Felicia's Flamingo

Felicia's Flamingo began with a request from Jessica that I make a small tropical wall quilt for her mom who just moved to Florida. Sure I'm up for a challenge.

I drew the flamingo on graph paper and numbered the grid.

Using the drawing as my "map" I plotted where the bird was. Outlines first.

This flamingo must like Mac N Cheese. Look at all the pieces I cut out of this fabric!

There are 18 x 24 one inch squares covering the cutting mat.

Time to sew them all together.

Once all the vertical seams are done it was half as wide!

Look how tiny it is now!

One tiny bead to finish the eye!

Felicia's Flamingo is gorgeous!

This project was so much fun I may have to make another one!

This is the quilt hanging by the Save The Date card for Chris and Jessica's proposed wedding in September. I hope and pray all goes well but with this crazy Coronavirus who can tell.

2020 Temperature Quilt Beginnings

So to make 2020 special I'm tracking the high and low temperatures for Pinehurst and will incorporate them into a Temperature Quilt. To get started I went to Weather.com, plugged in Pinehurst, NC, then looked at the Almanac for the highs and lows for 2019.

Temperature 2019 Tally

I tallied each temp and was surprised by the results. We only had3 days total that the high was in the 30's and we had 99 days with the high in the 90's. Wow. I think last year was unusually warm but it does give me an idea what to expect.

These Bella Solids will be used for my LOW temperatures.

These print fabrics will be used for the HIGH temperatures.

This is my plan for a graph. 

I will foundation piece the blocks with HIGH in center and LOW on the corners. 

Piecing the months.

Months!

Numbers too!

Twiddletails Temperature Quilt Along is a group on Facebook that I joined where quilters share their ideas and questions as we make our individualized 2020 Temperature quilts.

More to follow.

Christmas Stockings With License Plates

It's time to get photos of all the Christmas stockings in one place.

Sasha and Loralai were the first stockings with license plates. Their names are done in red letters.

Sasha and Loralai.

Then I wrote the Sue Stocking pattern.

Then I made one for Jessica with purple letters.

Floofy is a beautiful Maine Coon cat. He has green letters.

Floofy.

Rocky, Rambo, Lynn and J.R. all are like this one.

This is Rambo. Rocky is also an Italian Greyhound.

The front and back pieces are quilted separately.

 Nibs has mice on the back of hers since she is the hunter.

Each time I make a new stocking I have to pull Sasha's out so I can remember what to do.

Nibs has pink letters. She is a very cute calico kitten.

Nibs.

Who will be next?

American Patchwork & Quilting Quilt-Along

American Patchwork & Quilting magazine had a quilt along in the spring of 2019. Since I had so many little leftover fabrics from the Radiance quilt I decided to play along. The pattern was in the magazine and I bought it at the store practically the day it hit the shelves.

I had a tray with light units and colorful units.

Then we sewed the units into blocks. This is 6 blocks on the design wall.

Adding more blocks the pattern begins to emerge.

Of course I hid a gecko!!

Auditioning border fabrics.

This quilt was one of my all time favorites to put together!!

Sasha approves.

It's on our guest bed. Look for it if you come to visit us.

Radiance

I'm not sure how it happened but I saw this quilt called Radiance designed by Stacey Day featuring Slow and Steady fabrics by Tula Pink and fell in love with it.

Radiance Quilt Pattern 

With a little research I found the free pattern, downloaded it and printed it. FREE.

Slow and Steady fabrics designed by Tula Pink. 

This is the Tortoise and the Hare story. This set of fabrics includes: the tortoise, the hare, pit crew, grandstand, clear skies, winner's circle, track flags and tortoise shell.

To make cutting easier there is a set of acrylic templates for sale.

I loved how complicated yet simple the design is. Like a puzzle.

The fabrics were so gorgeous I really enjoyed "working" on this quilt.

I cut all the diamonds and set them in 2 trays.

The way I did the triangle part was to cut sets of the background 3.5" x 4.5" and had those fabrics in order of use laid on my ironing board. Then I cut the triangles as I needed them.

Sewing was fun, fun, fun.

To make sure the blocks didn't get lost or out of order I sewed them into rows as I finished them. There is a single center row that connects mirror image halves. I started on the outside rows and made 2 of each block working toward the center.

Finished including the quilt label.

I looked at the quilt from each direction to decide which way I wanted it to hang.

For now "Radiance" is hanging like this.

I enjoyed the challenge of this quilt as it helped settle my mind during the weeks leading up to my daughter Lynn's wedding. Welcome to the family J.R. Southers!