It's Red

Long time, no post, but I have been on the road a lot in June. 

However, I do have a finish to show!

No one ever said I was a fast quilter.  This project began as a workshop with Mickey Depre, author of Pieced Hexies, in August 2014.  I quilted it with simple vertical rows.  All it lacks is a label.

Butterfly Applique Project

It’s been a while since I worked on an applique project.  When a group I sew with decided to do a project for the guild’s silent auction in February, I was assigned the task of appliqueing three of the medium size butterflies for a quilt designed by Edyta Sitar.  Today I was able to pass these blocks off to the person who will embroider the antennae.  Our instructions were to use any applique method we liked as long as it was turned edge and stitched by hand.

I elected to use starch and a heat resistant template to prep the wings.  

After letting it rest several days, I returned to the Kim Diehl project with all the blunted points.  I worked on it a little more and I think it is better.

At Last, Something to Post About

Earlier this year I had to cancel out of a quilt retreat I had been looking forward to for months.  Life simply decided to happen at the time of the retreat.  So, I was over the moon happy when three friends invited me to join them for a retreat last week.  Did I ever have fun; and I was even productive.

Jeanette brought her collection of zipper bag patterns and gave me some lessons.  She started with bags made of screening.  Then we moved on to a lined, fabric pouch and a cross-body bag, both by Lazy Girl Designs. 

I started this 2018 Simple Whatnots project by Kim Diehl.  No matter how hard I tried, some of my points are cut off.  I finally decided life was too short to keep fussing with it.  I still need to add the remaining borders.

I also managed to complete 15 anti-ouch pouches.

Of course, I had to help the local economy.  There was a the quilt shop attached to the retreat center, and they were having a sale.  This is how I used the Mother’s Day gift from Julia. 

Chocolate was plentiful and the scales were not kind to me upon my return.  I’m working at getting back with the program and hopefully the damage will be reversed before too long.

A Red and White Finish

I appreciate the supportive comments I received after my last post.  Hubby's health has improved and I also am feeling much better.  Gradually I am pulling myself out of the slump I was in.

One red quilt project is complete and another is in the process of being pin basted.   It was late in the day when I took this picture.  The real quilt is not nearly this dark.  I am so happy to be finally moving forward on some of my projects. 

Tuesday was spent with friends cutting anti-ouch pouch kits.  Our total stands at 230 kits from the two giant tubs of fabric we received.  The lady who says she actually enjoys ironing the fabric before we cut it has an injured hand, and will be out of commission for a while.  Since others in our group will be travelling off and on all summer, we are asking the project coordinator to hold off delivering more fabric until the August guild meeting.  I’ve also stitched up 10 pouches.  I had to stand at a weird angle while taking the picture to minimize the glare on the ruler.  It kind of makes me dizzy looking at it.

We’ve had an exceptionally wet spring and the plants, including the cacti, are loving it.

My blackberry bushes are also producing.  The first one I sampled was rather tart, but hopefully others will be sweet.

Unsettled

The last month has been very unsettled for us and I found I had little time for stitching and no urge to blog.  While I can’t say things are more settled, I am returning to my quilting/stitching activities.  Primarily I’ve wanted to do mindless type machine work.  So, this week I delivered 11 anti-ouch pouches to the guild meeting and have begun quilting this top with a simple meander.  

Back to the Stash

I dove back into my stash and found some fabrics to replace two of my least favorite blocks in my red and white project.  I’m liking it better now.  I’ll let it remain on the design wall a while so I can think about it some more.

Time to Start Tweaking

I think this is enough red and white blocks for a small throw quilt, and I’ve begun playing with layouts.  This is not the final and there are still a couple of blocks I may want to replace with different fabrics, but I will sleep on it tonight.  It's amazing how looking at a photograph of a quilt makes trouble areas easier to spot.

I found this red and white print that may work for a border.

We had three hard freezes at the beginning of the week.  The high today was 40 plus degrees warmer than the highs Monday and Tuesday.  The wildflowers should be okay despite the freezes, but it remains to be seen if the peach crop will survive.  During an outing last week, we saw many orchards already in bloom.