Back in the Sewing Room

As I said in my prior post, I've not really sewn in the last 6 weeks except for two bee blocks. Today I spent some time in my sewing room and worked on the following 4 blocks. The purple still needs to be sewn down but I don't have matching thread and the blocks need to be trimmed to correct size once that is completed. It's not my best work, but I'm behind the machine again!

The Sampler Guild I'm in met on Saturday. Drop in here and see what everyone was working on.

I'm off to stitch a bit - I hope you each have a great week!

I've picked up Anniversaries of the Heart again and laid Ann Dale down until I've received the corrected chart pages from Shakespeare's Peddler and figure out what I'm going to do. If you're stitching Ann Dale or have purchased the chart but don't know what I'm talking about, check out this post. If you're stitching Ann Dale, I'd love to hear what you've decided to do.

This isn't my favorite block on AotH and this particular area has given me problems. I've had to stitch this part three times! It doesn't look complicated - and it's not. Sometimes counting to two can be a challenge! Hopefully that's all behind me now and I can move on!

I've not been sewing much at all for the last 6 weeks. Actually not at all. But I have my monthly bee obligation to satisfy. I sat down today and did that. This block looks better in real life. I just love the rainbow of color. I was thinking of using this block for my month (August) but now I need to regroup and figure something else out.

I'm looking forward to having some time tonight to stitch a bit on AotH. I have mixed it up a bit for Theme-a-licious March Madness but not too much. I hope to get a few rows into Long May She Wave again this month too. I'm not good with juggling a lot of stitching projects so we'll leave it at the few I've touched this month. It's outside my comfort zone but it's not pushing me over the edge! :)

I hope all your stitches this week are happy ones!

Dropping In....

I hope you all had a good weekend. My weekend wasn't exactly what was planned (lots of time in the sewing room) but it was better (good quality time with my husband).

I wanted to show you my latest bee block for one of my bee mates at the We Bee Learning Beginner Bee on Flickr. She requested the Log Cabin block with a black center and pink. My guess is that she'll be using black elsewhere in the quilt. I thought the light and dark pinks from Ruby worked well.

I also finished my Cotton Club blocks for last month. They're giving me fits this time around and I realized upon taking this picture that I need to rip the one out again - the middle right one. It's as a result of me determining that I didn't need to read the directions - I could just look at the pictures (and do a poor job of it at that)! The photo isn't great here but you get the idea. Oh yeah, the top block? Too small. Good times.

I've pulled two projects out of my stitching kits and hope to start on one of them this week. Both of these efforts are related to the Theme-A-Licous theme for March - appropriately named March Madness! I also hope to pick up Anniversaries of the Heart sometimes soon. I'm at a point on a block that I'm not really enjoying and I just need to push through it.

I'd also like to invite all of you to visit The Azalea Sampler Guild and Friends blog where you'll see our group status on the Ann Dale SAL.

Wishing you all happy stitches!

Theme-A-Licous Update

It's time for a Theme-A-Licious update! Theme-A-Licous is hosted by Heather at It's Geek to Me. February was Fangirl February. Let's revisit what Fangirl February is about:

Send a Valentine to your favorite designer...or at least work on his or her designs for the month!

Our sampler guild is having a stitch a long so I chose to work on Ann Dale by Shakespeare's Peddler. It's a BIG project and I need to keep going forward on this one.

See where I started the month here.

I also worked a bit on Long May She Wave by Ellen Chester of With My Needle (make sure you check out Ellen's new teaching project at the top of this link - it's gorgeous). This project is sweet. I'm not quick with the speciality stitches and stitching the white on the similarly colored background is a challenge for me (that means not a lot of progress). I love every stitch though! I'm especially looking forward to the completed project as I know I'll get a lot of enjoyment out of it.

See where I started the month here.

March is March Madness. That Heather is CrAzY. Look what March Madness is about:

Stitch or knit on something different every day...it's madness...of the funnest possible kind.

This is going to be a tough one for me. I generally stitch pretty faithfully on a single project. So in March, I'm going to try and stitch a little on a few projects. It might not be much but I'll try it. It's been a while since I've stitched on AotH (I put in maybe 10 stitches in it in Feb) so I'm hoping to pick that up and I'll keep working on the two from this month. Trust me, three projects is going to be a challenge! Does anyone have any good rotation tips?

Happy Monday!

Today I have a little finish to share with you. This is a project from Prairie Women's Sewing Circle Club. If you've clicked the link this project is from Journey 2 and you will notice this was a 20 block project and mine is 9. I assembled this while I was at retreat last month. Each little block (4"?) took an hour to paper piece. That's if I got it right the first time - which I didn't. It took me some time to warm up as it's been a while. I chose to use all Jo Morton fabrics. Anyway, 9 seemed to be a good size. This will be a nice little quilt for a table top - I'll put it out around Memorial Day and leave it up until after the 4th of July.

The Quilting Gathering (paper pieced) from Prairie Women's Sewing Circle

Finished size 17"x17"

Fabrics: Jo Morton (various lines FROM STASH!)

I received a very unexpected surprise in the mail last week. Heather from It's Geek to Me decided to have an unannounced give away and pulled a name from her commenters. I won! If you're not a follower of Heather's blog - you should be! She is an extremely talented stitcher and knitter and quite funny. She is also the host of Theme-A-Licious which is a year of fun monthly themes geared toward stitching and knitting that can be adapted for any hobby/craft/art. The thread winders have been put into immediate use with my threads for Ann Dale. They'd otherwise be quite a mess! The chart is gorgeous and the notepad will be great for little notes to my DH. Thank you Heather - I love it all!

I hope to be back this week with a Theme-A-Licious update for February!