Give Aways

Lots of give aways going on around on the quilty blogs.
Here is one that I'm just loving. Mrs. Bonnie Hunter is giving away 2 copies of her new book.
And you can pre order her book also, so you can get a signed copy of it.


Give away More adventures with leaders and enders. A lot of the patterns in this book I have worked on in the past year or two.

Her mystery quilt from 2 yrs ago is in there, Easy Street, which you all know I have worked on and actually have the top done. Just needs quilting to be done on it.

There are blogs giving away fabric on Fridays also. Will have to look around and possibly post those when I find them.

Until next time..

Happy Quilting,
Tammy 

Its a Saterday, time to start a new week

Well nothing much has happened over the past week. Been thinking a lot and sometimes it comes down to, what I need to do, what I have to do and what I have done.

Not much done, Have a lot I need to do and have a lot I have to get done.

I did get 2 blocks done for my Mom's quilt, however, I put the blocks together all wrong. :P lol
It is what happens when you do not have the original block set up by the machine so you have a reference.

Dang it, I need to find my camera again.

Discouragement this week has been profound for me. Making stupid mistakes, not sorting fabric correctly and putting into the correct bins, attempting to cut some fabric and find out 1) its not the correct one, and 2) cut it out all wrong. Bad Tammy, lol.

Oh well time to slow down, take it easy and put everything back into perspective. Hopefully within the next few days I will have improvements to post about. :D

Like getting fabric sorted and put into the correct bins, like cutting out and putting blocks together CORRECTLY..

What have you all been doing this past week? Sewing, crocheting, knitting, hiking, biking, staying warm for my northern friends, walking, jogging, etc??


Until next time
Tammy

Goals for 2014

I'm a little late in doing this, but have decided I need to get my rear in gear and attempt to get things done.

1) Finish up Easy Street, all it needs is the backing, batting and to be quilted.

2) Finish up the Jacob Ladder's quilt that I am doing for my mom. Have 5 blocks done, need to finish up putting the blocks together, backing, batting and get it quilted.

3) Finish crocheting my daughters blanket for her king size bed. She has been waiting on this for over 10 yrs, about time to get'er done. Have it just about 3/4 of the way done. I'm really sorry it has taken so long Dawn.

4) I have about 3-5 circle of comfort quilts to finish. I also need to get active at the Missouri Star forum again. 1 of the quilts just needs a binding put on, 1 needs a backing, the others I need to finish putting together. These were to go to West, Texas to comfort those most impacted by the fertilizer plant blast. 

5) Begin blogging more, at least once a week with updates and things that are going on.

6) Work on my cousin's quits, Evonda's and Charlie's. Charlie's needs the binding put on it. I have blocks to finish putting together for Evonda's.

 This is a part of Evonda's quilt.

 Charlie's lap quilt. All Roads Lead to Home.






7) work on my Grandson's quilt.

8) Begin working on putting together a triple Irish Chain quilt ( something similar to this quilt) for my daughter Dawn. Getting fabric together

9) Begin working on my daughters Cathy and Tracy's quilts. Still getting fabric put together to do these. Farmer's Granddaughters 

It is the variations of The Farmer's Daughter quilt blocks.

10) Finish crocheting Tracy's shawl. I started this a month before she was to be married, 2 yrs ago, it still isn't finished. So sorry Tracy.

11) I have 3-5 items that are really close to be finished, crocheting edgings around the outside perimeters, or putting bindings on. Need to take time to get them finished.


And that is just the start of it all. First up getting everything reorganized, which I will be working on today. Almost finished with this part, just cleaning off my work surfaces.


And who knows, I may be able to get Celtic Solstice started also.

So Until next time. :D

Color picks for new mystery quilt: Celtic Solstice

Today or I should say, this morning Bonnie over at  Quiltville will give us the color choices for her new mystery quilt that will start after Thanksgiving.

So thousands of people who love mystery quilts, of which I am one of them, are looking forward to seeing what color choices she has picked for this years mystery quilt.

What do we have to look forward to in this years mystery, well that is a mystery in itself. But if you take a look at some of her other mystery quilts, you can get an idea of what may be used.

Bonnie's Tips and Tech. page has loads of information on it, located here. 
Bonnie's YouTube channel is located here. Here she gets to do some of her own personal sewing, she is sharing things that she does. You may want to subscribe to her youtube channel.

Loads of scraps, time to bust open your scrap boxes, containers and put them to use. We should have these divided into color ways, as in : Reds in one container, blues in another container, (etc.) and neutrals in yet another container. This will make it a whole lot easier if you love to do mystery quilts.
Especially Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilts.

Lets see what else may we expect out of this mystery, hmmmm.
Flying Geese, We did a bunch of these for the last mystery quilt quilt, everyone has their own way of doing these, I found that using the same rulers that Bonnie uses helped a lot, and cut down on my mistakes. 

4- patches, We did a lot of these as well for the last mystery quilt. 

Paper foundation piecing, we didn't do any of these the last mystery quilt, but she has done them in past mystery quilt's.

Well there is a lot of things we can expect, but we won't know till we get started next month on what we will be doing.

Oh yea, last years mystery quilt, was called "Easy Street" its no longer available on her blog, but will be making an appearance in her next book

YESSSS I just was cruising around Bonnies blog and guess what, it has posted.
The mystery quilt name is Celtic Solstice . 
Our colorways are out.. This one just sounds yummy for the colors.. Take a look...
You won't regret it one bit, who knows maybe you will be bitten by the mystery quilt bug also..

Till next time..
This is Tammy Jean

ITS DONE, its really done and looks ...

sooooo purdy all set up. Wally redid the cabinet that the Wilson Rotary came in.

Before it was cleaned n refinished

Here is a before picture of it.

Refinished and cleaned up.

Here is the same cabinet after it was refinished and cleaned up.
I love it..








Thanks sooooo much Wally for taking the time to not only refinishing the cabinet but for also taking the time to get our Wilson Rotary up n running so smoooothly...

Free Motion Quilting or FMQ.

So, I have been thinking, and yea this can get scary and can get me into trouble every now n then.
But I need to learn some new skills and one of those is free motion quilting, I can do some simple patterns, like stitch in the ditch and meandering, but to really bring out some blocks you need to highlight them with stitching.

Your quilting skills depending upon your skill level can really enhance a quilt pattern or basically take away from the blocks you just spent hours on putting together.

Now to begin this journey, I will attempt to learn from Leigh Day over at The Free Motion Quilting Project. Using some of her techniques I am going to try and enhance and practice my free motion quilting.

 First project that will be my first attempt at something other than meandering or sitd (stitch in the ditch) is my sister's table runner, it has these wide open triangles that are just screaming at me to do something with.

See what I mean, I have quilted the other parts of it using sitd method and it has the binding on it. But I don't feel like it is finished.





So this is to chronicle the steps I am taking to learn something new. You can do it how ever you feel comfortable, its not a race, I am hoping I can help someone else in taking those furtive first steps that are usually scary to do on your own. Lets try this together.

5 in charms

I have these charm packs I bought with no thought as to what I was going to do with them. Since I have scrap batting from previous projects, these charms will be sandwiched together and practiced on.

ruler, fabric, frixion pen

First thing I did was grab my 6.5 in square ruler, you can use what ever you have on hand to do this. Put it at 4.5 in from one edge of the fabric as shown in the picture. I grabbed my frixion pen and began marking.

Now I do have the 4.5 in square ruler, but its in the dining room and I didn't want to go grab it. lol
I will grab it and show it to you the next posting.

a marked charm square

Here is the marked charm square. I think I will start with Leigh Day's 1st tut, in her 365 days of fmq, which is located here .
I really like the frixion pen, should I mess up on marking a piece of fabric I can iron it off, it just disappears.



Like all things you must test it on a piece of scrap fabric.




Lets see how well I do on my practicing this morning. Check back later today to see how it goes.
What are you doing today?
Happy crafting.
Tammy

On today's Agenda

Lets see if I can stay motivated long enough to get these done.

Going from this stack>>>>

I put together kits to be sewn together yesterday in between sewing up the 6 setting triangles. Ok so yesterday it was like 3 or 4 of them but adding them up to the ones I got done the day before.. It was 6 ;-)

I got one done last night of the remaining 6 left to do and layed out the next set.

To laying them out correctly>>>>

Lay each stack out one at a time so I can begin sewing.

TADA a setting triangle

To having them all sewn together to form the setting triangles

The one I got done late last night, needs to be pressed.

Leaders/enders project

Since I have a small pile of bonus triangles I may as well put them together, after sewing a row together for the setting triangles. Press, trim dog ears, and throw into a box..