Something cheerful

Good golly, it's June.  How did *that* happen? (The older I get, the more I say that.  If I stop saying it, will I stop getting old?)  No big surprise--we are having another rainy day.  Not sure about this weather pattern, but here's the perfect cure for a gray day:

The only dry spots were actually on the massive tree!

How cheerful is that?  I made this from Connie's free Chinese Forget Me Not tutorial at her blog Freemotion by the River.  It happens that she posted this tutorial a few days after I purchased some orange and yellow batiks.  I loved the colors of my batiks, and Connie added the turquoise flowers and I was sold.  It's so pretty!  If that's not inspiration, I don't know what is.

Connie's tutorial is for an Accuquilt cutter, which I don't have, but it was easy enough to cut the pieces myself.  The tutorial is really clear and it was pretty easy.  I made the bias stems with my bias tape maker.  The flowers are raw edged and are made from a poinsettia template I found on the Internet. Did you know that you can just use a soft pencil and trace the pattern right from your screen?  It worked great!

I hope everyone noticed that this is actually quilted! To do that, I actually built the applique on top of the layered pieced top:

There is no fusible in this top.  I just stitched it all down right through the layers, which quilted it as I went.  The background has a simple meander that I actually did last, after all the applique was in place. This was not without problems:

Overall it worked out okay, though!  I am really pleased with the finished product.  It's so cheerful, and I love these two colors together (even though they seem to be strobing in the pictures).  The one thing that I might do is add buttons to the flower centers so that they stand out a little better.

Hope everyone has a wonderful--and dry--weekend.  We are going to the ballpark!  I hope the rain is finished by then!

Sharing at Confessions of a Fabric Addict and crazymomquilts, and  Linky Tuesday at Freemotion by the River.

Blowin' in the wind

Hello, and happy last day of September! Am I wrong, or has the weather been crazy the last few weeks? We had a beautiful summer weekend, except that it's September, and we just had a 15 degree temperature drop in the space of an hour. When I got home, it was 78 degrees and blowing like crazy outside. An hour later it was 63 degrees and still blowing. Gave me a big headache. I'm sure there's rain not too far behind it, too.

Lots going on here. Still working on those same two quilts. Yeah. . .I don't know why I decided to make two of them with so many pieces each at the same time. But there is progress, and that's keeping me going. Let's see if I can get one done by Friday. Could be a challenge, but I'll try.

In addition to those quilts, there is this:

Yes, that is the fields and furrows quilt being basted in my kitchen. I refuse to crawl around on the floor, so I basted it in sections on the table. The backing is taped under the table and clamped to the table as well with these babies:

Very handy! I also basted the Dancing Nines quilt and both of these are now ready to go! Not sure exactly when I'll get to them because my sewing table looks like a thread bomb went off, but I'll have them done sometime in the next couple weeks. (For those who are interested, Wanda Hanson has a nice thread basting post on her beautiful blog HERE. I do pretty much the same thing she does.)

After the success of the polar bear paper piecing, I pulled out two more projects that I've had for a while that also use large pieces. First there is this one:

I figure this would be good for the rest of those orange and/or yellow scraps I have. There is also this one, which is slightly larger:

Both of these are from Quiltmaker magazine. I was all set to start cutting pieces of fabric and making kind of a "kit" of fabrics and traced patterns so I would be ready to go. Then I discovered that I had not a single thread of gray fabric anywhere in my stash, either solid or prints. Not a thread! How can I make a squirrel and a raccoon without gray? So I guess I have to go shopping. Oh, the hardship! But at least I have most of the patterns for these projects traced and ready to go as soon as I procure some gray fabric. (Yes, I know the squirrel in the picture is brown, but the squirrels that live in our backyard are gray, so I want gray.)

The last thing I got done this weekend also involved getting ready for another project. This one is a hand applique project that I think will take a long time. I've been wanting to try back basting applique, so I spent some time this weekend prepping the pieces. Look how big they are: 

They're huge! That can only be good for me, though. Easier than the tiny ones. I'm using these fabrics:

I bought these at a rummage sale for $10 this past spring. Never used them before, but I figure I can't really go wrong. I also got some greens from Vicki Welsh's shop to use for leaves and stems. With all the dark cold nights that are coming, I think this will be a good project for the evenings this winter.

Anyway, that's what's up here! Really going to try to finish up one of those quilts this week. They are both thisclose, so keep your fingers crossed!

Happy sewing all! I'll be back Friday, which will be in October. Can you believe it? I can't!

Linking to Linky Tuesday, Fabric Tuesday, WIP Wednesday, and Let's Bee Social. Stop by and say hi!