Stitching in the Barn

  I received an extra large Stripology ruler for my birthday this year. I had received the Hex N More ruler for the previous Christmas. Both from my MIL. My husband had bought me the fat eighth stack at a craft show many years ago. It's Good Fortune by Kate Spain for Moda. They all came together for the start of an extra large hexagon quilt. Love these rulers! Lovely large stack of hexagons. I got 2 from every fat eighth. Great pile of scraps. I need to find a solid to calm down and unify these wonderful large scale prints. Happy quilting!  

Last Night my husband helped me make some block boards like in this video by Fat Quarter Shop .  This one was actually 2 scraps of batting. After reading the comments I decided to leave off the bindings and use some tape I bought that was sticky back fabric. It was too thin so we just mitered the corners and wrapped the excess batting around to the back and they work well. We also hot glued all sides down taut first. I just used them today to move my Dresden wreath after my daughter arranged the hearts. She arranged three and they stacked easily as advertised. I just picked up two hearts at a time to piece them and then placed them back and they always stayed in order. Now I just need to make bigger ones. I got 4 from a foam core board that I cut evenly down the center each way. They finished at 11 x 14 inches.

Below is the one tool I cannot sew without, the bobbin winder. My vintage machines don't always wind bobbins or wind them oddly. This little gadget is a must have in those situations and it will do all my bobbins no matter the type. The power plug input doesn't work, or maybe it's the plug itself, but it runs just fine on battery power. My daughter also uses vintage machines and borrowed it the one day. Late that night it was still in her room when I needed it. I had other sewing things I could do but now I see I might need to get another. I'd like to find one in purple like I saw online somewhere. That would be fun and this one is so old the white is getting discolored.

I saw this wreath on the Charm About You blog while I was scanning Quilter Blogs over the holidays and watched the video at the bottom of her instruction page   and saw a lovely new years wreath in it. In the new years wreath the similar fabrics were paired and I thought they looked like hearts.  I asked my daughter if my MIL would like the wreath in Valentines day fabrics and she thought it was a great idea. We are blessed to have a crafting thrift store nearby. She went and picked up several different fabrics at $3 a yard. It's funny because I donated some Valentines day fabrics to them in the past year because I never thought I'd use Valentines day fabric. She brought home some lovely fabrics, I already had a Dresden plate ruler and I cut an 8 inch strip from each fabric and made a total of 36 hearts over the past 2 days. We only need 20 hearts for the whole wreath. My daughter is going to arrange them into a wreath and add some gems and decorate one side ...

After making my first two pincushion thread catchers , I knew I had to make one for my daughter and that she wouldn't like the same design for the pincushion part. She absolutely loves jasmine tea so I thought a teacup pincushion would be great for her. I looked on the web for a teacup pattern to sew but I didn't really like any of them or how they looked. We went thrift shopping for some buttons for her and I found this teacup without a saucer. It was even on sale!

So I couldn't help myself & went back to Jo Ann's yesterday. I was supposed to buy some Kona solid white there but I couldn't resist the sale and I could get it with a 50% off coupon this week. I went to a different store & they had the patterns on my list that I still wanted and the 1 inch bias tape maker I couldn't find at the other store

On Friday, after work, I went to Jo Ann's because of the sale. 

It seems I've been on a spending spree on quilt rulers over the past few weeks. I blame my MIL for my recent spending last week but I think it started at Valentines Day when my husband bought me these rulers I had been salivating over. Then my MIL came into town for spring break and decided to buy quilting supplies for her & her sister so they can start quilting at JoAnn's. Shopping with her always makes me want to buy something for myself so I got the Easy Angle because Bonnie Hunter recommended it and a Double Wedding Ring template set that was on clearance from $30 down to $8! I stopped at the checkout to make sure it was complete, the bag was torn on one side. It turned out that one of the small pieces was missing so I got it at 1/2 off so it was only $4 and there was a drawing of the template in the book so I'm not really missing any pieces! I have to tell you I'm glad I started quilting 10 years ago! The prices for equipment seem so hi...