Happy 4th of July!

Wishing all of you a wonderful, safe 4th of July!

Things are a bit quiet here today, but come Friday and Saturday the town celebration begins with a fish fry, street dance, and lighted boat floatilla parade at dark Friday. Saturday is the 5K run/walk, pet and bike parade, tug of war at the beach, chicken 

bar-b-q and pie sale, even a duck race!

But no fireworks :(   Makes me sad--they are my favorite holiday treat!!

We are in a drought situation (as many of you are) and the risk of fire is just to great at this time. Most towns are rescheduling for Sept. 

Here is my patriotic Red, White, and Blue quilty Inspiration!

This is from Allpeoplequilt and I think I have just added another project to my "To Do" list!

Hoping you are safe and cool!

Ginny

New Month Means Fresh Sewing Day!

It's Monday....and it is a new month! July is here and that means it is a Fresh Sewing Day over at Lily's Quilts. Make your mosaic for June projects and join the Linky party at Lily's!

1. Jelly Roll Quilt, 2. P1050977, 3. 022, 4. 043 Retro flower block, 5. 042 Retro flower block, 6. 041 Retro flower block, 7. 038 Retro Flower block, 8. 039 Retro flower block, 9. 037 Retro Flower block, 10. 040 Retro flower block, 11. P1050978, 12. 002, 13. 01014. Not available15. Not available16. Not available

You will see that you actually made progress and probably even had a finish or two (or more!) and THAT is such a good feeling. Plus you will get to see what everyone else is working on and get to meet lots of new people and their blogs!  The link is open all month long, and if you don't want to link up, at least stop by, check out the mosaics and leave some commnet love.... :)

Also be sure and read her post on Siblings Together today. It is amazing what quilters around the world have done to help --- and it is a sad story what these kids go through. Be sure and have a box of tissues near!

Lily's Quilts: 100 Quilts for Kids + Siblings Together Linky + Giveaway

Have a great Monday!

Ginny

Sunday Stat's

Happy Sunday everyone!

I titled this Sunday Stat's because I really needed to get a grip on everything I have going on... I have several projects waiting in the wings and many more in my head but I really, really want to finish what I have before starting something else!  I keep buying fabric for those projects in my head and I really want to use it! I know I can't be the only one with this problem! Does this sound familiar to any of you?

So here is my sewing for the past few days:

These are 10in charms for the 10" Kona and Polka Dot Swap

hosted by Angie of Sew Scrappy Quilts

On the left is Kona Mango and right is Moda Dottie.

Next is my Jelly Roll in Central Park quilt, I really wanted borders so I have added 2!

Inside Border



Outside border complete and ready for backing, and quilting!

Finally here is a pic of a drawstring backpack I made.

This took 1 and 1/2 yd of fabric (makes 2 backpacks as you need the length for the drawstrings but 1/2 the width of the fabric -22in - makes the bag and pocket part) and only a bit of time maybe an hour or two (this was my first one and the first always takes the longest! The instructions were a bit confusing at times but it turned out fine!) It has two outside pockets and is made out of quilting weight cotton. This piece of fabric was donated and was 3 yards - 4 backpaks.

 These backpacks are going to Haiti for the school children. Some friends of a friend are leaving in August and will be moving to Haiti. They are teachers and they will be teaching with the Haitian teachers and being a resource to them, as most have only a 9th-12th grade education and no formal teacher training at all.  If anyone is interested in making and donating a couple, I would be happy to forward on with mine. Just drop me a line at my email above. This is a great way to bust some stash!

 

And finally here are my "Stat's" :

Current Projects:
Retro Flowers
Back Packs for Haiti
Craftsy BOM
Generals Wives BOM

WIP/UFO
Doggie quilt

Ready to Quilt:
Jelly Roll in Central Park
Jacks Jungle Quilt
Florida Sky in Batik

Binding:
Batik Flowers

A few of these are " just" a couple of months years old! ;)  But really it was not as bad (nor as painful) as I had thought making this list would be! Which is a good thing, because I really am looking forward to starting something new!! How about you? What does your list look like?

Ginny

P.S.
I hope all of you are doing well and are safe! I know that on Friday we suffered a tremendous storm that left many trees and electrical lines down, resulting in 100,000 plus homes and businesses without power in 90 degree heat! My oldest son being one of those without power, and a couple of neighbors without power to their businesses, they were told it would be next Wednesday - Friday before they would have power back. So we cleaned out fridges and loaded coolers and brought it to my house, since I was lucky and still have power. I know that same storm moved east and caused the same damage. So I say Happy Sunday, because at least no one here was hurt, food, homes, and cars can be replaced!

Oops! The Fudge Factor

Hi everyone! Hope your week is off to a good start. Warning: Post is picture heavy.

Today I am going to show you an Oops! and the Fudge Factor. Have you ever been working away on a project, getting so much accomplished and then when you next pick it up you realize - Oops! you screwed something up?? you cut it wrong, didn't cut it correctly and are now out of the fabric you need? Marked it wrong, sewed it wrong? Well I have, many times, and then I spend quality time with my seam ripper or my computer searching for that elusive fabric. For me, many times it is from not going to bed when I should and trying to get "just one more" done. This is usally the same time of night when I am typing up blog posts and hit a button where they disappear into cyberspace :)  I am getting better at stopping when I am really tired, knowing that I might just create double the work and have to redo tomorrow because I just had to do one more tonight.

Above is an example of a minor issue: my seam is off. Easy fix, rip the seam out, repin, and resew.

                              

                   .....and wa-lah! Looking good to go, ready for the next one!

                            

                                                 Notice anything wrong with this block?

At first it looks like it is a simple case of sewing the seam wrong. Nope, couldn't be anything that simple. Each part of the petal was sewn and then trimmed so that at the narrowest part of the white background should measure 1/2".  Now do you see the problem with the lower right hand 1/4 petal?

You guessed it!  I cut the lower right white background short at 1/4 in vs 1/2 inch.

Now in this pic you can see it doesn't make a difference on the interior petal seams. Just sew them together and trim the extra 1/4 in of print off the center seam. But you can still see the lower right

is shorter than the rest. How am I going to fix it? I am not sure but I think (hope) it will be with the

      Fudge Factor!

              No, no, no, not THAT Fudge Factor!

                         Although I know it does make it better sometimes! ;)

You know, it's what you do to make it work before you totally give up and redo the block!

Yes, I am hoping that between the give and take of the seams and trimming the blocks down to size that I can make this work vs. having to remake that 1/4 petal!

Is this earth shattering, change your life info - no. Its just sometimes it seems no one ever talks about the little things that go wrong. Or even the big things. Life is not perfect and neither is the process of creating. So I believe that showing and discussing what goes wrong is part of the process. I don't think it is whining, I hope you don't think it is whining..... It doesn't mean you are less than, or not competent! It just means that you are human, and having one of those days that all of us have! 

So on to my progress for the week end! FIVE, more Retro Flower blocks! Belowe are single pics of all the completed flowers so far.

          Love this soft coral, lacy pattern!

     This one turned out better than I thought it was going too!

 This is my Oops! block and has all the colors of the other blocks in it.  It will tie the color scheme together (that's my plan anyway:)

  Bright and bold red!

My first!

   My favorite, so far! Love all the colors!

        A bit wild, or maybe it has an asian feel?

So go ahead, work that Fudge Factor, knowing that you are competent and creative, and everyone else has the same things happen to them. And when it works-- celebrate lifes small successes, sometimes they are the sweetest of all!

Linking up to Freshly Pieced

Mail Call!

Just had to show you what came in the mail!



Isn't this just so pretty and bright? A bit whimsical, a bit modern!

This is Flying Free from Antholgy Fabrics. A BIG Thanks to Julie over at

 Intrepid Thread for sponsoring the giveaway!

The Flying Free collection was inspired from a whimsical place where modern and retro collide and I hope that each piece of fabric fromFlying Free fabric collection is designed by Adrienne Looman for Anthology Fabrics. modern and retro collide and I hope that each piece of fabric from this set brings a smile to you. The mixture of birds, fruit, flowers and trees r

I won this bundle from one of the give aways over at Plum and June.

Lots of great advice and guest columnists, tutorials, and Giveaways!

See you soon!

Happy Father's Day! Weekend Catch Up

Well, how has your weekend been? Happy Father's Day to all the great Dad's out there!
My Dad passed back in 2006, but there are very few days that I don't think of him. My son is a Dad and he spent today with his son, out playing in the yard, having fun! Just as it should be...
Here is a shot from a couple of weeks ago, a little fun while getting the yard watered from the dry conditions.

Remember---the laughs and giggles, the sun so hot, the water so cold! Welcome the lazy, crazy days of summer!

In keeping with the summer theme, here are those sweet little hotpads that I gave you a glimpse at last week. Both the same, just a shot of front and back. They are made from my scrap packs from Hawthorne Threads (all except the binding which is a Moda dot). I just love them! Love the colors! They go with my Fiesta dishes perfectly! The funky little lobster bell is just for kicks - it was a gift from a good freind!

What I don't love is the binding! I tried to apply it by machine (meaning not handstitching the back) and I would say it turned out rather mediocre. I have close ups, but who wants to ruin a Sunday by picking it apart. I think my binding was a bit too wide to begin with. I like it smaller, more tight like it appears on the pad on the left..... But practice makes perfect, LOL! And I seem to get plenty of that, that's why I have two seam rippers ;)

Moving on to other projects:

Looky, looky! Retro Flowers are a'blooming! Yes I worked long and hard on these today. The bottom row is all pieced, the others I laid out to get a feel for the colors and possible positions and to match up any directional patterns. As you can see there are 6 that only have one petal on the wall because my design wall is not big enough to hold all of them!  What do you use for a design wall? This is a piece of styrofoam insulation covered with white flannel. And it works well, but it is just not big enough sometimes and can be a bit bulky to move around.

That's it for today, I hope you have had a great weekend! I did ;0

Feel free to leave me a comment, I love hearing from all of you!

May Mayhem and on to June

Hello all---oh how I have missed all of you!

May was a bit crazy--- you know the guy from the Allstate TV commercials--




Mayhem is his name, and I think he stopped by my house!!  Have you seen him?? Run!!
I am sure all of you have experienced times in your lives where just keeping up with work, family, friends, and obligations is over the top, let alone having any downtime for personal projects--ie. sewing....  but enough about the past and on to June!

I must let you know about Judy at Furball Farm Quilting.   
She is a longarm quilter with her business based just outside Maroochydore on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia.

She was so sweet and nominated me for the Leibster Blog award --thank you so much Judy! -- and I would like everyone to click on over to her blog and say Hi! She does beautiful work as shown in her pics on her blog! Leave a comment and let her know you stopped by, everyone needs some blog love :)

Also I wanted to introduce you to Beth over at Plum and June! If you don't already know she is hosting the

She has a great list of guest bloggers --check out here and here, for their posts and thoughts on blogging and sewing/crafting. Oh and what a wonderful bunch of new bloggers for you to meet and check out their tutorials and links! The blog hop has already started and will continue thru Fall. If you have missed some of the posts, stop by Beth's and ck it out, and say Hi! It's a great ways to meet new people and get tips and inspiration! 

That's about it for today's catch up! I will leave you with a little bit of sweetness that I just love! It is a small project that I did get to work on a bit! (outside of my Retro Flowers!!) These are made from scraps from my scrap pac's from Hawthone Threads--just love all the fun fabric that came in them-- a great way to add variety without having to buy yardage!

I hope to finish this today and have pics this week along with Retro Flowers progress!  Have a great Sunday!!

Ginny