DrEAMi #71

Welcome to another Drop Everything And Make it! post, where we celebrate those projects that distract us from our 'supposed-to-be-making' projects, aka as squirrels. We've all been bitten/smitten with a project we see somewhere, be it online, at a guild meeting, in a magazine, and we stop sewing our current project because we 

just

have

to make

this thing

right

NOW!

I don't know about you, but these things usually hit me at the worst of times. I'm making a quilt for a reason, a person, and wham! out of left field comes this attractive bauble. Quilter ADD I also call it.

Project Quilting 14.6 Conquer a Fear

After quilting for some 25 years, there isn't anything in quilting that I fear. Avoid/hesitate? Yes. As in life, there are certain things we love to do, and certain things we ... do not! Over the course of the first couple of days following the release of the challenge, an idea was forming, to symbolize fear in a mini quilt, from the debilitating 'darkness' of feeling fear to the release, the blossoming and lightness that happens when you work through it and have such a sense of accomplishment. I wish I'd had more time. I had another deadline, the SAHRR, and so I devoted the majority of my week to that, since Cuba had 'robbed me' 😉 of a week's work on it. In the end, I pulled this together in a few hours. I do love it, and have used it every day since Sunday!

This is my new favourite mug rug.

Wild and Wonderful SAHRR Quilt

It's been some time since I wrote a post; I really didn't intend to take more than three weeks off blogging. Hope you check in on me on Instagram because I do post fairly regularly there. If you don't, I'll catch you up with Rounds 5 and 6 for the SAHRR, as well as what I was up to during one of the weeks:

Looks fake doesn’t it, but I assure you it is real, taken with my iPhone, and not photoshopped or colour enhanced.

Ahh, as on our previous two trips to the idyllic island of Cuba, I found several sources of inspiration for colour and design. It felt good to do something normal as well, though I did and will always wear an N95 mask on an airplane. All was well, and we've returned healthy and didn't catch anything, but that is thanks to masking on the airplane and in close quarters in the airports, as well as lots of outdoor time, even eating en plein air, which I love any day!

DrEAMi #70

Well typing that number, 70, gave me a bit of a pause. Wow. So I looked back to see just when I started this linky party where we celebrate everything squirrel and shiny and distracting...

January 28, 2017

Six years ago! Somehow it seems longer than that. Not only was it the first DrEAMi, but apparently it was the first time I hosted a linkup! Here is a graphic I used in that post that I just love.

The DrEAMi I talked about in that first post was none other than my house pattern, (see sidebar) which became a cushion cover. If you want to take a little peek back at that post, click here.

Gratitude #72

As I write this, I am grateful for my snug house. It is blowing and raining something fierce, and has been nasty almost all day. We had freezing rain and then tiny snow pellets, then more freezing rain mixed with regular rain. The trees looked like something out of Frozen, encased in ice. The power has been flickering and a fire engine made its way down the lane behind us, lights flashing but no sirens. We think maybe a tree or a large branch fell on a power line. Again, I ask myself, why when they upgrade the power poles, which they have been doing over the past several years, do they not just use that money for the new poles, and bury the damn lines. It's not like it's hard digging here; it's sand. We used to be an ocean bed.

Yay for hardy, early spring flowers, like winter aconite that has been blooming for a week now. I am also grateful for the snowdrops I spied at the beginning of this week. They really give a person's spirits a lift.

PQ 14.4 A Novel Project

The past week's challenge was to make a quilt inspired by a book. Those of you who are regular followers know that I am an avid and a lifelong reader; I was an English as well as French teacher as well for 30 years. So it was too hard to choose one book; like Trish I could ream off 50 favourites, some of those favourites read within the past year, like The Dictionary of Lost Words, or Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, or The Golem and the Jinni finished just three days ago. So I based my project on a series, the Outlander books, though as you'll see, it's really so much more than these beloved books by Diana Gabaldon, every one of which I have, including The Outlandish Companion!

The Calanais Standing Stones are in the Outer Hebrides on the Isle of Lewis. My mini is based on a photograph from Historic Environment Scotland. Calanais Standing Stones is another very informative site with more photos of these magical 5000-year-old stones.

SAHRR Round 3

This week's directive for the round was hourglass blocks. I like making them: make two HSTs, put them back together with opposite values touching, sew either side of the diagonal once again, cut apart, press and voilà! two QSTs aka hourglass blocks. Once again, however, I just didn't know how to incorporate them around my quilt. I first thought of doing them tipsy, to keep on with the whimsical theme, by adding half of a rectangle to either side. Somehow it didn't gel. So I did my RSC homework instead and let my back-brain stew. I'm not sure what inspired me to come up with a double-fade: fade in size and value, that is, but by Saturday afternoon (finally - three days of sewing, okay and real life too, later) I had it together.

Rainbow Scraps Challenge Progress

It's going to be one of those years. By that I mean, a year where unplanned projects keep insisting they get attention. I started out with one RSC project, and as of about a week or so ago, I find myself with three. I am keeping up with each one in a timely manner. So far.

This is the first one, from Quick Quilts magazine. Last month I made four in dark and bright blue. I’m planning to have 30 blocks set 5 x 6 for a 50” x 60” quilt. It will be a donation quilt. Some months will have three blocks, some will have four in the colour of the month. 

SAHRR Round 2 and PHD Update

So far this year, every one of the three Project Quilting challenges have been a snap, as in I know exactly what I'm going to do, and I actually stick to it, and they are all done in time. Not so with the Stay At Home Round Robin! It has been a challenge, but in a good way giving my brain some robust exercise, both in the creativity as well as the calculations departments. However, as of Saturday night, her is my round 2 complete. 

I actually did take a couple of in-progress photos so you can see how I arrived here. Thanks to Gail of QuiltingGail, for hosting this as well as the PHD programme.

Project Quilting 14.3 54-40 or Fight

I liked this third challenge, and, true to form this year (so weird), I knew right away that I would make the block fairly large, maybe even just one giant one, to make a baby quilt. I've called it 'Las Flores' thanks to the name of the green floral.

Thanks to Trish @quiltchicken for dreaming up the challenges, and to Kim of kimlapacek.com for hosting and organizing etc. This has been such a good jumpstart to my creativity each year!

DrEAMi #69

I was debating on whether to keep hosting this DrEAMi linkup, when a quote sent to me by Helen at Word Weaver Art made me decide yep, another year won't hurt! She said: "I read a quote once that reminded us that it's good when the muse comes, but you can't always wait on her to begin your task. She has a lousy work ethic." HA!

Well, this linky party is for those projects that the muse brings us that we can't NOT stop until they're made and out of our head! Welcome to the first linky party of 2023. I've had a few this month...

This came about through a DM on my Etsy shop where Eleasha asked if I accepted commissions on my makeup bags. Well yes I did. And poof! Off to the races and away went half of the weekend when I should have been sewing my 'The Art of Riding Thermals' quilt. Ah well. It got done in the end; she chose the colours and fabrics with lots of back and forth-ing, and she loves it, put out a lovely post in her stories. She is using it for her stationery items, and boy, do these hold a ton of pens, erasers, little notebooks, PostIt notes and so forth. So I made a new little video showing just that for the blue one that also grabbed me this month.

Gratitude # 71

Welcome to my monthly post where I share things for which I'm grateful that I have noted over the month. You can read more of these uplifting posts at the wonderful LeeAnna's blog, Not Afraid of Color.

I like this sweatshirt Dayna gave me for Christmas. My beloved CBC. I like the echo effect of their logo. I don't know, but I wonder if it symbolizes the ripple effect of the various media of theirs, and the good they've been doing as far as inclusivity. I also like the quilt under it, which is on our bed during the month of January. It was a block of the month I hosted in 2003 for the guild I was then a part of, one by someone named 'Tish in Florida' that I found online. It was really cool because there were several different sizes of blocks that all fit together. I added the borders from a book I had. Here is the post if you want some more information and photos.

Project Quilting 14.2 Pink Tint

I'm popping in with a pink project (love me some alliteration, especially when it happens as I type!) for you to peruse from Project Quilting 14.2 with KimLapacek where pink had to be the predominant colour.

As soon as I read the challenge, I knew this pillow by Minki Kim on the Benartex blog, which I've made before, twice, would be the one. I'd put it in my Etsy shop or on my couch. Done! Often the down-to-the-wire part of a PQ challenge is because I've waffled over just what one of several ideas I have should I make? Well, not so with this one, nor 14.1! I was wrong. 

The Art of Riding Thermals: Villa Rosa Designs Blog Hop

Welcome to my stop on the first ever Fast and Fun Blog Hop with Villa Rosa Designs.

I was really pleased to be asked several months ago to be a part of this blog hop by Bernie of Needle & Foot. Make a quick quilt? Help out a designer? Be part of a hop? Sign me up!

The hop is based on a bundle of five super-quick quilt patterns. I chose Snow Goose and made it à la Sandra.

You can get all five patterns on sale right now by clicking here. If you are new to Villa Rosa Designs, as I was, then you might want to check out this link, which takes you to their shop where you can find... wait for it... over 500 of these postcard-sized fast quilt patterns. I had to look twice and scroll to a second page to believe my eyes: TWO DOLLARS per pattern. The instructions fit on a postcard. The quilts are super-fast.

What A Wonderful World!

It really is. And I’m sorry if I’ve given you an ear worm, but it is a most positive turn of phrase and song lyrics. I think we all could use a reminder of this these days, when so much focus is on negativity, and there is so much corruption in and disregard for our precious world: the humanity, animals, plants, and aquatic life that live upon this beautiful blue green globe.

Through my Rainbow Neighbourhood quilt pattern, I recently connected with a group of beautiful humans in North Carolina. So much about this story shines a light on the goodness that I believe outweighs the badness.

So Much to Say!

There is a lot in the post today, but I'll keep it short so I can get back to work. I've been busy, though not crazy busy. I have a few irons in the fire as they say, and I'm here to tell you all about each one. First of all, the Villa Rosa Designs blog hop begins this week; my day to post is Sunday, January 22. My top is done, and it has marinated on the design wall overnight while I contemplate taking off the extra row I did, which is sort of but not quite, a border. My gut is leaning, though only slightly leaning, towards taking it off. It does add that bit of unexpected, wait, let me look again, idea. Here is the block you may have seen on Instagram.

There are a ton of prizes to be won during this hop which begins tomorrow, January 19! The schedule is below.

Project Quilting 14.1 One

When I read the challenge, "The First One", almost immediately I knew what I was going to make! I think this is the earliest (Tuesday evening!) that I have finished a project for Project Quilting which is hosted by Kim Lapacek.

For some time I have wanted to make a make up bag using a whole cloth technique. This was the perfect opportunity!

Santa's Power

Well, I did it: I finished another long-standing USO (Un-Started Object). What's the difference between a USO and a UFO? In my mind, a USO is a project that you bought the fabric for, maybe also the pattern, maybe not because the design is in your head, such as Santa's Power, and then you never did actually start making it. A UFO is one you have actually started, but stopped due to life, other projects being due, or squirrels, or loss of interest.

This is Santa's Power, and I am wrapped in it as I type this post. I just love it! That's an odd name for a quilt, yes, but read on and you'll find a cute story as to why it got this name.

Best of 2022

I'm writing up a quick post highlighting my top five posts of 2022, and linking it up with Cheryl at Meadow Mist Designs.

It's fun to look back on yet another year and say, 'oh yeah,' about several things that happened here on the blog.