Little News and Bigger News

This has been a week of working and a weekend of accomplishments. I embroidered, pieced, pressed, cleaned, washed, read, played, and rested Wednesday and Thursday. And, I did get the Eleanor Burns BOM block done.













Then Friday I was off to NWFL to visit with friends. My friend, Nita O’Keefe, was in Ft. Walton Beach, at the LQS doing a trunk show of her embroidery designs.

See that table? That was 1/3 of the samples she had to show. She and Holley Pike have formed a union with Becky McNeal, Gal Pals, to sell their designs. For the last two years their designs, along with thread, have been part of a subscription so I already have most of them but it was great to see them stitched out. And did I get pictures? No, I forgot to lift my camera I was so entranced with what she had to show.

Also while there I got the swap blocks I completed in March. It seems that some people signed up for the swap but didn’t do their blocks so others had to be recruited in order to complete the swap.


These are the blocks that I now have to work with. They range in size from 11 ¾” to 12 ¾” I see this as a challenge but as of right now I have no idea what I will do with them. As you probably have seen, I really like bright fabrics but I also like a challenge so we will have to see what my fertile imagination will come up with: a UFO all ready for next year.

After the show I was able to go out to lunch with another friend, Jeannie no blog (a wonderful seamstress), and then spend a little time, and money, at Joann’s and one of my favorite quilt shops, Margie’s.

The big news:


South Seas is quilted. The panto came in on Thursday but, except for setting it out on the frame, there was no time to quilt. However, this morning I was in the studio, ready to quilt. This is the panto, a 9” swirl.

I guess I have been spoiled by the pantos I have been getting from Urbanelementz. They come with 2-4 rows printed and nesting designs. As you can see, this is only one row and I would have to move the panto for every row to make it “nest” with itself. So, I quilted the rows as you see them and then was left with large blank spaces. So this is how I decided to cure what I saw as a problem: click to enlarge.



I quilted a water-like meanter between the swirls and I really like the effect.

Bits and Pieces

This has been a week of catching up. The first thing I did, of course, was to make the binding for AE and sew it on. I have the clips all on it, have packed up a little sewing kit, and am ready to hit the road in 8 days and finish the hand sewing. Next I attempted to put some order into the studio and even folded up and put away the left over batiks. Funny thing was that when I got it all back up on the shelf, it didn’t look like I had used any at all. LOL

Next I decided to start on a block swap I am doing with an embroidery site, Nita’s Place. This will be the third swap I have done with them. We make 12, or more, blocks with an embroidery placed in the middle of the blocks. The block we are using is Contrary Wife from Quilters Cache and our blocks are supposed to be in autumn colors with a cream center. And the embroidery design is supplied by Nita O’Keefe. Anyway, since I will be gone for a week I decided the best thing for me to do was to start now. I pulled out some 4” Thangles that I had been given and got all the half square triangles done and put the non-embroidered rows together.





And this is kind of what the block will look like: imagine an embroidery design in the middle.

After getting these blocks as far along as I could I remembered a BOM from last year that I didn’t quite finish. So I pulled it out and did the last block. This was a Thangles BOM that I found quite boring. Every month it was the same thing, do some half square triangles, cut some little squares and put them together: no challenge. You can tell this by this picture.

I had planned a couple of layouts for these little squares so I decided that my UFO for August is going to be getting these set and a top done.

I also started a new project but it is one of those that I can’t show until it is done and gifted. All the fabric is chosen and I did start the cutting. It will be pretty easy so I hope to have it done by the end of the month.