August Binding Challenge

My quilt for August was finished well before the month ended and here it is.

 "Dilly Flowers"

A few close-ups of a few flowers, the quilting design and the applique border.

Quilt Details:

Source:  Designer Elise Baek from English Paper Piecing Society on Facebook.  The applique section was found on Shutterstock and adapted to suit my look.

Started:  February 2022

Top Finished:  March 2023

Quilt Finished:  August 2023

Quilt Size:  59-1/2" x 74-1/2" (top size before quilting, washing and drying:  61-3/4" x 78")

Batting:  Hobbs 80/20 cotton poly batting

Machine quilted by:  Kathy Wareham using "Lucky" quilting design by Christy Dillon from My Creative Stitches.

Now, you are probably wondering what my friend no-blog Mary has been up besides vacationing .... well she made a dress for herself!  She had 3 men's shirts and decided to do something with them.  Mary is so good at thinking outside the box and I absolutely love her new dress!

For September, my pick for binding will be this quilt.  I would like to have it on my bed come this fall.  Speaking of fall ..... leaves have been changing already.  Daytime temps are normal but morning temps are a little bit on the cool side.

Lately, while helping to babysit a couple of grand nieces, the 7 yr. old asked me "why did you dye your hair white!"  Hummmmm .... can you imagine how that question cracked me up!!!  LOL

My red/white hexie top is finished and photos will be following on that one soon as well as what my next UFO will be to come off the shelf. 

Cherish your day, cherish your life!

Dilly Flowers

After a couple of weeks of appliqueing, my Dilly Flowers is a top!

So happy to have this done!  I've been busy frankenpiecing batting pieces for this top.  This is a lap size top, so pulling batting pieces for this is much easier than for a full size top.   My hubby asked why not use the roll of batting instead?  Smaller pieces just need to be used up first; otherwise, things will get out of control!  You all know how that is, don't you?  LOL

I just want to bring to your attention that the vine design is not mine.  It came from Shutterstock.com but changed it up to my liking by using different leaves and adding in dots.

Next up is this project.  This ufo was a guild challenge from a number of years ago.  Imagine my surprise to find nine blocks done instead of just six blocks!  These will become a wall hanging .... so not too much work involved.

This week, three deer came by for a visit looking for whatever they could munch on.  These two came and moved on rather quickly.  Seems like they couldn't find much to eat.

This smaller deer was busy tearing up something right at the roots.  I'm thinking that was a hosta and we all know how only a bit of that root will spring forth a plant.  So, not too worried.

Days later, replace that sunshine for snow .... we are having a snowstorm.  March is trying its' best to go out like a lion!

While we are dealing with snow, I'm also dealing with a case of shingles.  Very painful.  I could have sworn that my doctor gave me a needle for shingles.  Apparently not!

Cherish your day, cherish your life!

Dilly Flower surfacing again

This month, my Dilly Flower will be worked on again.

I was going with the applique on the layout shown below, but that got scrapped.

This will be the new applique that will be sewn.   The look is daintier and I'm much happier now and can finally move on with this project. 

Once I was happy with the layout .... with a few changes ..... I got right into doing prep work for the applique.

Before I knew it, one half of the applique has been done.  Now onto the last half and then time for borders!

Edit 23/03/2023:  the vine design is not mine .... I got the image from Shutterstock.com .... just changed it up a bit to my liking by adding in different leaves and dots.

Lots of green for St. Patrick's Day!  

Our area is due for some kind of storm .... will it be rain or snow?  Right now, we are on the cusp of snow to the north and rain to the south.  It will be interesting to see what happens as the day goes on. 

Cherish your day, cherish your life!

Dilly Flower update

The centre of this project is now complete!  All that has to be decided now is how much bigger to make this quilt?  A few ideas are fermenting in my brain ....  

There was a question about how the hexies were sewn together?  Everything you see here is by hand using English Paper Piecing method.  No machine.

"Dilly Flower" is available on Elise Baek's etsy site and she regularly shows new patterns on the Facebook site .... English Paper Piecing Society.  I'm a member of that group and it is so nice to see EPP patterns and quilts and works in progress.

Cherish your day, cherish your life!

Dilly Flower update

Much progress has been made on this project.  Now that cottage season is upon us, this will be the perfect project to take with me to work on while sitting on the porch or inside the cottage in the evenings.

The small section at the left top is almost ready to be attached to the main body

This bottom section is all ready to be assembled together.  There is still some applique to do, but all the hexagons are numbered so that they are sewn together correctly.

There will be applique on the top border, for sure, but maybe on the bottom border as well to make it longer.  More on my applique idea to come once the main section is complete.

Oh, and ..... I may have started a new project!  LOL  More on that later.

I'm off to the cottage in the morning.  See you in about a week.

Cherish your day, cherish your life!

Getting stuff moving along!

There are only have a few more days left this month to get the binding done on my April challenge quilt!  This is the home stretch.  After this, there will be a sleeve and a label to add to complete the challenge.

Much progress has been made on my "Dilly Flower".

Everything right of the zig-zag line is completed.  All the flowers that have the pink paper on them means that the background hexie has been prepped but not sewn together.  A bit more cutting and basting on the other flowers are still to be done, but I'm so pleased on how well this project has come along.

I'm still aiming to get this UFO completed before month end.  Better get cracking on that!  There truly is not much work to do to complete this top.  All I have to do is concentrate on those two star blocks in the border.  The rest of the blocks in the border have already been done.

I foresee some tie-dying in my future.  A grand niece wants tie-dyed bed sheets and since there is a kit in my stash ..... fun time ahead.  I've never done tie-dying before, so this will be an adventure for sure.

On the Covid issue ..... I did not get it from my niece.  My sister and her family are all doing ok now.   My grand niece's Covid fingers are slowly improving.   But ..... I may have been exposed again to my quilting garage friend who has tested positive.  So, I'm in the wait and see and isolate mode.

Cherish your day, cherish your life!

Dilly Flower

 I haven't shown you this new project that I may have started!  LOL  May have started?  I would say definitely started!  Some kind of applique will be added to the top and bottom to give it more of a look.  Right now, it is kinda boring .... to me anyway.  

This pattern has come from a Facebook site called "English Paper Piecing Society".  I saw the pattern and just knew that I had to do it.

Yep .... another squirrel came to play ....

My goal for April is to finish this UFO.

Covid-19 has finally hit our family.  It has taken over two years to visit, but visit it did.  One neice and her entire family came down with it.  One of the grand nieces has Covid fingers.  All the pads on her fingers have shedded their skin and her fingers have been stinging for over two weeks now.  Her fingers are improving slowly.

Then, this week, another niece came down with it and her new born baby.  Hopefully, he absorbed some of the antibodies produced from the two vaccines she received during her pregnancy and he won't be too sick.

Now, my sister and I are waiting to see if we have it as we were in close contact with this niece while she was at her most contagious period.

So, we'll see what happens.

Cherish your day, cherish your life!