Card Exchange - March

Our challenge this month was to include words on our cards.  Everyone did a great job!

Card Exchange - March

Looking forward to some yummy Chicken tortilla soup, salad and chocolate chip cookies tonight!  Oh, and the cards that everyone made, of course!

Doll Quilt Swap 12

This time around for the Doll Quilt Swap there are some new challenges.  We can pick from 5 different blocks and we must include a solid that is not white, or any version of white.  The quilt must have at least 9 blocks, and must be between 9 and 20 inches.

I had some time to sew today, so I chose to work on my doll quilt.  It is supposed to be mailed out by the beginning of April.

I used 3 solids in my Drunkards Path block quilt:  a light aqua, a light pink, and a charcoal grey.  Along with several patterned fabrics in shades of grey and black as well as pink, green and blue.

I enjoyed working with the curved piecing.  It has been a while since I’ve pieced this block.   I decided to miter the border strips, and it actually went smoothly. I like the results.  Hopefully my partner will too.

Sampler Class–February

Here are my Nine Patch and Florence Nightingale blocks. We used freezer paper templates and added an extra 1/4 inch around the outside for accurate trimming in the end.  We also learned how to hand piece, but I used my machine to piece these.

Sampler Class - January

Here are my English Paper Piecing blocks for January.  Got them done just in time for class today.

Today we started on hand piecing techniques and drafting our own blocks.  We are working on nine patches and a Florence Nightingale block. I think the hardest part is picking out the fabric for the block, ha ha!  I’ll show you the blocks as soon as I finish them, which will hopefully be soon!

Bitty Blocks and Hexagons

All my red and white bitty blocks arrived in the mail!  Aren’t they so cute?

I’ve been swapping bitty blocks for a while now, and I don’t think I’ve done anything with them…until this week when I got out my first set…camping….and made a pillow out of them:

Someday I’ll find the perfect person to give this pillow to!

Here are the fabrics I purchased last week for my sampler class:

I’m loving the colors, even if my husband isn’t sold on them!

Here’s my first block in progress:

The picture in the bottom right is from our teacher so we could see what the block should look like…the yellow flower is my practice, and all those hexagons that need to be sewn together, that’s my block.  I need to have 2 done by the next class.  I’d better get busy!

Quick Update

Happy New Year!  Is it too late to say that?

I need to catch up here with you and then maybe I can get back on track with blogging…just maybe!  Right now it just seems overwhelming since I haven’t posted in a while!

I posted one time in November, once in December and once in January.  Hopefully I’ll do better in February!

Looking back at pictures, let’s see what’s been going on around here!

I got back into my flickr swap group: “Bitty Block Committee” in January with the “Red and White on point” swap.  I couldn’t resist red and white bitty blocks!  The blocks we swap are 3.5 inches.  I decided to do a cake stand on point:

And here are all 12:

I’m just waiting for 2 more blocks and I’ll show you the collection.  They are mighty cute!

I’m taking my first quilting class!  You heard me right!  Yes, it’s about time, after 17 years of quilting. 

We were working on English Paper Piecing our first class.  We are doing a sampler, but when she pulled out this Dear Jane I had to snap a picture!

Someday my Dear Jane will be done *sigh*…maybe if I’d work on it, it would get done a little bit faster .

I’m excited for my sampler class.  Should be a lot of fun throughout this whole year!  I’m going to be picking out my fabric this week for it.  I’m excited to show you what I pick out!

At our January Quilt Groupbee’s Meeting we made these thread catchers.  This year our curriculum is going to follow along with the class I’m taking. So since we covered English Paper Piecing in class, I’ll be showing the ladies how to English Piece at our February Meeting.

Here’s a pretty good tutorial for English Paper Piecing hexagons:

http://beeinmybonnetco.blogspot.com/2010/04/hexie-paper-piecing-tutorial.html

The way we learned in class was a little bit different, but mostly the same.  It’s fun to have a hand sewing project to work on!

That’s a pretty full post.  I’ll leave it at that and catch up with you more in a little bit!