A New Day Dawns in the Forest

In March, I was lucky enough to stumble onto the Forest quilt along of Joanna (Shape Moth) and Julianna (Sewing Under Rainbow).  Each week these wonderful ladies took turns along with a few friends Amy, Caroline, Teri and Amy to post a free paper piece pattern for twelve weeks.  I so enjoyed not only seeing my blocks come together each week but also the hundreds of blocks that were made from around the globe.   So I must first say a HUGE thanks to each of these ladies dedication and creative talents being shared so freely with all of us.  I am so grateful to what each of you inspired me to create each week.

I decided my forest friends that I created needed to live permanently in a forest so I set to work to design such a place for all my blocks.  While putting it together I was running out of fabric for the sky so I added a sunrise to the design.
 

Thus I have decided to call my quilt 'A New Day Dawns in the Forest'

This quilt has the honored distinction of being the largest quilt I have ever finished.  It is a whopping 86 x 98 inches and looks amazing on my queen size bed!  It is also the first quilt that I have ever taken in to be long armed by someone and I am so grateful to Cheran from Fiddlesticks Quilt shop for all the help she offered me picking out just the right pantograph for it.  Retro Leaves suits it very well.  I couldn't be more thrilled with how it all came together.  I am sure I will be using Cheran's services again as she has a delightful store and I adore her ability to make me feel comfortable when stepping out in new directions.

 The little bunny, I simply adore.  He was a free pattern that Ruthie Quilts offered for the Spring Fling.  I love him peeking out from his location on the forest floor.  I was afraid he may not be seen on my bed but he peeks out cute from there, too.  Shy little bunny but I can still see him peeking out from his safety zone.

...that's a wrap on my Forest QAL project.  I am linking up to the Forest QAL Linky party over at Shape Moth.  Thanks again to everyone who inspired me to create and FINISH such a lovely quilt for my bedroom! xxoo

Keep Stitchin'

Whirlwinds and change

  
 A lot of my time lately has been spent getting my daughter ready for dorm life.  Shopping and more shopping have been taking more and more of my time and money this past month getting her ready to transition into her last year of college and her first year of living on campus.  This last weekend we moved her into her new digs and before we could even get half way home she text us she was homesick.  My it has been hard on us, too.  Change is never easy.  The last week was a whirlwind of hemming all her new pants including her new pj pants and adding the following touches to her towels. This week has been a whirlwind of dealing with my parents declining health and still adjusting to Ashley's absence at home.  I have so many July and August BOMs to catch up on, my dad's impending move and health issues, a grandchild quickly approaching and it just seems like life will continue to be a blur of whirlwinds for the rest of summer. At this pace, I will welcome the change to Fall and Winter if it brings with it tranquility.  In the meantime.....

I am sure I will be busy creating Ashley little projects to send off to her and try to bring a smile to her day to lift her spirits the best I can from such a distance.  Hopefully these towels I embellished will be a reminder of how much her mom loves her and of course a dose of Cougar Pride. 

While on campus, we spent some time trying to help her put her space together and she enjoyed making us some coffee in her new coffee pot.  I am sure by the time we see her next it will be much improved as that first try was way too weak, but I enjoyed every drop since she made it with love.

Speaking of whirlwinds, I was able to get my Forest QAL quilt top off to the long arm last week and look forward to being able to pick it up next week and quickly binding it so I can Link it to the QAL finishes.  Here is what the queen size top looked like before I sent it off to Cheran at Fiddlesticks Quilt Shop.  Cheran spent some time with me picking out the quilt pattern for it and I finally settled on retro leaves and can't wait to see the finished result.

I just lumped all of the Forest QAL blocks into the center and decided to build a forest around them.  To do this I drew a rough draft of what I wanted onto paper.

Since each block in the QAL was a 12 inch finished block I wanted to make it easy on myself and make each of the surrounding blocks to be of the same dimensions.  I bought a large sketch pad of  18x24 inches and cut them down to 12x24 inches and just laid them out all side by side and drew this pattern onto them and then paper pieced my fabric onto the large blocks to create my forest.  I started to run out of fabric for the sky so I last minute improvised and decided to throw in a sunset.  For some reason I have since decided it is a sunrise. The little bunny is a pattern from Ruthie Quilts from the Spring Fling and I just had to work it in and love the fabric I made him from.  I love Ruth's pattern for him, he is just the cutest bunny.  He was a very important detail in my happiness with the top but he may actually be hardly visible when the quilt is tucked into my bed.  Nevertheless I will always know of the little bunny hiding at the edge of my forest a safe distance away from the whirlwind.

Where did July go???

July has been uber crazy and totally discombobulated. The result has been total chaos in the quilt studio.
I've been getting my daughter ready to move away next month to campus life and my dad has decided to list his house due to new health issues and he has been recently diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. All of this has lessened my time spent sewing and even more so lessened my time for blogging about it. 

I have made a few gains in progress though from time to time.  I have a new quilt top done for my daughter Randi's impending son, who finally has a name Brayden.  So I will need to find some time to getting back to the baby name quilt now that my grandson has a name. I haven't taken pictures of it but hopefully will get back to that project soon.

I also have only finished one BOM project for the month so am suddenly in serious arrears on that front also.

What I have been concentrating all my time and energy into is working on my Forest QAL project.  Julianna and Joanna challenged us to complete a project and post about it by August 31st.  I am ever the procrastinator and it took me a while to figure out my game plan for my blocks.  I have joined them all together and am creating a queen size quilt out of them.  I still have yet to EVER finish such a large project!!!

Julianna and Joanna explicitly say the project must be finished.  Well such a large project is more than I can possibly ever hope to machine quilt as it is my least favorite part of quilting.  I have the project designed and have it 3/4 done but a friend recently told me the long arm quilter I had decided to use has a 4 to 6 week back log.  I have been wanting to bite the bullet and have someone else do the quilting on my quilts for a while now but have been unsure how to locate a quilter I trust to machine quilt for me.

A few months ago I stumbled upon a new quilt shop in Vancouver called Fiddlesticks.  The owner is super nice and helped me pick out fabrics for a fat quarter swap I participated in a few months back.  She is the type of lady who likes to befriend her customers and although I usually like to look and find what I need on my own I found her help very useful.  Each time I have been in there she always has the long arm in use.  For me that translates into a lot of happy customers and I thought I would like to try her services.  So this last Monday I went into the store --- she was holding the door open for customers who were just leaving a class and I pranced on in. After looking around and not finding a fabric I ran out of --she asked if she could help.
I told her what I was looking for and explained I thought one of the fabrics behind the counter looked just perfect.  I let her know I was interested in her long arm services, too.  She was booking into Sept and even late Sept. I explained I would probably have to look elsewhere and she surprising asked when I needed it by and she said she could do that!!! WOW.  Even better ... a huge Double WOW because after all that she explained she was closed on Mondays but continued to talk to me another 15 - 20 minutes and looked at what I had in mind for my quilt top and sold me the fabric I wanted that was behind the counter.  How is that for customer service.  I totally recommend anyone in the area to stop into her Fiddlesticks store and say hi to Cheran you just will not find a friendlier quilt store in the Vancouver area. 

Here is a sneak peek at what I have been working on with my Forest QAL blocks:

I have 8 more blocks to make for the bottom rows and then am probably going to redo 3 or 4 other blocks that I have already put on the quilt but feel I must do so to be truly happy with the outcome.  Cheran says I can work on the quilt until August 10th and she will have it quilted and back to me by August 20th which will give me time to finish the binding and link the project to the Forest QAL finishes.  Hopefully I can get most of that done this weekend!  Wish me luck.

Happy Stitchin'

Bom Catch ups

So my Forest QAL last block is done and I am busy sketching what to do with them as a final project.  Julianna and Joanna are giving us till August to link a project to their site for a chance to win some great prizes from their sponsors.  For me the best prize is just finishing a project...It is not my strong suit as I quickly get sidetracked onto a new project.  I am thinking I can develop these twelve 12" blocks into a Queen size quilt with the idea rolling around in my brain.  Now if I can just do it in the given time frame???

The last block is the trillium flower and I choose to do mine in the red flower type.  It allowed me to work that color into my quilt one more time.  I love how simple this block was compared to the others.

Now I just have to lock in on a final way to configure the group as a whole.

 

 Too many choices... I could audition the choices for days trying to find the just the right combo.  I will just have to set this aside for the moment so I can make progress elsewhere.

I got my June Quilt Doodle Doodle BOM quickly knocked out.  Cindy calls this month's block Grad Party as she is deep in planning her son's graduation party but I changed it up a bit and think mine shall be known as the Bird Bath...hee hee hee. I think you can see why...

This is my May Castle Tower block for the gnomes

This is the Castle Tower for the Princesses ( and my grand-daughters)

and I have been promising a sneak peek of the third secret castle so a quick peek to look who moved into the tower this month over at the third castle seems in order

That sneak peek is all you get for now.

Below are the blocks for the last three months Craftsy 2013 BOM blocks. I think I haven't done a very good job of sharing my progress on this one but will try to do better. Believe it or not I have done all the blocks so far including the June block which was a Lemoyne Star.  It had plenty of Y Seams and was definitely challenging...but also very rewarding as it came out beautiful.

April's Block

May's Block

June's Block

And so you don't think it is all work and progress over here we are finding time to enjoy the sun and surf with a quick weekend road trip.

Beautiful day to fly a kite or in our case to watch

A trip to Oysterville to buy some fresh oysters in the shell to throw on the barbecue

Relaxing just to watch the waves

My daughter and I had to dip our toes in the surf

She is the one on the right with the freaky toes :)

Time to leave footprints in the sand as we leave
came too soon

Forest QAL Fun

I have been busy with these blocks lately...put aside others things I should be doing because I am addicted to these.  Here is the latest two to get finished and then I only have one left.  Teri from Handiwerx just posted the last block and it is a trillium flower.  She notes you are not suppose to pick them as it can kill them, but I have to admit that they grew wild in the woods behind my house and as a child I remember picking them occasionally although I am sure my mother told us not to.  Most of them were the white variety and occasionally there would be the red one and I remember thinking they were so cool because they were the rare treat to find so I'll be making the red one because it has always been special to me.

I loved the pine marten that Joanna at Shape Moth had for us to make this week and quickly made him.  Maybe I made him a little to quickly because as soon as I finished it here is what I saw:

See where his back foot is resting in midair and it appears the flowers between his legs are growing in that same midair way.  OOPs!!!  That is not the way it was suppose to be.  Luckily it was just a matter of undoing a couple of seams and replacing that piece so it wasn't too hard to fix.  I have been so set in cranking these out that sometimes I need to slow down and double check my work.  Believe it or not on each of these pieces I mark it with the typle of fabric that is suppose to go in each section but still got it wrong.

Here is the corrected block with my little rascal standing on a solid piece of rock under his foot.

Wow what a difference that is much better!!!

At this point I laid all the blocks out on the floor again and decided the fern and flower block I still needed  would need a bit darker background to make the elk background not be so different from the rest.  I had a couple different choices of fabrics and had just a fat quarter of each.  After eliminating one for being to busy I set to work.  Julianna from Sewing Under Rainbow had listed that a fat quarter for the background would work but I find I do not always economize my fabric well enough.  I set to work with the pieces requiring the largest sections of background fabric first.  By the time I had 2/3rds of the sections done I knew this was going to be a close one.  I didn't want to stop till I found out if I had enough background to complete the block.  Now I should add that the background I chose was something I picked up only God knows where.  I think a garage sale find of years gone by but I could have just as easily bought it this year at a quilt show and although it did have the selvage edge telling me it was a Moda print I wasn't sure I would EVER be able to get more of it.  I stayed up till 12:13 AM Saturday morning until I had every piece done.  Whew I made it with this much left to spare.

I think this was barely 2 inches wide by not quite 5 inches.   Sew LUCKY so I went to bed a little queued up and excited to put it together the next day...which was by then that day.  Crazy lady that I am I woke up at 5:42am and decided I had better get back to sleep if I wanted to have energy to get this thing put together right.  After waking at 7AM and having a couple cups of coffee I set out to complete this block.  I got to here and noticed another OOPs moment that I seem to be having too many of these days.

See how the fern section in the middle doesn't go straight up and down like the rest of the block does?  At first this baffled me until I turned it 180 degrees and it looked like this:

Now the piece fit the puzzle opening but the colors were all wrong! @#$% Stay calm and take a deep breath Kathy...this has got to work.  Remember that less that 2 by 5 inch piece of fabric left?  Well by a wing and a prayer it was enough.  Luckily for me the first section needing the background was in position number one and that made it easier to use that scrap in.  Even more importantly it was the biggest piece needed so I could try to figure out how to get this job done with the VERY limited fabric left at by disposal.

Here is what I was able to achieve with that small scrap.  The wrong one is on the right.  The one on the left is the colors in the order they should have been.

I was able to get 2 of the 3 background sections done.  Now I just had to hope I could tear the wrong one apart and get one of those pieces to fit the One background piece I still needed.  Luckily it was the smaller of the three needed so I had a feeling it might work out but it was a close call.  Too close.  But what was important at this moment was it was going to happen.  Still since the angles are all so different I still wasn't quite sure.

Looks like it would work.  And let me tell you it was just barely.  I double stitched it in there because the seam allowance wasn't quite the quarter inch but it would do.  Funny part is after all that I forgot to take a picture of the final product but I rectified that and here it is.

As addicted as I have been to these blocks maybe it is a good thing these are coming to an end.  I don't need all the stress.  But you know I have loved every minute of the many hours I have put into this project.  I have nothing but wonderful things to say about all the great ladies who have put so much time into creating and sharing these awesome patterns with us these past few months.  Here is how they are looking together with this latest one so you can see how important it was to get the darker background in this block.

It really compliments the background of the elk block.  I haven't been sure what to do with these blocks as a final project but I finally have formed a plan in my mind and just have to get it onto paper and set in motion.  I bought fabric for it this weekend and have until the end of August to add it to the linky party so I still have to keep busy with these for awhile. Going to be a busy summer as I still have to complete a couple baby quilts for my grandson who is due in early September.   Last I updated your about the expected grandchild we were not sure if it was a girl or boy but are excited to have our first grandson arriving in early September. They were thinking of naming him Calvin after his paternal grandfather but have settled after much discussion and consideration on naming him Ayden.  So I need to get busy on adding his name to the quilt I started earlier in the year.  I had to wait until it was locked down and I think it is definitely a little Ayden for sure.

I have been staying on task so far with my monthly BOM projects and here we go again with the start of another new month.  I hope to share my May blocks soons but this post has already been quite long so I will update you on my progress another time.  Dinner times beckons me to remember I do more than quilt around here.

Forest QAL Progress

I have been falling behind on the Forest QAL as I have been pushing to get my May BOMs done and I snuck in a baby quilt for my daughter's sister-in-law that recently adopted a newborn baby boy.  I have lots to share this week but first up is my progress on my Forest QAL blocks.  I love how all of these are turning out and want to share the three I made in the last week.  

I fell in love with the red panda that Amy from Badskirt added to the Forest QAL

Love, Love, Love him...He is too cute for words.

Then I started the liverwort block with the snail that Julianna from Sewing Under Rainbow added a few weeks ago calling it Slow Spring Coming.  I got this far:

At this point I ran out of background fabric. Acccccckkk!!!
I bought it at Boardwalk Quilts about 120 miles from my house.  I tried to find it at Fabric Depot but no luck so I came home and got to work on making the latest pattern, a cute little squirrel. This little squirrel was provided to the Forest QAL by Amy from During Quiet Time. She is the same person I sent my Shoe flag to for the Boston With Love project so I got a kick out of creating her little friend.  Here is how this little fellow turned out:

After cleaning up after making this one, I decided I should tidy up my area and guess what...I found another fat quarter of the background I was missing for my liverwort block.  Cleaning really does pay off. Woot, Woot!!!  Happy Dance for sure!!!

So I was able to finish it up also.  Yeah!!!  I love how it turned out but on retrospect wish the snail's body had been a darker fabric to stand out more.

So far this is how the group looks of all the blocks together

Just three more blocks to finish the series.  Can't wait to see what the last two will be and choosing fabrics for my fern and flower block this week.

Keep Stitchin'

Beautiful Blue Jay

The Forest QAL seems to be my newest obsession.  The blocks are challenging and they take a while to complete but the pay off is HUGE.  I am loving how each of them is turning out.  A few weeks ago Joanna at Shape Moth created a Eurasian Jay for us to make.  The colors were not exactly something I wanted to duplicate in my quilt.  I have been having fun with the teal green and didn't really think the colors of her bird suit my quilt.  I did however, like the fact that she created him to match a bird that they have in her area near Poland.  Think, think, think...
I decided to surf the web and look at the colors of  jay birds.  Not the black and white striped ones behind bars but some real birds.  We have blue jays in our area and found a picture that not only showed one in flight but the background color was ideal for my quilt!!!

My inspirational picture is copyrighted  but you can see it but you can view it here.  It is absolutely gorgeous and this blue jay's pose in flight is so much like Joanna's pattern that it was just a matter of picking out fabrics to bring him to life.  Really not the easiest task.  I still struggled with fabric selection.  I must have done a fairly good job of it though because the ladies at work thought this was the best block I've ever done and they have seen most of my work.

Here is my Beautiful Blue Jay:

I added some leaves like he is taking off from a tree or flying close to one because the fabric so matched my background I couldn't resist adding it and I really like the visual interest it adds to the block.  I struggled the most with wing colors and I started with the black and blue part of the wing and made the wing tips that are white a little shorter to mimic the real thing a little closer.   I would have loved to have two rows of white tips like the real bird does but decided it wasn't worth all the extra piecing.  Once I had that section done I was sure I had blown the coloring so I switched to gray and blue on the next sections and once again thought I had blown it.  At this point I thought of re-doing the whole thing but didn't want to invest another day into it.  I decided to bite the bullet and leave it as is and put it all together.  Once I had done that and looked at my inspirational picture again, I decided I loved how it turned out.

Hours later when showing one of the many girls at work my pretty block, I noticed the real error of my ways...The second black strip down from the left on his wing section is his beak fabric and doesn't belong on his wing.

I won't tell him if you don't.  It will be our secret.

Have fun and keep stitchin'

Roaring Elk and The American Spirit

This week over at the Forest QAL Joanna from Shape Moth has a pattern for a Roaring Deer.  I think it is an awesome Elk.  I couldn't wait to get started on him and right away started hunting thru my stash for some fabric choices for him.  I started to make his antlers a lighter color but didn't like how they looked with my background fabric.

I loved the print but it just didn't have enough contrast and I didn't want to have them get lost in the background and not really be seen to there full potential.  I decided to make those four sections again with a different fabric.  I could have chosen to use a different background like a forest green and then those antlers probably would have been great, but it was easier to replace 4 sections then all the others.  So I choose a darker fabric for the antlers.

This was a pretty cool second choice.  Somehow the antlers remind me of a Jan Brett children's story book illustration.  It stared me thinking of how cool this elk would look in whimsical Christmas fabric. Hmmm...maybe another day I will challenge myself to try that???  I wonder if my stash is up to that or if I will have to keep my eye out for just the right fabrics to create that deer.

Any how this is how my elk turned out this time with these fabrics.

He would even look great in all black and white fabrics and could still carry off that Jan Brett appeal.  I will have to just stop thinking of all the possibilities and wait and see what the others in the group will do with this pattern.  I am so addicted to seeing their creations on flickr.  Don't you just love flickr groups!!!

In closing I thought I would share this.  This video starts with a few pictures of the tragedy of the Boston Marathon and then the National Anthem sung by 17,000 NHL Bruin fans.  I heard it on my local radio station and it did bring goose bumps to my arms.  It sure does bring home that we live in a GREAT land with a people who will endure

and triumph over our adversaries be they foreign or domestic. The strength of the American people and pride in our country will always stand proud and United.  God Bless Boston and the American Spirit of her people!!!  

God Bless America