WIPs With Friends

It seems it is Wednesday again and time to share our WIPs!  

I have been busy, busy, busy, working on Bee blocks and blocks to support 

the people affected by the tragic events in Orlando.

I managed to finish my June bee blocks.  I have never been so late getting these out!

I loved making this block and would consider making these again.  

So much fun!  

The block is a 12" finished one and the directions can be found over here at Sew Mama Sew if you want to make some too!  It is called an Autumn Chain block.  

We were to make one orange and one pink.

They were easy to make and they look really cool!

On top of that a woman in our Bee group asked us if we wanted to contribute some large HST blocks to make this quilt to go to the people in Orlando affected by the shooting. 

 It is called Big Love.  

I sure do love it!  

Wouldn't it be great done in blues and greens too??  

The blocks we made were 9.5" HST blocks and here were mine.

I belong to another group run by the fabulous Diane Bohn of From Blank Pages fame.  

She designed a ginormous heart made up of hearts and set in an interesting way.  

They were paper pieced and she designed them to be a rainbow.  

There were 86 I think.  I signed up to make 3 teal ones.  

You can find the pattern (free) here, if you want to make one too.

These were my three hearts

I won the first two fabrics in a giveaway that Pile O Fabric had so put them to good use.

I had this one in my stash.  Aren't those cats adorable.

So these are the things I have been working on.  I have a couple of finishes to share soon.

I also am going to be working on an epic Hallowedding quilt in the very near future.  

If you have not see the epic Halloween quilt over at Flying Parrots blog, go check it out.  

She is running it as a QAL.  

Most of the patterns are free, some you have to buy if you want to duplicate her quilt.  I

 will be adding to mine to make it larger and I am using some different fabrics, so stay tuned!

Now it is time for you to click the Inlinkz button and add your WIPs!

~XOP~

An InLinkz Link-up

WIPs With Friends

It's time again to link up any of those WIPs you have been working on!  

I have been sewing like a mad woman but I am trying not to share until I can gift. 

 Instead I will show you pictures of the beautiful flowers waiting for me to plant them. 

 (kind of a WIP, right?)

Last Friday after work hubby picked me up and we picked strawberries.  

I made 24 jars of strawberry jam!

It is always nice to have these in the winter!

One of my WIP's that I will show is how I quilted this piece that I used in something else. 

 I put down tape over the line of faces and quilted on both sides of the tape.  

Then I lifted it up and put it over the next line of faces and did the same thing!

This is how the quilting looks as I was going along.  

I have had several finishes but can't show them just yet.

Of course Autumn was overseeing all this progress.

Until she got bored.  

She is such a sweet soul.  

She is really getting thin and I am worried that I will lose her shortly too.  

(lost her siblings in October and March).  

Now it's your turn to link up your WIPs.

Also linking up with Let's Bee Social.

~XOP

An InLinkz Link-up

There Once Was A Little Birdie Quilt

My daughter met her very best friend when they were 5 years old.  

They lived down the street from us and they did everything together for many years. 

 Near the end of high school they drifted apart.  

Her friend and her familyexperienced some very difficult times and 

her friend moved away for a short time.  

I had also become good friends with her parents. 

 This time was tough for everyone involved. 

 Over time and with a lot of prayer, things evolved and changed.  

We never stopped thinking of this young woman as part of our family.  

I think growing up, she spent almost as much time at our house as at her own. 

 We have watched her mature and grow into the most spectacular young woman and soon to be mom.  We have always loved her and we always will.  

I was on the fence about making her a baby quilt.  E

ven though we love her we are not really part of her life in a real way any more. 

 I was invited to her baby shower and made her a chenille blanket.

I decided that I wanted to make a quilt for her new about to be born daughter.

The nursery colors are lavender and yellow.  

I have never worked with those colors and let me tell you, they are adorable together!

I had a pattern that I have been dying to make for someone and this proved the perfect one.

I did not realize the birds on it were quite so large.  

I had to adapt this to a baby quilt.

I figured out how to place the stars and then pulled fabrics.

You realize how much you lack when you pull colors you don't often use. 

I had to reach FAR back into my stash for this one!

Everything was made from my stash except the binding.

I give you 

~Little Birdie~

The Quilt pattern is called Feathers and it is by Lydia Nelson

You can buy a copy here

I altered the pattern to make only 4 birds.  

This meant I had to figure out how to make all the stars whole.

I also added Prairie Points.

The quilt design in the center is called Marmalade and you may purchase it at Digi-Tech Designs

Showing you the individual birds.  

The background is actually a white on white with little birds 

(a Moda Muslin Mate)

The quilt was quilted by Kathy Koch of Threadbear Quilting.  

She did a feather in the outer border.

Kathy is one of those quilters that can up your game by the amazing job she does.  

If you want Kathy to quilt  your quilts too you can find her right here. 

I promise you that you will NOT be disappointed!

I used up some of the 5" squares I had cut for the prairie points on the back since I didn't have enough of the  all purple background, even with the yellow.  

I made a yellow star as the label and wrote on it, all but the date. 

 (Still waiting for baby to make her appearance!)

 I love, love, love this baby quilt.  I hope little mama loves it as much as I do!  

I can't wait to meet the new little one and gift this quilt. 

 Soon!

I think mama is more than ready.

I am calling this a finish and will link up with Crazy Mom Quilts Finish It Friday.

Have a safe, fun and productive weekend!

~XOP~

Onsie Making At It's Finest

I am helping to throw a baby shower for my niece.  

I decided that decorating Onsies would be a good idea. 

 I did this once before for another niece and it seemed to be a hit so why not?!  

I gathered Onsies (harder to find than I thought) and set to printing up many under the sea 

(and near the sea) creatures for said Onsies.  

I think one of my favorites will be the Narwhal.

What's that you say?  

You want to plan a Onsie decorating party too but you don't know how?  

Then let me walk you though it.

First determine the theme of the Onsies.  

In this case sea life. 

 I did animals previously, you could do farm, or alphabet, or vehicles, whatever you like. 

 Next is to look for coloring pages online in your theme. 

 I Googled sea life coloring pages.  

I found pages that I thought would translate well into doing fusible applique and printed those.  

 I used the copy machine to resize to a size that would fit on the Onsies. 

 I got the Onsies in many sizes, 0-3 months, 6-12 months, 12-18 months and 24 months.  

Get a good range. 

 Some of mine are long sleeved and some short.  

I chose all white but there are plain colored ones too.

  It is a good idea to look for them at the end of the seasons 

(ie short sleeve at end of summer and long sleeved at end of winter) if you have the time. 

 I didn't.  

Once you have your designs you are ready to trace them.  

I flipped my page over (using the back and a light box) and traced it onto fusible breaking the design apart as necessary.  

This means when they are trying to make the applique it will 

exactly match the one on the coloring book page front. 

 Then I figured out which fabrics I wanted to use for which parts 

and fused the design to the back of those fabrics.  

Isn't that stripe perfect for the horn? 

 I rough cut the fabric as you can see in the photo.

  Voila! 

 Bag the fabric parts, original coloring page and one shirt and you are ready to go on to the next one.  I found making these "kits" helped at the actual party.  

At the party, I let people choose which kit they wanted to do.  

They cut out the fabric pieces and placed them on the shirt 

(with supervision, it's tricky when there are pieces that need to go 

under and over other pieces so make sure you are helping).  

I brought a little ironing board and iron.  

They brought me the Onsie and we placed the fabrics on the Onsie, at the board,

 using the coloring page as a guide for placement.  

Then they fused the design in place.  

We hung them up around the room on a clothes line for display.  

I took them all home and stitched around them and gave them back to the mom-to-be. 

 So. Much. FUN!

If you have any questions about any of this, just email me and ask! 

Or leave a comment here but be sure to leave your email address so I can respond!

Of COURSE you know I had help with making these kits right?

Oh Autumn, you are such a good helper!

Thanks to everyone that linked up yesterday.  

I will try it again next week so get your WIP pictures ready!

~XOP~

WIPs With Friends

I see that Lee over at Freshly Pieced is no longer doing the WIP Wednesday link up.  

I think I will make a link up here for those of you that might like it.  

I can try it with photos (I think you get some trials for free).  

If it catches on, then I will pay for that service, but you have to play along!

I had an unexpected trip to Grand Rapids to replace my sister's broken tv.  

The good that came of that was I got to stop at Stitched Studio on the way home. 

 I love visiting that shop so much!  I picked up a few additions to my stash while I was there.

This very modern fishing fabric caught my eye.  

I know you are saying "fishing fabric"?  Yes fishing fabric. 

 Hubby fishes and DD2 is a fishery biologist, so I need to make a couple of fish themed quilts.  

Have you seen the fish fabric that's out there?  

Realistic, dark and drab fish.  Loved this 

(and that crosshatch worked perfectly in with these too).

You can never go wrong with some Tiger Lily.  Love, love, love this line.

As fate would have it we also had time to stop at Keens in Mason for a little more retail therapy.  

I need to find yardage of this aqua pronto for another Fox Face quilt!

Some new Tula? Ummm yes please, don't mind if I do!  

Those two flower prints are two of my new favorites!

Remember these silly faces?  Well I'm making some more. 

 I just loved these so much.

I have a story to tell you about these but 

I can't share more than the fact that I am making more of them for the minute. 

 I will share eventually and you will all understand.  

This is one of the things I am currently working hard to finish.

I am slowly making progress on more of these things.  I am also linking up to Let's Bee Social.

~XOP~

An InLinkz Link-up

Beep Turns One

That's right!  My grand peacock, Beep turned one on Sunday. 

 My daughter texted me to tell me this and my response was "Is there a party?"  

The response?  "Of course there is a party!" 

 LOL  I was in charge of procuring the cake.

My son did the grilling (with Beep's supervision of course)

The party table was set.

 Beep was awaiting her birthday feast.

If you will notice, Beep had a bowl on the arm of the chair.  

She instead, helped herself to my daughter's food.  That bird loves her some dip!!

We sang happy birthday but I only thought to turn on the video part way though.

My hubby and the birthday girl.

People ask about the farm so here are a few photos of the outside pens.  

This is the main chicken pen.

The pen on the left houses some of the peafowl and the connecting one on the right is just chickens.

You can see how large the chicken pen is. 

 It will eventually be broken into 3 pens so birds can be separated out for specific breeding. 

 FD has some particular peafowl and some very expensive chickens that she would like to breed and know that the eggs are specific to those pairings.

Not the best photo but you can see Blu, her India Blue male resting on the top of that barrel.

All in all the birthday party was GREAT!  

I hope you had time to celebrate with your loved ones this weekend too. 

 After the shooting in Orlando, I feel even more, that it is necessary 

to tell those you love how you feel.  

Spend as much time together as you can and love one another!

~XOP~