Author Archives: Bernie

Purple Scrappy Projects

This week I discovered that I have almost no purple fabric; scrappy, yardage or otherwise. I don’t know why. The purple section on the shelf is nearly empty and my purple scrap bin is the same. I will soon have the pleasure of shopping for a few purple blenders to build things back up. But first, let me show you what I managed to cobble together for the RSC16 for the month of March.

My blocks for the Gemstone quilt are starting to accumulate. Here are the newest additions in all their purple splendor.

This quilt is going to be so pretty. The first three months look wonderful together. Remember that each block will be sashed in the pale green so they will be floating on the green background.

Because most of my purple scraps are strings of various widths, it was easier to work on my improv project. I made a slab of purple fabric using all sorts of tiny pieces.

Check out my teeny tiny HST’s on the lower right. Those were fun to put together. Once I had the slab done, I decided to start making blocks out of the slabs I had made thus far. I wasn’t sure what size I wanted to cut them to, so I practiced with an old rainbow slab I made a while back. I am going to make HST’s which will combine the made fabric and a simple gray polka dot fabric. Once I decided on the size block (9″) I started cutting the blue, pink and purple slabs. You’ll notice a substantial color difference in both of these shots. The photo above was taken on a rainy day when I had to rely on terrible lighting. The shot below was taken today with wonderful sunlight streaming in. The color below are much more accurate. (Thankfully so.)

I am loving how these are coming together.

I was careful to preserve the parts of the made fabric that I wanted to show up in the HSTs. My little girl, the pink pinwheel, the tiny purple HST’s, and the little deer on the edge of the other pink HST. For now, I am going to aim for four or five blocks from each color, which will give me about 50-55 blocks. Then I can lay them out and see what it still needs. I have plenty of the gray dot fabric for the project.

Cutting the made fabric slabs left me with a number of large scraps. I will hold on to these and can stitch them back together as needed for extra blocks when I lay this out.

Linking up with my usuals, including Oh Scrap and So Scrappy and looking forward to seeing what everyone is doing with their purple scraps this month!

Quilting for a Cause

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I love to help. Doing something to help another makes a person feel good inside, it is gratifying. Quilting to help others is like the perfect combination for me, adding even more value to my favorite pasttime. I have donated six quilts over the past couple of years. However, donating a whole quilt takes a fair amount of time. Donating a few blocks here and there takes almost no time at all and gives me with a sense of participation and satisfaction. Remember when I posted about making the heart blocks for victims of the fires in California last summer? That was a very easy, satisfying project to contribute to. Here is another.

Reading through my blog feed on Bloglovin last week, I stumbled across Kat & Cat Quilts, a blog that was new to me. (It is amazing how many quilt blogs are out there. So much to read, so much inspiration to take in.) Anyway, this blog, written by Kat, sponsors an ongoing project called Covered in Love. Kat is a nurse in a med-surgical unit at East Texas Medical Center. She supports the dying process for some of her patients. Knowing the comfort it provides the patient, and the family of that patient, she tries to provide a quilt for patients nearing the end of their life in the hospital. As the family transitions and grieves the loss of their loved one, they are able to keep the quilt as a treasure to bring them comfort. Below are seven quilts that were made with the blocks donated in October, 2015.

This is no small undertaking for Kat and while she does have quite a number of quilters that donate blocks, she spends a lot of time piecing and quilting and finishing these wonderful quilts. I believe she has some quilters that help with this as well.

Each month she specifies the block she will be working with, provides a tutorial and the color scheme. This month she is asking for simple I-Spy blocks, using adult themed novelty fabrics in the center. For a quick look at the tutorial, click here. I jumped in this month and made two blocks to contribute.

These are a breeze to cut and piece. My only issue was my lack of novelty prints. I was really scrounging to find fabric that I could fussy cut and get a 2 1/2″ center block from. My stash includes lots and lots of juvenile prints but not many for adults. I shipped two blocks off to Texas with the hope that they are included in a quilt for one of the patients at East Texas Hospital.

For the bicycle fabric, I cut into a piece of fabric I have been hoarding from Kate & Birdie, called Bicycle, in the Bluebird Park line. I love this line and haven’t decided what to do with it yet. What? Make a quilt with it? Hmmm…. maybe I will. 😉 For now though, I have cut off a corner and fussy cut two bicycles from it. They look so sweet.

I wanted to share this project with you in case you want to participate. We all follow our list of favorite blogs and I am very happy to add Kat & Cat Quilts to the list. If you are aware of other projects like this, I would love to hear about them. Leave a quick comment for me.

Linking to Let’s Bee Social today!

The Birthday Girls

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Last weekend was the best. I mentioned in a post last week that five of my (six) sisters were coming for the weekend. No spouses or grandkids were on the guest list so Ray and Julia took off for Downieville for a couple of nights.

A few of my sisters and I, plus my parents, were in cahoots, planning a surprise birthday party for two of my sisters. Tina turns 60 this year and Alicia, the youngest, turns 50. When I look at that sentence, it doesn’t seem at all possible that the youngest in our family is 50. In my head we are all still 30-something. The passage of time is crazy hard to wrap my head around. We have always celebrated the 50th in a big way and we needed to do this for Alicia too. We told Tina about the surprise for Alicia but we also (secretly) planned a party for her. The surprise party was perfect – neither suspected a thing.

Trying to figure out a theme for Alicia’s 50th party, I came up with a “50 Shades of Gray” party. Not having ever read the book, I was going for the number 50 and the kind of raunchy theme that the the title implies. We agreed that the five of us would each bring ten gifts, some silly and some not, that were either gray in color or wrapped in gray/silver paper. That way she would have 50 gifts to open. It was so much fun to pick things out. Everyone went crazy with it. Lots of silly things and some pretty gifts too.

Being fabric obessesed, I headed for the sewing room and, digging through my gray scraps, made a few items.

The potholder has a “50” FMQ’d into the upper right corner.

The key fob was fun to make. A few months ago I bought a bag of the hardware pieces and hadn’t done much with it until now. Also made a cozy for her coffee when she is out getting coffee, as well as a tissue holder for her purse.

I did have to part with some of my Allison Glass scraps but Alicia is worth it. 🙂

Here are the 50 items all together. Some of the highlights were: socks – lots of gray socks, Grey Goose vodka, two pretty gray mugs, bracelets, a knit beanie, flip flops, Earl Grey tea, denture cleaner, silly magnifier glasses, a book on becoming a mother later in life and a pregnancy test kit (apparently my mom is still hoping for more grandchildren??? Pretty sure that isn’t going to happen!), pretty gray towels, a picture frame and loads more. One of my favorite gifts was a plain, gray rock from my sister’s yard, all wrapped up. It cracked me up – look for it in the center on top of some cupcake liners (which were silver of course.) I also loved the tshirt in the front on the left. Awesome. It was so much fun.

For my sister, Tina, we honored her 60th with more traditional gifts. I had been planning for quite a while to give her the Classic Stitches row quilt. She had commented several times that it was her favorite of the quilts I had made. When I quilted it, I even wrote a little note to her in one corner. (I didn’t ever post about that for obvious reasons.)

Receiving the quilt was a huge surprise for her and it made me so happy to see that she loved it.

Note the gorgeous birthday crown she is wearing. My sisters and I got a little crazy with some glue and stickers and made these gorgeous birthday crowns for the girls.

Mom and Dad did a great job setting up the party at their house with delicious food and festive decorations. Mom pulled out their baby pictures and I got a quick picture of each sister with her baby photo.

It was a perfect party that could only have been improved if the sixth sister were able to make it. We missed her. It is so hard to get everyone here at the same time.

We also made a playlist of fun songs from our childhood in the 1960’s. Dad danced with each of the birthday girls.

We went back to my house on a stormy night and promptly lost power for the next 11 hours. Kind of a pain when you live in the country and rely on a well for water. At least it was later in the evening and we slept during most of the outage. The next family get together is one where I will be the missing cog on the wheel. There is a bridal shower for two grandchildren that are getting married. My family will be on vacation at the time though. Like I said, it’s always hard to find a time when the eight of us can be at the same place, at the same time. So it is important to revel in those times when we are (mostly) together.

Linking up with the usual suspects whose links are listed at the top of the page, under Link Ups.

An Unexpected Finish

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I am not one for leaving projects unfinished. An exception to the rule, but I don’t have a huge stack of unfinished quilts in my sewing room. Putting in the time to cut a billion pieces of fabric and then stitch them together, only to leave them languish in a pile just isn’t my deal. (No offense intended. Like I said, this is the exception to the rule; many (most?) quilters have stacks of UFO’s. So it’s me, not you, ok?

I am chomping at the bit to cut into my stack of Pat Bravo fabrics that I received for my birthday last fall. I have a plan for a plus quilt and all the fabric is just sitting there, waiting so patiently. First though, I decided I had better finish one of two projects that are near completion. I started this quilt almost two years ago. I had attended a local quilt guild meeting and we had the opportunity to listen to Sandy Klop talk about her American Jane fabrics. She did a great trunk show. I got totally sucked into her adorable lines with their Americana feel and bought several 1/2 yard cuts.

I quickly cut into them, with the intention of making a traditional quilt that I had tagged in an old copy of QuiltWorks magazine. Designed by Debra Feece, it is called Square Dance. Basically a simple quilt using squares and strips. I worked on it for a while and somehow it was pushed aside until last week.

The pattern is so simple. One would think that my blocks would have been the precise 9 1/2″ square that they were supposed to be. Ha. Not so. When I took the project out to finish, the blocks looked off to me. They measured anywhere from 9 1/8″ to 9 5/8″. Didn’t I bother to use a ruler to cut my strips? Maybe I forgot what a 1/4″ seam looked like? Who knows. But I was able to get them to a mostly consistent 9 1/8″ and they went together nicely.

I think this quilt top is adorable. I haven’t made anything with such a Folk Art feel to it. Ray came into the sewing room the other night and said it looks patriotic. Made with (mostly) the three primary colors, it is so cheerful.

There is a lovely breeze out today (which is hopefully blowing a storm my way – we are supposed to be heading into a rainy spell) which made taking photos kind of tricky. Here is one in the house where there is significantly less breeze!

I love the red and white stripes and the red alphabet print. Traditional and so dang cute.

I am anxious to get this one basted and ready to quilt. I pieced a backing with my leftovers plus a couple of pieces from my stash. I just need to buy the batting. The squares will be fun to quilt over using a spiral or loopy pattern.

Hopefully I will be back soon with a full finish on this one. This weekend is going to be a no-sew weekend. My sisters (well, 4 of the 5) will be here for the weekend. Yay!!! I can’t wait to see them. Ray and Julia are on their own up in Downieville this weekend while we all stay here and hang out. Hope you are having a wonderful week with at least a bit of time spent at the sewing machine.

Linking to: Finish it Up Friday, Can I Get a Whoop Whoop, Let’s Bee Social – all of which can be found at the top of the page, under Link Ups.

Tiny Orphan Blocks

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If you quilt and you read quilting blogs, it is a safe assumption to say that you are familiar with Amanda Jean Nyberg, queen of scrappy quilting. Amanda’s blog, Crazy Mom Quilts, is one of my favorites and has been since I discovered this community of bloggers. She uses every last bit of fabric and the things she creates are inspiring.

Among a million other projects, Amanda makes pin cushions. Lots and lots of them. They are adorable and to my knowledge, no two are alike. Wanting a quick project to play with, I created a couple for myself.

The red, black and white pincushion is a tiny one, measuring at 3″ square. The top of it was a piece of an orphan block that was languishing on the stack.

I quilted a bit of batting to the top and stitched front to back, right sides together. It is filled with crushed walnut shells, which, along with everything else in the world, are available on Amazon. According to Amanda, they are also sold as lizard bedding at pet stores (and are likely a better deal than I got with Amazon.)

This little guy was also an orphan block from last year’s Classic Stitches project. I had planned to make twenty of these little three inch blocks for my row of Pennsylvania blocks. After making two of the twenty, my brain was no longer able to deal with the tiny pieces. The result of this sudden inability to cope with miniscule pieces was a row of lovely six inch Pennsylvania blocks. My two 3 inch blocks were relegated to the orphan block pile. This lucky one was recently rescued. I made this one the same as the red one. Quilt a bit of batting to the front, stich front and back, right sides together and fill with crushed walnut shells. Easy peasy! Find an orphan block and turn it into something cute. Very satisfying!

Linking to Oh Scrap, Linky Tuesday and Sew Cute Tuesday. Links to these are available at the top of the page, under Link Ups.

New Sponsor Announcement

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I am happy to announce that Needle and Foot is currently sponsored by Brewstitched! You might remember that I posted a write up on this shop when I received my first shipment from Sheryl in early February. Since then, Sheryl and I have been in contact and have decided to work together. We have a few fun things planned for the next couple of months, including some discount offers and giveaways for Needle and Foot readers. I really look forward to working with Sheryl and hope you will get to know her and her shop as a result!

Here is a bit of background on Sheryl and her Etsy shop, Brewstitched.

Sheryl is a Management Consultant by day and maker by night (and weekends!). Early on in 2015 she decided to open an Etsy store offering many of the great modern fabrics that she also enjoys using in her own creations. Her hope is to offer her customers the most up to date modern fabrics for their creations and provide exceptional customer service.

Sheryl has been sewing for over 30 years. Her love of fabric and making began at an early age as she watched her grandmother and mother make quilts by hand. Sheryl quickly picked up the sewing bug and began making dresses for school dances and later in life for her beautiful twin daughters.

Through experience, I can vouch for Sheryl’s incredible attention to customer service and speedy shipping. She makes herself available for questions and provides input and ideas quickly. Her product is lovely and the packaging of her orders is such that it feels like you are receiving a gift when your orders is delivered.

Now that March is upon us, Brewstitched will be shipping the March fabric club orders, which are themed in the color Teal. I recently received the bundle of fat quarters and would love to share it with you. You will have the opportunity to order the bundle with the ability to see the fabrics that Sheryl carefully curated for the month of March.

This bundle is a great way to add a specific color to your stash. The various hues of teal blue are richly saturated. Additionally, Sheryl includes a small spool of Aurifil 50 Wt, #5005. Fantastic value for $15.00 plus S/H.

The bundle includes from left to right; Island Droplets Celeste by Angela Walters, Ad Lib Blooms Quiet by Pat Bravo, Arrows in Luna Metallic Michael Miller, Wildflower Lagoon by Jeni Baker, and Bandana Panda Bebe by Cotton and Steel. All are first rate manufacturers and fabric designers, making for a gorgeous bundle of color.

Of all of the March fabrics, I have to say this Cotton & Steele’s Bandana Panda Bebe is my favorite. The pandas are subtle enough that the fabric doesn’t look juvenile, but still so adorable (because … pandas are, right?)

The Aurifil thread that Sheryl is including this month is the perfect choice.

Other than having to force myself to cut into them, I will have no problem using these pieces in a project. If you are interested in the bundle for March, or purchasing any items from BrewStitched, Needle and Foot readers will receive 10% off of their purchase through March 31, 2016. Use coupon code NANDFMARCLUB10 at checkout. Fabric shopping at Brewstitched is such a joy – gorgeous choices and great prices.

Linking to Sunday Stash and Main Crush Monday.

Winter into Spring

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Earlier this week I was catching up on some of my favorite blogs. One of those is Frugal Little Bungalow. Deb, the author of this blog, often posts about the simplest parts of life and she usually reminds me to slow down, stay in the moment and appreciate all that I am blessed with. A talented quilter, Deb often quilts her work by hand and her stitching is lovely. A few days ago she wrote about the passage of the seasons and how often we spend our time looking toward the next season, instead of staying present and enjoying what the current season has to offer. How true. She finds herself enjoying winter and all it brings, rather than wishing for spring. Her exquisite photos illustrate her point beautifully. Take a peek at this post. You will be happy you spent a minute with Deb. I promise!

I find myself thinking winter is coming to an end far too quickly. I have enjoyed this winter season with all of the rain and snow we have received. I want more! We need more! Over the past couple of weeks, we have seen temps in the mid-70’s. My yard thinks spring is here. No, not yet!! It is unavoidable; with the sunny days we have had, everything is beginning to bloom.

My camellia’s are putting on quite a show this week.

The magnolia blossoms are just starting to open. These are likely the most dramatic blossoms in the yard.

The peach tree is starting to bud.

The almond tree is beginning to blossom. (Side note: In the seven years we have lived in this house, we have NEVER eaten an almond off this tree. This tree is apparently grown for the squirrels only. They do not share with us!)

The critters know it is spring as well. Geese are everywhere.

The girls in the coop are laying eggs with serious intent and it won’t be long before they become broody and snap at me when I come to get the eggs. (I bring them grass clippings since they don’t have the freedom of foraging the property. We have far too many predators nearby, such as bobcats, hawks, foxes and coyotes.)

I know that we will still have bits of winter. It is very common for our area to have this burst of spring and then have a cold snap in March and again in April. For the most part, spring is making itself known in these parts. As for me, I am trying to hang on to winter for just a while longer.

Resplendent Rows

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Oh, how I love this finish! I’m not positive, but I think this quilt (so far) is the one that I have spent the most time on. I don’t track hours or anything like that, but I feel like this one has many hours into it. For RSC15 I made a row quilt by following along with Mari and her Classic Stitches BOM. Each row consists of a set of blocks that root back in quilting history. Mari chose an excellent sampling of blocks and I was able to complete nine of her eleven tutorials. A couple of them were too challenging for me and I substituted easier blocks those two months.

Overall, I absolutely adore this quilt. I love the bright, crazy, scrappy look, the traditional blocks that change row by row, sampler style, and the quilting that I did on each row. It was a great experience for me in a couple of different ways.

First of all, row quilts are a challenge in that it is tough to get each row to come out the same length. My supposition is that with all of the handling of each block and each row, month over month, they stretch a bit and become distorted. This quilt is absolutely not going to be entered into any juried shows! it is not even close to square. I sashed it because I wanted lines separating each row to give the eye a place to rest; this is a busy quilt. Additionally, the blocks are not accurately pieced enough to match row upon row. Did I cut off any points? Oh yeah. So by sashing them, I was able to deal with a lot of those issues. Cutting 60″ rows of sashing allowed me to ease the rows in and deal with any rows that were slightly longer than 60″. Really, sashing hides a multitude of issues. 🙂

I had a great time quilting this project. At 60″ by 70″, it was a reasonable size to FMQ on my machine. I chose a different motif for each row which was a great way to quilt it without getting bored half way through. Some motifs were easier than others but for the most part, I am very pleased with the result.

Lazy little flowers meander over the blue Water Wheel row.

I quilted meandering hearts over the pink row. They turned out decent but they were harder than I expected.

The orange Dutchman’s Puzzle blocks made for my favorite row. With these tiny pieces, my row had a fair-sized ripple to it and I was concerned about quilting it. After consulting with one of my favorite quilters, Janine over at Quilts From the Little House, I decided to use a tight meander. She felt like I could quilt the row into submission, and it worked. Yay Janine! Definitely good advice.

The yellow row of Double Stars is another favorite. I decided to quilt each individual star, rather than cruising over the entire row and I am very happy with the resulting flower contained within each star.

The green row of Crosses and Losses blocks is quilted with little swirls. These were tough. They are a bit more herky-jerky than I would like but this is where I am at this point in my quilting. With each row, I worked right to left, preferring to begin with the bulk of the quilt bunched into the throat and then feed the quilt out. So the right side of the rows are a bit rougher than the left. I improved as I went along. I plan to only look at the good half. 😉

The brown Pennsylvania blocks are sporting a Baptist Fan motif. Since I rarely get around to labeling a quilt, I also put my initials on the very far right corner. (On this row I did work left to right. It seemed easier to get the fans moving in that direction.) Again, these turned out ok – they look better from a distance than up close. Curves are tough.

Here is a peek at the back. I love the simplicity of the back since the front is so raucous. With the tiny floral print, the quilting really doesn’t show but that is fine. Crazy on the front and calm on the back! I used the backing fabric as binding too. The little floral has a vintage look to it that works with these traditional blocks.

Yep, I love this quilt and learned so much from the process of making and quilting it. It was a wonderful project and I am so grateful to Mari for all the time she took to create the tutorials each month and her patience with my whiny emails about how hard the blocks were! Her bit of history behind each block was an added bonus each month.

Linking this week with Linky Tuesday, Sew Cute Tuesday, Freemotion Mavericks and Finish it Up Friday.

Scrap Challenge Rebel

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If you follow along with Angela’s Rainbow Scrap Challenge, you probably know that this month’s color is mocha. Angela suggested adding bits of pink if that felt like a good idea. Hmmm…. neither of my scrappy projects for this year call for brown. So I rebelled and just sewed pink. Call me crazy.

I love both of my projects. They are coming along nicely now that I have two colors to look at.

Here are my blocks for the Pretty Gemstones quilt.

The pink looks great with the sage green solid corners. They look wonderful mixed in with the blue squares from January. I already know I am going to love this quilt. 🙂

I made two rather large pieces of “made” fabric, just like last month. I don’t have a huge amount of pink scrap but I found enough.

I love the scraps that are in this piece. The windmill block is made from those little triangles that were snipped off of my row of heart blocks when making my BOM for Classic Stitches last February. It is just peanut sized, measuring two inches square. There are pink dotted triangles that were saved from my Allison Glass mini quilt swap last spring. And, my favorite, the little girl looking into her jar of fireflies from a piece of Wee Wander, Wander Woods. I fussy cut her and will be sure top keep her intact when I make a block from this piece. It might be a trick to keep the tiny pinwheel and the little girl whole but that is my goal.

This second piece has more kidlets and a deer from the Wander W!oods piece. Check out the tree that looks like it is in blossom on the lower right. The pink plaid in the center is a piece of vintage fabric from the bundle of fabrics that were given to me last spring. There are a few fun posts about this fabric here and here. I love seeing bits and pieces of past projects popping up.

I am almost certain that I am going to create HST’s with these fabric collages. I bought a pall gray dotted fabric and I am thinking I will use that for the “other” side of the HST. My next decision is how big to cut the HST’s. I need to do a little thinking before I start cutting, but they will be on the big size. If I actually make any of the HST’s between now and next month, I will post them with my March scrappy post.

February was all about pink scraps for me. I am sure that at some point Angela will call for a pink month and I will have to substitute something else in that month.

Linking to Oh Scrap!, So Cute Tuesday, Linky Tuesday, and Let’s Bee Social. Find these links at the top of the page under link ups.