Finished with Decorations

I found the pattern for The Tall Christmas Tree in a quilt store in Kentucky. I fell in love with it at first sight sensing that I had to have it!  How unique I thought! That was three years ago.

I came home with the pattern and began shopping at Thousands of Bolts - Only One Nut. On their website they have a Designers Palette where you place fabric swatches from their inventory so you can mix and match. I played with the design palette until I found the perfect fabric for my tree.

If you google "The Tall Christmas Tree" you will find many different styles from traditional to modern. I saw one that had candles, but the tree wasn't at all traditional with  your typical red and green Christmas colors.

I am celebrating the finish! the quilt has been 3 years in the making due to life interruptions.

Another celebration - my birthday. How sweet it was of my friend to take me out to dinner at Don Pedros Mexican restaurant.

Linking up with
Love Laugh Quilt on Monday

Free Motion Quilting on Tuesday

Motivated by Updating the Expiring Date on Credit Card

 

After a long break I am back again. It was due to receiving an email from GoDaddy.com informing me it was time for me to renew the date on my credit card for my blog domain name. Well if I was going to pay to renew I better start blogging again. If I am going to blog again I needed to work on my quilt to have something to write about.


In December I found a couple of weeks to work on the Christmas Tree quilt, but the unexpected occurred, my husband took his flight to heaven. Life has been in upheaval for many months experiencing grieving like I have never known before. During the past 8 months there wasn't much time to sew or quilt. There were a couple of weekends where I finally completed the quilting. Yeah!!




All that is needed is the binding and a hanging sleeve. This evening I worked on the binding according to my directions, which sheepishly I have to admit it didn't go as smoothly as anticipated.  But I am at least on the road of completion, heaven forbid any interruptions. And I must say I am excited and happy to know that this quilt is almost completed. Maybe this weekend I can say done!!


As you can see from the picture it is densely quilted. The back is as pretty as the front.




 






 Yes this is me with a big smile. I am longing to touch base with all my quilting friends and to see what you have been making. I am sure I have missed out on seeing some beautiful and great looking quilts.

 The snapshot of the quilt on the right is one that was gifted to me from the Fabulous Quilting Friends who collaborated to make this quilt to comfort me after the loss of my sweet hubby. It most certainly warmed my heart. It was a surprise too since most live in different states. One member of the group lives in Durham which is about a 3 1/2 hour drive from Charlotte. I thought she was coming to visit me not knowing she was going to be delivering me lovely quilt! 




 




I love the message on the label.















Thank you for visiting and wishing you a great sewing or quilting day!

Snow Scrolling and Tree Decorations

Happy Thanksgiving!! Hope all are enjoying your holiday? My turkey is seasoned and ready to be stuffed with cornbread stuffing. Yum!

While other preparations are done and few more to complete I thought I would take a break and show the progress on the Tall Trim Christmas tree. The branches all have been feathered stitched.  Now I am quilting scrolling snow.

In the evenings I have been hand stitching ornaments while watching NetFlix - The West Wing and Longmire, both entertaining. I like keeping my hands busy. It helps keep them from wanting to pick up snack food.

The ornaments are cut from fabric that already are printed with the ornament design. Each is backed with fabric with batting inside. I have been using a back stitch to make sure the stitching is secured, especially since they are small and that there is a degree of difficulty getting them turned inside out.

Back to snow scrolling for awhile before heading back to the kitchen.

June 2016 OMG, One Monthly Goal - Really it is June Already!

I will be just in time for Christmas in July!

Tall Christmas Tree flimsy was finished with May's OMG, One Monthly Goal.You can see the Tall Christmas tree flimsy here. Now that I have a tree what is a tree without decorations? So of course I have been thinking about what sort of decorations will make a Tall Christmas Tree sing.

I did add candlesticks and flames, though not attached. I am thinking about shortening the candles a wee bit so the tree doesn't look so overwhelmed with candles as pretty as they may be. That is one part of June's goal - shorten the candlesticks.


This evening I ordered Christmas fabric for the decorations. I had to pull the trigger and buy quickly as already one of my selections sitting in the sales cart sold! I was a bit disappointed as I really wanted that particular fabric with the candy swirls. The picture to the left shows several of the fabrics purchased for fussy cut ornaments. So the second part of June's goal is to cut and sew ornaments.

Now swinging back to Spring

 I have joined in with a group of quilters participating in a Spring Block Swap. The blocks are due in November and I have already received two in the mail. I love the butterfly and the lady bug!!

The Posies Block is the one I am sewing. The picture shown here is not the fabric I am using but the colors are close. The block is going to be made up of all batik fabric.

The third part of my June OMG, One Monthly Goal is to complete 16 Posie blocks. I have 16 Posie heads completed and now in the process of chain stitching the other 16 heads.

You can see a picture of my completed Posie heads here.

I have a third goal for the month of June. I have my fingers and toes crossed hoping I will find the time!! It is to finish my design board. My little space is a combination office and quilting studio. I won't be able to use the full wall space as once planned since I needed to move my desk right against it to squeeze some stacking cubes in the other corner for office supplies.

The left side is completed. The right side needs batting wrapped on it and then needs to be hung so it reaches the ceiling. I have been layering projects on top of each other. At the moment I have documents pinned which will have to find a new place. Maybe that is what I will do once I complete this message.

Hope to see you at Red Letter Quilts where Heidi is hosting OMG, One Monthly Goal.



Thank you for visiting and wishing you a great sewing or quilting day!

May's Projects for OMG - A Monthly Goal

One of May's goals for  OMG - A Monthly Goal was to complete the Tall Trim Christmas Tree flimsy and I am happy to say it is completed.

Do you like the candles and lights?  They are not attached to yet. I worked all day Sunday adding a white border and making the candles.   The candles were not originally planned at the beginning, therefore I accomplished more than anticipated on the tree.

There will be more decorations to come.  I have fabric picked out from which ornaments will be fussy cut to hang on the tree.
 

The other project was to plan a block and purchase fabric enough for 16 blocks. Below is a practice run of the block. 

But I completed 16 out of 28 flower heads!

Thank you for visiting and wishing you a great sewing or quilting day!

Goal Setting Does Work!

Beginning this month only the very top of the tree was sewn together, and now the tree pattern itself is completed. A border will be added, but it will not be a contrasting border in green fabric as shown on the pattern. My border will be white on white print used in the background and the binding will have a flange of red and cream stripe with the white on white print on the outside edge. 

I saw another version of this pattern made by another quilter where she added candles with flames on the tips and other decorations actually sewn on to her tree. Her version of the tree was quite stylistic and whimsical using totally non-traditional colors and fabric for her tree and decorations. It was quite adorable. 

I want to add red candles with flames on my tree, but keep with the red buttons and hanging mini-mini quilt blocks for decorations. My colors will be traditional. Someone suggested that I cover buttons to add to the tree vs. plain red buttons. Great idea! 

As the title of this blog message suggests "Goal Setting Does Work!"  Red Letter Quilts who is sponsoring OMG - A Monthly Goal is working for me. I determine each month what I can feasibly achieve when looking at my overall business and family schedule. For the month of May I planned to complete the Tall Trim Christmas Tree flimsy and to plan the blocks for a group Spring Block Swap with a group of other quilters.

The flimsy is almost complete only needing borders. The other project that was included as a goal in May has actually been completed. 

Beginning in May there was only the instructions for the Spring Swap Block. My goal was to choose the design and fabric. So I am whooping it up as that has been accomplished. Not only that I completed a promo block to make sure I liked it. And I do!

The requirement for this block swap is to use batik fabric for the background, and the overall block pattern is to be a "Snowball" where each corner is made with a 3 inch square. The center can be anything that we want that is representative of Spring. The block can be paper pieced, appliqued, or any other pieced block pattern in the center. Beads, embroidery or any other kind of embellishments can be added. 

Electric Quilt came to the rescue when designing the block, actually 2 blocks as the the flower head is separate from the leaves and stem. Both are 4 inch blocks. The final swap block size is 12 inches. 

I made a quilt with this particular pattern, but it was larger in size and didn't have the inside triangles creating the mini snowball block. I redesigned the Posie center to give it more of a rounded look.

Isn't this batik fabric yummy? Once I made my promo block it was time to go shopping. My schedule has been horrendous so I had to purchase fabric online as it was quite difficult to find the time to travel to a quilt or fabric store. I rather touch, feel and see the fabric to make sure the colors are true and work together in person. As you all have experienced some colors on the screen look different than what they actually are when in hand.  So yes, I did the happy dance when the fabric arrived because the colors were perfect and actually more beautiful than anticipated. 

I purchased my fabric from Thousands of Bolts. They make it so easy to coordinate your fabric selections using their Quilter's Toolbox. All you need to do is import fabric swatches from their website. 

This is a picture of Thousands of Bolts Quilters ToolBox with my fabric swatches imported. You can resize each of the swatches somewhat. As you can see I couldn't get the green more narrow for the stems for my makeshift posies. I chose the colors on the right with one exception of the red batik is different. This tool is so helpful in choosing fabrics that work together. 

So with 10 days left in the month I have made great progress. I may actually get more done than I had set for my goal. Last evening I washed all the batiks to prevent bleeding, and all have been pressed this morning. The paper pieced block patterns have been printed and cut out which were done one evening this week while watching NetFlix.  I may get a block or two, or three done before the end of the month. Yippee!! Progress!

So off topic -  I want to show-off the beautiful flowers I received for Mothers Day from my son, his fiancee and 3 grandsons. I so enjoyed them! 

So until next time . . . keep on sewing, quilting and you might want to check out OMG, One Monthly Goal if you too want to get those projects done!. Click on Heidi's icon that is on the right side bar, the gray circle with OMG on it. 

Oh yes! I am joining the party over at Crazy Mom Quilts. Hope to see you there!


Thank you for visiting and wishing you a great sewing or quilting day!

It is a new month and that means it is OMG time!

If anyone is following my blog you are probably wondering why all my recent projects are winter or Christmas themes. Well it is because I want these projects for Christmas decorations, and if I wait until November or December my work schedule gets too hectic with little time to decorate or sew. 

And what better way to finally get this Christmas tree completed by making it my "OMG A Monthly Goal" for the month of May. It was my goal to have the flimsy done last month, but didn't quite make it. I actually worked on it this past Sunday, the first of May.

The pattern is the "Tall Trim the Tree" pattern by Cindi Edgerton. The height of the tree is 76 3/4"  and width is 26 3/4", a nice size tree. I picked up this pattern last September while at a quilt retreat with the idea to sew up last year. Aha, well you see how that worked out. It didn't!

Some small ornaments for the tree will jazz it up a bit. The pattern calls for red buttons to hang the ornaments. Anyone know where you can find red buttons online?

The fabric I am using is Northcott's Artisan Spirit Shimmer. I love this fabric!! 

 The tree uses 4 different shades of green, 1 white print, 1 white and 1 cream.

My goal for this month will be to complete the flimsy and save the sandwiching, quilting and decorating for a later time. Maybe next month. 

I need to get going on with another project for a block swap that is due in November. I have only the instructions at this time. No fabric and no idea for the center block. The block is a snowball block and the center is to be a neutral batik and darker, contrasting colors in the corners. The center is to have something that is representative of spring. It can be pieced, embroidered, beaded, applique and etc.

The big goal is to decide on the fabric and what the center is going to have in it. I have an idea of what block I will be making. So excited to buy fabric for the blocks!

Confessions of a Fabric Addict is also sponsoring May Goals!! I am linking there as well!

Thank you for visiting and wishing you a great sewing or quilting day!