Brown Bag Quilt Finish!

Wild isn't it? From the four fabrics that Paula sent me..................

and seven additions from stash plus the backing, and my one allowed purchase, a green fat quarter, these 24 paper pieced blocks emerged. There are only a few scraps left of the challenge fabrics, and little left either of those I took from stash.

You cn see this block has four different fabrics I was so short of fabric at the end, wanting to make 24 blocks for a usable sized quilt, 40.5 "x 63".

Even the backing needed an extra strip to make it large enough. Even the binding is scraps!

The label is already made and attached, not something I usually do right away!

It is custom quilted with feather wreaths in the center of the circles and leaves and wavy lines in the "spikes".

This "Rainbows" thread by Superior for the top and a neutral Bottom Line thread also from Superior, in the bobbin.

I am most happy to have this project finished and now I can move on!

I discovered today that another baby quilt is needed.......

AZ Huggy Bunch And The Newest Family Addition

We are beginning our own Huggy Bunch quilting group. Four of us met today, next time in two weeks it will be five!

BJ left earlier than the others so I didn't get pics of her progress, she is working on two mysteries that have to be ready for Wednesday.

Here is one of the quilts S pieced and quilted by herself, this young lady just happens to be only 14 yrs. old and sewing for less than a year! I had posted a mini video showing her quilting flowers and leaves etc on her DSM a few months ago. Click on the pic to get a close-up of ehr quilting.

She really wants a Long Arm, hear that Dad?!

The design is what I call a "Greek Key" or "Square Spiral"

Below is her Hawaii quilt made from fabrics she collected on a visit to Maui last summer.This one still needs a border, we will work on that skill at our next meeting. Great job of matching your seams S!

Lauren continues to work on her Paper Piecing and made these three delightful blocks today that just need their corner pieces.I love the Civil War theme of these blocks.

My project was this sweet flannel baby quilt ..............

just need to join the rows and add the borders.

It is for my newest great niece in Australia........

now two weeks old baby Lila,isn't that a lovely name for this tiny tot?

Another Quilt Of Valor

This is the last of a half dozen quilts for wounded warriors that came from Bernina Connection.

I used the flag and star panto, it works well for many of these quilts.

Unfortunately I failed to measure the backing assuming it was large enough-turned out that it was too short so I had to raid my patriotic fabrics to find something suitable to extend the length. I found fabric with red, white and blue hearts on it similar to some of the fabric on the top, and joined that in to make the back large enough.

I plan to drop it off tomorrow at BC and pick up two more!

The Bling's The Thing!

Last Wednesday I was persuaded to leave Huggy Bunch early to go check out a newly discovered store in Delta, about 20 minutes from Montrose.

The store has a beauty shop in the back section and a clothing and accessories store in the front part.

Thus it is called "Beauty And The Bling"!

Really cute stuff, especially the accessories, and the purses, oh my! I could have bought half a dozen- but I didn't.

The purchases are all beautifully packaged like this..........

too cute!

We three ladies all tried on clothes, and I resisted purchasing anything but this.....

very adorable ring thing.

The rings I already had, LOL, they did not come with the shoe!

My friend Pat found some fabulous outfits, I wish I had thought to take pics, and Gale went hog wild buying purses to match some of her shoe collection!

Can you believe this abundance of girly fluff and bling? Maybe she would lend me some of it.....

Sunrise........

This morning I watched as sunrise bathed the earth once again with the brilliance of a new day.

Why is it that sunrise is always so magical an event?

Overnight snow had continued, maybe 6-7", though it won't last long here, the temperature was already 33 degrees at 7 a.m.

Still, it was lovely to see the fresh new layer of white stuff, even if only for a few hours.

Last night this table was bare, now morning and it has a fluffy white cover.

At Telluride the guys should have nice new powder for what is the last day of the season for them, with the sun shining it should be a glorious time.

The Mac Is Back..........

PTL, the extra power cord for my Macbook came to day, thank heavens for eBay! I really appreciate the ease of the Mac compared to PC now that I am back on it! I have used it very sparingly since we arrived on Saturday, knowing that the battery would not last forever but it was still at 44% today when I plugged it in.

Whew!

It had been fairly mild here this week, only snowed one night but today was overcast, the guys said it snowed on them at Telluride, and this evening it began to snow up here at the house around dusk and it's still coming down softly about two inches plus so far. Button is a CO. bred dog so snow is her friend!This morning I made a pan of brownies and took Button for a long walk then settled down to work on the Brown Bag Challenge. Easily completed three more of the PP blocks, one more lacks the corners and as I have no fabric here to go with it, unless there is something else suitable in the stash in Phx. I may have to make my one legal purchase for this project.

Here are two different ideas for the far left row which is as yet unattached- you can see the green/pink print block without the corners.

Any comments, preferences? There is one block [hint, second row from the left] that my friend Gale thinks I should redo, she doesn't like the scrappiness of it. I think it's cute, it isn't obvious to me but she said it would bug her- and it does show how I was using every last little bit that I could of the challenge fabrics! Can you spot which block it is? I have no plans to change it, I am done with this top as soon as I can get the final block completed and the last row attached. I may scrap the binding too unless I come up with something more exciting! The longer I am a quilter the less I stress about things, there are no Quilt Police allowed in my life.

Bottom Line- it's my quilt!

This quick little D9P baby quilt went together fast yesterday at Huggy Bunch-both it and the BB quilt have to be completed next week, and I have two QOV's to quilt. That is my minimum goal.

We only stayed till one p.m.at HB then Gale prevailed upon Pat and me to go to nearby Delta to check out a new shop she had heard about that is all about the "bling" and you know that we are all about the bling, so more on that on another post-can you stand the suspense?

You will not believe what Gale bought............OMGosh!

More on The Brown Bag................

Back in the mountains for Spring Break with the two older G.sons.

They and their Grandfather are off skiing most days so I am sewing on the Brown Bag quilt blocks.
I thought to add a few hints about paper piecing and curved piecing as I go, so today I took quite a few pics as I sewed to illustrate my progress.
Both PP and curved piecing can look and sound rather intimidating but once you do one or two you get the feel of it and sail along quite nicely, ask Lauren!
Somehow I managed to leave behind in Phx. the power cord for my MacBook, so I am using DH's Toshiba laptop and I would much prefer my Mac but beggars can't be choosers, my Mum would have said! It's a bit of a struggle manipulating pics etc on the PC, not nearly as user friendly as the Mac so the pic quality is not perhaps as good as usual and I haven't found out how to rotate them in the program I am using

Once the PP part is completed it's important to trim the block exactly on the cutting line before removing the paper pieces [removing the paper is a tedious bit of work but necessary!]
Back of work with all papers torn away! Don't fuss about the tiny bits of paper left behind, they will never be a problem and it is really ok to leave them- IMHO!

Next step is to attach the curved pieces to complete the block, really not difficult, just takes courage and a little practice.
I mark both parts along the curves in three places, middle, and halfway between center and outer edges, I just creased this piece.....................

but on this busy fabric I needed to place pins to mark the divisions.
Match up the pieces in those spots and when you first try this place lots of pins around the curve, the tighter the curve the more pins you may want. Having sewn many curves I don't pin quite as much................. but I do place the pins strategically to ensure that my seams will lay flat because they will be hidden from view underneath my block .........

because we always sew curves with the concave piece on the top.
Here is a completed piece, neatly joined without tucks.
And my twenty completed blocks................

Now will someone please tell me what I am to do with this marvellous concotion of unrelated colors?! Some how this conglomeration of blocks need to become a quilt, probably for a child because it's not very large.

I have only bits and pieces left of the four challenge fabrics and only enough of these two that came from stash to do anything else with.

So what now, just join up the blocks in a random way and bind them? I doubt I have enough fabric left to make another four blocks but perhaps I will try..............
Aaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggggghhhh.
HELP

Brown Bag Quilt Challenge

Finally this week I got started on this project! We are in CO. with DS Jonathan and his buddy Michael and Mike's wife Lauren. Wednesday the guys including my DH went to Telluride to ski while Lauren and I went to Huggy Bunch quilt day in Montrose. Lauren had a blast, she thought HB was the coolest thing ever, LOL, about 25 women sitting around sewing and chatting.

Lauren has been learning to sew/quilt since last summer and each time we meet to sew she learns a new quilty skill.

Needing to get the BBQ challenge under way I had decided to do Paper Piecing and thought it a good opportunity to show Lauren the basics of PP and curved seams.

We chose the Rattlesnake block from Karen Stone's book and each completed a couple of blocks at Huggy Bunch then continued to sew on Friday while the snow came down ..........

we enjoyed the coziness of the warm indoors.........

and the guys played cribbage downstairs!

Here are Lauren's blocks, she has chosen CW repros, her favorite fabrics.

Hasn't she done a great job? She is a fast learner and has really fallen for the art of quilting. I love how these have turned out with the CW repros.

Above is what came in the BB challenge and I can add as many as I want to pull from my stash to complement them.

I think that these look rather anemic compared to Lauren's, but here's what I made with three of the challenge fabrics and two fabrics from my stash.

The fourth challenge fabric is the one on the far right above, totally unrelated to any of the other three that came with it! I picked out four more fabrics from my stash that would all blend ok with it and I plan to make another grouping of PP blocks with some of these. This set of blocks won't "go" at all with what I have already made, but I have combined unrelated PP blocks before quite successfully, using another fabric to tie them together. Heaven only knows if I will be able to repeat this feat, and if not I will have two smaller quilts, which is not a successful challenge because we are meant to make one item from the challenge fabrics.

We are allowed to purchase one additional fabric so I will be on the hunt for something to tie all of this together-good luck you say?! I am not at all sure that I have enough time to find the perfect "blender", the project is due April 1st.