Rhododendron Trail Mystery Catch-up!

 Hope you ALL had a very Merry Christmas and are eagerly anticipating our Brand NEW Year of 2022!

While waiting for our New Year to arrive, decided to get busy catching up on a few projects, including our annual Bonnie Hunter Mystery - this year's mystery has been named Rhododendron Trail by the creator herself ;-)

During Christmas and all the accompanying festivities, w/prep work and cooking/baking, as usual, fell behind on last week's clue, which btw, was a doozy!  Got it ALL cut out Sunday eve and started sewing prior to Clue #5 being released Monday morning - nothing like a little pressure to get those motivating juices flowing!

Time to start sewing!

Chain piecing the hour glass units of Clue #4

And then there was the pressing of the 'first half' - took almost 2 hours just to press...Oh my.

First 'half' of the hour glass units getting pressed

Finished pressing!

First half of the hour glass units pressed and ready for final assembly

Hour Glass units assembled/pressed...Yes!

 

Honestly, IF I don't see another Hour Glass unit in the near future, I'll be good w/that ;-)

Managed to get Clue #5 cut and assembled w/fabrics I had BUT, ran out and had to order another Pink fat quarter set to be able to finish.  Should arrive by Friday when Clue #6 is released!  NO worries - we've got the weekend...right?

I rummaged through my stash to see if I couldn't find some pinks to finish up with, that could also 'blend' with what I had already used.  And I did find one pink batik that is a nice addition and got used BUT, it wasn't enough.  Used up most of my pink stash last year creating face masks, and Pink is just NOT a fabric color I tend to purchase and/or keep on hand in my stash.  Time to order more of some of my 'original' fabrics - thank goodness The Fat Quarter Lady still had some left...Lucky me!

Sewing the final piece of Clue #5 AND getting a bonus triangle unit for good measure

Most of Clue #5 assembled/pressed and ready to be zip-locked:

3/4 of Clue #5 assembled/pressed and ready for storage

Here's Wishing You and Yours a Happy New Year!

Later, 

~Deb

MORE Bow Ties & Mystery FUN!

 

After a rather looooong sabbatical from the 'Bow Tie' project, decided to get back to it after stumbling across the ice cream bucket FULL of Bow Ties, while conducting the annual Christmas CLEAN.  

Christmas RED seemed appropriate for the re-boot...aren't these too cute!

Christmas RED Bow Ties w/cheddar

Here's the ice cream bucket = 380!  I think I might need 'another' ice cream bucket...;-)

380 Bow Tie blocks so far

When I started this Bonnie Hunter Leaders/Enders Bow Tie project, I decided to use Reproduction jelly roll prints AND I changed up Bonnie's original pattern to be able to accommodate my jelly roll strips.  (ALL the math and other pertinent details are included at the previous blog posting - https://donebybettyboop.blogspot.com/2012/03/bow-ties-can-be-addictive.html)

Reproduction Jelly Roll Strips

 

Now that I've decided to FINISH this project soon - hopefully by the first of the New Year, time to crank things up a bit and get this Bow Tie Party started!

I need 750 total blocks for my finished quilt and I currently have 380, means I need an additional 370 to finish.  I can get five (5) blocks from each jelly roll strip, coupled w/cheddar background fabric, so four (4) strips per day will generate twenty (20) blocks per day...I'm on my way to the Bow Tie FINISH line.

I cut these out today:

Freshly cut/ready to assemble/two different fabric block units in each stack = 80 blocks!

 Time to start sewing:

Chain piecing these Bow Tie units is fairly quick

Five (5) of each fabric design = 10 more Bow Tie blocks!

 

Working on these Bow Ties in between the latest Bonnie Hunter annual Mystery.  First Clue #1 is Done!

Rhododendron Trail Mystery Clue #1

Time for some shut-eye!

Later,

~Deb

November Patriotic Quilting Has Begun!

 First in our Patriotic quilting line-up, another 'Special' Doris original getting quilted up for an even more special Vet ;-)

Star Quilting = Becker's Shooting Star, one of our Favs!

Becker's Shooting Star quilt pattern has been a long-time quilting fav - we even quilted it 'originally' w/paper pantos, prior to adding our computerized system...quilts out Beautifully EVERY time, adds wonderful dimension without over-powering the amazing design of 'any' quilt.

Quilting the Final Borders - love it when a good quilting combo comes together!

Coming off the quilt frame - scrappy strip quilt 'original' from the Strip Quilting Diva herself - 'Our Doris', has outdone herself with this one for sure!

Patriotic Scrappy Strip quilt comes off the frame

A glimpse at the back reveals a closer look at the quilting design:

Quilting design compliments Doris's Scrappy Strip quilt design = Win/WIN!

Second in our patriotic quilting line-up and 'another' of Our Doris's patriotic quilt tops - we just added borders to 'size it out' and voila!

West Wind E2E Night

 

Quilting w/West Wind E2E 'Night' brings movement and a starry field to compliment, once again - a wonderful 'Fence Rail w/Twist' of Doris's.  Quilted w/Silver in the needle & bobbin just makes it Sparkle ;-)

Digital quilting design quilting progress - LOTS to quilt!

A view of the back w/front:

Front w/back shows quilting detail coupled w/great fabrics & quilt design = Winning Combo!

And finally - coming off the frame:

Coming off the frame

Time to Bind!

Later,  

~Deb

Halloween Embroidery FUN!

Just a few 'last minute' quick Halloween embroidery projects.  What's Halloween without a proper Spooky coaster or two?

'Happy Haunting' Halloween Coaster

A little 'Poison' for Good Measure?

'Poison' Coaster

And then we needed some proper Halloween Masks ;-)

'Trick or TREAT' face mask

A Tombstone Mug Rug...Why Not?

A few of our completed Halloween embroidery projects:

Halloween FUN Coasters & Face Masks

And finally, a Special Halloween 'Surprise' embroidery project for one of my very Fav Farming Buddies:

Halfway through this 31,000+ stitch-count embroidery - building a 'thread' tire ;-)

Messy FUN aftermath

All Done!

Jacket back

Jacket front

Happy Halloween!

~Deb

Kimberbell's Candy Corn Quilt Shoppe Quilt - Progressing Nicely ;-)

 What a nice change of pace - really enjoying working on this 'embroidery' version of Kimberbell's Candy Corn Quilt Shoppe quilt...just in time for All Hallow's Eve!

The notion of 'quilting each block in the embroidery hoop' is not that new however, the Halloween quilting designs that stitch-out 1/4" just shy of the seam allowance is.  Kimberbell has created a wonderful complimentary set of embroidery quilt designs sized to fit most ANY quilt block, while maintaining a consistent aspect ratio per block for each and every size.  Kimberbell refers to these embroidery quilt designs as background quilting. 

Even as a longarmer, I am finding myself becoming quite addicted to this block-by-block background embroidery quilting method.  It's quite FUN watching all these different quilting designs come to life and add just one more dimension to our Creepy Cool Halloween FUN!

There are several different Halloween/Seasonal machine embroidery quilting designs to choose from - just as w/digital quilting designs, and I enjoy trying out various background embroidery designs with my version of Kimberbell's Candy Corn Quilt Shoppe quilt, as you will notice in the following photos...Enjoy!

 

Quilting & Embroidery design combined for Easy/Peasy stitch-out

Squaring up w/Orange Pop 'fussy cut' rulers from Kimberbell

 

All squared up!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More FUN blocks w/Creepy Cool Halloween shapes:

Notice the purple vinyl glitter on the purple flower - these little Xtras really make these blocks 'pop', and offer FUN little surprises to discover along each quilt block's journey

Back to stitching up more of these Creepy Cool Halloween FUN blocks for our Candy Corn Quilt Shoppe Quilt!

Later,

~Deb