Monday - Full of Joy

My design wall this morning is crowded. Lots of things waiting for me to play with them.
No new liberated baskets this past week.
My bird and leaves from last week are still waiting to be sewn down- but I have picked out the thread.
This week's string block is that blur you see beneath the baskets.

{This is how my design wall photographs in the morning. Can you tell it's located in the front entranceway of my home? Those are the long windows I have covered with a flannel backed tablecloth for my design wall}

Also up there is the background for, what I'm calling, my humility quilt. It's from galloping pony studio. It's actually called, "Just As I Am". It's an applique mini - my project for travelling this summer. I'm just working on getting the background prepared which means sewing down prairie points. {You can see how far I'm getting on this!!}

I also made one Boxy Star from Bonnie Hunter's Quiltville. I am cutting scrap strips for another one already this morning. A fun, quick, block, with lots of possibilities. {Another distraction:)}



This is the 'designing' part for this week. I am almost done making these string blocks. I have placed the final red choice in the centre of the top 4 blocks.

I am making 6 blocks and hoping to cut them to fit this stocking. They will be the front. I think I will be using one piece of fabric for the back. I'm getting a little concerned the strings will be heavy, so I've decided to just use the strings and their foundations as the front piece. Inside the stocking will be messy, but I think I'm going to add a lining so you won't see it.

Most of this week will be spent finishing quilting Sadie's quilt.

This quilt happened too fast to make it to Design Wall Monday! My brother's wife gave birth to their 4th daughter on Friday. I cut and put together this quilt top on Saturday! It measures 44 inches square. Yesterday I got the majority of in-the-ditch quilting done. I plan to do some 'swag' like quilting to emphasize the hearts. {Do you see the hearts? My husband can't}

Another busy week here filled with lots of projects and ideas. Check out some more design walls through the links at Judy's Patchwork Times.

With Joy,
Sarah Vee

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Playing With Designs

My design wall is full of fun again this week. You can see I now have 5 liberated baskets done for the June Block Lotto. Between them, that colourful grouping of fabric is ready to make another one. I can submit up to 9 to have 9 chances at winning some of the blocks. I should be able to get 4 more done.

The stocking is cut from foundation. I'm planning to do some string blocks to make a stocking for one of my brother's daughters. I'd like to get it done this month so it can count for Stephanie's No Strings Attached challenge that ends June 30. Then I'll only have 2 more stockings to make as well.




I'm thrilled about the bird! I didn't get much time to sew yesterday, and was feeling quite under the weather, which always seems to bring to mind good quilting ideas?!? This block I made last year and even made a scrap nest {and a tutorial} to put on this branch. I was thinking again about this bird material from the Nest line and thought maybe the bird would fit. My first broderie perse. Now I can see how this quilt can/will evolve and I'm very excited! Of course, I have lots of quilts stewing right now as I finish up some projects.



I have scavenged enough strips to finish last week's string block. I'm doing one for each week of the year. I'm really happy with my progress so far - this is the first week I've fallen behind and it's mostly because I was working on finishing things and not cutting into new fabrics. This quilt already makes me happy:)

Check out the design walls of the quilters sharing over at Judy's blog. She has a quilt a long coming up at the end of the month, too!

With Joy,
Sarah Vee

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Tolerance and Toddlers

With my quilting mojo in full swing I discovered that my toddler is growing into his independence. I don't have much tolerance for this age - it's hard for me to let go and constantly reinforce limits at the same time.




The same can be said for my quilting time. I have more ideas, more designs in progress, more plans for new projects than I can ever get accomplished. Something has to give. I'm not good at thinking small though so some ideas got out and onto the design wall. My little tree has it's very own quilt now, a design I am trying to pursue to pattern and publishing! There's a peek here, hoping to get to reveal more soon!

My branch has sprouted some colourful leaves. This is one project I enjoy watching grow. It hardly resembles my initial plan - and that's good:)




It seems like this time of year I come up with good holiday quilt designs! This one is from last year. I'm trying to make it into something and get it out the door SOON! This is where I found out that tolerance can turn into neutral acceptance; I put off blanket stitching around half of these mittens for close to 8 months - and finished them all Sunday night.

Reassurance for both me and my little boy:)

Enjoy the design walls linked from Judy's blog, Patchwork Times.

With Joy,
Sarah Vee

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Open for Creativity

This past weekend saw an unusual amount of creative activity here. It was fun and exhilarating. And a little bit tiring. The result? An almost empty design wall!

I started a new project. I am working on designing a quilt and had a chance to actually get 2 rows started! Normally, this would have taken a few weeks! In addition I also worked on my Sprouts of Joy quilt that I'm designing.
I actually have the limbs sewn on now with a light blue thread using the zigzag stitch on my sewing machine. The little nest is something else I came up with this weekend. There's a post about it too!


All the miscellaneous blocks got sewn up and taken down too. I didn't take before and after pictures, but, trust me, I needed to get some stuff off the wall and start fresh. It's amazing how much I will put off finishing something - until a new idea comes along!

There's no stocking to make with Pat Sloan this month so I find myself with an OPEN week. I'm filling it up by making some bags/purses for birthday gifts and looking towards January birthday presents - one for a niece, one for a nephew.

What's on your design wall this week? Check out Judy's links to see what's up!

With Joy,
Sarah Vee

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Scrap Nest

Here's my little contribution to Sew Mama Sew's scrapbuster month of tutorials.

A Scrap Nest

No, not this nest of scraps . . .


This one! Made from strips cut off and left for the trash. Now freshly weaved together to make some little body warm. Want to see some amateur tutorial photos? Well, brace yourself, here they are!:)

First go through your scrap strips and find colours that appeal to you for your project. I knew on my fabric hunt that I wanted brights. I ended up picking 5 different colours. You could pick more or less. I think you could just find some strips you love and figure out what to make later. I'm going to keep the selvedge of coloured numbers you can see in this photo for another day.

Then begin. I cut my strips randomly, about 4 inches long. I started with two strips going across and started to weave two more in and out of them. Then, I kept going!

Here's the blurry amateur shot:) As you can see (almost clearly) I have two colours going across and now 3 going up and down. I even kept them in a pattern. You can choose to be much more random.

Next I used a leftover piece of Mistyfuse to make my weaving one piece of material. I used a 2 inch square. Parchment paper is required directly on top of your ironing board and another piece on top of your project.

So - ironing board

parchment paper

Mistyfuse

weaving - right side UP

parchment paper

A gentle iron for a couple of seconds at medium heat. I put it to cotton but didn't press for very long. Seconds does it.


Then I flipped over my fabric and drew on my nest.

*With Mistyfuse, I could have drawn my nest on the parchment paper that sits on the ironing board. The hot iron would transfer the pencil lines onto my fabric to make for easy cutting. I forgot this neat aspect but it was okay because my nest would look the same in reverse (well, close enough for me!) If you are drawing a different design keep this in mind. Draw first, then iron on the Mistyfuse.*

Cut out your shape.

Now I have a happy little nest for my tree! This is a design in progress for me. I was so happy to think of something that doesn't have facial features to put out on the limb!:)

Please email or leave a comment if you have any questions. I hope you enjoy weaving something new out of your scraps!

With Joy,
Sarah Vee

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Be Grateful for Quilting and PIE

Happy Thanksgiving Canadians! I'm away eating today:)
But I have been busy!
My Picnic Quilt for my niece is finished. I am delivering it to her today so I will have pictures to show later this week.
I finished one more Lady of the Lake block. I also played with some leftover triangles to make this star block. I plan to cut the strips of fabric to make the corner squares.

I also played a bit more with my other block. This idea keeps changing and has now blossomed into "Sprouts of Joy". I discovered the fabric that matched this background best was in my scrap bin! So I pulled out selvedges and mistakes and scraps with fusible web still on them - and had some fun! Since this picture I've sewn the background together. The other pieces are waiting in a baggie for my next chance to play:)

I also posted a quilt in the online blogger festival and have been busy responding to all the comments. Who KNEW there were so many quilters blogging!

I am feeling very grateful for being part of such a great community. Check out Judy's blog to see what others have posted this week.

With Joy,
Sarah Vee

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