Ready for the Voyage

Thank you all for your input on the little blue and white quilt I'm building. You'll be happy to see that I've included the pirate ship. 😊 Although I did tuck it away at the bottom, lurking in a bay between "land masses." 

Here's the whole quilt top:

Many of the blocks were made by members of the Footsquare Freestyle group. I made a couple more blocks to fill in gaps. This Wheel of Fortune for example. 

I made it thinking it could represent a ship's wheel. I also fussy cut a buoy and a lighthouse from a nautical print I've had forever. Had to get some birds in there too!

The flying geese units were meant to represent ocean waves (I hope that's obvious!). 

And then I found a perfect print in the clearance section of my LQS for the back.

I picked this print up for the binding while I was there.

I don't think I could be more pleased with the way this turned out. James already has ideas for quilting it so hopefully we can get it finished off before the year comes to a close. I'm going to have to give my elbow a rest before I tackle cutting strips for binding. All things considered, it's really not feeling too bad. 😀

Setting Sail

I haven't talked much about the Footsquare Freestyle block swap this time around. Suffice to say that I asked for blocks in blues and white. You can see the blocks that were made for me and who made them over on the Footsquare blog. (My month was July, you'll need to scroll down just a little way to see them.) As per usual it's a lovely assortment of styles and techniques, and all well done. 😊

What with the hurricanes and wildfires here in the States recently I fully expect there to be a variety of quilt drives to benefit the victims on both coasts. One quilt drive I know of already is asking for bed size quilts, queen and king size. I can't help with that in spite of having a long arm quilter in house. But I can make individual blocks and I can make quilts for kids or for use on a couch! To that end I've pulled out my Footsquare Freestyle blocks to play with.

A little while after my blocks came rolling in I found yardage of beach-themed panels in blue and white. Of course I didn't think to take a picture of the fabric before I cut it up. However, one of the panels has been the catalyst for this new project.

I'm thinking of a kid's quilt. This was also an excuse to use at least a few of the many Ship blocks I've made out of scraps. Plus that Tall Ship I made for myself as part of F2F3!

I'll be shooting for a quilt in the range of 48" x 60." Those little ships will likely become alternate blocks between the 12" blocks to stretch 36" into 48." I haven't sorted out the length yet. Four rows of 12" each plus some sashing no doubt.

Today I made some additional boats to reinforce the sailing theme.

Of course I couldn't resist including a pirate ship!

Whether it ends up in the quilt remains to be seen. 😉

Pigs and Leaves

I'm still trying to avoid aggravating my elbow so I've continued to work on small needlepoint projects. I've begun a second piggy bank coin purse. I figure I'll probably make one for each of our four granddaughters.

I'll try to use different background colors for each case. I may go crazy and make pigs of another color. 😉

When we were out and about recently I was so inspired by the colors of the leaves I got out of the car to collect a few. Then I tried them out on a blank cosmetic size Stitch & Zip case.

This may be a bit more challenging to stitch with my bum elbow but I couldn't resist the opportunity to use some of the gorgeous reds and oranges I've acquired from Nancy's dye pot.

I simply traced around the leaves with a quilter's marking pencil once I had an arrangement I was happy with.

I haven't begun work on this larger case yet. The intensity of the headaches lately have made following an established pattern with few colors the way to go.

Folks here in the USA are gearing up for our Thanksgiving holiday. Lots of families traveling to be together to share a feast and (hopefully) good times. Ours will be a quiet holiday with salmon instead of the traditional turkey as the main course and only one of our children at the table with us. Many families watch football games on TV over the holiday weekend. Those that are not out shopping! We will be watching some of our favorite holiday movies when we're not shopping online. 😉 If you're celebrating Thanksgiving I hope your meal is delicious and the memories you make warm and wonderful.

Scrap Happy in November - for a Good Cause

It's time to share something we've done with scraps. After last month's post I made up a couple of postage stamp stars. Then the other day I sewed up one more 4" postage stamp block.

What really got me rolling was the call for blocks for a quilt drive for those whose homes were destroyed by Hurricane Florence.

I've been avoiding patchwork in an effort to give my left elbow a chance to heal. Precut scrap patches to the rescue! I was able to make up four of the prescribed 12" blocks out of my scrap tins.

Then I had some fun rearranging the four blocks...

This is one versatile block!

While I was working on these four blocks I sewed scrap strips together between seams. Then I just kept going...

 I also sewed up some other scrap blocks I'd prepared last month.

Next thing I knew one of the gals from my local guild asked for a 12" crazy patch block for her friendship quilt. Perfect for scraps!

So in spite of not sewing for about three weeks I got a lot done in a few days!

Scrap Happy Day is hosted by Kate in Australia and Gun in Sweden. To see what others are doing/have done with their scraps you can hop over to either of their blogs. There will be a lot to see, I promise you!

SAL in November

It's time for our Stitch Along's tri-weekly check in. I've been doing a lot of needlepoint lately but I have managed to finish up the embroidered block in the series I've been slowly working on this year.

As it turns out, there's one more block left to stitch. It's ready to go but I haven't begun it yet. This is roughly how I plan to lay out the quilt when I finally get to that point.

The blocks will be trimmed down before I then frame them up again. I'm going to try for a variety of sizes and shapes, squares vs rectangles. Still don't know what prints(s) I may use to turn these into a quilt though!

There's quite a bunch of us participating in this stitch along. I only made it about halfway through the list the last time. Hope to do better this time around, even if it takes a couple of days. 😊 There's a wide variety of needlework being done in this group. If you're interested in having this kind of motivation to keep your needlework moving along contact Avis via her blog. Our next check in will be on 2 December.

Avis, Claire, Gun, Carole, LucyAnn, Kate, Jess, Sue, Constanze, Debbierose, Christina, 
Kathy, Margaret, Cindy, Helen, Steph, Linda, Heidi, Jackie

I don't want to let this momentous day pass without honoring those who sacrificed all for liberty and democracy.