Salt and Sand Blog Hop

 Starfish or more accurately Seastars were my inspiration for my project in the Salt and Sand Blog hop, organized by Carla at Creatin’ in the Sticks. 

My starfish is hanging around in the rocks, usually, it's in my bathroom.

 

Did you know that all starfish resemble stars, the most common only have five arms, although some of them can grow up to 40 arms?  Interested in reading more fun facts about Starfish check this out.

Thread selection, not all of these made the cut

I drew out the shape of the starfish and traced it onto my fabric with a Clover Air Erasable marker. 

little bubbles

 I free motion quilted a star in the centre of the starfish radiating the bubbles out into the arms. There are some tiny bubbles in these arms, I used Aurifil #4666 40 wt variegated thread.

For the background, I used Superior Thread #4037 Twist and free motion quilted some curved lines trying to give the effect of underwater mountains. I added a few delicate water plants using Aurifil #3817 40 wt. I wanted the starfish to be more pronounced and the background to stay in the back, I think I accomplished that.  The piece is 10'' by 9 1/2'' and I used my favourite batting  Hobbs 80/20.

Want to see what fun my fellow bloggers are having in the salt and sand?

                                                                    March 25

Quiltscapes

Beaquilter

Stitchin At Home

The Joyful Quilter

Scrapdash

Freckled Fox Quiltery

Quilts Fabric and Thread Tales

                                                          Words & Stitches

Project Quilting 12.6 Ab Intra

 Up until this morning, I was not going to do this challenge. This week's challenge is Ab Intra, or "from within." At first glance, I think the theme is a little intimidating and I have too many raw emotions to contemplate putting them into this. 

But, you know there is always a but somewhere. While having a coffee this morning I thought of this challenge and how we as quilters give freely and put our heart into all we do. We are all stars! 

 So the challenge started at 7:27 AM, nothing like the last minute to do this.

a fabric pull of scraps began. I thought of my inner heart and fresh beginnings. Of course, green being my favourite colour didn't hurt

Not much time for anything else, it was put the head done and sew.

by 9:20 I had made progress

Keeping the pedal to the metal, well maybe not metal. But I was going full out.

11:45 AM

I can't believe I made it. Simple straight line quilting echoing the shapes. This little piece finishes at 7'' by 7''. Need to go small when there is no time to spare.

And so I have 6 for 6 done! 

My Crazy Tulip Patch

This week's Project QUILTING challenge is You're Crazy, which is inspired by the late 1800s “crazy quilt” movement.

I am not into crazy quilting at all. Plus a couple years ago I cleaned out fabric that I was no longer interested in ie: velvet. So my take on the crazy quilting challenge has a more modern feel to it. 
I first made a small crazy patch using my scraps of quilting cotton.

my rotrary cutting mat is not in the best of shape as you can see in this picture, this is my second one and I will not buy another of this brand

I drew out a tulip on freezer paper and cut out my tulips.

one pink tulip

If one tulip was good then why not three and each a different colour. I pulled out my Sulky threads to do the machine stitches on them.

three different tulips, I used some of the stitches on my machine for embellishment on my tulips.

The leaves and stems were cut from some extra fabric that I had prepped for an earlier project using the 'Crafted Applique' method. I keep the extra pieces between sheets of wax paper and use them when I need a quick piece. I didn't have enough of the darker green and thought what the heck a little variety in my leaves would be fine.

the back shows the quilting nicely. 

I quilted the background with small loop de loops as I didn't want the quilting to steal from the tulips themselves.

Without further ado let me introduce you to 'My Crazy Tulip Patch'.

I consider this an art piece

Spring is on its way and soon the tulips will be up and blooming. 
 

Stripes Blog Hop

Thanks to Carla at Creatin’ in the Sticks for organizing 'Show Your Stripes' blog hop. We were asked to create something that had stripes in it. The stripes could be fabric stripes or striped fabric. Let the ideas flow. Stash using time, here I come.

These have only been in my stash since maybe 2014

I had a meter of each of these Northcott stripe prints, at least they look like stripes to me. Now I needed a pattern. I played in EQ8 and decided on this simple block.

I like this block with a little turquoise and pink going on

It really didn't take long to make the blocks up, I had decided on a 4 x 4 layout. The blocks are 10 1/2''.

I added 3 borders framing the pink narrow border between the turquoise

I thought I had a picture of the top before quilting but I may have deleted it by mistake. The above photo is the quilt top in EQ8.

quilting in one of the four negative space squares

I quilted the four squares of negative space the same. Swirls towards the centre of the quilt, then a row of ribbon candy, and finally straight lines in the other half of the square. It is hard to see the quilting without the sun, I took over 10 different pictures and this one was the best. You'll have to trust me the texture of this quilt looks great.

 

No sun today, only overcast and rain.

The white triangles along the sides are all quilted with straight lines. 

the back shows the quilting better

What have you made with stripes lately? Want some more ideas just go visit some of my fellow bloggers and see what they made.

Life in the Scrapatch

Stitchin At Home

Websterquilt

Homespun Hannah's Blog

Karrin's Crazy World

Quilt Schmilt

That’s Sew Kerry

SameliasMum

Annie's musings

Garden Snail

 Time for Challenge 12.4 of Project Quilting 12. This time we are to we were to start with a simple Snail's Trail Block: a humble four patch.  A quick check of the block can be found here.

I had no idea how I was going to do this challenge at one point I was ready to just make the block and put it into a potholder. Simple quick and done. But inspiration hit at 5 AM I know I should have been sleeping, but that wasn't happening. I got up and set to work putting my idea into action.

I got out my brown scraps and made the snail's trail block.

one 3 inch scrappy block

I rounded three of the corners and appliqued it along with a head for my snail. Added a few flowers and some grass. And he was right at home. Snails can do a job on my hostas and I am always trying ways to get rid of them.

My snail is content spending time in the garden

In true snail fashion, the quilting and finishing seemed to go very slow. The finished size is 6 1/2'' by 7 1/4''. He is quilted with Aurifil threads and Thermore batting.

Off to link up before I run out of time.

Virtual Vacation

 Time for Challenge 3 of Project Quilting 12. This time we are to we were to sew up a dream vacation in the future or maybe a memory from a past vacation or maybe build a bag. The project choice was ours to decide.

My dream vacation is simple. I'm trying to look forward to clear skies and sunny days with and have no destination in mind at this time. Just as long as the sun is shining that is all I need.
The world has been in turmoil with Covid-19 holding all our lives in its grasp.

I had a vision in my mind of what I wanted to do. I wasn't so sure if it would work out or not. Only one way to find out just to go for it.

fabric pull from stormy to clear skies

I was on a time crunch as I only started to put my idea to fabric this morning. So I do apologize for the lack of pictures.

My idea was to show the transition of the start of Covid-19 when we didn't even know what was going on and what the future was going to bring. To the world with vaccines and a return to as normal a life as we will have in the future.

thread selection time

The bottom of the piece represents the world. The cloudy stormy skies showing a change towards clear blue skies and radiant sunshine.

we had a fresh snowfall last night 

I am not so sure about this piece, it's okay but not exactly how I pictured it. I did a facing on this one and do not think I will use it as a placemat, even though it is the right size for one.

I hope we get to clear skies and sunny days sooner rather than later. 

Daisy

Challenge 2 of Project QUILTING Season 12 is fussy cutting. I am going to try and make a placemat for each challenge, whether or not I'll be successful depends on what the challenge is. Time will tell if I succeed or not. The second goal I set for myself is to use fabrics from my stash/older fabrics.

Let's see how I do with this challenge and my goals. My favourite block is a star block, so that was the starting point. The fabric I choose to fussy cut was an Anna Griffin from 2013, yup time this one got used. 

decision time, what to fussy cut from this piece

I forgot to take pictures as I was working on this, everything just seemed to fall into place and I never thought to grab the camera.  I turned under the edges of the cutout and used the buttonhole stitch to stitch it to the square for the centre of the star. 

please excuse the colours, I think the sun went on holidays 

I tried to keep the quilting simple

For the quilting I echoed the daisy and stitched in the ditch around the cutout. The yellow squares got straight lines. As you can see I did do feathers on both sides, I love feathers and just couldn't help myself. I used Thermore batting once again for this one.

for the backing I used a piece of the Anna Griffen fabric

So how did I do on my goals? Made a placemat ✓ Used stash/older fabric ✓ A win on both counts.

The next challenge is January 31st. Wonder what it is and how I'll do on my goals?