Leah Day's Quilt Along

How is the last summer holiday of the year going?  I hope you are enjoying family, sunshine and all the other wonderful things that come with summer.  We are already starting to see signs of fall, summer is so short for us in Canada.  I do certainly enjoy the fresh vegetables coming in and I have done some pail pickles, 10 big quarts of dills, today 2 batches of pie dough for our prairie apples and a batch of tomatoes sauce to use in cassrole dishes so it has been busy so far but I am thrilled to have some veggies for those cold winter months coming.

I am been sorta following Leah Day's Quilt Along all summer and trying many of her quilt designs.  It has certainly helped me improve my skills quite a bit.  Now, every Sunday is going to be UFO day and I sure can use this!  For this first week, I am pulling out this twister wreath that I made from a tutorial on the "Quilting Board".  I suddenly became ill and ended up with surgery so this got tossed to the UFO bin. 

I don't have a lot to finished it so I think it is a good first UFO finish.  I did micro stippling on all the white sections on my treadle.  That was a lot of fun. I have stitched 1/4" inside the twisters but need to do the pink ones and then the borders.  I plan a big rose/burgandy bow at the bottom of the wreath.

I have all the straight line quilting done on my string wall hanging.

 

And look at the stitching on the back.  I used different sized squares for the centers but the stitching almost makes you dizzy.

I really like the white/black sashing.  This is not my original design and for the life of me I can't find the gal who made this to give her full credit for a great wall hanging.  I am going to bind it in a black/white binding, a bit darker to frame the whole event.

I have spent more time than I should have on the "Back to School Blog Hop", any of you doing this?  While browsing around other blog sites I came across this darling Quilt Along called "Hello Sunshine".  I am just puttering with these right now but they are so darn cute it will be hard to leave them alone.  There is a new block each month and you can join in here.  Here is a sample of the blocks and my first sunshine.

I can't quite decide if I will make this into a quilt or a Quiet Book.



 

We are experiencing just a tad bit of Heat the last few days and it feels very HOT and HUMID to us drylanders, he, he!  It is a good time to stay indoors with a fan nearby and do some sewing.

As you probably know, I am so addicted to string quilts and I am always on the lookout for a new style as inspiration.  Here is one I found lately with som white and black center strips.  I am making this a skinny quilt to use as a wall hanger or bed topper.  If I don't like how it progress, I can just change the layout and it will be a throw.  Either way, I know I am going to love this one.

This will be 4 rows across by 8 down but I only have 9 blocks done to do a sample layout.

I did this baby quilt strip style from baby jungle fabric that I have had since maybe 2007.  I get so much inspiration from Mary on Scrap Quilting that it is a daily stop to see what's new.  Such a generous lady quilting most of the quilts for the Heart String Quilters charity group and always sharing finished quilts highlighting the quilting as well.  Here is the start of my strip quilt.

The humidex and temperatures are lower today so we are going to BBQ steak and have a good supper.  I have just about had my fill of sandwiches for a while.

Making Things Safe

Today I downloaded my new free anti virus program AVG2012.  I am very happy with how well it all went.  I am not super computer savvy but I manage to get through things.  I ran a couple scans and no items were detected so that always makes me feel good.  I hope you all take a bit of time to do this each year.  It is important to keep your system safe and to ensure your visitors are safe as well.

Other than that, I sewed some strips while scans were running and systems download, etc. so I will have my 20 String  blocks done pretty quickly here.  I am always anxious to see what the layout will look like and I have never had one disappoint me yet.

The Desperate Housewife posted 27 weeks of modern block tutorials and had 27 guests post tutorials.  I have been going through them and picking out some I really like.  I am going to make my very first modern quilt and it is really exciting. 

I also will have some exciting news to announce soon as my first anniversary of blogging is coming up.  I am definitely going to have a give away to celebrate so I am planning what the give away will be.  No pictures this time but hope you are all having some time to work on your quilting projects.