Happy Easter!

Wishing everyone a Happy Easter! My family will be eating at my mom's house. I'm making dessert and she's making everything else! Sounds pretty fair to me! Enjoy the holiday with your family. That's the best part of any holiday!

Carolina Chain-ing

These are the five blocks I've made for Carolina Chain by Bonnie Hunter. My first block seemed to take me forever but I've become much quicker with just a little practice. 

This quilt is made of dark chain quarter blocks and light chain quarter blocks. Each block is made up of 2 dark and 2 light quarter blocks. This picture shows 12 quarter blocks. I made these blocks into 3 full blocks.

Here are the 3 blocks. I've made 5 blocks, 67 to go!! This is such a fun project and so enjoyable since I'm just going at my own pace. I really love being able to use my stash.

Mystery Quilt Finished!

The binding is all sewn up and this quilt is finished!! Always a nice feeling! I'll probably wash it soon so it will get nice and crinkled. I'm happy with the way it came out. It lays nice and flat. 

Here's the back. I'm not sure you noticed but the backing is the same fabric that I used for the border, just another colorway. 

It looks pretty good to me! It's nice to make a quilt top into a real quilt!

Green Tea Sweet Bean Border Update

I'm so happy that the 4th storm of March never materialized. I heard there was too much dry air in place and the storm just couldn't make it's way up here. It's the best weather news we had all month!

Anyways, I've been working on my border for Green Tea Sweet Beans. This vine applique goes slowly but I'm getting there a little bit at a time. It's so relaxing to sit and stitch!

I made plenty of vines to finish up my borders. Here's the pile I've been working from. I've got to get a few more piles ready of flowers and leaves. I've started to get my freezer paper ready. These borders are labor intensive! I just have to keep working at it!

New Project

Sometimes, I just want to sew. I had been working on a Scrap Vortex quilt late last summer. It was about the same time my neighbor asked me to finish quilt. I feel I've lost interest in it. I really enjoyed working on Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt so I have decided to make one of her quilts instead. I'm using the blocks from Scrap Vortex to make Carolina Chain. Each block measures 9.5 square. I'll need 72 squares to make this quilt.

The pattern is from this book which I love! So many ideas for those scraps!

This is Carolina Chain. What a great use for scraps! I plan on working on this quilt when I can. I'm in no rush. Cutting up my other blocks is a bit time consuming but I feel it's a better use of stash.  It's nice to work on right now while I'm trying to find backing for On Ringo Lake. 

My First Pantograph

This is the Mystery Quilt I made through my quilt guild last year. It's been finished for a while but I wasn't sure how to quilt it. I used all Kaffe Fassett fabrics. There are no solids and the fabric has very vivid colors and patterns. I felt free motion quilting and ruler work wouldn't even been seen. I decided this quilt would be a great candidate for edge to edge quilting using a pantograph.

I own about 10 pantographs. I wasn't sure how much I'd use them. I did take a class last year on using pantographs. It was a lecture, not a hands on class. I kept the handout but wasn't very comfortable about using pantographs on my own. The name of this pattern is Hedge and sold by Golden Threads.

After watching YouTubes and reading articles, I decided to just do it! It was so much easier than I expected. You can see the pattern in this picture. I'm so glad I chose a pantograph for this quilt. You don't really see the quilt pattern unless you really look for it. The fabric is the star of this quilt.

Here's a closeup of the back.

I love the texture! 

Here's a closeup of the front. I'm very happy with my first pantograph. I think I'll be using them more in the future. I don't think every quilt has to be quilted to death. Sometimes a nice overall pattern is all your quilt needs!

Stellaria Shawl

This is Stellaria after blocking. I really love this pattern! It's a pattern by Susanna IC which can be found on Ravelry. 

This is a closeup of the pattern. I blocked and pinned the shawl after a quick washing.

This is how it looked before blocking. So much nicer after a little TLC!

We had an awful storm here a few days ago. This tree fell across the street from my house. It started Wednesday evening into Thursday.

We had no power for 66 hours! It was pretty awful. We spent a lot of time near our fireplace. The power is back but another storm is predicted for Tuesday. Not looking forward to that at all!

Scalloped Table Runner

My Scalloped Center Table Runner has been washed and dried. I really love how this came out. This is a project from the book Longarm Quilting Workbook by Teresa Silva. I love this book!  It's loaded with great patterns and information. It also helps you figure out how to use some of these different designs. 

Here's a closeup of the center. I marked everything with a washable fabric marker. It looks so much better with the markings gone!

This is a closeup of one of the sides. I changed up the quilting motifs a little bit. 

This is the other side. 

I feel more comfortable with the longarm now. I think working on these smaller projects helped me get used to the whole process. I've already started working on a larger quilt. Pictures to follow!!

On Ringo Lake with Borders

I suppose On Ringo Lake is finally done! The quilt top anyways! I decided to add two borders to frame all those little pieces.

Here's a close up so you can see the fabrics a little better. The black is not solid. It has a little bit of a marbled look to it. The black finishes at 1.5 inches. The blue border is a batik. It was the only fabric I could find that sort of blended with the rest of the quilt. The blue border finishes at 3.5 inches. The binding will be the same blue batik. 

On Ringo Lake will have to wait to be quilted. I've got another project all set to quilt on the longarm. I'll post pictures when there's something to see!

Hope any of you affected by the East coast storm made out okay. I was at work the whole day worrying about what I'd be finding at home. It turned out to be fine. We have branches all over the yard but that's about it. We didn't lose power which is a miracle in itself! It could have been so much worse.