Pinnie Parade

There's a pincushion parade over on Instagram this month, and I have joined in!  What I love about this #pinnieparade is the pincushions can be ones made already - gifted to a friend, gifted from a friend, newly constructed, vintage - you get the idea!

Here's a rundown on week one:

Graphic made while trying out Canva

Day 1 featured my newest pincushion acquisition, gifted by my friend Caroline.  She pieced tiny pieces to make this adorable pinnie.

This pincushion for Day 2 was made following Heidi's pattern from her Sew Organized for the Busy Girl book with leftover Carolyn Friedlander fabrics and mailed to a friend.

Day 3's pincushion I kept for myself.  I used a thin leftover strip of solids from Chawne Kimber's Small Pieces workshop.

Day 4 was a gift from my friend Jackie.  She made this pretty hexie pincushion with all Cotton+Steel fabrics.

I pattern tested this cute scrappy pincushion for Amanda Jean's Plenty of Pincushions Volume 1. Posted on Instagram for Day 5.

This long skinny pincushion gifted by Amanda Jean was shown on Day 6 and is perfect for placing right in front of my sewing machine when chain piecing.

Leslie sent her new Urban Artifacts fabric, and I made this pincushion with her selvages for her market booth.  That's Day 7!

I am pretty sure I can play along for 31 days using pincushions already made!

If not, then I will have an excuse to make MORE pincushions.

I see that as a win, win situation!

Friday Finish: Mini Log Cabin Pincushion

With scraps from my daughter's log cabin quilt, I sewed this cute mini log cabin block and turned it into a pincushion.  I love everything about pincushions: making, giving, using, displaying, AND receiving them!!

I trimmed some leftover strips to 1" wide; you can see what a difference that half an inch makes when you are working with 13 strips.

The back is super cute too!  I like to use a heavier weight fabric for my pincushion backs so I don't have to line them.  The stuffing is walnut shells.

Linking with Crazy Mom Quilts.  Hope y'all have a great weekend!

Friday Finish: One Little and One Big

Happy Friday!!  Today I have a small, quick finish to share and a not so small and quick quilt finish.

 

First up is this cute pincushion made with trimmings from my Chawne Kimber small piecing class at QuiltCon. You know the trimmings are small when the actual block is less than one inch!

I included the pin cushion in our guild raffle basket along with lego sewing machine and other goodies from my sewing room.

Next up is a quilt finish that I have been working on in between other projects and finally completed when I had a specific recipient in mind.

Here are some progress shots.

Using my favorite Aurifil thread (2600 in 50wt) and my longarm, I quilted organic horizontal lines across the quilt.  Every so often, I changed the thread to red, yellow, blue, green, and purple (didn't write down the thread numbers) and quilted a color line.

The backing is a Carrie Bloodstone wide back; the binding is a black graphic from my stash.

This quilt was shipped to its new owner last week...hoping she likes it!

Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts.
Thanks for stopping by!  Have a great stichy weekend!

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: Swap Pouch

Popping in to share the wide open zip pouch I made for my Glamp Stitchalot partner.  I used Noodlehead's free tutorial and made the medium size pouch.  

Leftover flying geese parts in favorite prints and low volume background paired with essex linen make up the top, and I cut into my Carolyn Friedlander Carkai prints for the bottom and the lining.

I will do just about anything to avoid using interfacing, so I quilted the outside panels of the bag before assembling to give it some substance.  

I also made my partner a thread catcher using Crazy Mom Quilts pattern and opted for the quilted version.  I love the notebook paper fabric that I recently found at my LQS in the bargain bin.

Both items were stuffed with lots of goodies, and my partner seemed happy which makes me happy!  Each time I participate in a swap, I say it will be my last ;-))

Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts.  I'll pop back in later with all the fun details on Glamp.  Until then, have a fantastic weekend!

Friday Finish: Travel Pillow

Yay for finding time to sew a small finish while on vacation!

I bought a yard of these three fabrics at the LQS and used some of it to make a small travel pillowcase.

I used this tutorial once before leaving off the prairie points.  Since I had three different fabrics, I decided to give prairie points a try.  Not hard at all!

It's the perfect size to take on the plane...not too little....not too big.

For some reason my family gets embarrassed if I take my king size feather pillow ;-))

Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts.
Have a wonderful Valentine's Day weekend!

Friday Finish: Quilter's Planner Cover

I love planners and tend to have more than one going at a time.  Yes, I know they say that's not the best way to stay organized, but it "works" for me. 

I ordered the Quilter's Planner which came with a nice tutorial for a cover by Stephanie and Amanda. If you search the hashtag #zippynotebookcover on Instagram, you will see a variety of amazing covers!

The best feature of the cover is the zipper pocket on top for holding pens, small rulers and other tools.  The only zipper I had on hand long enough was a plain white one, but the beautiful Carkai and Architextures fabric by Carolyn Friedlander more than makes up for that!  

I even had a blingy teal elastic strip in my sewing supplies.  The elastic can be wrapped around the planner to hold it closed when not in use.  The picture above is a better picture of how pretty the elastic looks even though this is not how it is used.

 There are pockets on the inside flaps as well as a business card holder.  I love the "measuring tape" ribbon that serves as a bookmark.

This counts as my first finish of 2016 and I am happily linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts!

Hope your 2016 is off to a wonderful start!  Thanks for stopping by!

Good Neighbors Pincushion Party {and a giveaway}

Welcome to the party!  Have you been following along this month with the Good Neighbors Pincushion Party?!  If you scroll to the bottom of this post, you will find direct links to the stops before mine.  The pincushions made with Amanda Jean's (aka Crazy Mom Quilts) new fabric line from Connecting Threads have all been fantastic.  It's no wonder given the beautiful prints to work with!

When Amanda told me about her new fabric line, I was SO happy for her.  When she asked me to participate in the blog hop, I didn't hesitate to say YES!  When I started blogging in 2009, Amanda's was one of the first quilt blogs I discovered.  Her generous spirit of sharing her love and knowledge of quilting with others hooked me from the start (not to mention the gorgeous scrappy quilts she makes).  She is just as sweet and generous in person too, as I am fortunate to experience at least once a year at retreat.

Amanda's first line of fabric is the perfect combination of happy, cheerful prints and lower volume fabrics that all play well with each other and mix beautifully with other fabric lines.  There are so many possibilities, and I immediately wanted to chop up the charm pack and start with scraps!  However, I took some time thinking about what type of pincushion I wanted to make before pulling out my rotary cutter.  I may have gone a little overboard in the pincushion making made more than one pincushion before settling on this design to share with you today.

 
It's difficult to pick a favorite print, but I must say these teal blue colors speak to me.  I love the bright yellow center here to break up the blues and how it all looks stitched down on the gray stripe.

The Peaks print is available in five bright colors.  I selected four of them for the hexies in this cushion.  All the pincushions are stuffed with crushed walnut shells.  I like the weight the shells provide.

This EPP block is stitched onto one of the lovely X's print.  I ordered a couple of yards of this in the teal color way!  I see this showing up in quite a few quilt projects.

And a third pincushion with dots, stripes, X's and peaks stitched onto a linen background.

Amanda Jean's Good Neighbors fabric line is exclusive to Connecting Threads and can be found here.   As you can see above, the line offers a great variety of prints in cheerful colors as well as "low volume" fabrics.  I love that one of the prints is available in 104" wide, making it perfect for quilt backs.

The Connecting Threads site also has a free download, patterns, quilt kits, fabric bundles and coordinating solids for the Good Neighbors collection all in one handy link.   I think I need the coffee cup pattern!

 When preparing this blog post,  I noticed these cushions didn't use the cross stitch print.  If I had to pick a favorite, the teal cross stitch print would be mine.  I must have used it in one of the other three pin cushions I made!

Connecting Threads has generously offered a charm pack to one of my readers (open to U.S. and Canada).  Leave a comment below and I will pick a winner on September 30th.  I would love to know which Good Neighbors print is your favorite.  Again, the entire line can be found here.

Congratulations Amanda Jean!  You knocked it out of the park!  Be sure to check out the other lovely pincushions made.

September  1     Amanda Jean  -  Crazy Mom Quilts

September  2     Anna  -  Noodlehead

September  3     Mary  -  Mary on Lake Pulaski

September  4     Svetlana  -  S.O.T.A.K Handmade

September  5     Debbie  -  Esch House Quilts

September  6     Holly -  Bijou Lovely

September  7     Carla  -  Grace and Favour

September  8     Faith -  Fresh Lemon Quilts

September  9     Vanessa  -  V and Co.

September 10    Anna  -  Thimbleanna

September 11    Krista  -  Poppy Print Creates

September 12    Erin -  Why Not Sew

September 13    Lee  -  May Chappell

September 14    Alex  -  Teaginny Designs

September 15    Cheryl   -  Naptime Quilter

September 16    Penny -  SewTakeAHike

September 17    Amy  -   During Quiet Time

September 18    Debbie  -  A Quilter's Table

September 19    Anne  -  Springleaf Studios

September 20    Melissa Corry -  Happy Quilting Melissa

September 21    Amber  -  One Shabby Chick

September 22    Nettie -   A Quilt is Nice

September 23    Adrianne  -  Little Bluebell

September 24    Cindy  -  Live a Colorful Life

September 25    Amy  -  Diary of a Quilter

September 26    Chase  - Quarter Inch Mark

September 27    Rene'  -  Rene' Creates  {that's me!}

September 28    Erin   -   House on Hill Road

September 29    Nicole  -  Modern Handcraft

September 30    Teri  -   Connecting Threads