Finally September!!

This summer seemed endless to me... the heat just really gets to me nowadays!  So happy we have finally made it to September... even knowing that it is mostly a warm month here in northern VA.  We are moving TOWARD my most favorite time of year- autumn and Halloween!!  Yay!!

I participated in a "Pinnie Parade" activity on Instagram during August, where I showed some pin cushions I'd made in the past and some new ones.  Here are the ones I made during August!

I made a baby quilt for a dear family /old neighborhood friend, whose first baby was just born early this morning!! 

A big (over 9 pounds!!) beautiful boy, that we all can't wait to meet!!

I made a cool modern table runner for my dining table ...

to go with my modern black and white dishes!!  

I fell in love with the snail quilt that was all over Instagram during the summer. 

I have always had a thing for snails...

No clue why, but I really do!

I use Tula Pink fabrics from her Slow and Steady collection 

and from her Tabby Road collection!!  Sooo fun!!

I'm participating in several online Quiltalongs,  including The Fussycut Sampler, which I'm doing in fun Halloween prints from my stash,

the Moda Bake Shop School of Sewing,

and Lori Holt's new "Bee Happy" quilt. She does her applique by hand, but I will be doing fusible machine applique... and it's taking forever to trace all the shapes needed to get started!  I decided to do her new sewalong because I have tons of Farm Girl Vintage  fabrics leftover to use up... and because it's just so cute!!

Our local Piedmont Modern Quilt Guild had a challenge for us to use the colors we dislike and avoid using in a small quilted project. Well, my least favorite colors are yellow and brown...

so I made this little 12" quilt and named it "Butt Ugly Fabrics"...   

Ya gotta love these emojis, right?  LOL!!

Yogi is hanging in there and when he is awake, he wants to know what you are up to these days?  Ready for fall??

Meet Mrs. Spidey!

My dear bee friend, Suzanne, gave me a cool Halloween mat kit last year, but I never got it made!

It came with all the strips needed to make the mat!

I love the fabrics included in the kit!

I used my own scraps for the eyes and added some fangs!

I used 2 layers of jumbo rickrack for the legs.

I bound it with solid black fabric.

I had some corners of the strip pieced fabric leftover after cutting out the spider body…

And you know I just can’t throw it out…

So, I cut out a little tiny spider body, sewed it together, filled it with sand… added some little leftover pieces of rickrack…and buttons…

So, my Mrs. Spidey has a sweet baby pin cushion!!

I CAN’T WAIT for HALLOWEEN!!  :-)

So, what are you sewing on for Halloween? 

 

Caught Up!

I am happy to report that although I joined the Schnibbles group 5 months late, I have finally caught up!  YAAAAAAYYYY!  Last night while watching the AWESOME new  Discovery channel series call "Life", I finished the handwork on my Tuffets pin cushions.

I had some Califone charms leftover from a big bag I made a while back and they were perfect for those cute little sand-filled pincushions!! 

Talk about teenie weenie pieces!

And on another note, I do LOVE pincushions and just bought these two cuties on Etsy from a gal who raises her own sheep and uses their wool for her creations!  Are they not just adorable??? 

In case you can't see from the photo,

the turtle has a cute little snail on his back!!

She even sent me photos of her three sheep- Miss Dottie, Lucy and Cappucchino!!  Priceless!!

Back to Quilting!

My scrappy Insomnia quilt top made with all Kaffe fabrics is sandwiched and pinned and about a third quilted. I'm back in the dining room using my Juki in the home-made quilting table leaf ( see old post from 3/3/09 )

I've not quilted anything larger than a wall quilt since my shoulder surgery on December 24, 2008. So, my free-motioning is a bit rusty. I'm doing my favorite motif of leaves and curling vines between. I spent about 3 hours yesterday after work and am about a third done. YAAAAAY!

So far so good. I'm using a variegated King Tut thread in red /pink/ orange on the top and a green on the back to match the backing. My son and his girlfriend came over tonight for dinner and just left, so no quilting tonight. It is too late for me to start up at 9:00pm!! Oh, and I forgot to show you yesterday with all the other quilt show buys, the new quilting gloves I bought. They are called Grabaroos. they are a very lightweight knitted glove with little rubber dots only on the finger tips. So far, I like them!

Tomorrow night is our last CQU quilt guild meeting of the year. As we meet in local schools, our guild season runs from September to June with no meetings in July and August. So no quilting on it tomorrow night either! Our June meeting is all fun. We have a potluck for food, drawings for those who participated in community service projects, show and tell and revealing the annual summer challenge! As a Co-President, Susan and I give the current board of officers little Thank You gifts. I've made 25 little pin cushion that will be given out tomorrow night. WHEW!

We've been having lots of late afternoon and evening thunderstorms the last few weeks. My little Westie Yogi finds his crate a cozy haven when those booms make the windows rattle!

He will also scrunch down into the crack behind the back cushions on the couch to catch some cozy comfort! Sometimes he slides all the way down!

Isn't he just the cutest thing??? Can you tell he is loved and spoiled daily??