~Think Christmas Blog Hop~

Starts Monday July 30 and goes through August 5 (more days were added). My day is Wednesday August 1; see you then....I'm having a little giveaway too my very first giveaway.

July 30~

Cotton Addiction

Vroomans Quilts

Kris Loves Fabric

Moosestash Quilting

Paws for Stitching

Threading My Needles

Just Let Me Quilt

Living4quilting

Doodling in my Mind

Quilt Doodle Designs

 

July 31~
Jane's Fabrics and Quilts
Fiesta Girl
Scrapbox Quilts
From This to That
Buzzing and Bumbling
No Loose Threads
Deborah B
Judith Handmade Treasures
Gran-Knot-Y Embroidery Lady
Mrs. Pickles
Susie's World

August 1~
Sheila's Quilt World
A Passion for Applique
Cherry Blossoms Quilting Studio
Jane's Quilting
Sew Me Something Good
A Stitch in Time
Aurea at That Other Blog
Quilt Times
Marcia's Crafty Sewing and Quilting
Patchouli Moon Studio (me)
Quilting by the River

August 2~
Grandmama's Stories
Sandra Kaye Designs
North Hills Quilter
Lv2sew
Quilty Doodads
Quilting in South Carolina
The Raspberry Rabbits
Charise Creates
Traveling Quilter
Nancy B at That Other Blog
Selina Quilts

August 3~
Crazy 'Bout Quilts
Dexter Days
Cherry's Prairie Primitives
Somewhat Fanciful
Craftluver Marianna
Quiltscapes
Prsd4tim2
Moments
Ruthanne at That Other Blog

 

August 4~
Creations On The Island
That Other Blog
Sunshine Girl
Hallbrook Designs
The Recipe Bunny
Sisca at That Other Blog
Polkadot Classic
Ariane's Crafts
Katie's Salt Marsh Path
The Cuddle Quilter

August 5~
Briarside Lane
Pigtales and Quilts
Quilts From My Crayonbox
Quilt n Queen
InGa
Pattie
Cliodana
Quilting, Losing and Tea
Why Knot Kwilt
Madame Samm

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Green Fabric Wrapped Bag/Purse

I made another fabric wrapped bag using macramé cord. I made handles with cording inserted inside the fabric. I added a green pony tail elastic loop as the closure loop and a stacked button. I also added a large bead on the side that the handles were inserted through.

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My Winning Quilt Block

My winning block.

My winning quilt block as well as the other 21 quilt blocks I won from the Sisters, Oregon Quilt Block Contest are on posted on my online WebShots album here.
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Hummingbird Quilt

I helped my daughter to make this quilt. She wanted to make her boyfriend a quilt and he likes hummingbirds, so I found a picture book from the library that had a hummingbird and used that as the inspiration. I showed my daughter how to do the fusible applique and how to do the blanket stitching around the applique shapes and the other embroidery touches. I showed her how to hand quilt and she wasn't thrilled with the quilting part. She did manage to quilt around each shape by hand. She wanted to echo quilt by hand a couple more times around the shapes, but didn't like doing it. So I offered to machine quilt the background instead. Then I sewed on the binding by machine and showed her how to sew the rest of the binding by hand. She did a little and didn't like doing that part either. Since I enjoy the hand sewing, I finished the binding for her or else she might have taken several hours to get it done. The photo here has the binding pinned on the back and not yet sewn in place. She enjoyed doing the blanket stitching the best. At least she understands how much work goes into making even a small quilt.

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Brown, Purple & Pink Fabric Bowls

I am on a roll making these fabric wrapped bowl/baskets/bags. I am having fun with them. Some I may add binding to the top rim and handles on a few later. I am working on a green one right now that I have added binding to and am making the handles for.

I made 2 bowls using brown batiks.

Purple batiks.

Looking inside the bowl.

Here's the pink one. I may decide to add some handles to this one and turn it into a basket.

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Fabric Wrapped Clothesline Bowl/Basket

I made another fabric wrapped clothesline bowl or basket. Not sure if I will add handles or not. I had all my small narrow batik fabrics separated into color families and am making bowls. baskets and bags with these. Some bowls/baskets or bags I am using clothesline and some I am using various widths of macramé cording that was given to me. The macramé cording is softer and limper and works fine, but it just has a different feel to it.

Looking down into the bowl.

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Red, White & Blue Blocks

Today is my day for the Blog Hop and it's the very first blog hop that I have ever participated in. Thanks to Madame Samm and Jane for organizing this hop. These are the blocks I made for the Red, White & Blue Blog Hop:

Heart log cabin block. I just made this block up myself and I added blue rick rack around the heart with red French knots.

This is a Folded Log Cabin block. This is the first time I tried this technique and it was fun to try. Amazing how thick and heavy it becomes with all the folded fabric, the muslin base and the amount of fabric used. Used up a lot of scraps for this one.

Closer look at the folded log cabin.

I found this block a few days ago in my UFO box. I had made this one several years ago.

Here is another block I found in my UFO box. This one was actually published in Quilter's Newsletter Magazine along with about 100 other blocks several years ago.

Another one from the UFO box.

The last one from my UFO box. Geesh, you should see all the other blocks and tops that were amongst these UFO's. I better get cracking on all those!

Patriotic Dresden Plate. I added the Pledge of Allegiance fabric to the center by sewing that part in reverse applique. Then I added a little touch of hand blanket stitching and French knots.

Here is the blog hop schedule for today, which is the last day of the hop:

July 16th~
PolkaDotClassic

Patchouli Moon Studio

Scrappy pieces

little bits quilting

busy as can be

Madame Samm

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Sisters Quilt Block Challenge 2012

 Saturday July 14, 2012 is the annual outdoor Sisters Quilt Show in Sisters, Oregon. I found out Tuesday that my block was one of the 5 winning blocks from the Sisters Quilt Block Challenge. I wasn't the best in show, but one of the 4 honorable mentions. Here is the email I received:

Hello,

I am delighted to inform you that the block you submitted to our Quilt Block Contest for the 2012 Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show has been selected as one of four Honorable Mentions! The Quilter's Affair teachers selected their top five favorites last night, and they had a very difficult time choosing, because we had a wonderful number of very creative and amazing blocks. The top vote recipient is declared Best in Show, and the next four top recipients are declared Honorable Mentions. There were only a couple of votes separating all the favorites! You can feel very proud that yours was among the top five of of 113 entries.

As an Honorable Mention, your block will receive a special ribbon in the display that will be up for the show. All the blocks will be displayed this Saturday on the Remax Building wall in the Town Square in Sisters, and again on Sunday on the back wall of Beacham's just behind the Stitchin' Post.  In addition, after the show, each of you will receive about 22 blocks (including your own) and extra fabric for borders or sashing. We hope that you will make a quilt of these blocks and submit it to our 2013 show. We love to see the finished products!

If you are on Facebook, photos of the contest blocks and all of the winners are now posted on our Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show page. I will also take a lot of photos on show day and post them on Shutterfly. I will send you the link to look at them when they are ready. It's going to be a great display!

Congratulations, and well done!
Susan
SOQS staff/QBC Coordinator

I forgot to take a photo of the fabrics before I cut into them. Here are 4 of the 5 fabrics that I received. The 5th fabric was the background fabric. Since I didn't have to use all the fabrics, I ended up not using the green/white print in the lower right corner as it just didn't fit with my block.

Here's my block. You could embellish any way you like and I added large rick rack, embroidery, silk-like flowers and buttons.

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Fabric Wrapped Bowl

I made a small bowl wrapping fabric strips around some macramé cording I had. This cording is thinner/narrower than the larger bowl I recently finished. I started with an oval shape, but I didn't really like how the shape turned out that much. Because the macramé cording is softer and limper than clothesline, I thought if I tried wetting the bowl first, I could then place a small glass vase I had inside it mold the fabric bowl around the glass vase. I let it dry for a few days and this is the result.  

Looking inside the bowl.

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Fabric Wrapped Bag

My new batik bag. I love how it turned out! I added handles, a flap with Velcro closure and triple-stacked buttons, plus a hook to hold my keys.

I started wrapping these fabric strips around some clothesline over a year ago. I wrapped most of the amount I needed and then wasn't sure what I wanted to make out of it. So it sat in my closet. But recently I got a new bloggie friend, Marisa, and when I went to check out her blog I found her Bali Bag that was so beautiful, I thought aha, that's what I will make is a bag. My method is a bit different than Marisa's and the style of the bag is a bit different too, but both are fabric wrapped around clothesline. I tried the wrapping method that Marisa did on hers (she has video links) and I thought it was harder to wrap and harder to sew without all the seams showing. I gave up on that method and went back to way I have always done mine. Plus I could use up a lot of narrow batik fabric scraps the way I wrap and I still have bags of scraps left. So I will be experimenting and making some more fabric wrapped goodies until I get tired of making them and then maybe I'll get out of my quilting slump!

Inside the bag. I just love batik fabrics.

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Crocheted Bag

I am more of a knitter than a crocheter. I can do several crochet stitches as long as it's basically a straight row of them. I thought it would be easier to crochet a bag with several colors of yarn than to knit one, so I sort of made this bag up as I went along. I used one yarn, rather than doubling 2 yarns held together, because I know that crocheting uses up more yarn than knitting does and I did not want to run out of yarn. As it were, I did use all the hot pink color up and all the turquoise blue too. I realise now that I prefer the thickness of holding 2 (or more) yarns together as I knit or crochet because it felts into a thicker item.  It came out pretty good, although I am not as thrilled with the corners of the bag. I suppose it's my lack of crocheting experience that resulted in rather bumpy corners.

Crocheted bag and knitted i-cord for the handle before felting.

Finished bag after felting.

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Fabric Bowl

I used batik scraps wrapped around macrame cording to create this bowl.

I have made several fabric wrapped clothesline bowl and baskets before (search postings for others), but recently I acquired some macrame cording, so I thought I would try making a fabric wrapped bowl using the macrame cording. While the macrame cording is a bit softer and limper than the clothesline, it did work. In fact, after I made this bowl I played around with it and crimped the top edge with my hands like you would crimp the top of a pie crust. The crimping stays in place as long as I don't touch it.

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Knit and Felt Purse/Bag

My friend Tara came over a few days ago and brought me some yarn that she didn't want anymore. When I saw that this yarn that was actually a strand of brown yarn with flecks of colors in it and 2 strands of green yarn that she had wound up together into 3 balls, I thought I would knit a bag and then felt it. Here's the results. Thanks Tara for the yarn!

This is the bag after knitting and before felting, along with the i-cord handles.

I washed it twice through the washing machine to shrink is down to this size. I have a front loading washer too. So don't believe it when someone says you can't use a front loader as they claim that you need the top loading agitation to felt your wool, because yes a front loader works and I have felted many things in my front loader.

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Knit Shadow Scarf

I have been in a sewing/quilting slump for a while and just can't get motivated to sew at all. However, I have been doing some knitting and here is one I finished a few days ago.

This is a smaller version of the knit shadow shawl that I made a few years ago, and another one here that I made for my mother. This one is knit with 2 yarns a black yarn and a variegated alpaca yarn.

Little picots are knit along the edge.

Some readers have asked me where I got this pattern and I forgot to include the link, so here it is.
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