friday finish

A block for Anna of the Ringo Pie Patchwork Bee. Her theme is desserts. My choice is some brownies with a big cup of coffee...

; )

... or just a few pieces of chocolate. The block is 10" square.

I like my big cup of coffee after dinner. The size of the cup is perfect for warming cold fingers. It is still cold, outside. A fine day to sit by the fire...

Wish you all a great weekend!

wednesday wip

Thank you for all the encouragement about wool batting! Encouraged by you, I decided to use wool in this one, and the experience has been very pleasant, so far!

The process of making a sandwich went well. I just pinned the sandwich (taped the back down) using all my safety pins.

The quilting have been easy and pleasant. I decided to do both machine and hand-quilting. Saving a sore shoulder machine quilted about 1/2 of the strings. Using a lot of different thread: different weight, different brands - but matching thread color to the fabric. Just removing the safety pins as I go.

Once I couldn't match up my thread to more strings, I proceeded to hand-quilting. Again, I used a lot of different thread qualities, even used some variegated Valdani embroidery... I have had a thread fest!

I think the wool is a bit more forgiving than thinner cotton when it comes to stretching out the fabric and avoid wrinkles. Maybe this random quilting helped too.

Tonight I'll try to store up more of the lovely colorful Finca no16 (similar to perle cotton) from my supplier "Bitteliten" a one woman shop. This is my favorite choice when I want to emphasize the hand-quilting.

Like some of you said, it's quite nice quilting through wool. I also enjoy how wool doesn't beard on your clothes, it's a lot less messy... and my cat adores it! She's found a new favorite - again.

Happy sewing!

it's getting cold

Temperatures are falling. For the first time this season I have burned some firewood this week.

The warm palette of my Cherrywood fabric was looking very tempting. My stash consisted of 6" by 9" pieces from a few scrap bags purchased some years ago. I took a leap of faith and started cutting / ripping them into strings. Playing with contrast and sewing them together. Not thinking to much, just cutting and sewing. Until I used it all. Very inspired by Gwen Marston.

"That looks a lot like Gee's Bend" was my DH's comment. Clever man! You can't live in this house and stay ignorant about quilts and quilting...

; )

I ended up with 6 strata. Arranged them on my design wall, adjusting the length of them. Cutting two of them up to become narrower rows. And just viewing them side by side. A fun process.

The size is about 45" by 60". I want to try wool batting, making it nice and warm.

Not sure about the quilting. Hand-quilting is tempting, but not so good for my shoulder ; (

Any ideas of how to quilt this on machine / by hand is welcome! A bit worried about quilting with wool batting. There's so many skills to learn!

Wish you all stay warm on a winterly wednesday!

friday finish

This week I made another string bag, again using Ayumi's free pattern. It's a bit bigger (12" by 12") and still missing the string...

And there were left over, small scraps to be played with! So I made another small and scrappy improvised chinese coins.

These are fun to make! This is 15" by 15", hand quilted and sits on my coffee table. The lovely, dark chocolate sashing is a few 2.5" strips of thimbleberries found in my LQS. This fabric was dyed through, and I used the solid backside of it.

Funny how a few scraps can be so much fun! Do you save yours, or do you just bin them?

Wish everybody a nice weekend!

small treats for halloween

Yesterday evening we had a great variation of small and big witches and ghosts stopping by for trick or treats. They take pride in having fancy costumes and make-up. And I enjoy seeing them all...

This year I made a few Halloween treats for me:

a little mug mat (above)

a table topper, 26" by 12"

and a little string bag, 10" by 12". This sweet little "treat" was a free pattern designed by the talented and generous Ayumi. Adore her creations! Maybe I need to make a few more. For christmas (instead of a stocking?) or for a dear friends birthday coming up? Or just because its nice to make small treats...

Hope you all had a happy Halloween. And that you all find a safe way to dispose of the left - over candy. That's the tricky part...

(Left over candy is filling out the bag...)

; )