Back to the leaves

It has been a busy few weeks getting my parents packed up for their big move and my evenings have been spent working on a prayer shawl for a woman at church but tonight, I am back to stitching leaves. I now have two completed blocks and a third set of leaves ready to go. I know I was complaining about stitching these leaves but once I get in the groove, it isn't too bad. I am doing a free style needle turn, no marking the edges and not worrying about making them all exact.

I got a great pattern in the mail today, the Jan Patek Bible Quilt. I have been wanting to do this quilt for a long time but I think it might need to wait until I get a few of my current projects settled. My head is beginning to spin from all the works in progress that I have going these days.

My favorite time of year

I love this time of year. I have been hunting down all the ingredients we will need for a gluten free Thanksgiving feast and using pumpkin in soup and bread and pancakes. I love putting out my little pumpkin stitcheries and decorations. I need to get out my Thanksgiving napkins and make sure I have enough to go around. And maybe make a stop at the fabric store for some new orange fabric to put on the tables this year.

We are having a cold, blustery day - great for sipping tea and stitching leaves!

Blessings update

Just a quick update to show this quilt in the works. I am working on the 4patch blocks for the border and then I will get this stitched together. I think I may need to buy a few yards of one of the blessings fabric to make another border because I love these colors and really want this to be a bed sized quilt (right now it will end up about 70" so I figured I could add another border to get it to queen sized.

I have also been working on the leaves for my Kim Diehl blocks - I have the main applique done for 7 blocks now and two with all the leaves. Should be done sometime in the next six months :)

blessings

Life is pretty busy around here but I did get some machine stitching done. I am using my Blessings jelly roll and the green dotted fabric I bought with my gift card. I am working on the four patch blocks for the border but might not get back to it until the weekend.

These fabrics are just wonderful!

more fun in the mail

Yesterday I came home to another bubble wrapped mailer and inside was this quilt.

It is so beautiful - I knew it would be but really, this is a treasure. We washed out hands and laid it out to look at the beautiful handwork and I got a new surge of inspiration to work on my own red and green blocks.

This weekend we will hang some hooks and get it up on the wall. Please do visit Janet and look at her amazing work. And thank you so very much Janet. Imagine people wondering how this lovely quilt from down under came to live in the Pacific Northwest!

Fun in the mail

Yesterday I came home to squishy mail - a copy of this book by Barbara Brackman and Karla Menaugh. And the really fun part is that inside is a photograph of the quilt I made using this pattern! Here is a post from Barbara Brackman's blog about the new book. It is even signed.

I opened it up and said to my husband, "You may recognize this quilt from such walls as our living room!" Beautifully done book and a very fun quilt to make.

sixty four or one hundred and twenty eight

Yesterday I put up my Kim Diehl blocks so far. I was thinking of doing something different on the alternating blocks - not sure yet but the difference would be 64 leaves or 128 leaves? But now I have the background blocks pieced and I do have enough greens and plenty of reds to make 4 more blocks so I think I might have talked myself into doing the 9 blocks. I won a gift card to a local quilt store and when I went there yesterday they were also having a sale so I bought two yards of a lovely Moda green and it only cost me $3! It could be the sashing or a piece border of some sort for this one but it would also look great with my Blessings jelly roll that I won from Jan Patek. I really need a machine pieced project after all this applique.