UFOs Challenge #5 for April

Judy picked #5 for April. I am playing along on 3 levels, quilting UFO, embroidery UFO, and piecing UFO. I have so many UFOs.

My quilting UFO was the New England Sampler. It got quilted.

I also quilted Merry Merry Snowmen..which is going to my sister for her Christmas room.

And fused and quilted the Polish Santa...also for my sister.

This was my piecing UFO...and it also got quilted. I call it Swimming with the fishes.

My piecing UFO was the mermaid (above). I had to fuse more stuff onto it...and then it got quilted.

I also pieced Home Tweet Home..a batik McKenna Ryan pattern (my first from her).

And I pieced Jungle Cats

And Pave the Way got pieced.

I pieced as many as I quilted, so i basically made no progress. haha

My embroidery UFO was Mylar in the Tropics. they did not all get finished. I got 10 of 16 finished. they take about  3 hours to do...massive color changes....about 40.

Here are a few that got finished.

I did play with some new embroidery sets...Crazy Quilt Animals. I have 11 of them to do and so far have done 2. perhaps this is why the Tropics didn't get finished. hahahaha

Not a super productive month, but all in all, a good month. Studio things slow down a bit around here in the spring and summer. the mowing and gardening stuff gets in my way. not to mention stacking wood in the shed for next year.

Hope your month was super productive and you got your UFOs finished.

Molly Mine is at it again

The embroidery site of Molly Mine is one of my favorites. She does mainly crazy quilt things. I have several of her sets.

Right now she is working on animals....crazy quilt animals.   I don't know how many there will be but i have gotten the first 11.

The first one i did was the elephant. it is 5x7.  I am putting them on a cream colored muslin

I pretty much used her color scheme.

I like most all of her stuff, so it is no surprise that i am love with her animals. she has them in many sizes.

I also have the fox, giraffe, hen, llama, owl, pig, rooster, seahorse, stork and whale. I can't spend all my time on the embroidery machine, although i wouldn't mind that, so they will get done slowly. and by the time i am done with this batch, she will have more.

Merry Merry Snowmen

This is going to my sister for her Christmas room....naturally. haha It is 61x65"

Cute little peppermint binding. I quilted most of it as the pattern showed.

Three Wise Men with their gifts, following the star.  

Those little guys peeking in the windows are just too cute. maybe he wants that cake for sale.

Or, he could get a cupcake. I like the quilt design on the red background...pretty cool.

It's amazing what you can do with just reds, whites and creams.

There were a lot of buttons used on this one.

Making an 'N' requires that you reverse the pattern. haha  experience, once again.

This could be a Disney adventure...skiing in teacups.

Santa's sleigh is a plush red velvet

That truck is too cute

and....check out this back. just makes you smile.

Threads used were Glide Ruby, White (almost all gone now), Black, Jade, and Chestnut. Bobbin was Bottom Line white.

This was a lot of fun. It is a Bunny Hill Design and she has some good ones.

Home Tweet Home

This is my first McKenna Ryan quilt. well, so far it is just a top. it came together in a couple weeks....which is quick for me....as i was working on other things at the same time. I enjoyed this more than i thought i would.

I love the looks of her quilts but they always seem so complicated and intimidating. this one is 42" square.

There are a gazillion tiny pieces

I dug out all the batiks i had and bought the ones for the background in the blocks. some fabrics are not batiks.

See those white flowers above this....each petal is cut out individually....that almost did me in. haha  

Those sashings are 1.5" squares

It's going to be a chore to quilt i think....sewing down all those tiny pieces....and changing thread colors.

This pattern came from my friend, Sharon.  I have two more of her patterns that I want to do....the Beach Walk and the Storybook Farm. I have pulled out Beach Walk and it will probably get started soon. I might be addicted after just one. what i particularly like about her patterns are that they are already printed backwards, so you don't have to reverse your drawings to fuse it. and her pieces already have a seam allowance in them. 

Swimmin' with the fishes

I've been playing with this for some time. I cut out a bunch of circles and stitched them down to the background. Then cut out some fish and turtles from a piece in the stash and fused them on there, too. It was missing something. I searched a long time to find a mermaid. Finally bought a canvas that was meant to be framed from China. I cut her out...along with other pieces with fish...and fused that all on top of everything else. And then added a funky border with flamingos. Quilted the border with wavy lines, using the dark variegated thread.

It is 49x57

This has some heft to it. There is a lightweight blanket as batting...from the thrift store.

Unfortunately, the shine doesn't show up much here. I used a metallic thread from YLI with blues and golds.

I basically just went around everything and quilted some watery lines across. Put pebbles in the whole circles and stitched around the circles with a hole in the middle.

The last couple of rows I switched to a dark variegated thread called Poly Quilter from Superior with red, blue, green, yellow and purple. After all, the bottom of the ocean is dark....not that i know that first hand. I don't do water. haha   well, i drink it....that is all.

The back is a flannel sheet (thrift store) that adds even more weight.

Top threads are the variegateds and bobbin was Bottom Line white.

I'm keeping her for myself. a good little cover when you need a nap on the couch.

Mikolaj

This came about from a book I found with Santas in it from around the world. My first thought was to do them all....then i came to my senses and just did the one for Poland, since I am half Polish. Had they had one from Lithuania (my other half), I would have done that one, too. The patterns are actually for stained glass.

He is 12x20. Mikolaj is St. Nicholas in Polish. I did the label with my embroidery machine.

Mikolaj came to the children on St. Nicholas' Day, December 6. this is how he looked in 1909. 

The back is something from the stash that was large enough. 

Threads used were Glide Ruby, White, Gold, Chocolate, Bottom Line Beach.  bobbin was Bottom Line tan.

It will hang in my sister's Christmas room. 

Jungle Cats

In the interest of using up stuff.....i put together some of this....a little of that....and the rest of this......and came up with this....Jungle Cats.

The close ups are a bit clearer. the cat blocks actually came from a shirt that i sewed many years ago and it didn't fit any more. i loved that shirt.

The animal dotted fabric is a flannel from the Sharon stash, I think.

The horizontal sashing tree fabric is something I got at JoAnns some time ago to use as backing....it is finally all gone. my sister pronounced it hideous....but i liked it. haha

It is 52x55".  I rather like the way it all just seems to go together....just a mish-mash. now it has to marinate for a while in the to-be-quilted cabinet. it's like a magical cabinet....i take a few out and quilt them....then put a few pieced tops back in....there's always room for one more.