Folksy Fish Finish

I've been sitting on this finish until the quilt had been received and then life intervened.  

My daughter has a good friend that had a baby.  

I have adored the pattern Folksy Fish ever since I saw it.  

If you *need* the pattern you can find it here.

They decided to decorate in a fish theme.  

PERFECT!!  

Now I could make this pattern. 

 I collected up the stuff and began working on it. It was a really hard pattern for me!!  

All of the fish were paper pieced but I was not understanding how to assemble them.  

 I also decided to improv some "water" and that took me much longer than I anticipated too.  

Good think I started early!

On to the quilt

  I call it Too Cool For The School.

Good thing I love this girl!

This fish represents baby Jack.

Kathy at Thread Bear quilting did the quilting

 I asked for wavy lines, seaweed and bubbles.  I love how it turned out!

This fish was the most labor intensive.  Those white lines were all paper pieced.

Once I finished the fish paper piecing they had to be sewn into the background in a curve.

Wooo, lots of new stuff to learn!

I could not resist making one "cat fish".

You can really see the seaweed and bubbles in this section.

When we were in Florida in the spring I found the perfect backing fabric too.

I snuck in some little animals too.  

Also the word "fly" (dad is a fisherman) and "love".

Here is baby Jack on his new fish quilt.

I did hand embroider the label.

The new little family.

Even the doggie got in on the action.

It makes my heart so happy when I gift something that was so much work and is so appreciated!

The mama, messaged me right away to let me know how thrilled they were with it!

Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts Finish it Up Friday.

Speaking of Friday, have a good weekend everyone!

It's good to be back!

~XOP~

WIPs With Friends and A Giveaway

I guess I am a little late today posting, but this am has been crazy busy at work and in my house.

I have been busy trying to finish up the improv "water" I have been working on to 

fill in the spaces in the Folksy Fish baby quilt. 

I can't show the quilt in progress since the mom to be stalks my Facebook and Instagram accounts 

but I will show you an example of the "water" so you will know what I am talking about. 

 The photo isn't the best but you get the idea.  

It is dark in my hallway.

I put my design wall on the hallway wall as it is the largest space I have in my house!!

I am going to link up with Sew Fresh Quilts

Now it is your turn to link up what you have been working on.

I will leave the link open until 1pm tomorrow.

Let's see if we can get up to 20 people to link up!

I will do another giveaway if we do.

~XOP~

An InLinkz Link-up

WIPs With Friends (and a Giveaway)

Let's see if we can get 10 people to link up this week!  

If we get 10 people then I will have a giveaway.  

You will get an extra entry if you get a friend to link up and leave me a comment saying so.

On to what I have been working on.  How is this always an endless list??  

First up I got my June Bee blocks made.  

This was an easy block and I really like how it looks.  

Our priest is being transferred (they only get to stay for 6 years) and

 I thought this might be a nice one to make a throw quilt for him. 

 I think I would make the + in blue though.  The squares are 5" and it went together so quickly. 

 I wonder if I can find a low volume charm pack?? 

 Might speed things up eh? 

 I will put that on my "to do" list!

Progress continues on my Folksy Fish quilt.  This is my version of a Catfish!

This is my fishy number 8.  

 It was night time but I thought you might like to see the 8 fish I have made so far.

 I am making some improv style water to fill in the spaces.  

This is not the final layout.  

I need some advice.  

I have one more fish to make and he will be swimming in the opposite direction. 

 I am thinking about making him a different color.  

Navy? 

 Orange?  

Or maybe the same teal but with an orange stripe?   

The quilt is for a baby boy, so no pink or purples. 

 I am leaning toward the navy, with maybe a hint of orange in it.  

Thoughts?

Lastly I received the final sea horse yesterday at work.

  I decided that the rest of my week is SO busy 

that if it was going to be finished it would have to be now.

 I finished the top last night, but the backing and batting.  

It is ready to make it's way to the quilter!!  It was dark so I hope to get some photos later.  

Check out that minky backing!!

I am linking up with Sew Fresh Quilts.

If you have something you are working on please link up!

If we can get 10 people (or more) to link up I will have a giveaway.

If you get a friend to link up and tell me you sent them you will get an extra entry too.

Use the little blue linky button!

Link closes on Thursday at 9am.

~XOP~

An InLinkz Link-up

Some Finishes and some Farming

Last week my daughter asked me to make some pillowcases for her to give to a friend t

hat she is staying with while on vacation. 

 I always dread this because I always forget how to make them. 

 Every. Darned. Time!  

This time I went to my own tutorial (which you can find here) and 

followed the directions and was successful. 

 I think all the other times someone has been directing me so I really did not pay close attention.  When I had to make them on my own, I actually *learned* how to do it.  

Does that make any sense at all??  

My daughter and I went to a local quilt shop and she chose the fabrics.  

Not fabrics I would have chosen in a million years, but she loved them. 

 She drove me home and the next day I hammered out 4 pillowcases.

The space ones are actually 3D!  

The shop owner gave her a pair of 3D glasses.  When you put them on the space fabric becomes 3D.  That was pretty cool.

Then I got to thinking that I had bought some dragon fabric awhile back intending to make pillow cases for this same daughter. 

 Her birthday was on Wednesday so since she would not be home for it, I decided to make them and gift to her when she came by to pick up the cases for her friend.

I have to say that I LOVE how these turned out.  

The fabric reminded me of the movie How to Train Your Dragon.  

The little black one reminded me of the Night Fury from the movie, Toothless.  

I loved that movie and so did she.

Since finishing the other 2 baby quilts is temporarily on hold, I decided I needed to work on the fish.

I managed to get 2 more fish sewn along with a few "water" improv blocks too!  

It is coming right along. 

Making these fish has been a challenge but they are turning out really cool!

I think I have 3 more to go before I will call it a day and figure out how to put this all together.

We have been on farm duty this week and will be again next week while daughter and SIL are away.

That means taking care of all the birds, the cats, the mice, and the fish.  

She fed the snakes before they left and he will be home on the weekend to do that again.  

I don't like the snakes.  

They would probably die if I had to feed them.  

The pea hens are laying so I am collecting them and putting the eggs inside.  

A friend of hers borrowed her big incubator to see if he likes it enough to get his own, so she asked him to come get the pea eggs to put in the incubator.  

Each day I collect these I write which pen they came from and the date.  

Her purples had stopped laying, but I have collected 3 eggs from their pen this week!

I also collected all the chicken eggs each day.  

Aren't they so pretty?  Blue, green, pink and brown!!

The one I am holding is a purple pea hen egg, actually laid on her birthday. 

 She was pretty happy to hear that they are laying again.

The purple pen is on the right and the blue pen on the left.  

The boys like to try to fight through the wall.  

This reminded me of the Sharks vs Jets in West Side Story!  

The blue male was making his way over to the fence line on the left and 

both males had their "flock" on their sides.  

Humorous how they can mimic us!

She has set up a barn webcam to watch the chicks in the barn and t

he turkey (Jocelyn) sitting on a clutch of pea hen eggs.  

If you want to watch too, (you might see me or my husband in the barn) here is the link. 

 Mostly you will see the chicks running around but it is pretty quiet most of the time.

So that's what I have been up to.  I am going to link up with Crazy Mom Quilts.

Have an eggceptional weekend!  

~XOP~

WIPs With Friends

It's Wednesday again and you know what that means.  

WIPs With Friends time!  

I have not been able to do a whole lot of sewing but I did manage just a little bit last night.  

I needed to make the label for the Legendary (Baby Big Foot) quilt.  

I decided to make an inverse colored tree.  

The trees on the front are a color and the background is mostly white. 

 So my tree for the label is the background fabric from the front and a color for the background! 

 I still need to write on it, but this is how it turned out.  

The Yeti print on the bottom is what the backing is made out of.  

I used the same striped fabric in the trunk that I used for the binding!

The other thing that I managed to work on is another fish!!!  

This is officially the most difficult block I have ever made!  

Each of the 2 body sections took me about 2 hours to piece, the tail another 2 hours and the background and assembly another 2 hours.  

It's tough as there are no matching points on the pattern 

so I was VERY unsure how to match this up to assemble it.  

I took a chance on placement.

Getting the paper off was not easy either.

The center seam line is insane!!!!!

It is so thick it is very difficult to make the fish lay flat.

I'm not sure but hope it won't break any needles when it is being quilted!

While I love how it turned out I think this will be an only fish in the quilt.  

I had a lot less trouble with some of the other fish so may make more of those. 

He sure is cool though!  

I have one more different style fish to piece.  

Then I have to decide if I want to make any of the same fish but swimming in the other direction.  

Or 

Do I want to make the fifth fish that is different swimming in the opposite direction 

(signifying the baby).  

I'm feeling like I need to make some pieced water blocks now and play with the layout to see if I need to make any additional fish blocks.  

I really want some negative space of just the pieced water to be in this quilt too.  

I am linking up with Sew Fresh Quilts

Now it is your turn to link up what you are working on.

Please link up using the blue Inlinkz button.

If you are posting on IG please use the #WIPsWithFriends

And don't forget to link back to this page!

~XOP~

An InLinkz Link-up

WIPs With Friends

Is it Wednesday already??  

I have some new fishies to share with you.  

I am continuing the school of fish.  

They are fairly labor intensive and I am struggling with the lack of actual directions. 

(as you will see on fish number 3)  

I am working off a beta version that I got from Sarah when she was making this pattern.

I am using the Folksy Fish pattern by No Hats Quilts

So far I have three completed fish.  I finished fish number 3 last night and started on fishy number 4.  

Fish Number 1 (He has the best eye)

Fish Number 2 (I think he is a Beta fish)

Fish Number 3 (I am loving his body fabric!)

I decided to keep going and this next fish is a lot more complex then these first three.  

It is my nod to MSU (school that the mama went to) in that it is green and white.  

I spent about 2 hours on the top half of the fish last night.  

There were 33 pieces in the top section of the fish.  

The mama of the baby's mama asked me what I meant by paper piecing so I took a few shots to show what I meant and will share those here.

This is what the paper side looks like with the fabric all sewn on to it from the "back" 

(or the side I actually sew on).  

It is kind of a mess, but you can see how I sew on the lines.

Flip it over and you can see what it looks like on the front.  

This particular pattern did not include the 1/4" seam allowance so when I piece I need to remember that my outer edge needs to include that.

Here it is from the front once it is trimmed (don't worry the odd bits will be caught in the seam)

This is the whole pattern for the fish without the background.  

You can see I have a wee bit more to do!

I thought this captured the whole thing nicely too.

I am going to link up to Let's Bee Social too.

So that takes care of what I am working on.  

What are you doing?  

If you are on IG please use the #WIPswithfriends

Please use the Inlinkz button to link up and let us all know what you are working on!

~XOP~

An InLinkz Link-up

WIPs With Friends

I can't say I have much new that I am working on as I was on vacation all week last week.  

We got home on Saturday and I did some sewing on Sunday though. 

 I am working my way through the Ocean Waves quilt but have to stop to work on a baby quilt. 

 Here is my latest OW block.

 The pattern I am using for the baby quilt is called Folksy Fish, by No Hats  

I love Sarah's pattern but this fish was VERY time consuming!  

The paper piecing was what paper piecing is and even though it takes time it is not really difficult.  The curved piecing on top of the paper piecing though was KILLER! 

 I don't have a lot of curved piecing experience so hopefully it gets easier!  

I love how this fish turned out though.  

The 8 x 10 block took me just over 5 hours to complete.

My plan is to make more of the fish in various shades of blues and greens.  

I plan to use lots of low volume prints to make the "water".  

I will be making some pieced water blocks and have a little more negative space in the quilt.  

  If I find out the baby's name (ahem, hint, hint) 

I have an adorable paper pieced alphabet that I could put his name on the quilt.  

I think I would really love that.  

I'm not sure how many fish I will end up making.  

There are 8 different fish with each one facing left and right (so 16 total).  

I'm a sucker so will most likely end up making them all and then adding the water and name.  

I am linking up with Let's Bee Social at Sew Fresh Quilts too.

Your turn.  What are you working on?  Take a minute and link up using the blue Inlinkz button.  If you blog about the link up please link back to this post.

~XOP~

An InLinkz Link-up