Winter Twitterings

 
Red and white quilts have always been one of my favorites. And as history would have it, red and white quilts has been a favorite for many others through out the years.  Redwork Winter Twitterings, designed by Pearl Louise Krach, is a pattern that sang to me. The Red Work embroidery designs I followed, but the end design of putting the quilt together has been altered.The most dramatic changes to the pattern are the diamond borders in the center and the square in the square border. Also each red work design was bordered with white on white fabric, a fat quarters bundle that I purchased in Lancaster, PA while on  quilt retreat. Actually most of the red fabric used was purchased in a quilt shop there too. Having added the borders to each Red Work block increased the size of the quilt. Electric quilt assisted me in sizing the square in the square border to fit, as well as the outer border.



















I love the final border with stars and connector blocks. I think the border took the longest to make than the whole quilt itself. Surely my seam ripper got a good work out. I would say 98% of the points didn't get chopped off, but there were a couple where I said "Good Enough" after many attempts of fixing.



Many camera shots added a yellow cast to the white portions of the quilt. The first two pictures are the best ones for showing the actual colors as they appear in person.











Mr. Snowman dressed in his finest with the love of twittering birds, warm scarf, and holly adorned hat with snow on top.

Another camera shot with the quilt on the fence. It was cold outside today but no snow.










Linking up with:

Can I Get a Whoop Whoop at Confessions of a Fabric Addict
My Quilt Infatuation
Lets Bee Social 
Esther's Quilt Blog: WOW 
Linky Tuesday - Free Motion by the River

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

January 2016 Musings

January was an extremely busy month mostly due to my accounting business. My clients are non-profit organizations and donors need their annual contribution statements in order to deduct for their tax filing. Also, like any other business payroll tax payments and reports are due along with Independent Contractor 1099s.

So what does that have to do with quilting you might ask?

Nothing! But I am surprised at myself that I have accomplished much on the Red Work Twitterings quilt with my crazy busyness. It isn't finished yet, but it is on the home stretch of being completed. 

The Red Work blocks were made a couple of years ago just waiting to be made up into a quilt. They had been on the design board for about the same amount of time. Inspiration to begin came when having to wait for Golden Threads to arrive in the mail to be used for a recently sandwiched quilt. I wanted to keep the momentum up of completing several of my long overdo UFOs. The Golden Threads paper has arrived but the pinned quilt is still hanging down over the stair rails while I complete the borders on the Red Work Twitterings quilt.

The last four stars are finished, and now the in between blocks need to be cut, sewn and added to complete the third border. I am getting excited!

I have been working on this quilt during the evenings after long days working, many of those days beginning at 4:00 - 5:00 a.m. in the morning and finishing up anywhere between 5:00 - 6:00 p.m. each day. I set up my traveling sewing machine in the bonus room so I can spend the evening with my husband. Sewing helps me to decompress after those long days. We received a gift of Apple TV from my son for Christmas and we have been watching Netflix shows while I sew the evening away. It is so relaxing!


 





Here is a picture with the first 2 borders. I am so pleased how the quilt is shaping up. It will be used as a wall hanging during the winter season.

For closeups of each block go to Pinterest and look for the pins labeled Joanie's Quilts.

 Winter weather with snow and ice made the days perfect for sewing. Though we didn't have the amount of snow that many had throughout the US we were shut down for several days due to ice.


My Cassie didn't care much for the cold ice on her little paws. She was quite stubborn about going outside and had to coax her to make her do what she needed to do. It was like having a three year old.

 I changed my office/quilting studio around again. For the longest time, well over a year to be exact, I had been trying to figure how best to position two large pieces of furniture in my rather small room and be able to looks out the window. The computer screens were blocking my view. Finally one day Mike looked around and said,  "Put your desk over there in the corner." It has been the best set up. By day my quilting table becomes a great place to organize my clients papers, notebooks and files and with easy access from my desk.

Did you notice my quilt hangings on the wall?

  
I now have a nice pathway from my desk to the printer without bumping into the corner of my quilting table. And I can use the backside of my quilting table for organizing business papers by day. Every evening I clear the business files and papers and my quilting table is free to be used for a cutting table or free motion quilting.











 So there you have it my January 2016 quilting journey.



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

Winter Twitterings Red Work and Quilt Block Update

Another Block Finished!  

Fireworks are going off as I write this post! 

I wonder how Carowinds knew I was celebrating?

 Making progress with finishing blocks for this commissioned quilt. 

Oh I wish my design board was up on the wall to plan the layout!

Squaring the blocks off has been tedious. . . which warranted buying a new rotary cutter. I'm still trying to decide if I need to buy another. If you happen to stop by my blog please recommend your favorite rotary cutter and why you like it so well.I am soooo looking forward to your comments.

April's Craftsy BOM - Hexi Love and Redwork Christmas Tree

 Hexie Love

Craftsy's April Block of the Month was all about making Hexies using the English Paper Piecing technique. I have been wanting to try making them. Surfing quilting blogs and seeing many quilters making quilts and projects using this old, tried and true block pattern has certainly tantalized the desire to make something with them. It took this April's block of the month to motivate and inspire me to do so. Thank you Amy Gibson for choosing this block pattern. This is actually not a pattern that Craftsy promoted for the second block. It was a sun with rays. My color and fabric choices definitely didn't lend to making a sunshine with rays so I made a common flower using a 1-1/4 inch hexagon shaped template. Every flower needs a stem and leaves so I designed the stem and leaves by laying a layer of Golden Thread Paper (transparent paper that can be used for multiple purposes) and drawing them on to the paper. Once drawn I cut them out and pasted the pieces to freezer paper on the non-shiny side, ironed the freezer paper to the fabric and cut 1/4" seam around each piece.

I'm quite pleased with the results.

The smaller picture was taken outside where natural light enhances the picture.

The first block demonstrated was with a double strip of hexies sewn together using 13 different fabrics. It's so cute!

I also finished block #6 out of 12 for my redwork Winter Twitterings quilt. Well I thought it was finished until I noticed I missed a snowflake. Since it is starched, pressed and a picture has been taken I am going to call it finished!

Updates in Pictures

Number 5 out of 12 Winter Twitters for a Redwork Quilt Project

Azalea Bush - Spring has Arrived!

Backyard Azaleas with Birdbath that Needs to be Cleaned!

Early Rose Blooming Before Lilies!

New Flooring Recently Installed - Love It! 

 No More White Carpet or Linoleum to Contend With!

A New Project - Lining China Cabinet 

(Really an Oak Country Like Cabinet) with New Fabric!

I have been meaning to do this for 15 years.

 I'm finally getting to it, especially since I had to empty the cabinet 

for my new wood flooring installation.

Wishing everyone a Happy Easter on Resurrection Sunday. 

May your day be joyful as you celebrate.

Pictorial of WIPs

 

I won a pair of Grab A Roo's at the Charlotte Modern Quilting Guild. I love love love using them! Generally I use Neutrogena's Norwegian Formula hand cream. It works well too, but it does wear off.

Picnik and PicMonkey

I like enhancing my pictures. Generally I have been using Picnik but as many of you already know they will be shutting down their website April 19th. I learned from Ellison Lane Quilts that there is a new photo editing website on the horizon and it is PicMonkey. So today I experimented with the new site. It is quite user friendly. At the moment it doesn't have all the features that Picnik had, and yet it has other features that Picnik didn't have. Click on the PicMonkey below and it will take you to their website.

Please share how many projects you have in the works currently and if you are excited about the new photo editing website?

Redwork Snowman and Some Great Recipes

Super Bowl Sunday meant more than watching the game with hubby but it was the evening I finished one more block for my Winter Twitterings quilt - Snowman! Snowflakes were a bit time consuming but well worth it since they brightened up the scene. Don't you just love that smug smile that the snowman has? The playful twitters are so wonderful as they decorate the snowman's hat and bird house pole with stringed holly.

I thought I would share a couple of recipes that I made in the last couple of days. They are great meals to warm you up on cold wintery days.

Crock Pot Roast Beef with Rich Gravy

1 package cut up stew beef

1 packet of onion beef soup mix

2 cans of Campbell's Golden Mushroom Soup

1  package of Portabella mushrooms

1 Tablespoon paprika

Fresh ground pepper

Place the cut up stew beef in the slow cooker and sprinkle with the onion beef soup mix.

Empty the 2 cans of Campbells's Golden Mushroom Soup in a bowl, add enough water (about 3/4 cup) and with a whip stir until it is smooth. Add  paprika and fresh ground pepper and stir again. Pour over the beef. Cook on high for 6-8 hours.

Serve on mashed potatoes. Cut up potatoes, boil until soft. Add salt and 1/2 cup whipped cream cheese and mash the potatoes with beaters.

Quite Yummy!

Italian Soup

Dice 1 cup onions

2 cloves of garlic

2 cups chopped celery

3 cup cups of chopped broccoli

with 2 Tablespoons of heated olive oil add the above ingredients and saute.

In another pan brown low fat ground beef, add 1 Tablespoon of Italian Seasonings, salt, pepper and a garlic powder. Add to the sauted vegetables.

Add 2 cans of crushed tomatoes

1 jar of your favorite spaghetti sauce

2 cans of diced tomatoes

2 cans of white beans

Simmer for about 30 minutes on medium heat and 30 minutes on low heat. 

Serve with Parmesan cheese and crusty Italian bread.

I made homemade Italian bread. Anyone wanting the recipe please let me know and I will send you the recipe. It was well the effort to make. It slices up nicely and is great toasted the next day.

Feeling like I have the bug of some sort today. It is a drink a lot of hot tea, ginger ale and eat chicken soup day! Maybe I will get some sewing in between trips to the couch. Wishing you a blessed day.

Morning Began and . . . .

it is almost time for bed. Where did my day go? I started off by taking two pictures for this post preparing to sit down and write in my blog when my husband popped his head in asking me to help him. I could hardly not disagree since he drove home from Raleigh leaving 4:00 a.m. to come home to Charlotte  bringing a 50" flat screen television given to us by David, youngest son. Can you imagine how tickled we were when David told us he was giving us this flat screen?

We  had to carry this monstrous and heavy thing up a flight of stairs causing our hearts to beat hard and fast, taking time out for a few breathers! Next order of business was to rearrange  furniture so we could position the flat screen in place and scoot another heavy piece of furniture down the hall so the flat screen had something large enough to sit on. After getting all in place we then decided to haul the extra TVs, one from the bonus room and one from the guest bedroom down a flight of stairs and into the SUV to donate to Goodwill.

Once everything was settled I could now focus on the financial reports, preparing the deposit and others tasks having deadlines - I work at home - which if I haven't stated earlier  - I love, love, love working at home for a wonderful ministry that helps pregnancy centers throughout NC.

At 1:00 p.m. I had to rush to take a shower for an appointment hubby and I had with a local group home.  Once that was completed we ran errands - bank, post office and grocery store. It is now closing in on dinner time and of course we are going to have to eat our meal in front of our brand new flat screen. I picked up my redwork project and would you believe I actually fell asleep with my needle in my hand and hoop on my lap.

Now that  I am refreshed from my short nap I thought I would finish what I began early this morning by posting pictures of my most recent projects.

This is one of 8 or more, I haven't actually counted the number of winter scenes in the Redwork Quilt I am preparing to make. It is the smallest of all of them. Isn't my twitter sitting on his pine cone with snow falling adorable? Next scene I am working on is the large whimsical snowman with the twitters all about him with snow falling in the background.

Do you like the nifty postage stamp border around the twitter scene? Last evening I happened to come across Clover Lane's blog about making banners for blogs and etc., and learned some new things about how to use Picasa and pic nic to jazz up photos. Sad is that Picnik will not be available after April of this year, just about the time I found a free website where you can do some creative things with photos. Anyone know of any other freebies that will do the same?

This weekend I was focusing on my WIP/UFO and New Project 2012 Challenge. The first order of business was to make the pillows that I had promised David I would make from a silk drapery panel from Restoration Hardware. I have been procrastinating and decided it needed to be done now!

Fortunately, I was brilliant enough to cut the pillow panels using pinking shears. Anyone ever work with silk? It frays easily. There was fuzz everywhere. I covered each of the pillow forms with the lining from the drapery panel and wrapped the each pillow form with more batting to give the pillows more body. I made a quick trip to Hancock Fabrics looking for the perfect trim for the pillows. I was not successful since I forgot to bring a swatch of fabric with me. The clerk was kind enough to cut me a sample to take home with me. There were too many shades of green and decided it was best to come back. Actually, Hancocks has a limited selection so now that gives me good reason to make a trip to Mary Jo's Fabric Store, a huge warehouse of the most wonderful fabric, trims and etc.

Now I know this picture isn't the most exciting since it is not a completed project. BUT it is important that it is in the works of being completed. So Tah Dah! so far.

There is a page describing Eons Quilters Passion's Quilting Resolution and Challenge UFO/WIP Challenge going on at Eons Quilters Passion Group.  Check out my 2012 goals.

I am looking forward to what tomorrow will bring!
Good evening, I am going to hit the feathers.

"As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him; for He know how we are formed." - Psalm 103:13-14