Quilt Starter

Here in the deep South, it is time to pick the cotton!  Back during the Summer the plants bloomed with beautiful pink and white blossoms, then the blossoms turned into the pods of cotton. Now the plants are ready to be defoliated.  After defoliation, the pods of cotton are picked, then baled in the field, and then transported to the cotton gin. 
I call this QUILT STARTER!

This photo shows the beautiful pods of puffy cotton before the defoliation process.

This photo shows the plants after the defoliation process and just before picking.

I call these plants Swamp Daisies.  During the Autumn season, these beauties are blooming in the damp road side areas near creeks. The beauty that God has planted for us to enjoy is amazing.  Today would be a good day to take a slow drive in the countryside to enjoy. 

Snuggle Under This

Look who is peeking from behind her quilt...Sarah's T-shirt quilt is now completed and she has taken it back to college with her.  Looks to me like she loves it!

Selvage Storage

I found this gingham printed metal container on the clearance table at Michaels. I knew it would be perfect to keep my saved selvage strips in.  And it will look nice in my sewing room too!

New book, new fabrics, new project! Jen Kingwell QAL

New book - check!  New fabrics - check!  New project - check!
I chose to use some of Jen's new fabric line to start this project, "Daisy Do" from her new book, Quilt Lovely.  I have always wanted to do a hand pieced quilt project, and when I saw this photo on the book cover, I knew it had to be hand pieced.  I think it will be fun to collect fabrics to add to this collection, maybe more yellows, oranges, blues and bright pinks! I will not make an entire quilt from these pretty petals, but maybe create a few for a tote bag project.  I think they will be pretty sewn onto denim fabrics.

Those rascally rabbits!

Every morning when I return from my walk, I spend a few minutes in my garden.  Perhaps a snip here, a little watering there, a few minutes when time stands still and I relax and enjoy God's beauty. The sunflowers are in full bloom right now and I am really enjoying them. One of my favorite blooms! There is only one problem,  I live in the country, so I have several (and I do mean several) wild bunnies that live in my yard.  I love these bunnies, I enjoy watching them feed and play.  But apparently these bunnies love my sunflowers as much as I do.  I think they must have beaver teeth, cutting down the sunflower stalks.  Oh well, I have fresh cut blooms that I can enjoy, and I do love these rascally rabbits!

Farm Girl Vintage, Guild Challenge with a Slice of Watermelon

I have been having so much fun collecting fabrics for the quilt in Lori Holt's new book, Farm Girl Vintage. Lori has been sharing so many cute blocks and new quilts through her blog, beeinmybonnetco.blogspot.com, and on Instagram.  I will be making the 6 inch size blocks.  I just received seven yards of the aqua blue swiss dots on white background fabric by Riley Blake.  

I will use this as my background fabric. 
Ready, set, go!  Ready to start "plowing" through this fabric making the blocks. 
I think I will make the tractor block for the back of my quilt.

I will be attending our Quilt Guilds' Summer retreat next week.  I will share some photos of the projects I hope to get to stitch.  One of the projects I plan to work  on is the "Pantone" color challenge. Our Guild has a challenge to make a table runner, or small wall hanging using the "Pantone" fashion colors for Spring 2015.  I have chosen the pattern "Daisies" by Fig Tree & Co., using the colors toasted almond, tangerine (of course, because any shade of coral orange is my favorite color), strawberry ice and scuba blue.  

Watermelon is plentiful here in the deep south now.  What a delightful summer treat.  Did you know that watermelon is incredibly healthy?  Health professionals say the juicy fruit contains vitamins A and C, and vitamin B6.  And it really is mostly water, so it can help to replenish our body fluids and help with hydration.  

How Many Spools of Thread? And More Binding?

How many spools of thread have I gone through since my last posting?

Well, let me show you!  This fabulous log cabin quilt was started a few years ago for my friend Brenda.   Her bedroom was getting a redo and when she saw this stack of fat-quarters in the quilt shop, she said "those are my new colors, Let's make a quilt."  So the quilt top was started, and then life got in the way.  Autumn season 2014, her new bed was delivered, and Brenda calls me to say she is ready for the quilt to be finished, but there is just one problem, it needs to be bigger!  So thankfully the fabrics were made by Moda, Three Sisters, Holiday Collections, and the same designer's collections for this year worked well with what we had started.  Just to let you know, the quilt is now a large queen size that drapes from all sides of the bed.  I hand stitched all 432 inches of the binding.

This precious baby quilt was made for the granddaughter of my pastor, Anita.  Anita did all the work on this baby quilt, except for the binding.  Anita is a very talented seamstress, but she did not have much experience making quilts.  So I taught her a few tricks and she loved the experience of making this quilt for her first grandchild.  I think she did a very good job of choosing the fabrics (online) and then designing the layout design, her first experience at both.  The binding is not shown in this photo, but the fabric was a stripe of all the colors in the quilt, the fabrics were from Riley Blake.

  Great job Anita.

And what I am working on now is the T-shirt quilt for my niece Sarah.

It is all completed, except for the hand stitching on the binding.

MORE BINDING????  DID I SAY MORE BINDING????

Oh well, I have plenty of thread and those new binding clips, "Wonder Clips" made by Clover.  I used a notions coupon and purchased a box of 50 in assorted colors!

I love these.  This was a great notion purchase.  These clips will be used!

This photo was taken while I was putting the top together during our Quilt Guild retreat in April. Completely quilted now, used Amy Butler fabrics from my stash, a really cool modern print from her Daisy Chain collection is on the back.