Splendid Sampler

Tonight I finished up my 6th row for my Splendid Sampler quilt.  I'm not sure sure how many total rows I am going to do, but for sure I will at least have 8 rows of 8.

Bee Happy: I decided to paper piece this one so I made alterations.  It also ended up facing the other direction, but that's ok.


This is the latest block: At Home Anywhere.  Again, I drafted this one into a paper pieced pattern...  I am still on my applique and embroidery break.  When I saw this block I thought right away of a painting I have from my grandma.

This is the home where she grew up, and the chicken house next to it.  My mom used to tell me stories of visiting "Little Grandma".  When they butchered the chickens, her siblings would watch as they ran around headless.  She said the rooster was the worst as he was really mean.


Another fun story mom would tell is that her grandma wanted to redo a portion of the house.  Her grandfather came home to her tearing into a wall, and cutting down what ended up being a bearing wall.  I can imagine this as I have felt the same at times in regards to home projects!

All my guys are gone to a scouting event. I have one more free day of sewing and no cooking left!

Splendid Sampler Update

I have been working on taking a break from my Splendid Sampler progress... honestly, I am burnt out on it.  I have been considering just putting together what I have and call it good, but before I totally threw in the towel, I wanted to see what kind of sashing or alternate blocks I try.

Nine patch was a no go.  It  was much too busy.


So this is what I'm going with:


I have the width I want and at this point I am going to decide if I do all 100 or close--or if maybe I want to stop at 80.  Right now I am taking a break from applique and embroidery and I will start catching up with the pieced blocks.

I moved around blocks because the lighter backgrounds look better with the red and vice versa.  I planned to keep them in the same order but because I don't know if I am going to be doing all the blocks as well as the the light/dark issue, I decided to move things around.

And the three I have finally completed...
42. Pencils


48. Whim


54. Shell. I see a Thanksgiving turkey butt however.

Splended Sampler 30-41

I am finally all caught up... until tomorrow!  I didn't want to take any pictures or update until I had everything in order.  So here we go.  I just took a couple of pictures to do crops with, so at least one of the blocks was cut off.  I don't want to retake the pic, I guess that makes me not a professional :)













I'm still trying to figure out the sashing. I haven't decided on any certain color yet.

Pacific Fabrics 2015 BOM and Splendid Sampler

This week and today I have been getting my sewing mojo back again... sort of :)  At least it's more than the previous three weeks.  I don't think I posted updated blocks from the Pacific Fabrics BOM... I love the coffee cup.  If I did it again, I would change it a little but I really do like how it turned out.  Today I also finished up the apples in the top corner and started on the Mariner's compass.  That one has feathers or something (forget what they called them) that are along the side.  I am trying to figure out how to make them in a different way vs the way in the directions.  After putting the outside part on the mariner's compass on incorrectly, I decided to just put it aside for now and pick it back up again tomorrow.


My salmon row look more like swimming sharks :)  I'm ok with that.  If I had used fusible instead of needle turn, maybe the details would have been more crisp... but I really don't like quilting over fusible.  This hasn't always my preference, but after quilting through an older UFO with a lot of fused pieces, I decided I realllllly disliked it.

The long row on the left was fun to do.  There are the four panel pieces, but in between are "sound waves".  I have never tried to do curved piecing like that before, but I have seen it in patterns.  It was very easy to do and I will definitely incorporate that in other designs down the road.

My Splendid Sampler catch-up from this week:
25 and 26: These two were fun to do


27 and 28: I love how all these look together.  I had some issues lining up pieces for #28, but I really like the design and I plan to make a small quilt with various dress prints.


29: and today's finished Scrappy Happy Heart.  Quick and easy to finish.


So now I am all caught up with my Splendid Sampler blocks, including finishing the embroidery on the measuring tape one.  My plan is to work on the Evergreen State BOM and see if I can't get that into a top soon.  I need to get something off my design wall and I'm not ready to remove the sampler blocks just yet.

Here's to a new week!

Splendid Sampler Catching up...

My catch-up of Splendid Sampler blocks:


16 and 17.  I really loved the Family Stars block.


18 and 19: I still need to embroider the measuring tape block.


20 and 21: As much as I dreaded 20, I loved doing it.  I tried using Sulky Solvy for the first time.  It was a great product, but I missed catching the fabric in a few spots.  There is a learning curve, but I will use it again.


22 and 23: Goose on the Loose was fun.  I got frustrated with 23 unfortunately.


24: Ok, I will explain now why the last two were frustrating... Because I failed to read the part in the directions about TRIMMING DOWN the half square triangles. I kind of wish that instructions were set for the size and not an add-on trim down size, but that's just me. In an attempt to save on seams (because I am afraid I am going to run out of my fabrics) I calculated what size flying geese I would need. But I failed to account for the "trim down to" part. For block 23 I lost the majority of the tiny triangles that point into the center because I did not "trim down" my initial HST. And then for 24, I had to take it apart and resew because the block ended up at 7.5"... yes, I needed to "trim down to...". I'm kind of glad the next three are templates and applique.  And for the rest to follow, I need to make sure I read all the instructions before I cut and sew.

Splendid Sampler 14 and 15

This will likely be my last post for the next couple of weeks about my splendid sampler blocks.  We are getting ready to head south to clean up my inlaw's home so that it can get put up on the market this summer.  Having lived there for an eternity, the collected a lot of things so it will likely take a couple of trips to get it ready.  We also plan to visit the hubby's birthmom near the end of next week, so that should be fun.  We haven't seen her in 19yrs!  It's amazing how fast time goes by--it sure doesn't seem that long ago.

Block 14 Flying High


Block 15 Family Affair

I have paper pieced some of the pieces in this quilt (quilt shop and Iowa), but those were larger.  This was the first "true" paper pieced block and it was the first time I have ever paper pieced with flannel!  That was an interesting experience--for sure keeping the paper on until the very end was necessary because of the bias (and extra stretchiness of flannel).  I am pleased with how it came out overall... and if I really liked to paper piece then I think a whole quilt with this block would be fun.  But I get too distracted when it comes to doing the same thing over and over again.

We'll see what block comes out on Thursday.  I may work on that one before we leave on Saturday.

A little sewing here and there...

A little Splendid Sampler update:
#10 Iowa


#11 Crocheted Thoughts


#12 Checkerboard


#13 Scrap Stars


I love seeing them altogether:


And a cute little quilt I finished up last night:


An 1800's reproduction fabric 1000 pyramids. I really love working with triangles. The funny thing on this quilt is that I got my last row of triangles (bottom row) sewn together in the wrong direction. My ruler for this triangle has a flattened top edge but for some reason I turned them all around and I couldn't figure out where I went wrong. At least they are equilateral triangles :)

This makes the only finish for the month of March.  Am I slowing down already??  I need to crack the whip and pull out another UFO.

Splendid Sampler and Evergreen State

Time for some slow stitching.  I worked on my Splendid Sampler blocks this weekend: Friends Around the Square and Local Quilt Shop.  I'm pleased with how they both came out.  I cropped the quilt shop to a "finished" size because I like that look better with house-type blocks :)


Friends around the square turned out much better than what I expected.  I really wasn't sure how the fabrics would come together, but they did.


Nine together:


I am also working on Pacific Fabric's block of the month from last year.  I have some fabrics that went with the quilt, but I don't have all that I need so I will be pulling from my stash.  I was so happy to find that they are selling it now!  When I inquired last spring, all the spots were taken.  I went to the Quilters Anonymous show in Monroe, WA this past Friday and there it was in Pacific Fabric's booth!  Yahoo!


I finished the dragonfly block last night, and then I trimmed the panels to the needed size and added the borders to the large state panel.  Right now I am working on the mountain range that's behind the tulip field.  I was getting very confused on the various colors, but I think I have it now.  I am going to wait to sew tomorrow when my brain is fresh again.  The cutting for it is like bargello.  I have the three sections all prepped, but cutting should be interesting.


Poof.... that was what I had written yesterday afternoon!

And then in the middle of my blog post that I was writing, the power went out!  It was out for about 21 hours, not too bad but bad enough that our generator kept having issues and we went out and bought a new one this morning.  We will get whatever needs to be fixed on the old one and see if one of our friends would be interested in it.  But last night I did some hexagon sewing.  I have 1/3 of row three complete and all the grey pieces sewn together.


I really like my new camera! I had my headlamp on and no flash used. You can see the dog laying down by the lego quilt, and smudge of a head of the cat by my feet :) It was an exciting night, but it got cold! I'm glad we have our gas fireplace, but the heat just doesn't move around like with our new furnace.

Happy Monday!