Sewing with Vintage Sheets

I did some catching up with Bee Vintage this week. Since I was late with July, I decided to be proactive and knock out August as well. Whenever I sew with my sheets, I always take over the sewing room and make a royal mess. As I was working with them this time, I decided to tame the beast a little. I went through a bunch of scraps, and cut them into layer cake sizes and for those that were too small, charm sizes. The rest I tossed. I'm still deciding what to do with larger pieces. Whole sheets, I either save for quilt backings, or sell in my Etsy shop. Others that may have a rip or stain, I'm thinking of cutting into yard size pieces, just to make them more manageable. We'll see.

Here are this (and last) month's blocks:

Pam asked for Garden Fence

Linda wanted Wonky Stars

Liz wanted Bow Ties

And finally, Emily asked for a Dresden

In the last round of Bee Vintage, I also asked for Dresdens. I found all the blocks I had received, and realized I only needed one more block to make a top. Then I found my Ziploc of Dresden making supplies and found I had most of the blades already made ~ enough for Emily's block and one more for me. So, one for Emily, one for me. At this point, I couldn't put this quilt away again, so I plugged away and now have this top!

My latest stack of tops needing to be quilted stands at four, with another 2 in the works. Sigh. Might be time to visit my friend Maria. 

Zakka Style Bread Basket

Sunday morning seems to be my Zakka time! This week's quilt a long project was the bread basket. Again, at first I was going to skip, but after I saw how cute everyone's were, I had to make one. My friend Nina's birthday is tomorrow. She's my bread baking and jam making friend. So tomorrow mornng this, along with some blueberry lemon scones and lemon curd, is heading her way.

White linen, some Meadowsweet strawberries and DS Quilts dots, lined with a favorite vintage sheet fabric.

Finally, some Christmas in July

I'm thinking of taking these:

And making this.

Every year, when I haul out the Christmas decorations, I sigh and wish I had made a new skirt. The current one is a circle of pre-quilted holiday fabric, with some red bias tape sewn on in a few places, ripped off in most places. I made this, oh, 20 years or so ago, before I really understood bias tape and all that. I remember jamming the edge of the skirt into the tape and sewing it all at once. No wonder it's falling apart.

Oh, and I had a revelation the other day, while sewing with my guild friends. Why is every block I make square? I've sewed up a good hundred blocks in the past few weeks. Everyone of them square. I know it doesn't sound like much of a revelation, but it was an aha! moment to me. Well, I shall be square no more (except to my teenagers.) Time to think outside the equilateral and try something, oh, I don't know, how about Rectangular!! (And yes, the above pieces are cut into rectangles. Ha!) Hopefully more to show next week!

Zakka Delightful Linen Bag

Another quick and easy from Zakka Style.

The linen is recycled from an old skirt. A precious scrap of vintage fabric (aqua and red! probably from the 30's or 40's), a bit of lace taken from an old linen napkin. Love this one! 

Finish It Update!

So, two weeks later with an update.

Actually, I didn't do too badly. Considering that most of the things on my list needed quilting, I finished 5 out of 7 projects. One of them, the Round Robin quilt, I'm setting aside for a while. 

Unfortunately, it doesn't lay flat, and so it will require removing the two outer borders to get it the way that I want it. It will get done, just not now.

Now, for what I did  finish!

This table runner:

pebbles

free form flower

(the binding still needs to be stitched down ~ hard to do handwork with a new/old puppy around!) I'm trying to bust out of my straight line/meander rut, so tried my hand at pebble and a free motion flower. I like the results. Of course, it was only on a 12" square. It's the bigger quilts that I find it hard to fmq on. I picked up this book. Definitely a great buy! I hope it will help. (You can find a link on my sidebar!)

This, I think I showed you:

It's finished, but I think I may re-do the binding. I was in a hurry when I machine sewed it, so I plan to pick that out and hand sew the back of the binding. Again, when Mr. Chase is asleep.

This is a fun one. I sewed a bunch of strip together, then had them die cut on one of the big accuquilt machines at the quilt shop, using the tumbler die. I sashed the tumblers, then sewed in strips. This is all done (minus binding, again. Sleep, dog!)

I love how this came out. This is a sample for a modern improv class that the Baltimore Modern Quilt Guild is teaching. So much fun! A small-ish meander in all the white space, and then mostly straight line and echo quilting in the colors. This just makes me smile!

Finally, this one!

Thanks to all your gentle urging, I worked on this until completion. I really like this one too. And I happily used up almost every last red, white and blue scrap in the bucket! I made sure to visit the Quilt of Valor site, and make it large enough to donate. Thanks for the push, everyone!

Thursday is our Sew In day for the Baltimore MQG, so I hope to get 2 more tops pieced while there. I've learned I can't do much more than mindless straight lines at these. Too much conversation to distract me!

Zakka Ribbon

This week's project in the Zakka A Long is scrappy patchwork ribbon. I had no plans to make this. Taking a bunch of scraps, sewing them all together into a long strip, into something that, ultimately, might be tossed out, wasn't that appealing to me. Then I looked down into my fabric waste pile (not even the scrap pile, but the pile that I use as stuffing for dog beds that get donated to the shelter) and found a ton of red fabric. It was used as a backing for this:

(yup, I finished it! details later.)

I took the red, paired it with some scraps of white and sewed a large strip set. Then I cut 2 1/2" wide bias strips, and sewed them end to end. I folded this strip in half, just like making bias binding, and sewed together the raw edge and also sewed along the folded edge. Then, with pinking shears (really considering a rotary pinker after that workout!) I trimmed the edges. And now I have what I hope looks like a candy cane striped ribbon. I have a feeling I'll be making a bunch more of these! Great project when you just want some mindless sewing.

Free Photo book from Shutterfly

I don't usually post about freebies, but this is one that you might like. If you read blogs, most likely you have one. And if you have a blog, most likely you're into photography as well. Here's a link to get a free Shutterfly photo book , just for opening a new account.

For Katie's 16th birthday, her Aunt and I took her to New York for a few days. Can't wait to make a photo book for her!

Shutterfly also has a cool contest going on right now. Their Long Live Summer ~ Facebook contest has lots of great prizes. You can check it out here.

Here are the details:

Long Live Summer – Facebook Photo Contest details - 7/9 – 8/12 Multi-week summer themed photo sweepstakes with instant win prizes. http://bit.ly/sweepS

Win a trip for four to The Bahamas and a professional photo shoot so you’ll remember your vacation forever.  All you need to do is upload your favorite photo and caption based on the theme of the week.  Get a gift from Shutterfly just for entering! You can enter at any point during the 5-week sweepstakes period.

PHOTO THEMES

•       Week 1(7/9): Americana

•       Week 2 (7/16): Great Outdoors

•       Week 3 (7/23): Water Fun

•       Week 4 (7/30): Sports & Activities

•       Week 5 (8/6): Parties & Celebrations

PRIZES

•       Instant win prizes just for submitting a photo!

•       Weekly prizes (contestants can enter one time/week)

•       Weekly featured photos: up to 5 weekly entries will be selected from the gallery and featured on the Facebook fan page and awarded a $500 gift card on Shutterfly and a copy of the new Lonely Planet travel photography book.

•       Grand prize: trip for 4 to Bahamas, 4 nights, family photo shoot

•       Shutterfly Sweepstakes - Official Rules

Great outdoors is the theme for this week. I think maybe one of these might work

If you enter, good luck!

eta: I just entered and got a code for 100 free 4 x 6 prints! Sweet!