Friday finish catch up

I haven't accomplished a whole lot in the past while...l

But I have finished a few little baby quilts. Some of these are gifts, and some are to give to the Children's Cottage in Calgary, and some are just because! :)  You have seen most of these in progress before.

This was my first machine appliqué attempt..

And this was my second one...  both of them now repaired with a zigzag stitch after washing :(

Then just a quick and easy strip quilt...

And one of my favourite..

this little hour glass in pink..

So I am linking up to TGIFF over at Amy's Crafty Shenaigans today..
                                            

Star Surround QAL continues..

here is this weeks homework...

complete!!

My very first stars! Not so hard after all!!
Next week, it will come together!

Machine Appliqué lesson learned!

I have been having fun with some little baby blanket appliqué!
But...When I put them in the wash....well...it didn't do so well!

I must have not been careful enough with the interfacing, or maybe used to light a weight of iron on fusible?? Not sure what the problem was, but I was pretty disappointed :(

Now what?
Well, I was not about to rip it all apart!! That was for sure. I really liked the look of the blanket stitch but it just pulled through the fabric in places....and that was after just one washing !!
So I used a zigzag stitch to reinforce the appliqué.

It looks fine on the front, but you can see the stitching on the back..

Normally this would be inside the quilt, under the backing. But I guess the baby wont really notice !
These were really meant as practice quilts anyway, so lesson learned. It is still pretty cute !

I think that I will use a zigzag stitch instead of the blanket stitch from now on, especially for baby quilts that will get put through the wash frequently. Like I said...lesson learned!

If I can do this...anyone can !

Flying geese!  The next part of the Star Surround QAL over at Happy Quilting!  But after my recent obsession with HST, these didn't seem nearly so scary!  (I have tried them once before, but sorry Sharon...that little quilt is still on my UFO pile!..I will have to get back and finish that.)

Melissa has provided really great instructions and lots of pictures to make it super easy.

So here are my set of flying geese.....

And I should get extra points, because I made these in a hotel room!! I love  my little baby Jan (little travel Janome) :)

Cant wait till next week!  It's not too late to join in....these aren't hard to make! 

Star Surround Week 3

I have been keeping up with the "homework" for the Star Surround  QAL over at Happy Quilting. 
It is not too late to join in...we have only made the first HST, and so far so good!!

I am making the smaller blocks, so my HST were trimmed to 2 1/2 ".
I have a small 2 1/2" ruler, that I thought would be good to use for this...

I like using it to quickly see how big my scraps are, when I am sorting through my scraps..
But I found that it was just too hard to stabilize when I was cutting...over and over and over and over again!!
So I tried a larger ruler and that was so much easier!!

So I have all my HST done and ready for the next step! Yeah!

Of course I also have a pile of trimmings..

Which will go directly into my trimming box..

And will be used to add to the stuffing for my charity bears!

 I love using up every little scrap for something useful!

I need a good chuckle!

source : https://www.pickledishstore.com/productDetail.php?PID=1074

where have I been?

Good question! The short answer is that I just haven't felt like talking to anybody!
I have had a few curve balls in life the past few weeks, besides my daughters apartment being totally destroyed by the flood in Calgary... and have just been kind of unmotivated.
Do you ever feel that way??

I guess that is life :)

Update on my daughter's apartment in Calgary...

that is what is left of the inside !! I guess the good news is that they will hopefully start to rebuild soon. She is still looking for a place to live for the next few months, as most rentals are asking for a 1 year lease! We are very lucky that some good friends have offered to let them stay in their basement for the time being, and it is only temporary...I keep telling her :)

So to try to get myself moving again, I have signed up for Melissa's Star Surround QAL!! Over at Happy Quilting.  I really love her blog, and this looked like fun..even though I am normally not inclined to stars..I really liked the look of this one.  And I have never joined a QAL before, so we will see how this goes. This is her sample:


So....I have pulled out some of my favourite fabric...it is old, I have been saving it!! It is Moda's "Origins" by Basic Grey.

Here is my "homework" for this week....cutting up all the little squares...

Of course I didn't take a picture of the 4 1/2" squares .....mmmm...the pattern doesn't actually call for those...I guess  I should have cut them to 5 1/2"!! Lucky for me, I had enough left over to cut them the correct size!! LOL

I have to admit, brown is just not my colour, and I probably have rarely used it before. But....I made the mistake of giving my family (DH, Son, and DIL) a vote of several different colour combinations...and they voted brown!! So brown it is!!  We will see how this turns out. My DIL said that if I don't like it I can always give it away!! Good plan. :)

Stay tuned!