Third Week of November

Not much time got spent in my sewing room this week. I attended several meetings and had some appointments that couldn't be postponed any longer. 

I did get a few things accomplished. 

Two quilts were long armed for clients. 

This is a 'red' turning twenty pattern. I quilted it with a daisy design. 

And this precious one got a small sized meander. 

I did a little stitching on a needle holder

I took the center star block apart. The points would have gotten nipped off when I put it into the settings. After pressing the pieces I found that they were just a smidge off.  I checked the paper print out I had for the diamond and found out that it was not accurate. I recut all of the pieces and followed the directions very carefully. I'm very pleased with my new center block for the Batik quilt. 

It trimmed up beautifully and is flat.

The replacement of our floor joists, subflooring, etc etc in the laundry room and guest bathroom is completed. I asked for a kitchen sink as I wanted to be able to use it for dyeing fabric. 

This sink will be perfect for ice dyeing.  

Tonight we have our Thanksgiving Dinner at church. I'm bringing my specialties: veggie and fruit trays!

I'm so thankful our local grocery store always has them available. Yep, you guessed it! I'm not much of a cook, in fact if it weren't for DH loving to cook I'd probably be at ideal weight, or depleted monetarily. 

Lots of company coming in next week, so I'm guessing my creative time will be curtailed. Oh well, I can always carry those projects over for another month. I'm going to enjoy the people in my life while I have them. I hope you do the same. 

May God bless you with loved ones to share your time with,

Luann

A Very Productive Week

I put a few more stitches on my jacket. This was wrapped chain stitch and variations on the basic stitch. 

I got busy and covered my design walls, first with solid color felt or batting. Then it was time to fill them with projects, and some finished pieces that continue to inspire me. 

The grey background has a couple of empty spots where some pieces were, but I've been busy!

One of those taken down was the 10 pieces of printed fabric that distorted once they were sewn together. I picked out all of the stitches, squared them up and reseed them into this:

I'm not sure just how this will get finished, but I have a couple of ideas already. I'm just glad that it is now square, even if I haven't put it on the wall that way! LOL

And I finished making 40 square-in-a-square blocks for the BOM Mystery quilt along. 

Assisted, minimally, with getting my dryer vent cleaned out! PLEASE, check yours, and get it cleaned, I never would have imagined this much could have accumulated. 

And there were four chunks this size or larger!!

I also got busy with Craftsy BOM Summer 2015 project. I had finished one block, and the cutting of several basic pieces before I went on vacation in October. I had 15 more 12" blocks to do, and then for November the installment was for the central motif, a 20" block. The first picture is of 12 of the blocks laying on the floor, I don't have quite the right space to see all 16. Three of the last four appear after the center block. 

It looks like the blue underline thing has resurfaced! Time to post this and get ready for bed!

May God keep you in the palm of His hands,

Luann

Another Finish and Another Start

Here's my Canberra Tree art quilt. This was made from pieces of fabric received thru the surface design group I belong to. It's an international group that enjoys sharing techniques and monthly we swap some fabric. It's been a lot of fun and there is a wide range of techniques used. The Princess that I finished yesterday had several swap fabrics in it also. 

I used the technique of sewing twill tape along the edges of Canberra Tree to help it hang straight and stay square. I really like how it affected this one, as it was a bit wonky due to the varying volume of quilting and thread sketching I did on it. 

I decided to get the Craftsy 2015 Summer BOM quilt underway. I chose the fabrics awhile back, but kept second guessing myself. Would I like it once it was done? I like the fabrics. I know I'll enjoy making the blocks, and putting the top together. And another project to experiment with on my long arm, certainly gives me enjoyment. So, what's not to like? Sometimes I just need to get started. 

I am very pleased with my points on the first block. I sewed the flying geese units together on top of pages from a phone book. Bonnie Hunter uses phone books for her string-piecing and I thought it might help with those bias edges. It really helped a lot!! 

So tomorrow, between laundry and packing,  I'll be in the sewing room trying to get more blocks done. I only have 15 more to do by the end of the month to be caught up,,,,,that's doable!

May God bless the work of your hands,

Luann

A Craftsy Overview

First off let me tell you that I am not getting paid in any way to write this overview of 'CRAFTSY'. 

I have taken many classes with them and I just want to share what a great opportunity they offer. 

What I like:

You can join the site for FREE. 

There are, at present, over 40 FREE classes/workshops that you can sign up for. 

They have a FREE wish list feature so when they run a special you can easily find your previously chosen items. I've shown my current one above. 

You get access to your class on a 24/7 basis. I really like this because I haven't enjoyed much on the television for quite some time. I can review a class that I went thru a couple of years ago and glean another tidbit of information. 

They have several features on their purchased classes that are invaluable. For instance, if you post a question, your teacher will generally respond within a day. Note taking right on the app so you can bookmark a specific point and come back later. A 30 second repeat button enables you to listen to a more difficult concept, or see a process, over and over until you feel you 'get it'. 

There's a lot more that you can check out. 

I want to show you some snapshots I took of available classes. I typed in a word such as crochet, modern, or wood and then did a snapshot of the top few items. 

And a few of my favorites of the moment. 

I encourage you to check out Craftsy. I know that my gift of the Artisan Bread Making class was well received and continues to be enjoyed by my friend Sandy. 

Let us know, by leaving a comment, if you are a Craftsy user, or if you have another platform you are enjoying for online learning. Only two weeks left to get your comments entered into the giveaway. 

Somebody's going to be getting a special package in their mailbox in September, will it be you?

May God bless the work of your hands,

Luann