Tula Pink's Butterfly Quilt Rainbow Edition

 Catching up on another fun project I am working on is Tula Pink's Butterfly Quilt. In April I got a copy of her new pattern book and have been working on this one in sections. I was going with a quilt along but sadly fell behind. I recently was laid off, so I hope to use this time when I'm not finding a job to catch up. I have photos of some of my sets by color. I went stash diving for the fabrics I am using. So they are different from the ones in the book.

   

Yellow

Reds/ Pinks

Purple

Oranges

Tea Time!

This one is a summer tea you may still find. It's a limited edition so it will most likely be gone by the end of the year. It is very yummy and tastes like what it is named after. It has a wonderful lemon-vanilla flavor and smell that is great with desserts.

Halloween Bats and Boos Quilt along

Quilt Along!

 I love Halloween and any time I see Halloween fabric or a Halloween pattern I want it. I don't always finish it or use the fabric, but I always want it. I saw a series of videos by the Fat Quarter Shop that is their Bats and Boos Quilt along. They also had a cross stitch pattern made for the design. Both were free to download and very easy to follow patterns. 

I made the wall hanging with a few additions. I added sashing between the blocks and an extra corner block on the middle block. I plan to add a border of the same fabric I used for my bat wings. I just need to make the backing and I can prep it to quilt. It's small enough I think I can get that done quickly.  I have a photo of the current progress but I plan on taking a better one later.

Bad lighting but the background is not helping.

Future Plans...

Next weekend I have another craft show in Jackson Square, Oak Ridge, TN. I haven't made new things for the show because I still have enough stuff from where I prepped before. I have finally sold my Harry Potter quilt so I will have to bring another showcase quilt to hang up. I did go today and buy myself a new tent.

I had been borrowing a tent from my cousin and hers is hard to set up and half broken. I got a good deal on one from Academy Sports. I got a purple tent because I love the color purple. I was trying to decide to go with green or purple since the business name is Green Tea quilts. Purple won out in the end. I may remake my sign later, depending on how this goes. I do sometimes feel like I'm doing a lot of work for no extra return but I also have enjoyed being at the shows. No one said having a side hustle was going to be easy. 

Tea Time!

The bear logo is cute!

I stopped at Hey Bear Cafe on my way home from getting my tent. It's been over a year since I've been there due to covid and not going to that area as much. It's close to where I work but not my house. I've been working from home for a year and a half now so I don't have an excuse to go that way. The cafe is a boba tea shop that sells snacks. 

They have a lovely park on their property that they have food trucks and bands set up regularly. I didn't hang around today for the band because I didn't have my hand stitching project with me. I did get a lovely Jasmine Milk Tea with boba and custard. I love that you can adjust the ice amount and tea sweetness to your taste also. Jasmine Tea is also my favorite tea,

Work in progress

I like many are staying at home as much as possible. I am lucky that right now work has not sent us home. I'm still working my regular hours, but my normal social schedule is on hold. You would think this means I can be twice as productive. I don't feel I am but I've got a bit of a progress report.

I finished the International Mystery Quilt top and made a backing for my snowball pattern. I pieced the borders out of scrap I was provided and that took forever. A lot of time was added because of being exhausted from stress. The backing I used a cute snail fabric I had gotten from a short bolt sale and some scraps. The backings always go together so fast. I started to pin it up but realized I didn't have enough pins left. I need to quilt something else before I can start on this. That pile is a bit tall.

The next was did some work on dad's temperature quilt. I'm trimming the squares as I sew them into strips so this is time-consuming. I also feel I have the attention span of a magpie and keep getting distracted by lots of other things going on around me.

I've been on Instagram constantly lately. I decided to join the Alison Glass and Guicy Giuce  Mini-Series Sew-along. #MiniSeriesSAL. I have picked some recent Tula Pink fabrics I've picked up and I'm adding a few fat quarters I got from my row by row win last year. I need to buy the patterns but I'm waiting until payday. The sew-along is for 10 weeks and starts this week. If you go to their Instagrams or Alison Glass' page you'll find all the info and sign up for it.

The other thing I saw on Instagram was Jay Bird quilts did a heart block tutorial. Under #jaybirdcares, you'll find a free step by step tutorial using her sidekick and hex and more rulers. I did a couple. They're so easy I'm thinking of doing more.

Tea is a blend of bags. I make a pitcher of ice tea usually once a week. I usually use 6 small tea bags and since they're flavored teas I play mix and match, I have 1 bag of Sugar Cookie, 2 bags of Honey Green Tea and a large bag of Jasmine. The other two overwhelm the subtle jasmine flavor and make it taste like a sugar cookie more than anything. I won't try this mix again.

November First Saturday Fiberology Visit

I went to the fiber review for Fiberology Lab's first Saturday this month. I turned in last month's block and we decided the blocks are going into a charity quilt. I don't think I'm going to get a chance to get a photo of that finished quilt but I loved seeing everyone's blocks. This month we previewed a chocolate scented fabric by Lewis & Irene Fabrics. We got a sample of Chocolate Box Mint.

I also got an easy quilt pattern called Tumblebug. I have since given this to my mom but not before making a quick lap quilt out of it. I used a half jelly roll that I purchased last month from Joann's that was of cute forest critter themed fabric focusing on foxes, owls, and butterflies. I used almost the entire thing to create the front. I'm planning on using the few scraps I have to make a pieced backing. I also found tags mom made for me that I plan to put on the quilt. I put this one together in a day.

Then I had to look at the project I'm going to use my chocolate fabric sample for. I had picked up two other fabrics in the line and had debated on the idea of a mug rug. I found a designer on Instagram Ellis & Higgs that had a cute Christmas pattern line out. One block was a candy piece and it was perfect for this idea. She also pointed me to a blog called Polkadot Chair that had a neat potholder tutorial. I decided to make that with the block and a mug rug. Now binding round things is something I haven't done yet. So the potholder didn't come out perfect, but I did make extra blocks to practice with.

The Knoxville area has a new Boba Tea cafe. It's called Hey Bear Cafe. They have a lot of options to customize your drink, and they sell some prepackaged snacks. It was a nice place to hang out for a few hours. I sat there and cross-stitched because I didn't want to go home yet. I got a jasmine milk tea with egg custard. It was so good.

Berry Box Table Runner finished

Table Runner front

After I finished my row by row I did take a few days off but got back to work. I have a few projects pinned together ready to quilt. I have so many that I don't have any more basting pins. I pulled out the smaller safety pins I had, to put together my Berry Box table runner.

Quilting it was easy for me. The design was a four patch in a four patch so I played on that theme and did a four patch on point in the boxes. It took a day for me to work on it but I feel I was being thorough. Plus I was working on laundry and getting a lot of distractions from family and friends.

Table Runner back

In the end, it's a pretty spring/summer table runner that I have yet to decide what to do with. I may put it on display later or give it away as a Christmas present. It does have a lot of fabrics I really love it so that's a hard choice.

I did not get a tea shot for Sunday while I was quilting but I do have a photo from a previous visit to a tea room I use to go to a lot. It was called Tea at the Gallery and unfortunately, it is closed but it was a fun place to visit. They had all their teas in silver canisters on one wall so you can pick your flavor. I remember this was one of the first places I saw some exotic teas. The first time I saw monkey picked oolong tea I swore the label said 'monkey pickled oolong' which sounded bizarre and gross. This mistake still makes me laugh to this day.

WIP Berry Box table runner

Fabric from Loose Threads

After I got the top completed from the east Tennessee shop hop blocks, instead of quilting one of the many projects I had, I decided to start a new project with some of the fabric I picked up. I had gone back to Atomic Fibers and picked up the Straight out of Line ruler and decided to use one of the patterns in their videos.

I used four fat quarters I picked up from Loose Threads in Harriman. I used a wood grain fabric and 3 Downton Abby fabrics as well as a grey Zen Chic fat quarter I had in my stash. I used the blocks to make a four patch surrounded by the wood grain. I am calling this one berry box since there are berries on some of the fabrics and the colors are very berry-like. I used a solid grey from my stash as a border and used the scraps to make a backing for it. Now all I have to do is quilt it. The only problem is all my basting pins are in other quilts right now. I need to get something quilted.

Double Wedding Ring Wall Hanging

In progress photo.

A major project I have been working on was a commission from one of my co-workers. Her brother is getting married this fall and she wanted to give him a unique wedding present. We had decided a wall hanging and after some looking she wanted the double wedding ring pattern.

She loved the traditional symbolism in it and thought it would be something very special for him. She had said the wedding is in October so not to hurry but I wanted to get it done so I can work on projects planned that need to be done before September.

Finished!

This is the first time I've done anything with this pattern. Generally, I avoid curved piecing because to me it's the devil to get to lay flat. I have done it before because I made purses in bucket shapes before. I had downloaded a free pattern and went fabric shopping with her so she can get the fabrics she wanted and go ahead and pay the material costs. People have a tendency to complain less about prices when they see what material costs really amount to.

backing being created

I only needed two rings so that did cut down on the number of curves I had to do. Not that I didn't do a lot. I paper pieced the ring sections easy. I do like paper piecing. I had a few spots in my piecing where there were small gathers and puckers visible but quilting it actually smoothed those out. I used Gutermann # 327 Maize for the thread.  It's a light yellow color that blended in with the other fabric choices.

I pieced a back with the scraps and used those scraps to create two small sleeves on the back for hanging. My co-worker said they're going to buy a dowl rod to hang it from. Overall everyone was very happy with the finished results.

Berry Patch Pattern Planning

Photo by Quilt Mod

Recently I was looking for inspiration on how to quilt up to my Terracotta Greenhouse quilt and I found a blog Swatch and Stitch talking about Robert Kaufman's Spring 2018 Quilt Market setup. It had a pattern in the Berry Patch fabric line called Berry Patch. It's a cute strawberry quilt. The pattern is a free download from Robert Kaufman's website.

Photo by Robert Kaufman Fabrics

I immediately wanted to do this quilt. I decided to shop my stash and see if I can find some great fabrics for this quilt. The quilt uses a background fabric, fabric for the stems and two charm packs. I have several charm packs I've not done anything with and really wanted to use one of them but picking one was the hard part.

I decided to pick my background first then figure out what I wanted my strawberries made out of. I chose this cream-colored textured fabric for my background. It's got some pattern but it's light enough to let the strawberry fabrics stick out. For my charm packs, I found a Pineapple Fabrics pack and a Robert Kaufman Blueprint Basics pack. I still have to pick a fabric for my stems. I'm thinking I had a green that would work but I've changed my mind. I'm going to look at more of my fabrics and see what else I want to add to it.

Even though I'm planning this quilt, I am still quilting my Greenhouse quilt, so I can't start anything with this yet. I'm already excited to start the next project.

Tea today was the Mango Dragonfruit drink from Starbucks. I know it's not really a tea but it's so tasty. This photo is actually from when I was running around downtown Knoxville to visit the farmers market. I know I go to looks like I go to Starbucks a lot but most of these photos are from the bookstore I love to visit.

Focus Freeway Mini Project

You would think a project the size of this pattern would be done in a few hours. Let me tell you when you sprinkle it between two other projects it takes a lot longer. I picked this pattern up at Quiltcon in Feb and decided I had the perfect scraps for it to put together one.

I was still working on the Halloween hanging when I cut out the applique pieces for the camera and set them aside. I used the leftovers from a charm pack of Palm Canyon by Violet Craft. I even managed to take a break and assemble everything while I was working on the baby quilt.

Now I was going to go straight to quilting this one, and even got it pinned when I finished the baby quilt. But I had a dream that could not be ignored and quickly assembled a top that I now plan on writing a pattern for. Before I start pattern writing though I am going to finish this little project. I've got the quilting started and now it's a matter of choosing the binding.

Tea today is a choice from my collection. I went with Duchess Delight. It's a caramel warm vanilla flavored tea. Funny I was looking at this photo and noticed three of these teas can be described with those same words.

Challenge/ Charity quilt

Mom's top

March's guild meeting for the Tellico Quilters Guild mom picked up stuff for their challenge quilt/charity quilt. The main challenge was to use these kids sports fabric and create a quilt out of it. They did give some fabrics that you can use but mom didn't like most of them. She did a cute block pattern alternating in pink and green.

She asked me to do the backing because she likes my backing style. I was asked not last week but the week before that and I told her it would have to wait until the baby quilt was done. Since that was finished yesterday, this was today's project. It surprised me she wanted me to do the backing. She doesn't normally do improve and most of my pieced backs are improve pieced sometimes echoing an element on the front.

back in progress

Fabric selection

Sometimes I spend a lot of time thinking and changing but a lot of the time I just go with what feels right. I do still find times where a color combination will give me trouble. I did have that issue with this one. I was given all the scraps and the extra fabrics that she got from the swap. Some of the fabrics I wished to incorporate but I just couldn't figure out how to add them. It did take longer then I thought it would because I did some small piecing to use up specific scraps.

I am happy with the overall backing.  I created the squares from the front and made the pieced section of the fabrics from the front. I did want to use dark blue or orange but I couldn't make them work and they just didn't match.

Finished backing

Oh Baby WIP still

So I had a whole week where I was not feeling good and didn't get anything done. I had no energy and would come home and stare vaguely at my computer. Well, I was trying to read and watch YouTube videos abut I was just not feeling it. So I've not completed the baby quilt but I have gotten pretty far. The top ended up being 5 full rows wide with a partial row on each side when I had it stitched up and turned. It's a good crib sheet size and I have managed to make progress. I have 3 rows and another 2/3rds a row done. I did end up having to buy a second spool of thread to complete it.

There was one day I couldn't resist and took an hour or two to work on the focus freeway project. I just cut out the pieces and put them together. The whole thing is applique so it's ironed down but needs to be stitched up. I put it aside to finish the sewing after I finish my baby quilt. The March 30th date is coming fast and I keep feeling like everyone wants a bit of time I don't have. I know if I hadn't stopped working on anything for a week I'd have finished it but you can't help when you're sick.

I do have the material and the remaining rows ready for when I finish this I can make two matching pillows. Afterwards, it's bag it up and have it ready for a baby shower!

Today's tea is one I got from Teavana a while back. I think I only have enough for one more cup left. It's a summer tea and I'm ready for spring/ summer. It's Strawberry blush. It's a very fruity herbal tea that tastes like strawberry as the name implies. It almost doesn't need sweetening with its natural flavor. I did add some freeze-dried strawberries into my cup. If I had enough I'd make a pitcher of ice tea with it but sadly it's almost gone and I don't think I can get anymore.

WIP Spooktacular Halloween

I've been a little busy and distracted this last week, so I don't have much done since my last post about this project. Going to Quiltcon should not have meant loosing the weekend to work but apparently it did. I was inspired by going to the convention but didn't really feel like doing much of anything until late in the day on Sunday. I have however made some progress.

I'm almost done with the entire top portion. I had the panel quilted and finished quilting the body area around the lettering. All I need to do is some tight spaces actually close to the words. Then I can start on the bottom.

So far I've been using black thread to quilt with since it will blend in. I was planning on using the variegated orange thread for the colored sections in the center and I had some plain orange I used to applique the letters down. Then I found glow in the dark thread at the con. I have to figure a way to work this into the quilt.

With some of my new patterns I'm already planning on what to do next. I got this small focus freeway pattern that I want to work on. It's mostly applique work. I just need to pick my fabric. This would make a fantastic gift to some of my friends who love photography. I just gotta keep my mind on the present project. I've got too many WIP stuff going on, but I think that's a normal quilter's dilemma.

For today's tea I'm going to bust out an tea I don't use much. It's one I got before our local Teavana closed. The Vanilla Creme blend. I don't think they make this stuff anymore. It's got a warm almost caramel flavor to it. The photo is not mine. I stole it from the web but this is what the canister it was in when in store looked like. Someone is selling it on ebay if you want one.