepping the next block this weekend.

Peony finished

Another busy, busy week that included a trip to Charleston to celebrate the college graduation of my youngest DS.  How exciting that 2 1/2 years after suffering a traumatic brain injury in a car accident and almost dying, that he not only recovered but graduated Summa Cum Laude.  The only sewing that went on this week was the completion of this peony block from the BOM by Esther Aliu. The third one comes out tomorrow so I'd best get busy on number 2 today!!

A Weekend in the Studio

Despite the absence of DH, I have had a great weekend and most of it has been spent in the studio.  As the name of my blog indicated I am happiest when I am appliqueing and this week I was actually caught up on all my prepped work.  Evenings were spent embroidering or just watching TV but I was longing to get  appliqueing again.  So with a free weekend I was excited to prep these two blocks from Esther Aliu's  online BOM "Forget Me Not".  It is a mystery BOM that runs for 12 months and has two different blocks to choose from each month.  The patterns seem to still be available on the Yahoo group for Esther Aliu and probably on her website.  New patterns come out on the 15th of the month so it isn't to late to start this one.  I am excited to finally find a project worthy of this background fabric.  I have several yards but I've been saving it for just the right thing and I am happy with how it is looking.  I actually started stitching the peonies so I'd best find something else to prepare soon so I don't run out again.

These Calla lilies will be embellished with some shading once they are stitched and there are pretty embroidered fronds to be added as well.  The butterflies aren't part of the pattern, just something I wanted to add.

I intended to get this Birdie Stitches quilt sewn together too but another project took priority so it is cut out and on the design wall awaiting final assembly.

Late last week I was contacted to see if I would be interested in helping with quilts for family members of a local fallen soldier.  I was happy to help and when the fabric for the center squares arrived on Saturday I decided to complete these this weekend.  We were asked to use reproduction fabric or similar and I was happy that I was able to find these in my stash.  One of them was dated 1990 on the selvedge and several others are from about that time. I guess that is why I never really purge the stash, you never know when you might need something!

Well I'm off to sit and stitch!

Some Birdie Stitching

Since I am babysitting during the day I am only able to fit in a little hand stitching during nap time. I am so glad that I prepped these stitcheries ahead of time cause I am so happy that I am now almost finished.  I really had forgotten what a fun little project this is and now wonder why I didn't get it finished at the time.

I ran out of thread doing the leaves on this one so had to skip forward to the month of December since I decided to use the same thread on November's block.

It is really hard to pick a favorite among these.  Hopefully I can finish the last block tonight or tomorrow and can put this together on the weekend.  I really want to get back to my Wagon wheel blocks too.  I think that I am going into sewing studio withdrawl.

The poor dog really is lonely with me being gone all day so I dare not go into my studio in the evening.  I would be happy for her to join me there but she really hates going downstairs in this house and just stands at the top of the stairs whining.  Crazy dog but I love her. :)

Thanks for the input

A big thank you to those who responded to my request for input on fabric choices from my last post.  After looking over and considering all suggestions, I realized that my first reaction to using the pink stripe with the cabbages was just wrong and am now leaning towards that option. Frankly I had dismissed it early on but thanks to several suggestions to try it, I took a second look and think that it will be the way to go.  I really need to cut into that cabbage fabric and get it up onto the design wall but, I just finished putting together the quilt that had been lingering on that wall for weeks and threw these blocks up late last night. Now I am trying to decide which pink to use in the centers, the light solid or the darker dotted fabric.  This quilt is truly inspired by blog reading and now by bloggers input and I just am loving it.  I know that before I discovered the world of quilt blogging I would never have considered any of the projects on this post. I am constantly amazed at all the ideas I see and am truly seeing my quilting change as a result.

Though I have been very busy with babysitting I was able to finish this border for our guild's raffle quilt.  I took kits to the guild meeting on Friday and the quilt was met with enthusiasm by guild members.  We are making Kim McLean's quilt Stars and Sprigs for our raffle quilt and I am looking forward to seeing finished blocks and putting it together.

DH was home for a few days this week which was nice, especially having him around to help look after the new grandson.  That meant not quite as much sewing time but I was able to stitch another block on Birdie Stitches.  No babysitting today though, so I look forward to a whole day of stitching.

New Directions

Isn't it funny how our quilting path often mimics our life path.  Lately my life has been moving in a new direction and I see my quilts are doing the same.  A case in point is this quilt that I began yesterday.

When I began the process I knew exactly what fabrics I intended to use for the setting triangles and borders, why I had even bought the fabrics with this quilt in mind, but as I progressed I felt unsure of my original choice and thought that a new direction was in order.  Can you figure out which fabric the first choice?

The pattern I am using is Wagon Wheel by Laundry Basket quilts that I recently saw in a trunk show at my LQS.  But the colors weren't speaking to me and I was drawn to the beautiful cabbage print. Yep, that was my first choice.

The print was sitting out when I unpacked some new fat quarters that I had ordered online and they looked so fun and unexpected with the cabbages that I felt the cabbages were better with them. Now I am unsure which direction to take with the quilt in the top photos.  The teal floral with the pink small border or the cabbages with the green border?  What do you think?  Just like in life, it is hard to know when you are making the right choice cause both would work!

Here is another direction I've been heading in, or rather heading back to.  Last year I began the Birdie Stitches BOM  by Little Miss Shabby.  I kept up with it for the first six months but sady ran out of steam. This block is from June of last year.  While I did remember to download the patterns every month, I sorta stalled on the actual stitching. But these happy colors are calling to me and I am in need of handwork so I prepped the next 6 blocks and hopefully will get back on track.


Well this new blogger has decided I need to end here. Hope you enjoy whatever direction you are headed.