February accomplishments

Yup, didn't quite get everything on my list accomplished but came so close that I'm happy,  extremely happy!

#1- I only got one color section quilted but the quilting design is top notch and I'm so happy with it.  What do you think?  My question now is for the diamond center, should I add another stitching surround within it?
Those feathered fat commas surrounding and spinning around the diamond is not my own design.  I did see a quilt with this on it at the Malone Quilt Show and snapped a picture.  Of Course after much distortion I had to draw it out and then go to my local copy center and have them print it to a 9 1/4" inch size when I was happy with it.  Then to make a template and mark the top was a learning experience in itself.
I know many of you  love those Frixion pens, but I personally don't care for them since where I live is in a cold climate for 5-6 months out of the year and I will even keep a quilt or two in the car for travel.  That being said those pen lines will surely reappear continuously and I can't have that.  I did use a chalk pencil for this first block and am thinking of trying the pounce with the iron off chalk for the next colored block to speed that process up.

While taking the photos, I couldn't see any of the stitching  or even that much chaulk left remnants, that's why I laid the stencil I cut on top so you could see the quartered design.   It really shows up differently here.  

 I'll be washing this quilt out after all the quilting is done.

Should another design be added to the centered diamond quilted shape?  

#2- Baby doll quilt that matches the baby quilt I made last fall was Totally done!  This was a first for me making those scrap bits of fabric into blocks to add to the fabric when I didn't have enough charm sized squares left.  Mile a minute block is what they are called I believe. Not bad if I do say so,  now all of that fabric is completely used up.  What a great feeling about that.  It also used pink for the backing which was the color for February in the RBSC another plus in my book.

The second blue colored row has a mismash of fabrics sewn together to get enough for the row.  

Cute messages about family, love and friends written on the white cloth strips.

Baby Quilt with a matching doll blanket for when the child grows up she'll have a blanket for her dollies like she had.
I think with the 24" x 24" size this could also double as the infant carrier cover first.

#3- Check!  Got all the white stitched on but there's a stitch count off somewhere in the snow area.  Don't know if it'll be crucial to repair since snow blows all over the place around here.  Think I'll try to work on the rest of this corner this next week to see what should be done as whether to rip it out or keep it and make it work.

#4- Check!  Made 36 HST with the pink, (four made of each pink fabric).  Glad I am keeping up with this challenge so far this year.

#5- Check!  Made a total of  7  pincushions.  Will be back to share those later on this week.



#6- Check! The Round House by Louise Erdrich was a good book that I enjoyed. Near the end of the book the main character was making 12 peanut butter and pickle sandwiches for a road trip.  Jackpot I thought!  That combination in a sandwich is one I have loved since I was a little girl.  I kid you not.  Peanut butter sandwiches with thin slices of Kosher Dill pickle are great.  So for a snack at our book club meeting, I made little sandwiches for the members to try.  One didn't care for them, 2 wouldn't even try them and some thought they were good and several ladies loved them.    More of the members loved them than didn't so that book and I have converted some more palettes to this combo.  Insert wicked laugh here.  Maw Haaaa!

Enjoy Your day.  Jane

Amy Cheng Exhibit and Cooking with KIDS

Not quite Mardi Gras preparations going on here, more like a blend of Holidays from Valentine's Day stretched in towards  St. Patricks but oh well,  they had fun.  This all occurred while school was on their Spring Break.

Laissez Les Bon Temps Rouler!

Let the Good times Roll......

We all had fun.   Going out, cooking at home, watching Movies, sewing and craft works.  That's what winter vacations are all about!  It was way too cold to allow them to go outside to play with these sub zero temperatures so alternatives were in order.    A certain someone spent hours creating a lot of Perle Bead goodness.

A great assortment and she started running out of colors.  Her younger brother started making a huge heart with rows of color and then it got messed up.  He had enough by that point so went to watch Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, his now favorite TV show.  

Too cute -right?

Circular designs, some were given as Coasters to her family.

We also managed to see an Artist exhibit at a local gallery who did a series of Mandala artworks that was incredible.  Amy Cheng has such talent.  The SUNY college in our area held an exhibit of her works.
Here are just a few photos that I grabbed:

(All photos are clickable to see in a separate window so you can see more details if you wish.)

This first one was my favorite.   Can you imagine working with textiles to emulate her art?

Many of her works offered a transparency to what lay just below the surface and lured your mind in further.

this one gave the illusions of Pearls setting on canvas in a three dimensional effect.
 Absolutely mind blowing! 

With all of these dots it reminds me of George Seurat's art.

 Imagine painting the above canvas with all of those dots.
There were hundreds of thousands perhaps millions on this painting alone.

This looked like a technique of scratching off color in a certain
area to show what's hidden under neath all that color but truly a mastered art.  

It was a beautiful exhibit and one I am grateful to have witnessed.  Thank you Amy Cheng.

Meet and Greet Stitchers Spring time hop

A new Blog Hop of Stitchers' Meet and Greet is coming soon.  If you would like to celebrate the arrival of Spring by participating in the Stitchers' Blog Hop you can sign up over at Madame Samm's Sew We Quilt Blog.   This hop will allow stitchers from around the globe to link together so they may share their crafts.  Wouldn't the world be a much nicer place if politics and religions could do the same.  Just saying!
Hopefully you can join in the fun>  It's a secret of what I'll be sharing....  stay tuned.

Make a list Monday

Hope to get these six things done by next week:

1- Quilt 4 different colored blocks of the 40 diamond quilt
2- Quilt the doll quilt from the Wee Wander scraps I just threw together/
3- Stitch all the white on the bottom left corner of the  CXS Lizzie Kate Winter Alphabet
4- Cut some pink scraps for the RBSC and make some HST units.
5- Make pincushions, another idea
6- Finish reading The Round House by Louise Erdrich (am midpoint right now).




Remember how I said that one wool was shedding terribly several weeks ago while working on the candle mat?  While visiting with my friend Carole, she gave me a different piece of the same wool to use and just to be sure, I pulled out my needle punch foot with the coordinating stitch plate and felted the heck out of it just to be sure.  Worked like a charm.  It really changed the clarity of the houndstooth print  Since that foot combination was out, I photographed them and pulled the other Bernina accessories I own out and share how I store them.





This bead box purchased at Michaels is perfect for the majority of feet and makes it a quick access since they set on a shelf right behind my sewing chair.  The Bernina Feetures Books, the 1-3 set on the bottom shelf just below the feet for quick access.  It's amazing how many times I'll pull out these books for a reference.

Some of the feet came with each of my two Berninas and most of the rest were purchased at Quilt Shows with a 25% off and then some others when the Bernina LQS offered a 30% discount including Bernina Accessories.   A win - win for sure!
Of course I've been collecting them since my first Bernina 170 back in the 1990s and when I upgraded I made sure the feet would transition to the newer Bernina 440.   The most expensive of these was the binding foot combo which was close to $160 when purchased, that is if my memory serves me correctly.  That one was a "Non-smoking Gift to myself" to justify the expense.

I have been enjoying a quiet day home alone today.  That doesn't happen too often.   Seems nice to have the house stay picked up and clean without more effort needed.  Typically I am picking up discarded papers left on the counter, closing doors, cabinets and drawers left open, wiping up coffee spills, etc.... and that is just DH's doing not the grandchildren!  They'll all be here tomorrow so I'm getting off this thing and going to read in the silence and enjoy it immensely.  TTFN.

Echinacea Loop de Loop quilt pattern

Can I get a Whoot Hoot?   Am linking this up with Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict.

I finished the Skinny Strips Quilt on Wednesday.  It's a free pattern available at All People Quilt and was easy to do.  It started as a community service day project at the guild in Glens Falls.  Instead of following the pattern next time with so much waste, I'd sew 2  WOF strips Colored band and background together end to end.  Then cut the background fabric at different locations to offset the colored bands throughout the quilt top all the while keeping the steady 79 - 80" long 2 jelly roll strip units to have a wider quilt.  Each unit finishes at 2" so you can multiply that number to gauge how long you want the quilt.  ie:  36 strips would be 72",   40 strips would be 80", etc....  This looks great with the sampling of different background fabrics both white and cream.

Found a nice print in my stash to use for the binding.

Quilted it with a LOOP de Loop Enchinacea design (my own concept) which improved immensely with practice on my domestic sewing machine.  It was quilted in vertical bands since the quilt layout was horizontal stripes , I thought it complemented the design better.  That design also allowed the quilting to nest somewhat together.   Used a Valdani Dusty Pinks & Blues for both the top and bottom threads.  It's a nice long Staple cotton that's a 35 wt and 3 ply thread which is a hand dyed Variegated.

Found these Quilter tips handy to use with out my hands getting too hot, I'll definitely be using these again. The larger Supreme Slider was also perfect and a huge help.  : )

It's a good size, 62" x 72",  a pretty nice size for a nap quilt.  

Another community Service quilt is totally done and will be turned in on Saturday.  Whoot hoot!

Though it's too late to add my linky with Shanna at Fiber of All Sorts,   I 'll be getting to my February goal of more quilting on the 40 diamonds quilt.  I have another idea spurning.  lol....    I hope I can get that second quilt done for a second finish towards the Q1 with AYLoF hosted by Adrianne, the wonderful quilter and conspirator extraordinaire.  Her blog is  On the Windy Side for the Q1 challenge and come April you can link up for the second quarter.

It's so cold here today -16 F  that with the wind chill they're saying it's like -30 F !
Lol,  Even the penguins would be dancing if they lived around here that is  to stay warm.  LOL
Copied the image from Sarah's blog when I saw it.  It's too cute!

Stay warm,
Jane

Slow Stitching Sunday

Linking up with Kathy for my stitching that's happening today.

Working on the binding......

one side a day is the plan.

It's still snowing, or should I say think it's snowing.  

Not a lot of accumulation thank goodness.  

Just enough to have perpetual grey skies with a little fluff floating down. 

A shadow and it been 41 Years!

Putxatawny Phil saw his shadow so that predicts 6 more weeks of winter.  It's also snowing outside and the schools are closed.  What's unusual is the grandchildren are not here, since their Mom had to go to work early this am and their Dad was getting them on the bus at their house before any knowledge of their school's closing.
I am looking forward to a quiet day here since today is truly our anniversary, the 41st one at that.  Knowing last week we'd have the younger ones here and have to transport to their functions, we celebrated early. Saturday night we attended a Wind Ensemble concert.  (Can I say now that it was a terrible one.  It was so bad that we left in the middle of it!) Then had reservations at one of our favorite restaurants followed by a visit to a piano bar afterwards.  All nice except that concert.  Why is it musicial conductors select a "modern day" virtuoso piece that resembles the warm up section of the concert.  Almost 2 hours of disjointed noise, some moments of it lighter and other times darker,   But YUCK all the same.  What happened to playing an easy listening concert for pure enjoyment without all that racket.  We weren't the only ones either,  I wonder if they'll ever realize with the diminishing attendance that's what its all about?

With the snow forecast of up to 10" for our region, I think our "date" this afternoon will involve snow shovels, romantic n'est pa?

I thoroughly enjoyed gathering with friends last night and loved seeing the patriots win.  What a fantastic game and you couldn't predict the winner until the game was over.    Loved the outcome!

Patriots vs Seahawks

28 to 24

  Enjoy your day.  Jane

Slow Stitching Sunday

Joining along with Kathy for the Slow Stitching Sunday and loving the progress made of the Lizzie Kate Winter.

Just noticed the upper left part of the V is weird, think I ran out of thread.  Off to check on it and get ready for the super bowl.  Meeting up with friends, our dish is all set and my portable project with hearts is all set.  

                                 Now who is playing?    

Just kidding,    

Go Patriots!