Sunday Stash New Denyse Schmidt!

I was totally surprised to find Denyse Schmidt's newest line for Joann's in the store yesterday. I had stopped in to pick up some batting, backing and a few odds and ends and just decided to look at the premium fabrics section for some of her older prints that I was low on. Meadowlark is the name of the new line, and from what I saw on her Facebook page it looks like there are 12 prints. While I was in the (first) store I found 8 of the prints. They were mixed up in several locations, and not knowing how many I was searching for I may have missed a couple. That's why after I came home and looked up some info, I headed back out the the second store. There I found 2 additional prints for a total of 10. Looks like I'm missing 2, and no sign of them on the Joann's website as of yet.
And now I'm left wondering what prints they might be getting exclusive in Australia. I wonder if Fiona will keep me posted...

In other stash news, I decided to try some of these Lisette fabrics that are so eye catching. These were also to be found at Joann's. They are an apparel collection item, but 100% cotton and not stretchy, so I'm hoping they will be fine for quilting.

I've a few other items that I haven't photographed, so those I'll share for another day. Happy stash building!

Sunshine Quilt Finished

It's finally done. I delved into a bit of hand quilting with this quilt, my first time ever. It's pretty primitive, but it was a relaxing experience. I only hand quilted on the 4 blocks with the applique suns on them. The other 12 blocks I machine stitched various sun themes, all stitching done with variegated thread and floss.
The back is from one of my ever present thrifted sheets.

And the Liebster Goes to...

The very lovely Fiona of Finding Fifth has been kind enough to honor me with the Liebster award for small blogs. Fiona has some research on whence this award came into being and for what reasons it is given. You can read about what she found out here.
The gist seems to be that blogs having under 200 followers are the givers and recipients of this award. The award itself is given for what ever reason that particular blog inspires you. If you choose to accept the award you are then required to do the following, which I am copying from Finding Fifth
The 'Liebster Award' takes its name from the German word meaning ‘Beloved, Dearest or Favorite’. This award is given to small blogs that inspire you. Accepting the award then requires you to: 1. Thank the person who gave you the award. 2. Link back to their blog. 3. Copy and paste the Liebster award to your profile. 4. Pick 5 blogs that you feel deserve to be in the spotlight (they should have under 200 followers). 5. Blog about it and let the bloggers know why you chose them.

And with that being said, here are 5 blogs that inspire me; though I could have easily picked more.
The Not Always with Thread Amy is always sewing up something sweet for her grandchildren, frequently with vintage sheets.
Sew and Sews Theresa's quilts, bibs, bags and other fabric goodies are beautiful.
Modern Amish I love to see what Lindsay is doing with her Denyse Schmidt fabrics; clothes and quilts.
Janice Elaine Sews Jan's Elephant quilt is amazing, and I'm intrigued by her work with the Echo line.
QuilterBell Beautiful quilts and stitching and now adventures in clothes making.

Some Thrift Store Finds

Since I shared my newest stash additions the other day, I'll go ahead and show some of my recent thrift store finds. Some for me, some for my shop. First up, this oval divided Pyrex baking dish. This one is for me, it's a pattern that I like, plus the divided part will be quite useful.

That groovy fabric that the dish is sitting on was also a find, but it' all gone already. Next, some cute sunflower mugs. I have no idea what time period these are from, as there isn't any writing to be found on them, but I like the look; so even if they don't sell, they won't go to waste.

I also found these cute vintage trays, and there are enough for me, and another set that will be for sale. These could be used as wall decor as well as their intended use. No manufacturer information on these either, so who knows when they are from.

Here's another item destined for the shop. This ceramic(I believe) serving dish from Skoal Norway. I hadn't ever heard of this brand before, but I took a chance on it. It has a pleasing retro look, and I did see a whole set of pots and pans with this pattern on Etsy.

And, a stack of some of the truly vintage fabrics I found not so long ago. Most of these still had their Woolworth's sales tags still on them. It's hard to imagine that fabric was only .47/yd at one time. It's not quilt shop quality, but it's interesting to see how fabric has changed over the years.

And how about some vintage reading to go along with the vintage fabrics? Several Simplicity how to books and some other old(ish) quilting books have made their way into my stash.
Just look at the gingers on this cover!

And a sample of some of the clothing. BTW, that's a boy in the coat on the right.

And here's a couple of pictures of the Simplicity quilting book.

That's quite a unique skirt, but I don't really see that style coming back into fashion anytime soon, but you never know...

Stash Building with Stella and Yuwa

Fat Quarter Shop was having a 50% off sale on all of their dear Stella fabrics earlier this week and it seemed to me that there were a lot of good prints for stash building. So, I stocked up a bit. There are so many varieties of dots, and one can never have too many, right? I hope to someday make a patchwork quilt comprised of all kinds of dot prints.
Along with the dots I picked up some of the dear Stella solids, too. I usually only buy solids on a as need basis and I'm trying to change that, stash build if you will.
And, since I was already on a bender, I succumbed to my desires for these Yuwa daisies, honeycombs and Paris map prints at BlijeOlifantje. The daisies and map prints are only fat eighths, but oh so pretty. I may have happened on some true "My Precious" fabrics. Enjoy the eye candy below

Delilah Baby Quilt Finish

I finally finished this over the weekend. It would have been done sooner, except I had to take some of the stitching out and redo it due to a fold over piece on the back. I went with Riley Blake's Sew Cherry plaid print in green for the binding. I think it works nicely with the greenery going on with the roses and stands out a bit. I've got it up for sale in my Etsy shop and am now working my way through some other quilt finishes, plus a couple of new quilts I've started.

I'm working on hand quilting the sunshine blocks in my sunshine quilt. I've had some variegated threads that work with this color scheme perfectly. It's imperfect and slow going, but I do like the way it looks puffier when done by hand.

In addition to the My Precious quilt that I started this weekend, I also began an Apple of my Eye quilt. As soon as Julie of The Intrepid Thread posted about this new fabric being in, I knew I had to have it. And luckily, she had the whole FQ bundle at a very nice price. I chose the shooting squares block to use for this quilt. I've made one test block, seen below, but I'm not sure if I'm sold on this block for these prints.

It might be a case of needing to see several blocks together before knowing for sure. I just hate to waste fabric. Which ever block I end up going with, I hope to have a few blocks of appliqued apples, like I did with the sunshine blocks in my CTMS quilt.

I'm a Winner!

I'm so excited! I am a winner of a wonderful bundle of vintage sheet fat quarters from Norway! The Vintage Sheet Blog was having a sponsored giveaway last week and the wonderful prize was this. A nice big bundle of colorful sheet fat quarters from thePatternLike shop on Etsy.
The Vintage Sheet Blog is a great place to check out what other people are making with their sheets, and other vintage fabrics, as well as tutorials and other helpful information.

The owner of Pattern Like is Junette and she blogs about the awesome crafts that she and her Mom make on her blog Pattern Like. There's quilts, shoes, jewelry cuffs, wallpaper and her own Spoonflower designs to see, and what looks like what may be another giveaway going on. You'll need Google translator, or something like it, but even just looking at all of the pictures is such an inspiration.

My Precious Quilt Along Project

I'm joining up with the "My Precious" quilt along going on at Kelby Sews. I don't really have any rare fabrics as I've only been collecting the designer lines for about a year now. I don't often purchase whole lines of fabrics, so when I do they're usually pretty special, or precious...
This California Girl by Fig Tree Quilts line is my pick for the My Precious project. I have the whole fat quarter stack that I'll finally allow myself to cut into for a quilt. I'll be giving the quilt to my sister when it is finished, so that makes it doubly precious. In browsing blogs, I thought the double hourglass at Cluck Cluck Sew looked like it would be nicely suited to this fabric.
I spent some time on Sunday cutting all my strips, I'll only be using 35 of the 38 fqs, as I didn't want to include the solids. For the background fabric I chose Kona Snow, which in my head I always call bone for some reason. So 81 print strips and 40 solid strips later, I was ready to start chain stitching. I didn't make too much progress as I was working on several other projects, but I did make one block (before I cut all the strips, actually) to make sure I liked the look.

I think it will turn out nicely, perfect for spring.
Labels

Progress

It was return to work this week which did not leave me much time for sewing. I finally got to sit down at the machine yesterday and I was able to finish putting my Can't Take my Sunshine quilt top together. I didn't mention it before, but it's another baby quilt, and only about 38" square, so it was pretty quick to make. I already know what I'm going to back it with, so hopefully this weekend I'll make considerably more progress on this.

Happy Easter I'm a Fibber!

Happy Easter, hope you all got a little something from the Easter Bunny.
I'm a fibber because a few Sundays ago I said I was done buying fabric for awhile. Yeah, right! I finally sold a quilt to a non-family member last week and I was giddy and decided to reinvest in more fabric!
That's not so bad, right? I bought more fabric to make more quilts that I will hopefully sell one day...
On to the Sunday Stash.
It's all Michael Miller Color Story lines, as Quilt Home was having a sale on anything that was in the Color Story line. I believe these are all prints that have been around for awhile, but they're new to me, and I love 'em.

Can't Take My Sunshine

After having made my Citrus Splash quilt I started having a love affair with the color orange. I was quite sure I would be making another quilt similar to that one, sometime soon. It didn't happen, but a different idea involving orange and yellow popped into my head and that's what I started working on last night and early this morning. I'm calling it Can't Take My Sunshine.
I thought I would be making this out of more vintage sheets because A) They're pretty! and B) I didn't believe I had many orange fabrics. Boy was I wrong. Before I went through my sheet stash, I decided to just see how many orange fabrics I had, just in case I wanted to go that route.
It turns out I have way more orange fabric than I thought I did, and not as much yellow.

Those bundles don't include any solids, and a few other miscellaneous pieces were not included. Having so much orange, I decided to go ahead with using fabric rather than sheets.
I made the 4 sunshine blocks that will be in the quilt this morning and am really itching to make the rest of the blocks; 4 4-patch, 4 9-patch and 4 big solids. However, it's a really nice day and the thrift stores are calling my name, too, so maybe this evening I'll jump back in.
Here are my sunnies, which were made by piecing strips and using strips for two blocks, then cutting up the strips for postage stamps for two blocks. I then used my Accuquilt to cut the circles, and added Heat & Bond. I have to say that my machine did not like sewing through the Heat and Bond, it would skip stitches. I've never used it before, so I'm not sure if that's the norm.

Trip to the Botanical Gardens

I took the day off from sewing yesterday as one of the things my husband wanted to do on vacation was go to the New York Botanical Gardens. We had a pleasant time there and I took a few pictures of the flowers and other scenery. It turned out to be a good time to go because they were having the Orchid Exhibit, and orchids are our special flower. Unfortunately, I did not catch all (any?) of the names of the orchids I took pictures of, but they're still nice to look at, no?
Here's a view from the the Throg's Neck Bridge that we took from Long Island to get to the Bronx.

Next we have a nice big sign that let us know we were at the right place!

Several pictures of some of the orchids on display. See if you can spot my husband wearing the most foul t-shirt imaginable. At least to Yankees fans.

There were also some funky Cacti at the exhibit.

And some carnivorous plants, as in Venus Flytrap. These were enclosed in a big case, so as to prevent any lost fingers and such...

There were many wonderful flowering cherry trees throughout the grounds, but it's still kind of early for a lot of the other flowering trees.

And, what turned out to be my husband's favorite part of the gardens. No, not the ducks! The ducks are swimming in part of the Bronx river that flows through the 250 acres of the botanical gardens. Of all the flowers and trees he liked the river the best.

After we were done at the gardens, we headed over to the fairly new Resorts World Casino. I had seen in the newspaper that very morning about how they had a pretty good buffet and thought it would be nice to have lunch there. No pictures to show, but it was a very nice spread. And of course, we spent a little bit of time at the slots. We allowed ourselves $10 each to spend (throw away??) and made up all but $4 dollars by the time we left. I highly recommend both experiences if you get the chance.