Blue and Cream Stars Finished

Yey! The binding has been added, and though I have considered adding some more quilting, I have declared the blue and cream stars table topper finished.

This project was started in January and has been worked on every now and then since.

It is made with English paper piecing - the pieces are 144 of the 1 1/4" diamond and 6 of the 1 1/4" triangle . The finished hexagon came out at 9 inches

It has been hand quilted a scant quarter inch outside the blue pieces. It had been a long time since I had hand quilted anything, and now I'm itching to get going on something else ;-)

Linking up with NTT over at My Quilt Infatuation.  
Hugs and stitches from Anne Ida

Slow Sunday Stitching

Making a bit more progress on my cream and blue stars table topper. I got the edge attached as my Friday Night with friends, and got it layered. The quilting was started yesterday

This project has been a bit slower to stitch than I had thought, but I'm enjoying every stitch of the way. About 1/3 of the cream section has been quilted. I haven't made up my mind if I'm going to do anything in the blues. Perhaps I'll  get to the binding tonight...

Linking up with Slow Sunday Stitching over at Kathy's Quilts :-)

Enjoy your Sunday and your hand work :-)
Hugs and stitches from Anne Ida

FNwF - Finishing Up Blue and Cream Epp Stars

Back in January I started playing with some small blue and cream six pointed stars that were to go together into a little table topper

Things happened and it got put to the side, but for Friday Night sewing with friends this month I have pulled it back out to sew tonight, and hope to finish it this weekend. So far I have gotten the final couple of small stars attached, have added the setting triangles, and prepped the final diamonds and started adding them to the edge

Not quite made up my mind how I'm going to quilt it, but I won't attempt anything fancy.

Gonna make myself a cup of tea and go blog hopping to all the other friends who participated in this virtual quilting bee

Thank you for hosting it Cheryll (even if you were away - hope you had a great time in Melbourne!).

Hugs and stitches from Anne Ida

Even More Epp Hexie Stars

I have spent a few days at our summer house. And loaded up my phone with some radio theater and a good audio book I have been able to relax with some hand sewing. Made heaps of progress on my English paper pieced hexie stars:

Tally is now 29 - still have a bunch to go ;-)

Hugs and stitches from Anne Ida

More Epp Hexie Stars

Making some progress on my English paper pieced Hexie Star project - five new blocks have come together. I'm having lots of fun with this project, and Epp is perfect for summer and stitching outside. Tally is now 20:

Nine more blocks have been prepped, ready for some relaxing hand work.

Wishing everyone a wonderful Sunday night!
Hugs and stitches from Anne Ida

Nine Patches and Star Blocks

I have finished the 15 nine patch blocks for the scrappy sew-along; pretty happy with how they turned out. Looking forward to the next step! ...assuming that's a whole bunch of hour glass blocks...

Two more epp star blocks have come together over coffee this morning - ok, so I had started stitching on both earlier this week, and I had a slow Sunday morning with heaps of coffee *lol* The tally is now 15 blocks.

Linking up with Kathy's Quilts and Slow Sunday Stitching, and I'll go blog hopping later tonight;-)

Wishing all a wonderful day!
Hugs and stitches from Anne Ida

Progress on Epp Stars

My pile of English paper pieced is steadily growing. Having heaps of fun with these blocks. The hexie in the middle is 1" and the diamonds are 3", so this project is growing quite quickly

I have now stitched up all the pieces I have prepped, so for the next few days my priority will be cutting and prepping - perfect for sitting outside and enjoying the lovely sunny weather we are having at the moment.

Hugs and stitches from Anne Ida

Slow Sunday Stitching Binding and Some Epp

Yesterday I went to Lappemakeriet and got some binding fabric for my Dovetail quilt. This morning i got it attached to the quilt, and most of the day I have been enjoying the lovely weather on my parents front porch hand stitching it down:

 

I'm also working on some more star blocks - really enjoying these :-)

 

Linking up with Kathy's Quilts and Slow Sunday Stitching, and I'll go blog hopping later tonight;-)
 

Hugs and stitches from Anne Ida

Sew snow

Yesterday I woke to a white world. And with snow outside I want a wintry decor inside, i.e. I need to finish my Snowmen and Snowball quilt. I have used soooo much time thinking about how to do the borders, but none of my ideas sounded too good. In the end I decided to make it simple as well as use up even more scraps



Quite happy with the result ;o) Now I just need to figure out how to quilt it!
Hugs and stitches from Anne Ida

Snowmen and snowballs - the continuing story

Thank you to everyone for your sweet comments on my previous snowmen and snowballs post, sorry I haven't been able to get back to all of you yet. Here's the continuing story; I have sewn some quick corners this weekend...





...and the snowmen blocks are now snowball blocks :o) Next is to get these together into a top, and figure out what to do for borders...
Hugs and stitches from Anne Ida

Snowmen and snowballs

I had intended to begin this post saying it's a bit early for snow, but reading Stina's blog just a couple of hours ago I have to eat my words - brrrrr! Anyway, this post is supposed to be about embroidered snowmen and snowball blocks :o)

When I made a post in beginning of June about playing with small scraps resulting in a pile of blue and cream star blocks, I received this lovely e-mail from a dear friend of mine accross the pond:

Hello friend, over there, around the world....
I was looking around today, and was just inspired by your blog. You have been playing with some blue HSTs and wondering what you will set them with. What came to mind for me were snowball blocks with your blues. I would like to create some embroidered blocks for you with my machine! I have some cute snowmen that would look nice, or perhaps you could give me some direction. I have many designs and I need something to get my creativity going again [...]

Who am I to say no to such a sweet offer? Coming home last night I found a parcel in my mail box - opening it I found these:



Aren't they cute? So many charming faces, snowmen, snow-women, snow-cats, reindeer with heaps of charm :o) The two cats are in honor of their two family cats, Isabelle and Maestro



And look, one of the snowladies is carrying a bag with a Friendship "F"!



Thank you so much, Shelley!!! I had a bit of a play today, and layed out your embroidered blocks along side my pieced stars

Looks great, doesn't it :o) Now I'm going to have heaps of fun stitching quick corners on those blocks, making snowballs!

Hugs and stitches from Anne Ida

Playing with small scraps

I needed a quick gift for someone, so earlier this week I had a browse through my scrap boxes to see what I had I could use. What I ended up with was this cute table topper:



The only pieces cut from stash is the binding and the backing, everything else is from my box of 2.5" strips and squares.

Since the grown-ups received a table topper, the little one in the family had to have something too, so I made another one of these fabric cubes:



This one is a fair bit smaller than the previous I made - each square finishes at 3"; and perhaps more suited for small hands :o)

While I was diving throug the scraps I also found a box stuffed with HSTs. When Bonnie posted the Carolina Christmas mystery she recomended we "double sew" the points on the poinsetta blocks and saved the cut-off triangles for some later project. So I did! And just stuffed them in the box and more or less forgot about them. Now they turned up, and since the iron was hot and I was in the mood for some more smallish sewing I started pressing and sorting.



This is how it looks at the moment:

There are enough HSTs for six more of these blocks (the squares in some of the blocks come from my 2" squares box). I don't really know what to do with them; maybe just set them with some light squares and a simple border? I need to do some thinking....

Hope all have a great and creative weekend!

Hugs and stitches from Anne Ida