Started 3rd block...

I have prepared the 3rd block of Aunt Millie's Garden. As you can see, the pattern is traced onto the back of the background fabric for my favorite method of applique, the back-basting or no template applique. The fabrics I'm using are mainly Kaffe Fassett.

Another quick post for tonight as I'm excited to start working on this block. Also, I like to thank you for the wonderful comments on my blocks so far. I usually like to send a note back personally, but some of the comments have been coming in as "no-reply".... so I'll do it here.

Have a good night! :)

2nd block and .... Elvis....

Woo hoo.... I finished my second block of Aunt Millie's Garden last night.


Look who was in the house on Saturday night!
Elvis...

It was my friend's 40th surprise birthday party.

Her husband had Elvis came to their house.

It was a blast!!

WISP

I posted a peek of this block wayyy back in February when the block was almost done. Well, it was finished a short week later, and I didn't get a chance to get a picture of it before putting it away.

This is the first block of my Work In Slowwwwww Progress (WISP). The pattern is called Aunt Millie's Garden by the Piece O' Cake Designs . I love their applique patterns.

Originally, the plan was to make this as a block a month so that by the beginning of next year I can put the quilt together. Well, scratched that plan... at this rate, I think I'll be done in 10 years. LOL

Not wanting this quilt to be a 10 yrs. project... ok, maybe cut it down to 5yrs... *lol* I pulled the project back out a couple of weeks ago to continue on this second block that was started back in February. I usually like to applique in the evening during my down time, but I've been too tired to work on it. Instead, I bring the block along to Sweetie Pie's tennis lessons during the week. Well not much was done there either because I ended up watching the kids practiced.... So maybe it will be a 10yrs. project afterall. lol

This quilt will be for me, and for some reasons I can never stay on task making things for me. Therefore, I'm hoping that some nice bloggy friends will help keep me going. OK?

Oh... one more thing, I decided to go with this robin egg's blue background because last summer, while stocking up more Kona Snow fabric, I came across this new Kona Robin Egg's blue that I fell in love with and had to have yardages of it without a plan for it. Then, when Aunt Millie's Garden came along, I just have to use it. :o)

Tumbleweeds

This whole blogging thing sure has been taking the back seat lately.

I took this photo on the left on Monday to show you my progress and now just finally got around to posting it. I wanted to share with you that I was done with all the paper piecing on the shop sample WIP, and I was very excited to start putting the units together.

Well, I couldn't contained the excitement of finally getting the top together, so every chance I got was spent on sewing. This is the result...

This pattern is called Tumbleweeds by Judy Niemeyer.

The colors are washed out in the photo. In person, the colors are more vibrant. One thing that I like to change is the background fabric in that swirl in the top left corner. I was concerned that it might be too dark when I was sewing the top together.... I was right..... picture shows all.... that swirl practically jumps out at you. Although, it doesn't show as much in person as in the photo.

Oh well, not much I can do with it now. The top is done! ... was dropped off yesterday at the shop for the quilting. I should be getting it back sometimes next week to put the binding on.

Overall, this quilt was a challenge but doable if you have a few quilts under your belt. It involves lots of foundation piecing, curve piecing, and my least favorite part... partial seams piecing. Don't get me wrong.... I love the partial seams technique when it's done in small sizes like a quilt block. However, putting the whole quilt top together using the partial seams technique was definitely a challenge for me. But I persevered... and happy that I did because the result is a great looking quilt. :o)

Zig Zag

Yesterday, I took a break from paper piecing the shop sample (see last post) to work on this little quilt for the Doll Quilt Swap 7. I've been "spying" on my secret partner's favorite list over on Flickr and found that our likes are very similiar to each other.

So off I went searching on the net for some inspirations, came across this zig zag tutorial, thought it's perfect, purchased some fabrics, and made this in a few hours.

What do you think? I didn't measured it, but I think it's about 12" x 15".

The tutorial is from AmandaJean at Crazy Mom Quilts. I think it's simply genius! don't you think so too? A zig zag quilt WITHOUT sewing any triangles. It's strip pieced and cut into squares. It's all in the layout of the blocks that formed the zigzag.

Of course, I have to make a doll-sized quilt, so I started out with smaller width of strips... 1-1/2". I see future quilts with this pattern but big, sleep under, wrap around, cozy kinda quilts. :0)