Flower Patch SAL Fabric & Block 1

As promised, I've been taking it really easy over the past week. My goal this week is to quilt four quilts. I have quilted two quilts so far, both for Annie. 

The first is a t-shirt quilt, quilted with Diagonal Plaid, which is my pattern of choice for t-shirt quilts.

The second is a modified version of Bonnie Hunter's Good Fortune. I quilted this with Raindrops on Water.

I'm currently working on ideas for custom quilting a baby quilt that has lots of machine embroidered blocks. It is a challenging one, for sure, as I cannot stitch through the embroideries and they are all different shapes and alignments and stuff.

I'll also be dusting off my embroidery machine to add a monogram to a set of pajamas. This will involve removing the pocket, stitching, and then reattaching the pocket. 

I feel like I've done very little except spend money! I needed some background fabric for a project (below), so I had my husband take me to a shop that I hadn't been to before. They have ALL the Konas! Whoa! I also purchased a backing fabric for that project and a few impulse purchases as well. I then stopped by JoAnn to pick up some 108" wide muslin to make a hanging sleeve for my 365 Challenge. That's this month's OMG, so I really need to get a move on. I'm hoping to finish binding Frolic, add a hanging sleeve, and enter that one in the show as well.

Here's the upcoming project. As part of my spending spree, I ordered lots of new colors of quilting thread, some of which are for this.

You may recall that I wasn't entirely sold on the fabric I had as my dark fabric for Denise's Flower Patch SAL. I found an Island Batik Foundations blue the I liked the look of, so I ordered some from Hancock's of Paducah. I also purchased some backing fabric for a donation quilt and then some other random sale stuff to get up to the free shipping threshold. I'm sure I'm not the only one who does that, right? I'd rather pay for extra fabric than shipping. Anyway, back to my preparations for the SAL. 

Since the Flower Patch SAL is a paper piecing project, I ordered some of the paper that Bonnie Hunter recommends, which is a ream of newsprint from Amazon. It was packaged in a plastic shipping bag, and this is how it looked when I opened the shipping bag. Nice job, Amazon. Not. What a mess. I needed it right away though, so I am using it as is rather than waiting to return it and start again. Plus, it would cost more in time and environmental harm to return it than use it as is.

Okay, so here are my final fabric selections for the SAL. I really like how the IB Foundations navy looks with the other two blues from the IB Starry Night line that I had previously purchased. I'm using Kona White for the background (it's on the bottom of the picture). I had the two red fabrics in my stash already. One is a batik and one is Kona or similar.

Here is part of my first block in progress. If you haven't tried Denise's method of paper piecing using strips, you really should. It is so easy! I found that the newspaper print paper was very easy to stitch through and even easier to remove. The only thing I didn't like is that it is harder to see through than the white copy paper. The ease of removing the foundations makes up for its lack of opacity. Sorry for all the dark and yellowish pictures. It's been dark, gloomy, and rainy. Plus, I sewed this block in the evening while my husband was nice enough to take over the dinner prep so I could sew.

Hmm...something isn't quite right here. Oops! 😬

Here is my completed first block. 

My husband surprised me with a new-to-us computer for my sewing room. I'd been using our original Mac, which is over 10 years old, no longer able to be updated, and getting really slow. Here's my new 2015 model, which is so fast compared to the old one, straight from the IU Surplus Store. We find all sorts of crazy stuff there. I'm digging this screen saver. We did have to buy a new keyboard since my old one had a broken wire. I was also treated to a new mouse (he found an open-box special). I think these together cost almost as much as the computer! 😳 I'm feeling pretty spoiled.

And finally, we have ordered the carpet for the basement. We went with the color I liked two weeks ago when we brought home the first samples. It took another two hour round trip to the carpet store to pick up another color sample for my husband to be convinced that the one I liked the very first day was the correct one. 😏 We have an install date set for the end of October.

The basement has been in progress for, like, seven years. It seems weird to think that the house is now nearly complete. I guess it's time to start refreshing things upstairs? Maybe finish the rest of the landscape? The next big project will be to build a separate garage/workshop on the edge of the new property.

I'm still waiting for the apples I like to be ready for harvest from the orchard. Maybe they'll be ready this weekend?

Have a great week. Wish me luck on the custom quilt.

Linking with For the Love of Geese and My Quilt Infatuation and Confessions of a Fabric Addict.


5 comments

  1. Super cute SAL block!!! I love Diagonal Plaid on t-shirt quilts, too! Best wishes on the baby quilt!

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  2. I need a keyboard with numbers though I like the small footprint of the one that came with my mac. One day I like the mouse and the next I'm pulling out a windows mouse. The Starry Night is such a lovely collection but there is always that one fabric you wonder what they were thinking, every manufacturer. Annie's quilts are lovely and that t-shirt quilt is amazing, it looks so nice on the frame. Yes, I too buy more to reach the free shipping threshold. They're happy because I spent more and I am happy because I have additional goodies and didn't pay shipping. Glad to see your basement is almost finished. It's almost time for a remodel in my sewing room which wont be fun since I have wall to wall STUFF. Thank you for linking up and sewing along.

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  3. Oh I forgot, that wrinkly paper. Try pressing it with your iron as that sometimes helps.

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  4. Love your block #1, Anne-Marie. I'm still mulling over fabric choices. I'm curious about which apple you're waiting for?

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    1. Hi Jay, I cannot email you directly. I like a mix of Golden Delicious and Jonagold apples. They are both naturally sweet, so there is no need to add sugar to my mix. The orchard I purchase from didn't have the Jonagolds ready until Thursday.

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