I see a pattern here....

I went to a quilt show today at Canterbury Village in Lake Orion, MI.  The show was held in  Kings Court  Castle.  The show was put on by Great Lakes Heritage Quilt Guild.
I just have to share with you the many applique quilts that I found to be stunning. 

Forgive me, these were taken with my I-phone and I had them all edited to be upright, but for some reason they are now in their original position....sideways.  Don't know why I bothered to go through all the trouble to straighten them out. 

These 9-patch within a 9-patch blocks were smaller than the width of my I-phone.

I have to say these quilts were wonderful to see, but the lighting for this show left a lot to be desired.  Next time I will know to remember to bring my regular camera, too.  No more sideways pictures.  Hope you don't have a crick in your neck. 

Anyways, it was a good day spent with good friends seeing beautiful quilts. What more could a gal ask for?....oh yeah, more time to sew.  :D

Oh, one final thought.  I need to make this one!!

One thing leads to another.....

My goal was to get into the sewing room today....which I did.

I got my Beyond the Cherry Tree blocks together finally. 

This is going to be one big quilt.  I had to just drape it over my portable design wall for now, but will need to lay it somewhere so that I can place my borders. 

Before I could sew today though, I had to move these.  They  have been sitting on my sewing table for a few days.

I had asked my husband to save me a few of these for an organization project that I saw on Pinterest.  If you don't know about http://pinterest.com/, you have to check that site out.  It wonderful!!!

Anyways, he said he had already been saving them and came up with an armful for me. I hadn't planned on getting to this project so quickly.  So, to sew, I had to either move them or use them.  So, I cleaned out a little corner of one of my sewing drawers and this is what was in there.....a bunch of odds and ends.

I took the Altoid boxes and labeled them and organized my odds and ends.

I love being organized!

Well, back to sewing.....I pulled all my neutrals that I used for my backgrounds and prayed that I had enough to make my scrappy border. (It's only been a 29-month BOM!! and did I know what I wanted to do for my borders 29 months ago?...Nooooooo)

There wasn't a lot, but I did get enough cut that should cover all four borders and I didn't use all of these fabrics either.  Once I get this quilt laid out somewhere that I am able work all the way around  and place scrappy pieces in their places, then I will cut and sew.  Once the borders are made,  then I can start my applique.  In the picture above of all my odds and ends, you will see my freezer paper leaves that are just about ready to be placed on green fabric.  These are the leaves for just one side of the border.  Thank goodness I have almost ALL my cherries made for the borders. 

Hogs and Kisses!

It's  almost Valentine's Day.   Wishing you lots of hugs and kisses from the ones you love.

I wanted to share  the cute candy Kisses idea that I found through the website www.sillypearl.com

I decided to make these up for my grand kids.

Here are the finished Kisses.

One of my grandsons LOVES pigs, so I think this is going to be a big hit.

If you are interested, here is the site for the free printable.  Just print it on a one-page sticker and use a 3/4" hole punch (which I bought for my BTCT quilt to make hundreds of cherries) and the larger one required a 2" hole punch ( I didn't have that size so just cut them out with a scissors). 

http://www.scribd.com/doc/79270247/Hogs-and-Kisses-Valentine-Printable

Have fun with this!

Happy Valentine's day!

Needed a quick fix....

I so needed to get to my Beyond the Cherry Tree quilt this weekend, but I just haven't been able to drag myself into my sewing room, so I did this instead.

My daughter's husband has to work 10 hour shifts this weekend, so she came over to knit and have some company, so that is what I did with her....knitted and chatted. 

Once I get this blocked (because I just got it off the needles) I will put it on and show you how it looks then.  This ruffled scarf from start to finish  took less than two days.  So, I call that a "quick fix" for accomplishing something. 

As for the BTCT quilt, the last border pattern was offered yesterday, so now I have no excuse to put off getting to the borders and get this thing done.  Hopefully, tomorrow is the day to sit at the machine and get the blocks together and start cutting out my scrappy border and then there will be plenty of leaves and cherries appliqued to get this one finished. 

Beyond the Cherry Tree blocks are all done.

These blocks are 25 months worth.



One more month and I will have all four patterns for the four sides worth of borders. 

First I need to find the original pattern to see if I need to trim these blocks and then get them sewn together.  I plan on doing a scrappy border, so want to get these sewn up so that I know what to put where. 

Below is my final layout.  It just wasn't the best picture I could get of the blocks (like above).

I tried not to get "like" backgrounds too close to each other, not too many vases close to each other, not too many wreaths close to each other and tried to keep the blocks that read a lot of "red" too close to each other.  I think I did a decent job; of course you know once I get it all sewn together I am going to wish I had moved one or more blocks.  Oh well. 

Almost all my cherries for the four borders are made and I have started tracing out the leaves on my freezer paper.  I, also, need to makes yards of stems.   But I think once I get busy on the borders, it won't take too long.  I am so anxious to see this quilt come to fruition.  It's been a long 29 months.