Two challenges, and sewing Saturday on Friday

 

This month's "table scraps challenge" was  "snowmen" 

 I began with the free paper piecing pattern by Carol Doak (on her website) and enlarged it to 8", the side snowmen finish at 3" and used some red scraps as well as my very sparkly silvery white snow fabrics! 

see his little pom pom?

I took the whole month to play, and design in order to make a bedside table topper to use through the cold months. Now I might have to hang it up, it came out so cute!!! The geese are my own idea and I've used them a lot recently. Improv pieced, tiny scraps this time from the Christmas quilt. I set them in strips of snowy fabric to go into the whole

It grew from the snowman block, little by little until it was basically the right size. 

I quilted it in silver metallic thread and in person the snow fabric glistens!

It finishes at 16" tall X 19" wide and I allowed myself to use some precious snowy red fabric for the binding! The backing was a snowy fabric

pretty on it's own right?

The stay at home round robin prompt for this week was to add diamonds. I searched the internet for ideas of how to incorporate diamond shape in my "glam-ingo" and since I only had one week to come up with an idea make it and post it, I discarded my more elaborate exciting ideas. 

I started with a size of diamond that would suit the small center...cut it from paper as the lines on my template are difficult to see, and decided to do a "watercolor" effect with pretty fabrics

I cut one from most, and three from the watery stripe near the bottom. I knew they would blend together to look like a pond

First move the shells to the side then start placing the diamonds on the design wall til I was happy with the color movement, the light and dark. Note the silvery rock fabric to go along the water edge.

 I sewed then in diagonal rows, pressing seams open carefully. Really hard as they were so tiny at 2"! 

If you do not cut off dog ears, the rows become easy to align

the diamonds are sewn into a unit that will fit when the shells are sewn and attached to the center block

 after finishing that deadline, I looked into doing the stitch camp embroidery lesson, but using my box of hand painted scraps...

and got lost in designing...

two painted scraps together

so that has to be another post for another day!

linking to

http://www.inquiringquilter.com/ Wednesday wait loss

Midweek makers wednesdays 

myquiltinfatuation Thursdays

 patchwork Sunday                      

oh Scrap Sundays  

design wall Mondays at smallquiltsanddollquilts
lovelaughquilt.mondays

https://fortheloveofgeese.com/quilting-blog/ 

https://thejoyfulquilter.blogspot.com/2022/01/january-2022-table-scraps-challenge.html

http://thedarlingdogwood.blogspot.com/ 

 scrap happy Saturdays

I Like Thursday #281

 

welcome to this week's list of likes, short and sweet!  I Like Color! and keep paints, markers and pens next to the computer to use

 yesterday I drew this... and I love it in person

I like the shading between the circles, the mix of watercolor pencil and inks, the feeling of just going with a choice...

I watched two videos on this...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoIgdt-uQR0

Next up is reading ... 

audio... at last, book four was available and I am devouring it like a bon bon. This series is about a woman who finds to her surprise she can travel through time, and what she discovers along the way about herself and helping others... so so so good

 

finishing up the last chapter on ebook.... nearing the end of the series... how I'll miss the characters!

 

watching on tv

we are the last people in America to watch Bridgerton and we are doling out the episodes to make them stretch to the new season coming soon. Speaking of series, This is Us is apparently breaking my heart in this last season. Whatever will I watch on regular tv?? At the moment PBS is doing Finding your Roots, Around the world in 80 days, All creatures great and small. 

I love Amazing Race and the perseverance and courage of contestants who returned after the initial round of pandemic to continue to see the world. I love watching and yelling at contestants on the bachelor... he seems to have no discernment on character. I like the Bravo shows, yes I do. I like Ghosts and the show that comes on after that. I like the new show Grand Crew... I laughed out loud.

we all love eggplant parmesan!

 I like that my husband helps me prepare meals and likes everything I cook. I'm about to try bread pudding for the first time ever, I've never eaten it either, but my latest loaf is a bit dry so... have a perfectly gooey recipe I should know? email me!

 
I like achieving the sewing challenges I took on.  I finished the snowman piece, to share tomorrow,

 and made a decision on how to add diamonds to "glamingo" for the round robin using these

 It's hard to be under pressure to make something in one week as I like to design and think about it... next I need to open my box of my own painted fabric scraps to make something to stitch on for the things I learned in stitch camp. 

Milo's Moments

 Mama: Milo why did you drop that piece of cheese??? 

Milo: I haven't gone out to do my business yet... there's only so much room in this svelte poodle body you know! Don't worry I'll be right back in to eat that cheese, don't step on it! Oh and have a cookie ready!

please visit these people to share their likes for this week,  and let me know if you did a post too!

https://quiltschmilt.ca/blog-posts/

https://www.mmmquilts.com/ 

grammajudyb.blogspot.com

http://littlepenguinquilts

craftscaviescontras  

http://imworkingonaproject.blogspot.com/

https://knittingquilter.blogspot.com/    

http://www.piecefulthoughts.com 

https://canadianneedlenana.blogspot.com/  

https://whataboutrheema.blogspot.com/   

http://3poodlesandanana.blogspot.com  

https://www.homesewnbyus.com/

 

 the knitty quilter

https://lavenderdreamstoo.blogspot.com/

 https://scrapatches.blogspot.com/

Melva Loves Scraps

https://100sweets.blogspot.com/

Faith, Trust and Breast Cancer  

 

 

                                                                  LINKING WITH 

https://brianshomeblog.com/ 

http://itsasmalltownlife.blogspot.com/   

http://goodrandomfun.blogspot.com

https://www.knitbygodshand.com/ 

rosie and the boys nature pics 

friday smiles at a stitch in time   

friday bliss

stay at home round robin round 1... curves!

 for this round of the Stay at home Round Robin, the prompt is to use curves...

keeping with the tropical feel of "glam-ingo" I thought what has curves... nearly everything! 

lots of fun curvy fabrics in my tropical stash

hibiscus, hula dancers, flamingo necks, sandwomen, and seashells!!! 

I looked online for a free seashell pattern and printed out this from Sewhooked.com

 I resized it to finish at 3" and printed 6 of them

I got out some pinks

loving the satin pink with sparkles on it

to make this one with seashell sand colored fabric around it, but...

I wanted a base for them so I just made one for each!

do I want them on the side?

ooops already sewed two side by side...

or along the bottom?

and will I insert some curvy sand first? Sewn side by side they would fit perfectly right now...

so I'm having a good time with this but it is rushed. I do not generally like mystery quilting, I like designing my own, so the real challenge for me is not getting it done although it's tough doing four challenges all at the same time. It's not knowing the next rows, and how I prefer them to be laid out. 

As I've said before, I have artistic license to make it my own design while still playing along with the themed blocks. Not as much fun as a day at the beach but still a lot of fun!

linking to

http://www.inquiringquilter.com/ Wednesday wait loss

Midweek makers wednesdays  

myquiltinfatuation Thursdays

https://fortheloveofgeese.com/ 

 

sewing saturday... lots of projects

 

Welcome to this week's sewing round up... the first picture is from working with red scraps this week... 

I've been occupied with three challenges, a meditation/writing workshop, and Stitch Camp this week! I am sorry to tell you I am not able to show a lot of photos since the only thing I finished was the Project Quilting piece.... make a silhouette (post HERE!!)

I can admit I felt like I was running from pillar to post though, from one activity to another, and filling the days with creativity! 

Stitch Camp was offered by TextileArtist and involved getting out some paints and misc. tools to make marks on fabric. It was very warm here so I was able to work at my portable table outside with my partner in crime

Our task was to make marks on fabric then cut it up and hand stitch over it.

I finally used the toilet paper stamps made a while back, bending one into a leaf shape, one into a heart shape, one into a flower spray. I used markers, corks, brushes, a leaf stamp, and other things to make marks too. Trouble is I loved the finished runner, and don't think cutting it up will teach me anything.

a small closeup

so my new plan is to take down my box of hand painted scraps and use those in the activity instead, and make a hand quilted runner from this with backing only. I've been wanting to try that technique of long parallel stitching through two layers. 

I plan to do a post on what I've discovered/learned/made from this 5 day workshop soon... stay tuned!

I worked on my snowman piece too, trying to keep it to 20" wide by 18" tall to fit on my bedside tabletop but it's wanting to be larger... I pieced in the top geese, and am working on a finish for next week. 

I showed this pic because it shows the 9 patches that ended up too intense for this little piece but were perfect for my new project... improve color blocks made in monthly rainbow scrap challenge colors, RED for this month

I began a week ago with two 6.5" squares

then this week did some quick improv log cabin blocks and joined them
 

adding in the 9 patches, some 2" squares to make the blocks go together

and some random geese cut down to fit, put it all into a big color block

I think I might do a big improv color block each month and see how they fit together at the end... maybe, I have "artistic license" to play with art, right? 

I finally sandwiched all the octagon sections to their backings ready to quilt, freeing up the design wall, put away some fabric not used, and came up with a great idea for curves for "glamingo" and the round robin... and looked for a free paper piecing pattern online as a starting place. Heehee! I love getting the idea, then it's just making it which is easy! Hopefully today I can do those blocks and sneak into the link party...

There it is... a week full of purpose. Why do so many people compete to have challenges all at the same time on the first month of a new year? I sure wish I could space these out to relax into a challenge...

Linking to these parties:

https://superscrappy.blogspot.com/

patchwork Sunday                    
oh Scrap Sundays