Tissue Box Cover - In the Hoop

I bought a few embroidery patterns and wanted to try out some applique in the hoop.  I used a simple tissue box cover design and ended up with this:

It's not perfect... but it was a good learning experience!   I appliqued the sides and the top in the hoop as shown below. There's a layer of quilting cotton on the inside, then stabilizer, then flannel, and then the Flea Market Fancy Bouquet in Grey on the outside.  It stands up very well!

Fancy Folded Star

The Las Vegas Modern Quilt Guild's recent challenge was a Product Inspiration Piece.  We were to choose a product and use the colors from it to create a quilty item.  I chose a can of my new favorite Coke Cherry Zero:

This gives me the colors: black, red, dark gray, light gray, white, berry, and light green on the cherry stem.

 I followed the Fancy Folded Star Pot Holder Tutorial. I've been wanting to make one of these for a while now!  It wasn't very difficult, but the ironing is a bit time consuming!  This will be a mini wall hanging because I couldn't bear to get it dirty using it as a pot holder.  I added a little bit of ribbon to the binding to hang it:

Stalling

This cute little guy I made on a whim the other day to applique on an upcoming project.

Do you ever get stuck on just a tiny little detail during a project where all it would take is a small insignificant decision to move forward, but instead obsess over it and let it sit for days/weeks/months?

That is my elephant!

My current quilt project needed something.  Didn't know what... just something.  I could have just finished it and moved on, but instead I let it sit for a few months and then one day I woke up and was staring at the pattern on it and poof! - I made the elephant above.  I got back that motivation to move forward on it!

Now I'm moving into an uncharted territory... quilt applique!  I'm not scared of applique, just confused on the the small decision of whether to sew it on to the quilt before sandwiching it and then quilt around it OR sew it on top after the quilting.  I didn't want to lose the elephant by quilting on it or have a huge empty space in the quilting on the back around the elephant. So the project sat again while I internet searched my options for examples until I was sick and tired of thinking about it.  Repeat the same search for a few more days. I couldn't find examples of exactly what I was looking for.  I found many examples of applique on quilts, but nobody is sharing what the back looks like... so I can only assume it's not pretty.

I ended up sewing the elephant on before sandwiching.  I did a small zigzag around the elephant, ran out of bobbin thread just as I was rounding those tail curves, and now the tail looks like someone has been chewing on it.  Will it be noticeable to others?  Probably not as much as it is to me, but that's all I see when I look at it.  I was so upset that I had a mangled tail that I lost my motivation again.

I have pushed myself to move on this weekend.  I sandwiched it and am currently in the quilting process of free-motioning a boxy meandering stitch.  (inspiration from Oh, Fransson!)

(My Sunday night set up)

I'll share more pictures at a later date.  I don't want to chance the recipient seeing the entire quilt before she gets it!

Swoon Blocks

At our guild retreat in Utah I worked on my first Swoon blocks.  I bought a fat quarter stack of Joel Dewberry's Heirloom fabric in the green/yellow/orange colorway and added a few matching solids.  These three blocks consumed my time there.  It took me all evening for one... and the other two took me a whole day (of course with many other breaks!)  I haven't even touched these since I got back over a month ago... but it's on my ever growing to-do list! :)

I posted a quick picture of these on the retreat post, but here are all the individual blocks:

Happy Sewing!

Flea Market Fancy Mail Day

I'm still shopping!  This arrived in the mail too so I wanted to share!  I bought a yard of most of the prints and extra of my favorites.

Washi Washi Washi!

New fabric arrived in the mail! This is the new line Washi by Rashida Coleman-Hale.

Left to right:

Petals and Leaves in Grey

Star Flower in Fuchsia

Star Flower in Aqua

Star Flower in Charcoal

Washi Tape in Charcoal

I have no plans for it yet other than to stare at it. :) 

WIP Wednesday

I've always wanted to use that title.  It makes me sound all productive.  Sadly, for the past few days I haven't even worked on any of my projects.  So instead I'll just take pictures of all of them and remind myself I have too much I want to do.  At the last guild meeting I mentioned that I don't keep a lot of unfinished projects... lies!  Somehow I started way more things than I intended and now I'm just looking to get something... anything... done.

Having too much unfinished just causes me to want to start NEW stuff instead of worrying about doing what I'm supposed to be doing.  This is also the reason I just sew for fun whenever I feel the urge... I cannot handle pressure and time limits on my hobby!  (A sorry goes out to Tracie's baby who is now almost 4 months old and still quiltless!  ACK!)

This is my husbands rag quilt that he tells me he's been asking for years (or so he says?!).  I bought the fabric only a few months ago so I don't know where the 'years' came from.  And was it ever hard to pick out the fabric.  He wanted Red, Gray, Black and that's it.  I gave him lots of options and he veto'd every single red flannel print fabric that I found. So the only red was solid until I found that one lone dark red print in there.  I think it is some form of houndstooth.  I about had a fit when I chopped up the 1 yard  I bought (that I needed every last bit of) and cut one strip to 7" wide for my 8" squares.  I pieced it back together and called it a day.

Anywho, this is how it sat on my sewing room for the past week.  I don't know what's stopping me.  Maybe the thought of all of that cutting I have to do when I finish it.  FYI I did not add batting its just two pieces of flannel... we didnt' want it too warm and heavy since we like using it year round.

Here's my Product Inspiration Piece project for the Las Vegas Modern Quilt Guild.   Since I cannot show it to you, here is the back instead:

Oh the suspense!

And as I mentioned in my previous post, Sharon handed out mini 2.5" squares are our Guild Retreat for us to turn into a project.  So the update is I actually started something!  Now the question is what in the world do I turn it in to!??  Suggestions?

UFO block

And lastly, I started cutting up scraps when I didn't feel like working on any of the above for my future Sparkle Punch/Interlocking Stars Quilt.

It's currently a sad stack:

and it's not even 2" tall yet.  I probably need like a thousand more of them.

I started a Swoon too but that's on hold until my husband gets his rag quilt!