My other studio

As some of you know, DH recently started a new job 6 hours from where we live.  He rented a nice little place and I promised to go for long visits as long as I had a little sewing room to play in.  Well now that the babysitting has ended I have come for a visit. Unfortunately I have a bad sore throat and cold but I have had a chance to work on a few things. First up is a partially finished tote with some sewing notions to match. And I made this pincushion with thread bag for next to my sewing machine.  I am having fun making this studio a bright and cheery space.

Sorry for the photo quality.  I am posting from my tablet and just can't see to fix the photos!

Baby quilts and more

Wow, I was surprised to see how long it has been since I posted but with all the babysitting and a bout of flu last week not much sewing has been done.  While at baby's house I took a few pictures of quilts I made for his room.  His mommy helped with the owl quilt and we had great fun working on it while awaiting his arrival.  The final photo is of a quilt I made about a year ago to hang in their entrance.  It is so nice to be able to share with them and I see many fun sewing days in my future with my wonderful DIL.  Her last day of work is tomorrow - I will miss seeing my sweet little guy so often!

It's all in the details

Here is the next block in the BOM "Forget Me Not" by Esther Aliu.  It is a Calla Lily. I selected the color after checking out various color options on the computer. What a great tool the computer is, all I had to do was Google Calla Lily and look at the images and voila. Who knew these flowers came in so many colors!  If you look at this block in a previous post, you will see that it looks a little flat.  It really didn't come to life until all the embroidered details were added and I even did a little extra shading inside the flowers with Prisma colored pencils.  I wasn't sure about the color combination til the block was complete - this really is a case where the details make the block.  I'm looking forward to prepping the next block this weekend.

Peony finished

Another busy, busy week that included a trip to Charleston to celebrate the college graduation of my youngest DS.  How exciting that 2 1/2 years after suffering a traumatic brain injury in a car accident and almost dying, that he not only recovered but graduated Summa Cum Laude.  The only sewing that went on this week was the completion of this peony block from the BOM by Esther Aliu. The third one comes out tomorrow so I'd best get busy on number 2 today!!

A Weekend in the Studio

Despite the absence of DH, I have had a great weekend and most of it has been spent in the studio.  As the name of my blog indicated I am happiest when I am appliqueing and this week I was actually caught up on all my prepped work.  Evenings were spent embroidering or just watching TV but I was longing to get  appliqueing again.  So with a free weekend I was excited to prep these two blocks from Esther Aliu's  online BOM "Forget Me Not".  It is a mystery BOM that runs for 12 months and has two different blocks to choose from each month.  The patterns seem to still be available on the Yahoo group for Esther Aliu and probably on her website.  New patterns come out on the 15th of the month so it isn't to late to start this one.  I am excited to finally find a project worthy of this background fabric.  I have several yards but I've been saving it for just the right thing and I am happy with how it is looking.  I actually started stitching the peonies so I'd best find something else to prepare soon so I don't run out again.

These Calla lilies will be embellished with some shading once they are stitched and there are pretty embroidered fronds to be added as well.  The butterflies aren't part of the pattern, just something I wanted to add.

I intended to get this Birdie Stitches quilt sewn together too but another project took priority so it is cut out and on the design wall awaiting final assembly.

Late last week I was contacted to see if I would be interested in helping with quilts for family members of a local fallen soldier.  I was happy to help and when the fabric for the center squares arrived on Saturday I decided to complete these this weekend.  We were asked to use reproduction fabric or similar and I was happy that I was able to find these in my stash.  One of them was dated 1990 on the selvedge and several others are from about that time. I guess that is why I never really purge the stash, you never know when you might need something!

Well I'm off to sit and stitch!

Some Birdie Stitching

Since I am babysitting during the day I am only able to fit in a little hand stitching during nap time. I am so glad that I prepped these stitcheries ahead of time cause I am so happy that I am now almost finished.  I really had forgotten what a fun little project this is and now wonder why I didn't get it finished at the time.

I ran out of thread doing the leaves on this one so had to skip forward to the month of December since I decided to use the same thread on November's block.

It is really hard to pick a favorite among these.  Hopefully I can finish the last block tonight or tomorrow and can put this together on the weekend.  I really want to get back to my Wagon wheel blocks too.  I think that I am going into sewing studio withdrawl.

The poor dog really is lonely with me being gone all day so I dare not go into my studio in the evening.  I would be happy for her to join me there but she really hates going downstairs in this house and just stands at the top of the stairs whining.  Crazy dog but I love her. :)