how to make laundry fun OR a desperation for spring flowers and warm sunshine

Hello!
My sewing machine has been pretty quiet this week, but the washer has been humming away!  These are just some of the fabrics I've been prewashing to use in another of my UFO's.

This quilt is the second I ever started, and this is as far as I got with it. There will be 23 varieties of flowers when it is done.

Here in New Hampshire, we had a tease of beautiful spring-like weather, but now we are back to this:

I'm longing for spring's flowers, but my gardens are under snowbanks, so I'm appliqueing some fabric ones until the real deal starts popping up in the backyard :)

I love my garden flowers, they bring much needed color and happiness to my days.
These are some of my favorites:

Dandelions
Daffodils
Lilacs
pink Lady's Slippers
Violets
Chinese Lanterns
Mayflowers
Johnny-Jump-Ups
Poppies
Jonquils
pink Bee Balm
Lupin
Black Eyed Susan
Snapdragons
Queen Anne's Lace
mums
Impatients
Buttercups

And you?  What are your favorite flowers?
I'm linking up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced today.  If you haven't been over there, you really should stop by.  If you are new to my blog, welcome, and I hope you enjoyed your visit :) 
Happy Stitches everybody!

time for a coffee break

Well, I finished my mug rug :)

I did all the quilting with my walking foot; along the lines to accent the fake patchwork, and around the hearts with white thread.  Then I used red and blue thread to quilt X's over the center hearts.

I bound it with the same blue I made the hearts with.  Remember the silver sparkles on the right side of that fabric?  Well, you can't see them on the wrong side (showing), but they still catch the sun in bright light, giving it an unexpected sparkle.  I love it :)
I think I'm going to use the wrong side of the sparkly blue for Mr. 5's penguin quilt, he will love the surprise sparkle when he notices it.

Putting my mug rug to good use:

hmmm, it needs something...

Yes, much better with a cherry square.  :)
Oh, and do you remember my Christmas wallhanging?  Well, it looks like this now:

I decided that I want to be spending my time on projects that are more important to me, so I cut the panel up into 2.5" squares to be used in this scrap quilt. 
This was a UFO on my list, so now I am down to 13.  I hesitated to do this to the panel, because it kind of felt like cheating on my UFO goal, but since I'm using the fabric for something else and not just putting it back in the closet, I decided to go ahead and cut it.  Anyway, my personal goal, my rules, right?  :)

Happy Saturday!

Shamrock Love...

Happy St. Patrick's Day!



I love St. Patrick's day.  Here is an Irish soda bread recipe if you don't have one.  You won't find green beer, 'little people' (well, except for the ones that live here all year), or pots of gold at our house, though. 

I love to read the story of St. Patrick to my kids each year.  Homemade Irish soda bread is a must.  We decorate with shamrocks, not four leaf clovers.  And of couse we have to watch Veggie Tales: Sumo of the Opera.  If you've never seen it, there is a short story about St. Patrick in this episode of Veggie Tales, and it is hillarious :) 

However you celebrate, I hope you enjoy your St. Patrick's Day!

When good things come in the mail :)

The postman recently brought these lovelies to my mailbox. 

On another note, I may not have made great progress with fabric today, but I did do this

My notions drawer was a mess, and I couldn't find the blue thread I needed for my mug rug, so I oganized instead of sewing.  Looks good now, doesn't it? I found some nice stuff I didn't know I had tucked arround my sewing room, like unopened packages of binding clips and basting pins.   Should have done this sooner  :)

it started with one fabric....

Have you been to one of those fundraisers where you pay a set price, get a bag, and fill it with fabric that had been donated to the 'cause'?  Well, that's how I got this piece of fabric. 

It's ugly, in a nice kind of way, and I don't have anything in my stash to go with it; so it's chances of making it into a quilt were slim.  Every now and then I find an ugly fabric that I just really like a lot, and this is one of them.  It reminds me of the cushions my Mother made for around the kitchen table way back when.  Not that the cusions were ugly, they were a cheater fabric also :)

Anyway, this print has been on top every time I go sift through my stash, so I decided to make a mug rug with it.  I had two pieces close to fat quarter size, which was just about perfect.

So I made some hearts. 
I had solid red in my stash, but not a solid blue, so I used the wrong side of a blue-with-silver-sparkles fabric that I have.

That white fabric in the middle is from my stash also.

Those hearts were hand appliqued down.
Right now, I'm nearly done quilting my mug rug.  When I finish it, I'll show you, ok? :)

With Seam Ripper Close At Hand...

Everything I sew lately needs to be ripped out.  Really. I can't help but laugh at myself.
Here is my latest project in need of a fresh start:

This is a panel I bought to learn hand quilting on.  Obviously that didn't happen :)  Now I'm just trying to get it done so I can take it off my UFO list. 

You can't see it, but a bit farther down on the fabric is the Nativity scene, some Wise Men and Shepards; all the usual Christmas crowd  :)   Oh, and the dove fabric is the backing.

I don't like the white thread I used above, there is just too much contrast between it and the darker colors.  I'm not sure what to use in its place, maybe gold or invisible?

The pattern has me stumped, too.  I tried to outline the important figures, and just meander all over the rest, but I don't like how it turned out.  I tried this mainly because it just seemed wrong to stitch through the Baby Jesus  :)

Then again, maybe I'll just sandwhich this with fusible fleece and forget quilting it altogether.

Well, I won't be doing any more sewing until I finish all my ripping ( I still have my BOM to rip out).  Tomorrow I'll be sitting by a sunny window with a cup of coffee and a seam ripper...

Happy Quilting to you, and may your seam ripper gather dust!

a decision reached

Hello

I don't have any new pictures to share, just an update from last week's WIP Wednesday post.

I'll be spending alot of quality time with my seam ripper.  Once the blocks are apart again and I know what I have to work with, I'll decide where to go from there.  Pot holders aren't out of the question if it gets real ugly ;)     (just kidding, this is going to be a finished quilt if it kills me)

Thanks to everyone who offered their 2 cents last week :)
Happy Stitching