Hexies Galore!

PYT Report: All of my hexies for the four borders are done on my Mosaics! Yippee! Put the last stitches in the last border piece this morning. Such a great feeling. Check out that gorgeous picture on the right. Two shorties and two long ones. Now to trim them up and attach them to the medallion center. The diamond borders are next and should not take as long. We shall see!

Thank you, Anthea at Hibiscus Stitches, for keeping us all on track with our EPP projects!

Thought I'd share a picture I took of Polly recently. I went to Wild Birds Unlimited and bought a bird feeder that sticks on the window. My cute little kitty discovered the birds eating and is totally fascinated by all the activity. Most afternoons I find her on that perch where she can keep a close eye on her new friends. *wink*

I plan on knitting this rainy evening as I breathe a long sigh of relief. My taxes have been filed and I don't have to look forward to that laborious process again until next year. Have a lovely evening!

Linking Up with FNSI

The rain continues to come down and, besides tomorrow, shows no signs of ending for the next several days. I changed out my header picture to bring a happy note ... Spring Is Springing! Can't really say that it has actually sprung yet but I'm sure all this rain will help things along. Here's the full picture of my Tulips. I finished it yesterday (Friday) morning. Can't wait to quilt and hang it -- so cheerful!

Yesterday I hurried through my chores so I could have a good report for FNSI, which stands for Friday Night Sew-In. I'll be linking up with my friends HERE. You should take a peek and see what all we've been doing. So much talent everywhere!

Here's my current progress on my projects. First, I got the  binding sewn onto my Clam Shells wall hanging. I rinsed it out to get my markings out and it's laying out to dry. Hopefully the shadowing will go away once it's dry and will look like it did before I wet it down. Otherwise I'm going to wish that I had faced the clams with a white fabric. UGH! I also noticed that the red clam in the middle of the 2nd-from-the-top row bled into the clam to the left below it. Hmmmm ... Looks like there will  be another rinse with a Color Catcher!

The other thing I wanted to mention about the Clam Shell binding: I listened to the way Edyta Sitar does her wall hanging binding on The Quilt Show. Do you know her? She's a designer for Moda fabrics and is an incredibly talented lady. Anyway WOW! Do my corners ever lie flat!! Think that will be my go-to method in future. Love to learn new tricks.

As always I continue to work on my Mosaics. This is currently in my lap, the final hexie border being appliqued down. YIPPEE!

This morning I had my monthly Applique Group to attend. So much inspiration. One of the gals enlarged her 4" blocks to 8" and then reverse appliqued them. I never think to enlarge OR shrink down the original blocks. I can usually manage to think outside the box when it comes to color but size? I have to remember that size truly does matter! *wink*

When I got home, I made up this Mediterranean Yogurt Cake. It smells delicious and has two mandarin oranges zested into the batter. All I need to do now is to brush a honey glaze on the top. It should taste good after the marinated flank steak, risotto, and wilted spinach dinner I've planned.

Don't forget to check out what everyone else did at FNSI and have a great rest of your weekend. I'll be busy sewing down that last hexie row in my usual spot in the den!

Same Old, Same Old ....

Same old, same old .... And by that I mean I'm pretty much keeping my nose to the grindstone and plugging away on my hexies for Mosaics. Doing so means that I am truly getting to the finish line on the borders. Three sides are ready to be squared up and attached to the center medallion and the fourth? Progress was made last night. I totally forgot about guild meeting until my riding partner called in the afternoon to say she wasn't going to make it. So glad I was already working on dinner since now I had to scurry out the door soon!

There are twelve hexie flowers on the long borders. I flew out of the house (on my broom! Hahaha!) headed for guild with my hexie bag. I managed to finish up hexie #9 and started on #10 before our speaker began our program.

Bad kitty! Polly feels the need to see just how much progress I'm making. Haha! These hexie photos were taken before guild. The one with the little red clip on the bottom right is the one I finished up. The bright yellow hexie clipped to other hexies at the top in the middle is the one I started.


On to another project. Do you remember the Marvelous Mini Monday Sew-a-Long I participated in with Temecula Quilt Shop? I've been trying to spend time in the basement quilting it. I forgot how tiny these blocks are: A mere 4"!!!

Getting close to having it done. Then I'll have two wall hangings to bind -- this one and Clam Shells. I'm going to try a new method that I learned on The Quilt Show with Edyta Sitar as guest. I'll let you know how that works out.

The 2018 UFO Challenge project this month is  #3 and that corresponds to my Blowin' In the Wind. All I need is to get those borders on. In the meantime, I found time to starch the fabric. Just need to get up the nerve to cut the 10" strips and contemplate how I want to quilt it. Just jump in, Sue!!!! Easier said than done ....

1930s Farmer's Wife Sampler has taken a back seat lately. I cut out 4 or 5 blocks and selected the fabrics for another. They are all waiting on me for Friday. I have an all-day quilt retreat and I think they'll be the perfect project to work on ... along with a Springtime wall hanging that I've already prepared. Yay!

Speaking of Spring, as I was washing dishes yesterday afternoon, I saw this welcome sight on the deck railing. It's a blue bird, which means Spring is just around the corner. I know he's hard to see but I had to take the shot through the window & screen before he flew away. Also, I'm not sure how skittish they are so I wanted to be quick!

Here's hoping you have a little Springtime sunshine in your day!

Linking up with Anthea at Hibiscus Stitches. It was PYT yesterday!

February Wrap-Up and March Goals

The American Patchwork & Quilting UFO Challenge for February was very good incentive for me. They chose #9 which was one of my two FREE Months. I could do whatever I wanted as long as I made some good progress. I may have done just that!

My February focus was the Farmer's Wife 1930s Sampler Quilt blocks. Look at all I now have done!

#7 Augusta - FPP

#8 Aunt* - Templates

#9 Autumn - FPP

#10 Ava - Templates

 

#11 Bea - FPP

#12 Becky* - Pieced

#13 Belle* - Templates

#14 Betty* - Templates

#15 Blossom - FPP

#16 Bonnie* - Templates

#17 Bride - FPP

#18 Carol - FPP

 *Pieced during the earlier Sew-A-Long

Aren't they coming along nicely? I even have #19 Carolina all cut out and ready to sew PLUS the next several blocks' pages of directions printed out, whether I'm doing freezer-paper-piecing or Marti Michell Templates.

As for the Mosaics quilt, I've made headway there too. I finished up Border 2 and am almost finished with Border 3. Looking forward to having all four borders under my belt! 

Border 2 Lining Up

Stitching Down
Border 2

Border 3 in Progress

Stitching Down
Border 3

On the knitting scene I also made a lot of progress with my Loopy Academy Senior Year, 2nd Semester projects. The baby sweater needs to be blocked & buttons added to be considered completely done.

From this ...

To this and beyond ...

The color in the first picture is the true color of this adorable little sweater.

While not part of Loopy Academy, I started Sarah's Hobo Mitts in February after finishing up the baby sweater. These mitts were a lot of fun to knit and the pattern name is Phalangees while the knit stitch is called Mosaic. How about that? Two Mosaic projects in one month! 

From this ...

To this!

Not only have these mitts been completed, but they've been blocked and mailed off to Virginia! Ta! Da! Very proud of myself.

Obviously I had to start another knit project. After all, my needles were empty! I've decided to try a sweater for me which would also fulfill a Loopy Academy requirement. It's called Rocio and it'll be a light sweater knit with lace-weight yarn. My progress as of last night is shown below. About 2" of the back. Not much to brag about yet ...

On a couple of side notes, I watched "The Imitation Game" movie the other day. It had been up for several Oscar nominations. Not sure if it won anything or not but I thought I'd share how much I enjoyed it. I really empathized with the two main characters. If you don't like unhappy endings, this movie will not be for you. Other than that, I found it very watch-worthy on NetFlix this past week.

Also I read about Kathy Doughty somewhere on one of the many blogs I read. She is a wonderful quilter currently residing in Australia. However she was born in the USA. Anyway, her book called simply enough "Quilting with Kathy Doughty" is a wonderfully inspirational book. I'm not overly fond of many of her fabric choices but her designs are fantastic. I found a copy of this book through my local library system. If you prefer to have a hard copy, I spied one at Calico Moon in Lebanon IL just yesterday! I think it may be clearanced right now as (sadly) Sherry is going out of business.

There won't be much knitting or machine sewing going on today. After my shower and a quick vacuum job of the downstairs, I'm hoping to catch the St. Andrews Quilt Show in Edwardsville this afternoon. Then I need to be home to catch my sister's phone call around 2pm. Bet I'll be ready by that time to work some more on that third border of Mosaics!!

Keep on stitching!