Friday Finish: Circle Play Needle Case

Last week I enjoyed a lovely wool appliqué workshop with Sue Spargo.  She was teaching in nearby Stuart, and several Orlando Modern Quilt Guild members signed up to take her Circle Play Needle Case (which is my finish for this week) class.  It was amazing to get away for a day with friends, and I needed that!

Sue's WIP....obviously not mine ;-)))

The class was hosted by Red Thread Studio and held at Ground Floor Farm.  The weather could not have cooperated any better for such a venue.  The class was held inside (in case you were wondering), but the view to the farm itself was right outside the glass doors where we enjoyed a delicious al fresco lunch.

Sue is an amazing teacher!  Eight different stitches were taught, and Sue spent time with each student making sure we all got it.  I have done some embroidery before, but this was my first time stitching on wool.  I would also say half of the stitches she taught were new to me.

You guessed it...this is MY WIP.

Obligatory group photo

As Sue says, you can keep going, stitching and stitching and stitching....  I found myself doing just that.  You have to call a halt at some point though, right?! 

Here is my finished needle case.  My little case could certainly benefit from a few more stitches, but I am pleased to have a finish.  Not to mention, I can now find my needles!  

Surely I am not the only one that uses a headlamp for hand sewing.

 I changed up the binding from what was in my kit and added a bit of embroidery to the spine.

I am enjoying my hand sewing projects so much that I have neglected my sewing machine.  Finding balance is not my strong suit ;-)))

Ending this post with another lovely Sue Spargo artwork!

Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts.  Hope you had a productive week!

Thanks for stopping by.  Happy stitching,

Friday Finish: 50 Shades ... quilt

Happy Friday!!  Thank you everyone for the warm "Welcome Back" to blogging this week.
I have a recent finish to share, even though it isn't from this week.    This idea for my friend's 50th birthday quilt has been floating in my brain for quite a while now.  The quilt pattern is from Sunday Morning Quilts, and I used 50 (not 48, 49, or 51) different low volume fabrics and sprinkled in some bright, cheerful, and meaningful (to our friendship) prints.

Some of my favorite prints represent our girls' trip to NYC, dinner club, Halloween and Christmas spent together, shopping, happy hour, and our accounting backgrounds.  

I was able to try out quite a few quilting designs on my longarm as I quilted a different design in each row.  Phrases such as "Fabulous Fifty", "Five Perfect Tens", "Happy 50th Birthday" and "peace love and happiness" were quilted in as well as "friendship", "family", "50", "fifty", and "love".

The quilt was backed in a pretty Kaffe Fasset wide back print.  It seemed appropriate to use a print from Amanda Jean's Good Neighbors fabric line for the binding.  I did run short and pieced in a gray text fabric to make up the difference.

It's good to blog again, and it's an excellent feeling to have a quilt finish.  Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilt's finish it up Friday.

Thanks for stopping by!  Hope you have a fabulous weekend!

Happy stitching,

Hitting the Reset Button

Well, I am WAY out of practice with blogging, and I am WAY behind on posting what's been going on in my world, but here I am ready to hit the reset button and began again...

Instead of starting with getting everyone (is anyone still out here reading?!) caught up on the last six months, let me tell you about one of my favorite ongoing projects at the moment.

I call these Happy Flower Blocks.  I love making them and have turned quite a few into pincushions, but I am now saving them all for a throw size quilt.  

A while back I made a hexie flower for Eleni and loved how Jodi stitched them all onto background squares.   I really enjoyed making that hexie block, but I am not a big fan of stitching all the hexies together.   Later I ran across this block on Amy Sinibaldi's Instagram feed and knew that was the EPP block I wanted to use.  I could not find reference to this block anywhere else, so I started calling it the Happy Flower Block.

 Stitching these blocks make me happy.  It's nice to just sit, slow down, and stitch for a bit.  Having a project that I can work on and hang out with my family is a bonus.

Sometimes I'll just sit and whip up a bunch of hexies, other times I will sew the four hexies onto the black square until I have a few, but my favorite part is stitching the flower onto the background square.  

I now have 28 blocks made for my throw quilt....only a hundred or so more to go!

If you are still here, please leave a comment and say hi!  I sure have missed being here.  Thanks and happy stitching,