Bramble Blooms 1 & 2 and Other Projects

First my apologies for a long post, it seems when I finally sit down to write a blog post I have lots of catching up to do.

I am still working on my Bramble Blooms #1 quilt top. It has been sporadic, but I am making progress. I had tried some flying geese made Sujata Shah style, but wasn't sure about them. Then I made them larger and Nancy at Joy For Grace blog, you can read her blog  HERE, mentioned putting them all the way around without the plain sections. So I tried that, what do you think? My husband likes it!

I don't know of you can tell, but I made a couple of small changes. I removed the red strip on the upper left corner and changed the goose block in the lower left corner. I made the changes after I took the following photos of border ideas.

Ideas for the next border, one, just a plain solid border.

Two, a vine and floral/leaf border. I used some of my left over applique bits. At this time I leaning towards this one.

Three,  a vine and leaf border. 

Idea #4, nine patches, the brown is darker than it appears in the photo.

A small start om Bramble Blooms 2. The pieces are just laid out, not sewn together yet.

A Basket Full of Hope

I am still working on my 9 patches, though I think I am behinds again. As of June 2, I had 220 nine patches made.

I need to get back to these.

I have picked up my knitting again. I had started this sweater a couple of years ago and then realized I had the gauge and size wrong. I unraveled it and set it aside, I restarted it last month and I am making some progress.

12" on the back piece.

And I have made a little progress on the hexie quilt! I am ready to add the blue flower on the left.

Our biggest news is that we got two kittens!! We have not had a cat in over 15 years or more. My husband wanted them for mouse catchers. We still haven't named them, I just can't decide. Any suggestions would be appreciated! (They are both girls.) They have been keeping me busy though and they like to interfere with my handwork!

I am linking up with Kathy and all the other Sunday Slow Stitchers HERE. I will either be working on my hexies or knitting or maybe appliqueing the words on BB2!

Happy Quilting! Rebecca

The Next UFO and New Hexie Projects

 A very Happy Fathers's Day to all the father's put there, including my sons and grandsons!

As I said in my last post about the Sweet William quilt, I have another very old project that I have been making progress on. It is from an Edyta Sitar book "Handfuls of Scraps",  Flower Garden. 

All the hexagon flowers are completed and I put them up on the design wall to arrange their placement. Now to get this top sewn together. I still have quite a few neutral hexies to baste, but will do that as I go along.

Sorry! Not a very good photo.

This the lay out to follow. This is the first time I have done this, so hope I don't get too confused.

My progress so far, I have a long way to go. Plus, I need to decide on the border.

I have really gotten hooked by the Hexie bug! I have been looking for ideas on Pinterest and came across the most amazing hexagon quilt on  called La Passion by Grit Kovacs. It is really an ambitious project and I thought the pattern would be expensive. It wasn't! I was able to download it from her online store for $9.54 US dollars. Below is a photo of the quilt and here is a LINK to the pattern. Here is a  LINK  to her blog where you can see lots of photos and different versions of this quilt. There are 17,300 hexies sized 1/2" in this quilt, not sure if I could do that, we will see. 

Also here is a LINK  to Turid's blog "Den syende himmel", she is in Norway. She not only made a LaPassion quilt (which has 1/2" hexies), but also one using 1/4" hexies! Totally Amazing! Lots of photos on her blog too, so many different version in different colorways. On her side bar there is a Labels list just scroll down to La Passion and La Passion Mini.

Turid"s La Passion

Turid's Mini La Passon

I also bought this pattern by Rachaeldaisy Designs.

Some ideas for the centers.

Sorry for such a long post! Hope to link up with Kathy and the other Stitchers today,  HERE   I will be stitching hexies. Happy Quilting, Rebecca

Bramble Blooms Borders??

I was really stuck on what to do for borders on my first Bramble Blooms top and since the second version is underway I thought I had better get serious and come up with something. Audrey of Quilty Folk blog is hosting the sew along (thank you so much Audrey!) You can read her blog HERE  She began the second one in the series with ideas from Sujata Shah's book "Cultural Fusion Quilts". I got my copy out and study it for a few days, I finally decided to try some Flying Geese.

Here is a photo of what I have so far. I am looking for input! More Flying Geese? Is there too much gold, not enough? More red flying geese? More green? Hourglass cornerstones or not? The red strips to the side will be the next border and then maybe a light border with applique ??.

I am linking up with Judy at Small Quilts and Doll quilts for Design Wall Monday HERE.

We had a visitor of the moose variety the other day. It has been a while since we saw one in the yard. No baby with this one.

More next time on that old UFO, I had no time to write the blog post. Happy Quilting, Rebecca

Sweet William Progress

 So while my Bramble Blooms has stalled I am trying to make make progress on some very old projects. The first one I will share with you today. I had almost just given up on this one, but when I got it out and looked at it, I fell in love with this quilt again.  I had already hand pieced all the baskets, I just need to do the applique portion. I have six blocks completed and now have all the other blocks prepped for applique. Everything is organized and I can grab a block when I have time and applique it.

My six finished blocks.

The rest of the 30 blocks all prepped and ready to sew.

I have six blocks in each of these zip bags.

The zip bags are all tucked away in my new Yazzii bag.

I will be working on this block today, I know it is looks like a blob of lavender, but they are each separate petals for the flower. I will be linking up with Kathy' HERE and all the other Slow Stitchers as soon as I can, I don;t think there is anything better than doing some slow stitching!

Here is a little information about the origin of this quilt.

Photo of the original quilt made in 1860 Pennsylvania.

Photo of the original found in this book.

Susan Smith created this pattern. On closer inspection I see she did not copy the blocks exactly.

Next time I will share the progress on another very old UFO.  Happy Quilting!  Rebecca

Bramble Blooms Link Up & Two Tops

I am sorry to say I have made no progress on my Bramble Blooms, it looks just like it did before. We had a family issue that took my creativity on a nose dive. I do hope to add the next round soon. I am so amazed at everyone's creations!

I did do some mindless sewing and got two tops put together. The first one is from Barbara Brackman's Herbarium Bom.

 The second one is an  old UFO from the Rainbow Scrap Challenge in 2019.

Angela posted a block per week in the color of the month. Here is a LINK to the page that has links and PDFs of all of the patterns.

I've been doing a little baking. An apple pie and once the pie was gone I made some blueberry cream cheese bread.

A link to the recipe, HERE

Since my husband is diabetic I use the sweetener below, It is the best I have found so far.

Happy Quilting! Rebecca

Bramble Blooms & Hand Quilting

 The Weather has sure changed direction here! It was 20* above zero today, so thankful!

Bramble Blooms is done, at least until the next prompt from Audrey. (No hurry Audrey!!) If down the road I feel it needs something else I can add it later. For now though I am happy with what I have.

I made a little progress on my sister's quilt, Bouquet. Five hexie flowers completed and I have six more cut and ready to baste.

I think this is what I will do for the sashings, block corners, cornerstones and outer border.

Sashings, block corners, corner stones and outer border fabrics. (The two background squares in the photo are from the layer cake.)

I would have started appliquing the hexies  to my backgrounds, but have been waiting on fabric. 

There is an interesting story. I ordered 5 yards of background fabric, in the picture below. This is from the website. At least what I thought I was ordering!

The fabric I got in the mail.

So I went looking on the internet for more fabric in this collection. This next photo is from Rene Nanneman's website, Need'l Love. So they had the correct info on the other website but the wrong photo. I contacted them, but they refused to acknowledge they had the wrong photo or were at fault at all. Lesson learned, do more research before ordering online!!!

Now on to something more pleasant. I have made a little progress on quilting my Spring Time Album quilt. Two borders done! I will be linking with Kathy and the other Slow Sunday Stitchers HERE .  I have two borders quilted, two more to go!

 A big thank you to Gretchen of  "Gretchen's Little Corner" blog, she mentioned the needles in the photo below on her blog. I ordered some and I am really enjoying quilting with  them! You can visit Gretchen's blog HERE.

A photo of the top Spring Time Album.

Thanks for reading my blog! I would love to hear from you! Happy quilting, Rebecca

Still Cold! Two New Projects & Bramble Blooms

The cold weather is still with us. We are keeping both wood stoves going 24/7. We are getting more daylight so that is encouraging. The weather forecasters continue to tell us that a warming trend is coming, just not here yet. Hopefully soon! I hope you will read to the end, we had some visitors!

This was taken Friday morning about 8 am, -54 to -55

 Now onto to quilting. Have you ever seen a fabric or fabric collection and you immediately you think of someone that it fits perfectly? That has happened to me a few times, one example pictured below, was a quilt I made for a granddaughter last Christmas. She LOVES octupusses! When I saw the Kaffe Fassett octopus fabric I said Ashlee.

This is a throw size quilt and she loved it. Minky on the back!

When I saw this layer cake of Tradewinds by Renee Nannemann, my sister's name popped in my head. It was a Missouri Star daily deal so I ordered it immediately. There are only two aqua/turquoise fabrics included in the collection so I did order some different aqua fabric to add to it, plus for the quilt I have in mind I needed background fabric, sashing and etc., those are order too.

This is the pattern I plan to use. It is called Bouquet, by Sherri McConnell. The quilt in the pattern is a throw size 5 blocks X 5 blocks, mine will be larger 8 blocks X 9 blocks. The blocks finish at 9".

First hexie prepped and ready to stitch together. 

The fabrics in the corner and the fabric on top are possible block corners and sashing. My sister likes neutrals, but these might be too dark, I will have to wait until I get a few more hexie blocks made.

More hexies cut out to baste and sew for Slow Stitching Sunday with Kathy, HERE

I am fussy cutting the floral fabric for the center hexies.

I also joined Taryn's Tiny Nine-Patch Challenge. I am doing the 3" size. That is small enough for me!

30 blocks done

More little squares ready to sew. I am using up some my older Civil War fabrics and scraps.

Finally this is where I am on Bramble Blooms. I had to un-stitch the red half flowers, they were too large, so I need to re-stitch them. I also will add 2 more gold triangles. I still am not sure where I will place the word Faith, this is one idea.

So I happened to look out the window and saw this moose.

Then a minute or so later while I was taking her photo another one came around the side of the house, her calf from last year. So I kept taking photos.

Then another one came around the side of the house! She had had twins and they both survived! We see tracks on the snow all the time, but this is the first time I was able to get photos.

Thanks for reading my blog! I would love to hear from you! Happy quilting, Rebecca