Latest Start

I have been collecting black and white fabrics for awhile so  I decided to put them to use. I am also using up a few bits of color from my scrap box. I saw this idea on Pinterest. I can't recall who posted it but I fell in love with it nstantly. I'll be making lots more blocks. Each one is about 6 inches square.

Another One Done

I pieced this one with Kaffee Fassett fabrics last year but didn't get it quilted because I wanted to use a wool batt. I finally got one last week and yesterday I put the final hand stitches on the binding. It has a wide black border all around which really sets off the wild colours in the KF fabrics. I love the wool batting. It's super light weight but warm.

Hunter's Star

Today I finished this Hunter's Star quilt that has been sitting waiting for border and backing fabric. I found the perfect coordinating fabric at The Kickass Country Store in Plumas.  It was made using the Rapid  Fire Hunter Star ruler  which is fantastic because it enables you to strip piece the blocks. It was easy to match the corners because of the strip piecing. I'm sure there will be a few more of these in my future.

I Spy the Second

I have started a new I Spy crazy quilt.  I went to Kickass Country Store in Plumas to look for novelty print fabrics.  They sell I Spy kits of suitable fabrics that they have put together so I bought one of those plus a few more quarter yards of other cute fabrics.  This  weekend our local quilt show will he held and I'm sure there will be  lots of vendors so I'll probably end up with more picture fabric.  I'm thinking I'll have to do several more of these.




Two of my granddaughters have been coming here to sew since they were small. Now they are 20 year old university students but they still manage to find time to come and sew occasionally. I must say that I think they are very talented.

Hey Jude

Now that Jude has received his quilt, I can show you the first I Spy quilt I made.  It was so much fun that I started a new one.  Now I am collecting fabrics with interesting images...What a good excuse to go fabric shopping.

New Quilt

I was working on the brown and gold quilt yesterday when I realized that it was put together wrong.  Rather than deciding to either finish it or fix it, I started a new random one, which is what I prefer anyway.
This is another I Spy done with crazy blocks.  I love this style.  There can be no mistakes. And the blocks all turn out the exact size because I make them bigger and cut them to size.  Plus I use up lots of scraps.

I took some close up photos to show the details.

The flash kind of faded this one but you get the idea.

This morning I woke up to more snow, unusual for the middle of April.  When it hadn't slackened off by afternoon I decided to face the elements and go to the studio.  The problem was, I had a path (very narrow) packed with my snowshoes, but it was completely hidden under a new layer of snow. I knew approximately where it was but every time I stepped off it, I was knee deep or more in wet snow. It took awhile but I finally made it and spent a couple of hours working on my latest quilt.

I have to sew in two more white horizontal strips and then finish assembling it.  The one in the magazine has a second border but I'm not sure I'll add that. It's already quite large, about 56x80. I also realized after it was mostly assembled that the magazine one has a white horizontal line between the large rectangle and the smaller square. Oh well, I never was very good at following instructions.  That must be why I enjoy random piecing so much.  When this one is done I'm thinking of starting another I Spy quilt which will be a relief after the precision (?) of this one.

I took this video out the back door. It's not often that you see it melting and snowing at the same time. The snow is winning so far...

Step Two

I have most of the pieces cut out and arranged. Since this photo I have sewn most of them together. If it wasn't such a chore to walk to the studio, I'd go out to take a new photo but since I'm going to an art/quilt show soon, I'll leave that for tomorrow. Stay tuned.

New Start

I have been working on a secret quilt for the last few weeks so that is why I haven't been posting. I'll show that one once the recipient gets it.
Now I have started a new one from a magazine. I don't usually  do this kind of quilt but was feeling stagnant and thought this might be a good way to get kick started again.  It seems to be working. I used different colours from the magazine and the biggest challenge is assembling it, trying to remember which colour in the picture is which colour in my quilt. In the end I'll just go by how it looks on the design wall.

So This is Spring?

We just had the second blizzard in the two weeks since I've been home from Australia. Talk about bad timing.

The studio looks so far away with all that deep deep snow in the way.

This is the big drift at the studio door. No way I am shoveling that.  Mr. Sun will have to get to work but he has been rather lazy lately.

I had to strap these guys on to even get to the studio.

But get there I did and I've made a couple more rows of blocks. I think I'll make two or three more so that it's a rectangle and then put on a fairly wide border or two.

Still Crazy

I have done more blocks for the kids' crazy quilt.  I am using up lots of scraps but there seems to be a lot left in the boxes. There is a picture in the middle of each crazy block. Lots of fun to do and I'll have a lot more fun arranging them when they are all done.

I bought a new Kindle yesterday because I broke the screen on my old one while I was in Australia. Hint: don't just toss it onto the bed and forget it's there. You might lean your elbow on it. Not good.
Anyway,  I bought a Kindle Paperwhite which is a bit smaller than the original one I broke. This one has a touch screen so there is no keyboard at the bottom. The screen is the same size though so that's good. It also has a light built into the screen, also a plus. The best part about it is that it's very light and small enough to fit into almost any purse.  Since it's smaller than my old one, I had to make a new case for it. I love this fabric  but didn't have much of it so what better use than for something that I use regularly and can enjoy looking at often. This is the sixth case I've made so it didn't take me long this time.

I made these blocks when I finally got back into the studio. Each crazy block has a picture in the center. I have a lot of fabrics with animals so I thought it might be fun to use some of them this way. Stay tuned for lots more. I also see that I'll have to move the bottom row around a bit. There is a long brown strip that I don't like...

On Sunday I arrived home after three months of basking in the sunshine (and rain) in Australia, to be met with a blizzard.  We had record snowfall and I literally had to wear snowshoes to get to the studio. The snow  was nearly waist deep in places and never less than knee deep. Luckily, the temperature is moderate and it's not windy.  Obviously, I'm not going anywhere until the roads get cleared.

I did spend some time in the studio today but I forgot to bring the camera and there was no way I was going to trudge back through all that snow to get it so there will be no quilting pictures until next time.