Stitches

Blue Flowers with "Framing"

I always struggle with how to display these little art quilts. I have been pleased with a few of them framed and matted behind glass - but feel like I am still searching for a better way. This one with the blue grew a bit bigger with several inches of fabric around the outside - so that it is it's own frame. The edges aren't finished yet, nothing is finished actually. Just needing to get the outer edges resolved before I continued...

Sugar Maple Quilt Top

I am stuck on the sugar maple leaf lately. I am easily distracted and we have been talking a lot about sugar maple trees and making syrup at our house lately - so it is showing up in my sewing. I think this may have it out of my system for a bit. Piecing this top reminded me why I have strayed from this type of quilting. It's really hard for me to get everything to line up in the end. I did mix fabric types - most were quilting cottons, but there were some blends that seemed stretchy - which can definitely throw things off a bit. One of the blocks came out really off - I added in a bit of white fabric to make it fit with the others - it seemed honest to leave it in and make it work rather than redo it. Maybe that's a revelation for me on this type of thing - quit worrying about it and make it work. Because I like how it turned out. I like that I ran out of brown when I was sewing the outside "frame" and had to grab some similar browns that don't mach exactly. I think I will have to wait to quilt this - I have other projects with higher priority that need to come first. It looks like spring to me - new green leaves and dirt.

My son was my assistant in holding the quilt for the photo and it was his idea to take a shot of the back. I love that.

Comments

Several people had problems posting comments - I think I fixed it for good this time...

Sugar Maple Quilt Block

The last few weeks my husband has been collecting sap from five sugar maple trees in our yard, then boiling the sap to make maple syrup. This is his second year as maple syrup maker - so I was excited to find a "maple leaf" quilt block while looking through a book of traditional quilt block patterns. It's shape didn't have as many points as a sugar maple leaf - so I tweaked it a little. I am planning to make something small - maybe a small quilt with just four of these blocks - large enough to keep a stuffed animal cozy. To be continued...

New Quilt Project - with moonboot

I had some bonus time this afternoon to piece this together. I had set up a new little craft and drawing spot for my boys - which really just means I rearranged the furniture - and it kept them busy enough that I had time for some sewing. I forgot to measure - but this quilt/throw is almost as wide as our dining room table. I haven't pieced the back together yet but I am hoping to use a few of the unused pieces originally cut for this front to piece together a back.

Note the little moonboot I missed during the pre-photo tidy - lower right-hand corner...

samples

Last week I received a wonderful big big box of fabric samples from a friend. Every time I have another look through the box I find lots of pieces I hadn't seen before...thank you so much, Nikki!!

start of something...

laying out the blocks for something I am trying to start - a base for a stitch sampler of sorts...