Autumn

 Hello friends, 

We have been enjoying the most amazing Fall weather these past weeks! The temperatures have been so pleasant, although we did have a little bit of a cold snap with some EEK, SNOW! I happen to love snow so I was very excited but it didn't last long, and now we are back to sunshine and gloriously pleasant days.

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We took full advantage of the nice weather this weekend and hung up our Christmas lights ( hubby usually does these in freezing weather, so this was a nice change!), raked some leaves, and planted more Daffodil bulbs. It is my intention to plant more bulbs every year so that one Spring in the future we have a sea of yellow under our Maple trees. I would plant other bulbs as well~ I love Tulips and Grape Hyacinths~ but those bulbs always mysteriously disappear...somewhere some little critter is enjoying those bulbs, I know, but the Daffodils bulbs are safe!

Okay, enough of the glorious photos, right? How about some Show &Tell about what is going on in my quilt room?

I started a new project, using my Accuquilt die and a nice bundle of flannels from Northcott! This is the Northwoods medley die and I was glad for a chance to use it finally!

I drew up a simple quilt design on my graph paper and then set about cutting my blocks. I decided to make the blocks 5x5, 10x10, and 5x10, and then had fun appliqueing my moose, bear, and tree shapes to the various blocks, using fusible applique and a zigzag stitch in brown thread.

I do love the rich colors of the flannels and think they go perfectly with the theme! After appliqueing, I sewed my blocks together, making one small layout change so that I didn't have to sew a wonky piece ( Y-seams and I do NOT get along!) and now I am busy making some borders out of the leftover flannel so that this may become a nice-sized cuddle quilt. I will share the finished quilt at a later date!

While I had my Accuquilt cutter out, I decided to make a simple table runner by appliqueing some pumpkins, leaves, and acorns to a purchased table runner. This was such a quick and simple project, but I like how it turned out! This used the Fall Medley die, which has all kinds of versatile shapes! 

And finally, I have to share another project that I have been working on: One of my favorite blocks is the Churndash, and the color that is overtaking my stash is BLUE, so I thought it would be a great time to make a blue and white Churndash quilt! Again, I used my Accuquilt die for my blocks ( I was on a mission to use those dies!), but rather than making 9 Churndashes, added an embroidered block in the center. 

You can find the Churndash die here ( click) and the embroidery came from this book here. By the way, if you like sweet little projects that feature some embroidery you need to check this out...it is filled with cute patterns!

Now I think it needs some sashing, so you will have to check back again and see which way I tweaked this project!

Finally I will leave you with some pics of our newest addition, a mini Rex that we "rescued" from a farm store. He did not seem to be doing very well, but now that he is in our home, with 2 other bunny companions, plus lots of good food, toys, treats, and care, he is perking up nicely! We now have a mini Rex, a triple Lionhead, and a mini Lop, and they all have their very own quirks and personalities!

Can you guess which one is which, based on these pics? Ha!

I hope you are all having an amazing Fall season ( or Spring, of course, if you are south of the Equator!)!

Until next time~ happy creating!

Monique

Quilt soup

 Hello friends, 

This week's blog post is a huge collection of seemingly unrelated projects, very much like the homemade veggie soup I like to make where I just throw in whatever is available in the fridge and cupboard, so the title of QUILT SOUP seemed appropriate somehow ;). 

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Speaking of soup, I shared the recipe for this no-knead bread over in my facebook group a few weeks back and it is so easy and goes so well with homemade soup that I wanted to share it here too. It does require a Dutch Oven, which we didn't have, so I went and bought one just to make this bread ( I am serious about my bread!). Luckily it is also a great container for making soup in, so win-win. 

Like I said, I have been working on a wide variety of projects these last few weeks. I picked up an old pattern by Cottage Creek Quilts called Be Thankful and put that together one day. It needs embroidering, but then the rest will be done by free-motion on the sewing machine. It should be done in plenty of time before Thanksgiving so we can enjoy it for a few weeks. 

I have also been embroidering the words on this quilt that I found in a FB group. I made the Santa beards out of some fluffy material and I like the way it makes them more 3D! I still have a  lot of hand quilting to do on this one, but luckily I have time. 

I picked up a partial Christmas themed jelly roll at my local re-use store and thought it would make a great table runner, using the free Jelly Roll Twist pattern from Fat Quarter Shop! I can see way more of these quilts in my future because the pattern is simple and easy but, depending on the fabric choice, you will get a completely different look! 

And finally, I wanted to share a great accomplishment of mine: I finally conquered my fear of zippers! I am forever sharing cute fabrics in my facebook group that contain zippers but had never yet attempted any of them because of those dreaded zippers. Some people in my group were really starting to pick on me about this ( but all in a good-natured, friendly way, because that's the way we roll in my group ;) ), so I finally bit the bullet and followed this great zipper pouch tutorial by Nadra of Ellis&Higgs.

The tutorial is so clear and I made all these zipper pouches in about 2 days: 

I had so much fun making these, but then ran out of zippers and had to stop. However, a quick trip to my local re-use store gave me loads more zippers and I am good to go for another batch! 

Guess what everyone is receiving for Christmas this year?? Hahahaha! 

So there you have my version of Quilt Soup. I hope you enjoyed it!

Until next time~happy creating!

Monique