Slow Summer Sewing

I'm still plugging away at my sunflower mini but I'm also working on a baby quilt.  I was inspired by this Cubbyholes quilt made by Maryann Fons and featured in the July/August issue of Love of Quilting Magazine and a few other similar versions I've seen around Blogland, like this one at Kathy's Quilts.

 

My sewing time has been very limited so far this summer.  We've been busy with house guests and garden projects.  I've also been spending time at the gym keeping up my exercises so my knees stay flexible and I don't build up scar tissue again.  I also don't stay sitting for any length of time or I start to stiffen up.  

This project is coming along v.e.r.y  s.l.o.w.l.y.  It's taken me two weeks to get this far:

 

I won't get any sewing done this weekend as we're going to visit our son at his new apartment to help him hang curtains and do a few projects for him.

The baby quilt will definitely not be done in time for the baby shower on August 2, but hopefully it will be done before the baby arrives in mid-September.

Stay tuned....

 

Sunny Days

Last week I went to Ruby Scissors Quilt Shop to look for fabrics to make a sunflower mini quilt as my new mini for the month of August.  I had in my head to use batik fabric but wasn't able to find any in a bright yellow/orange that I wanted.  I ended up buying printed cotton fabric in the exact golden yellow I was looking for.  I bought a marbled olive green to use for the leaves and a mini print on brown to use as the center of the sunflower to represent the "seeds".

I bought a dresden plate template at Joann's to make the flower petals.  It was very easy to use and worked out great.  I made a larger center for the sunflower than the center that the pattern included with the template called for.  For my center, I traced a saucer on the back of the fabric and also on some fusible interfacing.  I sewed the "textured side of the interfacing to the right side of the brown fabric and sewed along the circle marking.  Then I clipped the outside curve, cut a snip in the interfacing and turned the circle right side out.  Next I ironed the the center with the fusible side of the interfacing to the ride side of the center of the sunflower petals.

Since then, I've been slowly working on hand appliqueing the elements on an unbleached muslin background.  So far I really like how it looks.  The hubs recognized it as a sunflower, so I guess I'm doing okay!!  Hopefully, I'll get it quilted before the first of August!

Happy 4th of July!!

I finished a new mini quilt for July. I really like to have these monthly minis be entirely my own design, but I'm still not feeling my old quilting mojo yet. So this time I simply went with a traditional star pattern and used patriotic fabrics. To add my own touch I added star buttons in the square patches.

I did stitch in the ditch quilting except in the large triangles and the center square.

 

Since the hubs works weekends, we don't have a lot of time off together but we did both have today off and we drove about two hours to Cooperstown, NY to visit the Farmer's Museum. It's a living history museum where the staff dress in period costumes and explain life at the time, in this case the mid-1800's.

The museum also houses the Empire State Carousel. In the carousel building were mini quilts from quilt guilds all over New York State.

One house had exhibits of the technology of the times and there was a room with antique sewing machines, including a gorgeous one with inlaid mother of pearl. It was just beautiful!

Of course there were lots of farm animals to enjoy.

We had a great day. I hope you did too.