Flower Patch SAL Center Completed!

I've been participating in Denise's Flower Patch SAL mystery since last September and the center is completed. 

The fabrics in the top photo are more true to color. 

Now I'm waiting on border instructions which will be published May 4. I'm assuming the border will contain flying geese since that is Denise's favorite block. It will be the perfect finish for this quilt.

I didn't know if I was going to participate in this mystery when I made the first block, I just wanted to see how the fabrics I had pulled would look together.

My daughter loved the block and asked me to make this quilt for her so that's the plan!

Linking to To Do Tuesday, Midweek Makers, Wednesday Wait Loss, Oh Scrap

Slow Sunday Unsewing

I'm very embarrassed, I wrote last weeks Sunday post in a hurry on Saturday and didn't even think about Sunday being Easter! I hope you all blessed Resurrection Sunday whether you celebrated with friends, family or by yourself.

Earlier this week I posted about the Blue Ridge Beauty quilt I'm working on. The individual blocks had been pieced and the display floor arranging was ready to begin.

I started with the 2 first blocks, 2 of the center blocks. I had planned to work my way out towards the outside edge.

They don't line up, something is wrong!

I had the instructions right beside my sewing machine as I sewed these blocks together, I checked the book several times. Yes, they were laying correctly, NOT!

Today for Slow Stitching Sunday, I'm removing the stitching for the bottom HST block then turning it to it's correct position and pinning it in place so I won't make the same mistake twice. There are several hundred blocks in this quilt, I think I'll be slow unstitching for several days.

Oh well, I have several movies to watch to entertain me while I correct my mistake. Even after all these years of making quilts, I can still find ways to make silly mistakes. 

Linking to Kathys Slow Stitching Sunday,  Oh Scrap, Show & Tell Monday, Monday Making, Handmade Monday, Design Wall Monday

Blue Ridge Beauty

The Blue Ridge Beauty blocks have been trimmed and sewn together. They need to be pressed then arranged on the display floor.

I always think it so interesting when I chain stitch blocks how they come from the sewing machine . . .

slide over the edge of the sewing cabinet . . .

then arrange themselves so gracefully in a circle pile on the floor!

I've shown this before and people ask me how I do this! I don't do anything but sew, they arrange themselves.

Blue Ridge Beauty is a Bonnie Hunter pattern from her book Adventures With Leaders & Enders! Blue Ridge Beauty is #4 on my list of challenges for 2022.

Linking to Put Your Foot Down, Needle & Thread Thursday, Peacock Party, TGIFF!, Finished Or Not Friday, Off the Wall Friday, Patchwork & Quilts

Flower Patch Sew Along, Blocks 14 & 15

Blocks 14 and 15 of the Flower Patch Sew along mystery have been pieced. We're getting so close to the finish of this sew along!

Block 14 is another of the flower blocks, I used the same variation for this block as I did for block 11.

Block 15 is a lovely cardinal, a repeat of other blocks.

And a photo of all the blocks pieced currently pieced. The top 3 rows are sewn together, the 4th row is waiting for the next block. I have rearranged the blocks that are repeats so that they wouldn't be next to a same fabric.

Block 16 is published today, I wish Denise was releasing the border also. I'm ready to finish this flimsy and get it quilted!

I'm going to a quilt retreat next week, the border would be a good project to work on. I assume the border will be a flying geese border since Denise loves flying geese!

Linking to To Do Tuesday, Flower Patch SAL Mystery, Midweek Makers, Wednesday Wait Loss, Put Your Foot Down, Stitch Sew & Show,  Needle & Thread Thursday 

Desert Botanical Garden

This is my last post about my trip to Arizona. My favorite thing about Phoenix was all the sunshine.

Spring is coming slowly to northern Indiana this year. The grass has greened up but it's not growing. The crocus were blooming when I returned home and the daffodils have started blooming. And, sometimes, the sun actually shines! I really needed this trip to get some warmth and sunshine to make it through the end of winter.

One day we visited the Desert Botanical Garden in Tempe. It was interesting to see the changes from when I was there in December. I only have 5 pictures to show you but they're interesting, at least to me they were.

The cactus and other plants were blooming! I don't know their names but I enjoyed the flowers. Look at those sharp thorns!

The Chihuly glass sculptures were still on display. You can see some of them in the pictures.

The garden has a butterfly display in March. We were able to see a variety of butterflies. The main butterfly we saw were the zebra butterflies and they do look zebras!

There were several other varieties also but I didn't get pictures of those, sorry.

Didn't it look sunny and warm in all the above pictures? Here is what it looked like yesterday morning at dawn here in Indiana.

And then at 10 am.

Linking to To Do Tuesday

Another Dishcloth

I've been rather unproductive since I've been home from Phoenix. I've spent time at the sewing machine but handwork has been pushed back.

I did complete another dishcloth this week. Most of it was knitted in the back seat of my brother's car while my Indiana siblings and I drove to Ohio to visit our sister.

Yes, I did miss the alternate row in my knitting. This is a dishcloth, going to be used to wash dishes. I don't frog dishcloths.

Here is the pattern I use for knitted dish cloths.  

Seed Stitch Dish Cloth - With a size #6 circular needle cast on 40 stitches. Row 1 & 2 – knit. Row 3 & 4 – Knit 2 *K1 P1 repeat from * across to last 2 stitches k2. Repeat rows 1 – 4 for pattern until measures 9” (same as bottom edge), ending with Rows 1 & 2. Bind off. I don't remember where I found this pattern. I use a #4 circular needle. I like my dishcloths knitted more tightly.

Hopefully next week I'll have applique or quilting to show you.

Linking to Kathys Slow Stitching Sunday, Stitching Stuff, Show & Tell Monday, Design Wall Monday

Blue Ridge Beauty

I'm starting a new quilt, it's another Bonnie Hunter pattern and it is in blues, Blue Ridge Beauty. Blue Ridge Beauty is from Bonnie's book, Adventures With Leaders & Enders. I've been wanting to make this quilt for sometime and this is the year.

This is a good sized quilt, it's queen sized. The quilt flimsy will be donated to the school auction my Pennsylvania grandchildren attend. It's so nice I don't need to be responsible to have it quilted.

As usual there are two different blocks to be made. First are the 4 patch blocks. I already had plenty of strips cut in the sized needed. It only took me a couple days to run the strips through the sewing machine, cut them apart and sew into foursies. 

The HST's are also pieced. I didn't use the directions Bonnie gave for making the HST's. I placed blue and light strips together and cut them with my HST ruler. That's a lot faster than cutting squares and marking them diagonally with a line. 

I'm checking all the HST's for size and trimming off the dog ears. It's time consuming and boring but blocks go together so much nicer when you take the time to do this.

If you read Bonnie's blog, you've seen the lovely quilt display the retreaters show on the front porch railing. Last winter two quilters showed Blue Ridge Beauty quilts at the same retreat. They were both lovely quilts but the one quilt was made with darker blues. I was drawn to that quilt so my BRB is being made with darker blues. 

Linking to Put Your Foot Down, Needle & Thread Thursday, Peacock Party, TGIFF!, Finished Or Not Friday, Off the Wall Friday, Patchwork & Quilts, Oh Scrap

Art of Quilting Show

The Kaleidoscope of Quilts show was held in Mesa. After viewing all the lovely quilts at that show, we drove to Gilbert to view the quilts at the Historical museum for their Art of Quilting Show. 

As with the other show, these are only a few pictures of the many  quilts I took. Some of the quilts were antiques, some newer quilts. Some were for sale, most were not. I might have been tempted to buy one of the sale quilts but I knew there was no way I could fit any quilts in my suitcase.

I don't know what happened to the information for this quilt. I can tell you the quilt is called Windmill Blades and is owned/made by Nancy Ostman of New York.

I think these fabrics were wool. It looked thick! The pineapple strips were very narrow, maybe 1/4"? This quilt was (I'm guessing here) 40" by 40"?

Besides the regular museum staff, some days there are volunteers who demonstrate quilting. We were there on one of those days. 

I took pictures of the of the quilts they were working on. This was an older strip pieced quilt.

One of the ladies told me how she marked this quilt. I had never seen the woven border with the flowers. She adapted the stencil. I'm going to have to try this sometime. Quilters are very inventive people!

This pink basket is an older quilt that was in the room. I don't think they quilted this one. I didn't have them open it up to full sized. It looked fragile so a quarter size was fine with me.

Linking to To Do Tuesday, Midweek Makers, Wednesday Wait Loss, Put Your Foot Down, Stitch Sew & Show,  Needle & Thread Thursday 

Blooms Quilt

I thought about starting an EPP (English paper piecing) project last fall but just couldn't decide what design. I thought about making some random hexie flowers but I didn't want to just start something without know where it was going to go.

Years ago I had made a grandmother's flower garden quilt. I enjoyed the process but I didn't want to make another one. 

While perusing quilt blogs one day, I came across A Quilting Life hosted by Sherri. Her February 1st post was titled January 2022 Favorites and more. When I saw the picture of her Bouquet Quilt, I knew what my next EPP project was going to be, hexie flowers but also piecing! This was very doable so I immediately ordered the pattern.

I decided hexies would be perfect for a traveling project. I prepped squares and took them along to Phoenix. Here are the flowers that were EPP'd.

And yes, I do baste right through the paper on the back of the hexies. That's fine if you don't baste your hexies this way, just don't Quilt Police on me!

I didn't buy special fabrics for Blooms, I'm just pulling from my stash, the backgrounds fabrics too. Right now I'm planning on this quilt being a red and white wall hanging with 12 blocks.

In Sherri's post, she calls the quilt Bouquet but the pattern title is Blooms so that is why I'm calling my wall quilt Blooms.

I'm not in a hurry for this project to be finished. I do have a quilt I'm appliqueing (Hearts & Wreaths) and a quilt in the hand quilting frame (Welsh Beauty) besides other quilts to be pieced. This project was not on my list of Challenges for 2022.

I also took along a skein of cotton yarn and knitted a dish cloth which I left it with my daughter.

Linking to Kathys Slow Stitching Sunday, Stitching Stuff, Oh Scrap, Show & Tell Monday, Monday Making, Handmade Monday, Design Wall Monday

Quilt Arizona! 2022

I purposely scheduled my trip to Phoenix so I could attend the Quilt Arizona! 2022 quilt show sponsored by the Arizona Quilters Guild. This year's theme was Kaleidoscope of Quilts.

So many beautiful quilts and of course I took more photos than I could possible show you. I had hoped the Guild would post online pictures so I could link to them but I can't find one. If someone there in blog land finds a link, please send me the information and I'll put a link to the show here in my post.

Here are a few of the quilt photos. I took a picture of the information label and then the quilt.

The narrow orange border was perfect for this quilt. The planning for this quilt took some time.

I loved this blue quilt!!!

We took a walk through all the vendors but I didn't buy any fabrics or other quilting items. We did buy a bag of this delicious white chocolate/almond/toffee though, it was delicious! 

Here is a link to the 2023 show with basic information. I'm sure I'll be traveling to Phoenix again next year!

I have more pictures but, as usual, Blogger is challenging me.

Linking to Put Your Foot Down, Needle & Thread Thursday, Peacock Party, TGIFF!, Finished Or Not Friday, Off the Wall Friday, Patchwork & Quilts