June Jelly Roll top is a finish!

Doreen's June Jelly Roll ~ My version of Willow Weave in Batiks...

... and just in time to finish Doreen's Sewalong while we are still IN June :0) Like Sue, am trying to decide if I want to add borders. I made one change to the original pattern and added a second basket weave band to the other end. I love Doreen's Basket Weave design. a great pattern for a Jelly Roll. Thank you Doreen! This was a fun quilt to make and a big change from repros! Doreen is planning a new Sewalong in August. Check back then at Aunt Reen's Place if you would like to join in!

It was the perfect weekend to stay in and quilt. It is sizzling HOT here in the North Valley! Also worked on my applique pieces for Lori and Randy's Medallion Sewalong.  A big THANK YOU to Randy for the lovely FQ from Life's A Stitch she sent! It was for tying with the most number of sewing machines. Thanks Randy!

Quilting for Claudia

Claudia is an excellent piecer. Following are two of her most recent... 

 Scrappy in Reds and Creams the blocks are nine patches with HST corners

 Claudia pieced the borders

 How about set on point? 

We decided on a block quilting design. It was repeated in each block with the thread color matching. We added a second motif in the HST corners in red thread which does show on the cream and created an Irish Chain effect. I love this quilt, wouldn't it be wonderful in Repros!?! 

The second quilt is modern, with greys and cream and we chose to do a straight line/squares quilting design that accent her piecing and fabrics.

 Fabrics are all stripe and plaids and dots on the back...

Claudia pieces most of her backs and this one really adds to the quilt. She plans to add red binding. 

Well done Claudia!

Wednesday, hump day already! and almost the first day of Summer. Were does the time go!!! Looking forward to the next part of Doreen's June Jelly Roll today. Check out her post... her Modern Day Jane is going to Show in the Vermont Quilt Festival's Celebrating Jane Stickle exhibit, curated by Brenda Papadakis. WOW!!! Congrats Doreen!

I am working on a quilt that was hand appliqued by Sally that will be donated to the guild. It's gorgeous and big, 98 x 98! We have a yard sale :0( aarg) planned for this weekend, I can work on my Medallion pieces then. Enjoy the day!

Medallion Sew-Along

Last borders are on my Medallion quilt. Added the dark one inch border, the background fabric outer border and started on the applique pieces for the last border. I decided to baste stitch that last border on. The little blue triangles are my leaders and enders which I left on to keep the stitches from unraveling. I've never tried it, my "plan" is to layout all the applique pieces, remove the borders, do the machine applique and then re-attach the borders with a regular stitch length. Has anyone tried this? Hope it works!

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend and Father's Day. The rest of my post is NQR=Not Quilt Related so if you don't want to read on... that's OK. It's personal and more of a quest. 

(NQR) I was very happy to keep myself busy this weekend. Today was a tough day for me. Father's Day and my late husbands birthday. Every few years Mark's birthday landed on Father's Day and he made the best of it! :0) Married 33 years he challenged us to make the best of life. We rode mountain bikes in CA, Utah and Colorado, rode centuries and back country skied including Telemark. We lived in the mountains above the Tahoe Basin for 12 years and loved every minute of it. Following injuries, surgeries and pain, Mark ended his life 7 years ago. I live with that pain and still work to make it OK, not something to 'get over' for it never goes away. I have a wonderful life, love and am able to quilt to my hearts content. OK, this is a little quilt related :0) Sometimes is just feels good to write this stuff down.
Have a great week and enjoy each day! 

June Jelly Roll progress

Making progress on Doreen's June Jelly Roll SewAlong. The pattern is called Willow Weave and it's a mystery so we don't know what the finished quilt top will look like. Knowing Doreen, it's going to be beautiful!

Caught up for this week. Finished all the cutting...  

 Strip sets sewn...

pressed...

laid out...

and sewn into 120 blocks!

A total of (120) 6-patch blocks and (10) 2-patch units with extra squares.  Can't wait to see how these blocks will go together. Doreen tells us there is a twist! Check out the Linky on Doreen's blog post to see everyone's progress for this week.

Next, the last borders on the Medallion Sewalong with Lori and Randy. Click on Randy's Barrister's Block's recent post  "You can never have enough sewing machines!". How many machines do you have? Quilter with the most machines wins a prize!

I was surprised to count 17, there are others with as many!!!
Seven machines I use on a regular basis, some for my business...
My faithful first love... Bernina Virtuosa 153QE, the perfect piecer
Juki TL-2010Q, for FMQ, walking foot and business
Juki Exceed Quilt and Pro, I take this one to classes and for machine applique
Juki 3 spool serger, set up for rolled hem edging
Janome Gem Gold, used to take to classes before the Juki
Janome serger, for my home dec business
Janome needle felting machine
Mitsubishi industrial straight stitch, for home dec business
US industrial hemmer, for home dec business
Gammill Optimum longarm, business
Singer 221 Featherweight, for fun! Love the sound of it while it sews beautifully!
Singer 66 Redeye Treadle with 7 drawer cabinet
Singer Treadle, not sure of the model or decals, it's not a Memphis
Singer 201 portable in a bentwood case
Singer Sew Handy Model 50 (Toy machine)
JC Penny's 1950s home sewing machine in a cabinet
Montgomery Ward Precision Round Bobbin Model 188
There are four that could find new homes and one is promised to my son. That would bring me back to a dozen :0) I read about an organization that restores and ships treadles and hand cranks to 3rd world countries. That would be a good thing

The new block and story posted this morning for Grandmother's Choice was interesting... Cats and Mice and hunger strikes. How Suffragette's in 1909 GB were force fed following a hunger strike in prison. Ugly :0( History repeats itself...

Flag Day

... and it's Friday!!!

What are you up to this weekend?

This is on my to do list...

Strip sets for Doreen's June Jelly Roll SewAlong

Applique border for Lori and Randy's Medallion SAL 

 Grandmother's Choice BOW 

It's going to be a nice weekend, our weather is nice 

I like that word... nice

 A sign we saw while in Texas read...

If You Can't Be Nice

You Can't Come In

You all have a wonderful weekend 

Include some stitching!

June Jelly Roll

OK, I know I have no business starting another project! :0) but I am. Someone posted about the feeling of starting a new project. True! This is for Doreen's June project made with a Jelly Roll and/or stash fabrics plus a background.

After a busy weekend, yesterday we woke up to a surprise morning thunderstorm. Didn't boot up any computers (good decision as a transformer near our home was hit closing down the Chico airport) which gave me the morning to pull for this project. I am using this batik jelly roll, sitting on white fabric for the background...

It only had 30 strips so I also pulled from my stash...

There were duplicate fabrics in the jelly roll so I hope it will work for this project!

 Even tho I told myself not to worry about matching up fabrics it still took me forever! Batiks are a challenge with color/contrast changes and oh so busy!

Doreen will be posting the next part soon! 

The pattern is called Willow Weave. Can't wait to see how it goes!

Weird weather...  we had a June record HOT 110 degrees on Saturday to a 40 degree drop in temp with thunderstorms and rain on Monday. Forecast is for 80s all this week. Yea!!! Have a wonderful week, thanks for stopping by :0)

2nd Pieced border for the Medallion Sewalong

This weekend I tackled my stack of little cut triangles to finish the second pieced border on Lori and Randi's Medallion Sewalong.  Ta Da....

Normally I like to work on sampler/block of the weeks. Because of my crazy schedule and life right now, a block a week is very doable. The downside is that it takes up to a year to finish. Well, life got a little crazier so I changed gears and went for instant gratification!  Well, not that instant... there was allot of piecing involved! :0) which I love. This second block is called Southern Belle. Here is a link to my first post. We have one more border to go with more fun applique! Lori will post it Tuesday. I am very happy to be caught up and in time for the Link-up party (for the first time)! Makes life just a little sweeter :0) Head over to Lori's "Link-up party" to see more quilts and progress on this sew along!

We had a wonderful weekend with a visit with Michael's family, JJ and Jennifer and the two most beautiful girls, Emma and Katelyn. We had so much fun. Emma turned 4 in April and Katelyn is 2. I quilted a pair of placemats for the girls and Emma helped. Then I made her a block, the same Southern Belle as I was working on for the medallion but in fabrics for her. It was fun to see her so interested in what I was doing on the sewing machine. They left this morning after we went out for breakfast. We miss them already, even Crystal, my German Shepard kept watch at the door for their return.

Ending with some pics of my Orchids that seem to be very happy as well, they liked the warm weather... sweet dreams!

Quilting progress on Medallion Sewalong

I'm working on 2 applique projects. One is a block for Green Tea and Sweet Beans and the second is the center for Medallion Sewalong with Lori at Humble Quilts and Randy of Barrister's Block. Over the weekend I finished the first pinwheel border and cut all the triangles for the second pieced border. Using mostly CW fabrics from my CW quilt plus some surprises like a piece of batik for the bird :0)

I am using lots of colors from poison greens, cheddars to turkey reds to make it sparkle. I love how Kathie at Inspired By Antique Quilts is able to do that so well. Here is a picture of the applique before borders. I added a small 1/4 inch border to frame the center block. More borders to come...

My applique is a combination of fusible and turned edge... stems and leaves are fusible, the rest are turned edge and all are machine stitched. The stitching on the edge of the basket is one of five different blanket stitches on my machine, this one gives it a nice outline edge. The stems and leaves are a different stitch using a green Glide thread. Click HERE if interested for a tutorial on how I do my machine applique. I don't always use fusible but these leaves were really small, the stems are very curved and the block is 13" x 13" so I opted for fun and easy! Thank you Lori and Randy!

More projects in the works. Doreen at Aunt Reen's Place is hosting a new project June Jelly Roll sew along starting this week and Judi of Green Fairy Quilts just posted her first sew along using one of her really cute patterns Flower Patch. Judi plans a tutorial for quilting designs! Love her work! Sew many great projects! Just not enough time :0)