Start of Dimestore

I will definitely be coming in just under the wire for this month's Schnibble project.  With summer vacations and school starting, for the kids and me, there hasn't been much time for sewing this month. I did take time to cut my fabric for my Dimestore Schnibble yesterday and today I spent most of the morning sewing blocks together. 

I am adding an extra row to make my top a rectangle.

 I wanted to use this red and blue flower print for the background, but I didn't have a charm pack that matched for the sashing.  So instead of going to my scrap bin and pulling out a bunch of different fabrics to match, I decided to take the easy route and make all the sashing the same.  I have sewn them into strips and will cut them to the right size.  So this ended up being a color cordinated quilt instead of a scrappy one.  I hope it turns out good.  I don't have any distractions later on this evening, so tonight I will be at the sewing machine finishing this top. It will be ready just in time for the parade tomorrow.

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Faceted Jewels Basted

 Last night, with the help of Sheen yet again, I basted my Faceted Jewels Quilt.

I drew out my quilting design last night too.
But I will have to wait till this weekend to start the quilting.
First I need to work on a quilt for Tish and finish up my top for AYOS.

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Back to a Schedule and Mondo Bags

Well, Summer is finally over.  We spent the last week of summer in the mountains of NC camping, tubing down Deep Creek, and visiting with family.  We camped from Sunday to Thursday. There were a total of 32 family and friends at the campsite.  A few went to spend the night in a nearby cabin but they hung out with us during the day.  It was a blast!

 We came home Sunday just in time to start school the next day.

 It was early morning and only two of us were awake when I took this photo.

There were two more tents that you can't see. 

We had a great camp site right next to the creek.

We tubed three days in a row. What a great way to end the summer!

When my family left on Thursday we headed to Asheville to visit my husband's brother.  We had a good time driving around the mountainside in his Mule, looking for deer, and enjoying nature.

There was an awesome view from the top of one of hills.  It was cloudy when I took the picture, but usually you can see all the humps of the mountains on the skyline.

I haven't done much of any sewing since I got back, but I did do some before I left. My mom watched my dogs for me while we were gone and when I dropped them off I also wanted to drop off a Mondo bag for her and my sister, who came with us. I finished them up the day before we all left for NC.

I even personalized them on the inside handles.

I used Batik Strips from Connecting threads to make these two bags.  I bought two different color ways and still have enough squares to make another bag.

I have made three bags total. Here they are all together.  The Mondo bag on the right is the one I made for myself a couple weeks ago. 

Now it is time for me to get back into my regular school year schedule.

I sure will miss the lazy, fun days of summer.

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Guild Block of the Month - August

This is the block I turned in for my Guild's August block of the month.
To my surprise my name was drawn and I got to take home all the blocks!!

I started sewing them together like a regular string quilt, but then I thought some black sashing would bring out the black novelty fabrics in the center of each one. So I got my stitch ripper out, took apart the six I had sewn together, and came up with this.

I made an extra wide border with the intention of doing something spiffy in there, either with quilting or applique.  After staring at it a bit an idea hit me, so I cut up some green fabric strips and proceeded to make some vines.

I ended up making a lot of vine, way more than I think I will need, but I was having a good time with my new bias tape maker.

I glue basted the center vine on last night and laid out a few scrap triangles to get a feel for what it will look like. I think triangle flower petals will match perfect with the triangle sting blocks.

I have six mini triangles ready for hand applique, only 138 to go.  

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Busy Quilting

 I have been busy at the machine.  I quilted three of the four quilts I previously basted. This is the first one.  It was made by a guild mate of mine and she is going to donate it to one of our local charities. 

The pattern is a Disappearing Nine Patch.

I did an all over swirl for the quilting. 

And it is a two sided quilt!  This panel with wide borders is the perfect backing for this one.

The other two quilts I quilted are still waiting to be trimmed so I can attach the binding, but I got distracted with another project so they are patiently waiting.  I won all the blocks at my August Guild meeting and I was excited to start putting them together as a top.  I have to take one more good picture and I will show what I did with them tomorrow.  

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An Afternoon of Basting

 I spent the afternoon basting quilts.
Of course I had some help from Sheen.
At least this time he wanted to play with my basting tool instead of biting at the pins.

Click here and scroll down to see more links with Pets On Quilts.

I got four tops basted then ran out of pins.  These four are on the top of my "to quilt" list. One is a charity quilt made by Tish and the others are three of the shirt quilts I have been working on. I contemplated going out and buying more pins so I could baste the last shirt quilt, but I figured I could just quilt these and get my pins back.  A good incentive to get busy with the quilting.

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