Picnic Time Pillow Remix

Good morning friends!  Today is Picnic Time Pillow Remix day here.  Fat Quarter Shop is revisiting some of their really great projects that maybe you missed or maybe you just need a reminder of!  Of course I'm always up for a pillow project, especially one like this!  It's fast and simple and a great project for an afternoon!

 

I just had to use the cute Bluebirds on Roses fabric by Elea Lutz.  It's the cheeriest aqua blue and that background fabric with the birds, I can't get enough of it.  I chose a coordinating pink from the collection for the binding .

I'm thrilled how it turned out. The pattern is a fast make, and there is a even a quilt to go along with it.  That would be very fun for those few cooler mornings on the patio with my coffee.

 

Be sure and head over to The Jolly Jabber for their blog post and see all the other pillows. You can find the pattern here and the accompanying video here.  Check out the #picnictimepillow hashtag for more pillows and the #fqsremix hastag for other remix projects!

 

Thanks for following along friends! xop

Stitched So Sweet

Good morning my sunshiney friends!  How are you? I'm excited to talk about my friend Tracy and her new book Stitched So Sweet today! I first saw Tracy's cute designs at a shop called Horsefeathers and they were so fresh and different.  I loved them.  It's been a lot of years since then, don't make me count! But her designs are still so charming  and  unique.  It's so great when you see friends have continued well deserved success.

 

These photos from the book are courtesy of Martingale, all photography by Brent Kane.  Like all the photos in the book, each little vignette is perfect.

I love the combination of  patchwork, applique and stitching.  It's soft and vintage looking, which of course is a look I love. This piece is stitched on a wool ground with a wool heart, and little cotton prairie points, the mix is precious, soft and cozy.

This is my favorite project in the book, The Thread and Whimsy Wall Quilt. It's a seasonal project with patchwork, applique and embroidery.  Like the project above, it celebrates the four seasons in it's embroidered designs.

 

I love the soft colors, but I think it would be so cute in vibrant PKM colors as well. The modern machine applique style with the vintage style designs is so charming.  Of course scallops.. I love scallops.

 

Tracy's book is adorable.  I guess I've used all the superlatives but really, so sew cute! I'm so happy for her.  What more can you want for your friends than happiness and success? I hope you enjoyed this peek into Tracy's new book Stitched So Sweet. Thanks to Martingale for sending me the e-copy to read and enjoy. 

 

Ok friends! I'm off on an adventure tomorrow!  Hope you have a great week. xop

Panic Button

Hi there friends!  This morning, after some coffee and Instagram browsing and general lollygagging around, I walked by  and saw this log cabin in  a pile of stuff in my sewing room. All the log cabins on line had me thinking about it, and I vaguely remember talking about it on the blog, but for the life of me I can't find the post or even a photo of it. I think I remember commenting with Darlene, BUT WHO KNOWS ANYMORE.

 

Anyway for some reason I picked it up and unfolded it.  OMG IT DOESN'T HAVE 3 OF THE CORNER TRIANGLES. 

 

A well organized person would say "Oh Pam, isn't that yellow solid that is YEARS OLD  just folded up with it?" But then of course they'd laugh maniacally because OF COURSE IT ISN'T. 

 

Normal people wouldn't even panic at this point because you know, it would be somewhere in their stash just waiting.  But you know what, I've been purging my stash and OMG DO I STILL HAVE IT? Thankfully a trip through a couple of fabric boxes yielded the yellow chunk there and several possibilities.  Doesn't really look like a match in the photo but when you unfold it, I think it is.  Or close enough.  (but I did go thru more boxes to see if there was a better match. Who knew I had so many yellow solids. This one, I remember, was called butter. By who? Who knows.)

 

Along the way I found several finished or almost finished projects.  And when looking at photos I saw lots of things that have me wondering where they are. Maybe I'll cut those triangles today and then pile it back up.  I made another quilt like this one in a class at Going to Pieces many years ago taught by the wonderful Gloria Smith.  I love the thirties and this is no different.  I remember taking this to the shop to have her help me with the corners so why I never bothered to finish this, or any  of the things I found along the way in those boxes, who knows.

 

All I know it, don't be like me and pack up your unfinished projects with what you need to finish.  This is not only a scary story but a cautionary tale for you.

 

Hope you're having a great weekend!! 

P. S.  I am curious about old projects. If you have old quilt tops  that you're never going to quilt, what do you do with them? I know I have things stashed away that will never get the finishing treatment. What do you do? I'd love to know.

The Sunshine Life

Hi there friends!  It's a sunshiney day here in PamKittyVille and I feel like a new person. This year it seems to make so much more difference to me, maybe it's because the weather has been gloomy for so much longer. It feels like a record year for rain, and I LOVE IT.  But I also love the sunshine.  Springtime sun is the best sun to me.  It's not too warm yet, my flowers still look pretty and everything is green and lush.  And it's mid-70s! The most perfect weather off all! 

Other things making me happy.... TINY BLOCKS.  I used to make quilts with tiny blocks all the time but somehow I moved away from it.  Don't even know why.  But these little 9 patches are dear to my heart. I have a lot of tiny 9 patch quilts and these were so fun to make.  Are you sewing along with the Temecula Quilt Company? 

Shh don't tell anyone, I even have the upcoming weeks blocks done!  Just maybe 4 more blocks left,  for me, and I want to make them pretty scrappy so I've put it off for now.  I need to lay them out and see what will help keep them from being too uneven colorwise.  But I like how they look all together. I will get a photo with the rest of them later.

Here's my completed pile of baskets for the Flower Basket Table Runner.  I LOVE HOW CUTE THEY ARE.  I used a lot of Heidi's new fabric Shortcake and then some fabrics from my stash.  Not all the handles are perfect, but ohmygosh so fun to do.  

I did all my invisible machine applique with some very fine Madiera monofiliment thread.  I've had this spool forever.  But I'm sure there is a lot of nice monofiliment out there.  This is soft and doesn't show much.  This was the style of doing things when I began to quilt, and now there are so many different ways that people are doing things.  This pattern just reminds me of all the fun scrappy quilts I used to make and I feel excited about sewing again. 

Hope you are doing well friends. Oh, on the last post Martha asked me what sewing machine I used. I also have an older machine, it's a Bernina 1260.  I LOVE IT and hope it outlives me. 

Ok friends that's it for me! Hope there's some sunshine and happiness where you are!  xop

Baskets

Hi there!  The past few days we've had a lot of sunshine and it really perks me up.  I'm feeling excited and energized by the springy weather!  We're back to a cloudy week though  so that dose of sunshine will have to last a while!   But  we always need the rain here so I'm happy about that too.

I've started a new project, you might have seen a little about this over on Instagram.  I'm working on the Flower Basket Table Runner by Rhana Summerlin. The little baskets have appliqued handles, you can use the method of choice, and  I wanted to do invisible machine applique, which to me means a hand applique look done by machine.  

 

I love my sewing machine and didn't have any problem with the stitch and settings, but my bias handle prep technique left something to be desired.  Luckily I remembered making a basket quilt with  appliqued handles from the My Red Sofa  book by Terry Atkinson.  I pulled it out and reviewed her method.  SUCCESS. 

 

It's a great book, and that basket pattern is adorable.  I made two of the quilts, I loved the technique and the quilt.  In fact I just recently pulled this one out to be quilted.  I have an embarrassing number of quilt tops waiting. You can see the other quilt that needs quilting in this post from back in 2007! Thanks again Terry for showing me how to prepare these handles!

I only have made 3 of the baskets since then. I'm making my runner a little shorter, so I worked on my pink blocks first, next up the white ones.  I have pulled a  mix of Heidi's cute Shortcake line of fabric, some of Elea's  Bluebirds on Roses and of course I'm filling in with PKM. 

 

Fun times friends!  I'm so happy with these cute little blocks, can't wait to make some more.   What are you sewing on?  Or working on? Thanks for hanging in here with me! xop