Sewing Time

Eva Marie came to visit last weekend.  Together we spent Friday evening, nearly all day Saturday and Sunday working on Bonnie Hunter's Grand Illusion Mystery Quilt.  I had hubby take a few pictures of our set-up in my overly crowded sewing room.

View #1

View #2

Messy, messy room.  But functional.  One day maybe I'll get things cleaned up.  I was able to complete all the steps to the GI Mystery.  And I am planning to change my block up a bit...

I'm making pinwheels from the bonus triangles from step two, double diamonds.  These will replace the 3 1/2" turquoise blocks.  I saw this on the Quiltville Open Studio Facebook page.  Someone also posted their quilt with the sashing added so I tried a block to see how I liked it.  What do you think?

Eva Marie has a whole row put together.  

She's moving right along.

So now it's time to get the move on the Magnolia Challenge.  I've got it pin basted and ready to quilt.

Not the best picture..  The flowers will be added when the quilting is finished.

More next time.  Until then,

Happy Quilting!

More Catching Up

I  made a few other chicken pin cushions.  These were made from 6" blocks.

I made a couple more but failed to get pictures before they went to their new homes.  I've got to stop doing that!!  (forgetting to photograph important events!)

You know Hexies are the latest and greatest new thing to do.  So I decided to make this past year's Christmas ornaments for the grands out of hexies.  Here's a close-up of a finished "top".

I used my 3/4" hexagon stamp from Cindy Blackburg.  These were all hand pieced.  Then I used a 5" square for the back, added a ribbon hanger, stitched around the outside edge, turned and voila', Christmas ornaments.  Here are all the ones I made by color groups.

Green Ones...

Blue Ones...

Gold ones plus one brown...

And red ones.

I do have a hexie project in mind for my hand sewing take-a-long this next year.  When I get started on it, I'll have to show you what I'm up to.  In the meantime, I'm still working on my Magnolia challenge.  Hopefully, I'll be far enough along in a few more days to show a picture.  So until then,

Happy Quilting!!

Happy New Year!

I forgot to take any photos of my guests for New Year's lunch, but we had a good time and enjoyed a great feast!  Ham, turnip greens, cooked cabbage, black-eyed peas, corn casserole, green beans, cole slaw, mandarin orange salad, coconut cake, chocolate pie and scotcheroos.  Two of our daughters and their families were here along with my Dad and sister, Eva Marie.

I made a chicken pin cushion from 4 1/2" blocks.  The pattern was from the Missouri Star Quilt Co Idea Book called BLOCK, late summer vol 1 issue 4.

Happy Chicks Pincushion

I gifted it to my sister, Eva Marie, who is a relatively new quilter.  She started out hand quilting a top I had made for her a couple years ago.  Then another top I finished we decided to give to our Dad.  Then in April (the 16th, day after tax deadline...she's a CPA tax accountant...) I took my 2 1/2" strip scrap box to her house and got her started piecing strips together.  And the quilting bug bit and the rest is history.

Eva Marie with her new pin cushion.

She's also working on the Bonnie Hunter Grand Illusion Mystery.  We were watching the "Rockin' New Year's Eve program on TV Wednesday night.  Then at 11:00 decided to check Quiltville's blog to see if possibly Bonnie had posted the "reveal".  And YES...she had.  Here's one block pinned to my design wall.  I haven't had time to actually sew the pieces together yet.  Trying to get all the steps completed first but I just had to put one up on the wall to see what it was going to look like.

Grand Illusion Block

All of steps 4 and 5 are complete.  Still working on 1-3 but I'll get there eventually.  I've been working on my Possum Town Quilter's Ultimate Guild Challenge which is due February 14.  When I make a little more progress (where you can actually tell what I'm trying to do) I'll share a post about it.  Until then, Happy Quilting!