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.

Oh Baby! WIP

So my cousin is having a baby. I had been waiting until she let me know to work on her baby quilt. It's due in June but she recently sent a baby shower invitation for March 30th. So I would like to have the quilt done by then. Good thing I planned on using one of the dozen tops I had already had finished. I have a terrible habit of doing a top and putting it aside to be quilted later, but as you guess it later can be years down the road.

In progress from 2014

I decided to put working on my Halloween hanging off to get this project done before the baby shower. My aunt had been wanting to make my other cousin's son a quilt also. I will have to pull out the clothing I gathered for that because I know she's going to work on getting me to doing it faster once I show up with this.

This one is a pattern I got offline and I had to hunt it down to figure out where. It's one of the McCalls Quilting free patterns called Tween Tumbler. I linked a post from 2018 but the original pattern is from 2013. I started this top in 2014. So that makes this a bit of a UFO I've picked up.

I decided to modify the top so it wouldn't be so big. I'm using part of it as its own backing also. I shortened it by three rows. I took off the very top and two bottom rows. I'm going to use the pieces to make a pillow or two to match.

I had this pale green thread that disappears into the greens but will stand out in the pinks and oranges. It's a Gutermann # 700 in Mint Green, To be honest, I didn't want to run out and buy thread and I was trying to match the turquoise. I have so much thread I knew I would have something to match. I think I considered a blue or a beige also. But so far I'm happy with this thread. I love the quality of Guttermann. It one of my favorite threads I can get when I run into Joann's.

Picture from Republic of Tea.

Today's tea is an Acai Berry from The Republic of Tea. They label it their super fruit tea. To be honest I was looking at lots of teas at World Market and there was an employee trying to redo the shelf. I grabbed three and I thought I had actually grabbed a blueberry tea. I didn't look at the container after I grabbed it, just stuffed it in my basket and went on. I did look at the other two I picked up and put them back. I don't mind this is good. It's got a bit of a blueberry flavor to it. When I shared it at work one of them thought it tasted a bit like fig newtons. So that may be due to subconscious suggestions.

Quilt Shop Saturday- Asheville Cotton Co.

I got a chance to go to Asheville, NC Saturday. My trip was meant to go see Biltmore (you can see photos I took here), but I like to stop into fabric shops on my vacations. It gives me some great ideas seeing a new shop and sometimes there are unique finds you wouldn't find in another part of the country. This trip I stopped at the Asheville Cotton Co. shop.

This was my second stop at this shop. Last August I had gone with my mom and my friend Regina. This trip was only me and Regina but I had to go back to the shop. I like this shop. It's a good sized shop and has a great selection. They also had this cute sample quilt done with some whimsical peter pan fabrics. If I was a huge peter pan fan I would have loaded up on these.

Quilt made with peter pan fabrics

I did get a variety of floral fabrics and a couple of fat quarters of this cute tomato fabric I found. Mom had asked me to pick up some floral for her so we're going to get together and divvy out the fabrics this week.

We stopped at the shop early in the morning. So early we were there about 15 minutes before opening. I ran into the nearby Fresh Market and picked up this matcha ginger tea. I thought it was a store brand, but it's by Matcha Love. It was very good and refreshing. I did get two yellow plums for a snack and never got around to eating them. I plan to do that today with some lemon iced tea while I sew and catch up on household stuff.

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.

Quiltcon 2019 Nashville Experience

#QCGreetingsfromNashville

So for my first Quiltcon experience I loved it. Now as said this isn't my first show but one of the biggest I've been to. But this is the first one to feature exclusively modern designs. I loved the experience and was very happy to get a chance to go. I only had one day and bit of a drive to get there. The weather was terrible. It rained very hard all day all over Tennessee. All the way there we had flood warnings going off like crazy.

Getting there we first went to the vendor area. Now all the quilts in the show are in front of that but I wanted to get to certain booths to make sure I got some things I was looking for. We spent the majority of the time in this area. I got tons of deals and great patterns. I made sure I went by the Soak booth and picked up two bottles of flatter. When I went by the Pink Door Fabrics booth Tula Pink was there. The crowd was crazy and I didn't really want to stand in line, so I did not get to meet her. I did go back to the booth and got a pattern I had been looking at before.

One of the first few booths I visited was the Sewing Party booth. I met the designer of the "Rose for my Boyfriend" quilt pattern and was able to see the original one done for the magazine. I also showed them a photo of mine and they asked me to email it to them so they can post it on their Instagram! I love sharing my quilts and am so happy the designer liked mine.

One of the fun things about the show is they had a lot of areas you can sit and sew. They had booths that were doing charity quilt blocks. They give you a pattern and you can go through scraps and sit down and sew the block for them. These blocks will go into a quilt that will be sold for charity.

They also had a hand stitching area where you got to try out a free hand stitching design provided by sulky. It was printed on a dissolving interface so you can put the guide on and not worry about it messing up the final look. This was a nice area to go visit cause I was really exhausted and needed a bit of time to rest. Also this lead me to go back to the sulky booth for another free design. I found glow in the dark thread that was a must have.

After that it was time to go through the quilts. They had a collection of antique quilts and a collection of youth quilts that were both very interesting. There was a feature of quilts using a mix of fibers like faux fur or knitting. I also got to meet a few of the people with quilts in the show walking around.

Afterwards we went to the Flying Saucer for dinner. I have been to this place before. It's a pub/taphouse type place that has tons beers and ciders on tap as well as in cans and bottles available. I have been trying to do a low carb diet so I did not get one of the ciders that I wanted to but did get a burger. Mom's sandwich ended up being too spicy for her so we swapped what we got.

In all the trip was a success. Mom and I had a huge bag of stuff to split when we got home and I've got a lot of new projects to add to my to do list. I have sprinkled pictures through the post of the different things I saw but I also have more photos available on google photos.

Quiltcon or bust

So I've only been to a handful of quilt shows and it has been way too long since I've been to one. The last show I got to attend was AQS Chattanooga in 2016. It had been a birthday trip for me and I remember it very fondly. In the past few years I would put a reminder on my phone for local shows in hopes I would get the time to go. Unfortunately I haven't had the opportunity.

This year Quiltcon is in Nashville, which is a short 3 hour drive for me. Mom and I decided to make it a day trip. We're leaving early Saturday morning and I hope to get there before lunch.

I have been  stalking the Quiltcon tag on Instagram in my excitement to go. I also decided to join the Modern Quilt Guild in advance of the con. Of course I'm just getting a one day ticket but I have seen enough to get me excited.

I did make a little ID pouch to carry at the con. I've made bags before but I found a pattern for an ID wallet and kinda improvised to make this small bag. There's a lot of errors but it came out pretty good for going off without an actual pattern. Some of the ideas come from previous bag patterns I've seen and I had some of the hardware I already needed. I did not have the metal piece to make the handle adjustable so I improvised. If it gets annoying I can buy what I need later.


This is the first time I have made something with a clear ID window. I already had the vinyl for another project I never got to so I was happy to put it to use. The fabric was a recent purchase from Mountain Creek Quilt Shop in Greenback. I don't get there that often but it's nice that they remember me when I do come. It is from Fair Isle Friends by Anita Jeram. I got the little white fabric from the salesman sample bin of some Japanese fabrics. Over all it's cute and works for a first try. No one else will see it close enough to see my mistakes.

Tea today is my ever loved Starbucks green tea. I got an iced latte on the way home from Mountain Creek. I usually get the frappe but I wanted something a little different

WIP Happy Haunting Halloween Wall Hanging

Laying out the applique 

So this thing is coming out bigger then I expected. It will end up being more like a throw. The size issue started right from the beginning. When I started making this in 2016, the middle section is from a quilt pattern. I was starting with the block sizing that was given in the pattern. I should have at that time made the blocks smaller but they say hindsight is 20/20 and I can't change it now. So we're going with the larger quilt.

Top without letters

I have it broken up into three sections. I'd be done piecing it but I decided to try to quilt them separately and then put them together afterwards to make quilting it easier and give me a chance to do a higher fill pattern. This is the same technique I used when making my row by row quilts, so I'm fairly confident in going with this route. I've built in strips to cover the attachment points. 

The top portion contains a large open spot and a panel. I found this batik in my stash that has a floral print. Even though it's a floral does seem to work with everything once I put the letters down.

I have appliqued the words from the bonus pattern we got for going to all 4 shops. I didn't get the kit for this pattern because I didn't honestly think I'd use it at the time. I'm still glad I didn't because I got to use the colorful scraps from the corners of the blocks in the center section. They contrast nicely with the background and strangely I don't think they over crowd the whole thing because of the color differences.

Center without 2 inch border strips

Also note this is the first time I've used my machine to applique. Usually I do that by hand but it takes forever when I do. It's hard to get a sense of this because I didn't take a photo of everything laid out together. I'll have to have one for my next update post. This section is complete and has been basted up for quilting.

Bottom portion ready to baste

The center section is suppose to resemble a calendar page. I have 5 rows of seven blocks with two of them being small round accents from the panel piece I got. I just did a small border around this to use as a buffer and to help when attaching the top and bottom sections.  The photo was taken before I added that in. It's the same batik fabric used in the top. This piece hasn't been basted because the fabric I used for backing on the other two sections is too small. I'm going to do some decorative patchwork with the  scraps to fill out this a bit more. It will probably resemble my flying geese type row on the bottom section.

Appliqued letters

The bottom section has the majority of the applique work. I used the kits I got with the house, tree and trick-or-treaters to make this cute scene. I did not measure my fabric when I cut it for this section. I cut it the same size as the top section. The problem came when I realized my appliques were too large. Now I could have quilted it and then attached it to the center then put the applique on, but I decided I didn't want that. So I used all the triangle scraps my Tri-Tri Again blocks left over and made a sort of flying geese pattern row. I did cut the white squares new for this row. I hadn't used that fabric yet. Since it came in the layer cake, I wanted to try to use at least one of each of the fabrics. This section is also basted up for quilting.

Basting down

I'm actually stopping for the night so I won't be tired when I start quilting. I still have thread choices to make. I have some orange variegated thread I'm thinking of using for the center section and maybe a grey or black for the other sections. I have to look at my collection a bit more. The piecing and applique portion of this quilt has only taken about two days. I went out for part of the days and put my work on hold. I'm hoping the quilting doesn't take long because I've already got the next project bugging me for attention.

For tea today I found this Hibiscus Peach by Pure Leaf. It's been a while since I spotlighted their tea because I always get the green or black unsweetened tea. I've become diabetic and need to watch my sugar. This is a new product of theirs and is sweetened but it's not overly sweet. I found it very refreshing.