Stitching in the Barn

I call it "Welcome Spring" After that awful cold snap we had here in DFW, I think I wanted something really bright and cheerful. It's 22 inches square, thankfully. I don't think I could stomach these two colors together if it was much larger. This is a good representation of the colors. The blocks are each 6 inches finished. It's basically a sample to try out my new Tri-Recs rulers. I free motion quilted it with Connecting Threads' Essentials in Purple.

Today I stitched & turned it with the batting & the backing and did the stitch in the ditch to prep it for free-motion quilting. I used Purple thread from Connecting Threads and I love how it looks. I used a tip I picked up recently. I used hairspray as basting spray to stick the two layers that weren't getting turned together. Since it was a small quilt & I had an old can of Aquanet hanging around I thought I'd try it and it worked very well. I didn't even have to go outside for better ventilation to use it. I sprayed it on both sides to be sure it stuck and everything went fine. There were no puckers on the back side of my quilt, just on the top that was only pin basted.

I'm suffering from a headache right now but I had to post. I finished my quilt top! I must have been really inspired because I designed & made it in 3 days! I even had work 2 of those days. Of course it's just 22 inches square but it's still complete. Here it is Hmmm, now that I look at the picture, it looks a bit wavy on the edges. I have to admit I practically slapped the borders on. But I love the way it came out! The colors are very loud but I used these in combination with white recently and thought they might lend themselves to a 2 color quilt. Now I wish I put some white in there, at least it's a small quilt. I'm hoping to quilt it sometime this weekend. I'll probably just sandwich, sew & turn it out with the batting & backing because I don't feel like making binding. I think I needed this bright quilt to come out of the cold winter & the hard times we've had lately. I can't wait to use my Tri-Recs rulers ...

I couldn't get the quilt out of my mind & sketched this up earlier today on Inkscape Then I took a 2 hour nap. The day can be long when you wake up at 2:30 am to go to work. Everyone went to bed around 10 pm because they were feeling sick so I stayed up to sew and got this done Now its after almost 2 am & I'm going to pay for it tomorrow. Its a 6.5 inch 54-40 or Fight block. I decided to start with two extremely bright colors on a mini quilt and couldn't wait to get a block done. Now I'm too tired to continue. Plus, I made a mistake in my math and cut the strips for the 4-patches 2.5 inches instead of 1.5 inches & wasted a bit of fabric, which irks me so I'm off to get some sleep.

I hope y'all are able to spend it with the ones y'all love. Today I'm making a heart shaped brownie for my family and I bought some of their favorite chocolates too. I got my V-day present early, last Thursday. My husband bought me 3 yards of Kona White, the Tri-Recs rulers and a quilt/quilt block a day calendar.

Well I'm back, I think. The main reason I've been gone is because I work retail and this Holiday season the store I work at did better than most. Then some unexpected family complications kept me away from sewing and the computer for a few more weeks until we got iced in. We're expecting another wave of snow Wednesday and I'm kind of sick of it. I'm glad I don't live or moved further north because I don't understand how y'all deal with it. I hope everyone snowed under multiple feet of snow since Christmas are staying sane, healthy & warm. I did, at least, finally got back to a sewing machine while we were iced in. I finished 4 of these blocks from the blockofthemonth   group. I just need two more to catch back up. I'm really happy that my skills are better than I remembered! I hope I can keep up posting more but only time will tell. I feel really unsettled and scatterbrained so I won't be surprised if it takes me another mon...