Happy Valentines Day

Happy Valentines Day!

February is a pretty easy month for decorating my sewing room. I seem to have a lot of hearts.

This is the narrow design board on the wall adjacent to my bigger design wall. 

The red heart "log cabin in the round" quilt is about 15 inches square and has, at the center, a little house square that Beth Shibley sent to everyone the first time I participated in her Neighborhood Block Party.

The 2 black and white "broken hearts" are my 2 different ways to interpret Zentangle inspired hearts. One in patterned fabric and the other drawn on cloth with a Pigma pen and quilted with black thread. I used the same heart shape for both.

The pink square was drawn with a red pen and quilted on the lines with red thread. I'm not sure why I used pink fabric; all I can say is that it was when I was experimenting. 

The 3 improv patchwork hearts were left over Valentines that "didn't make the cut"when I sent  them to my friends one year.

The Black and white square with the red heart is a participant's square from one of the Basement Divas Annual Jelly Roll Races. It has the signatures from all participants on the back.

 This little 12 inch square is another zentangle inspired heart that I drew and then copied  on my all in one  HP printer/scanner and changed the color in my photo program and then printed on fabric and stitched with blue thread. I'm not sure if I made it blue to use with the yellow and blue fabric or if  used the yellow and blue fabric  to go with the blue heart.









I made this 36 inch square color wash heart along time ago when I made a lot of color wash quilts. I used to hang it in the living room from January until Memorial Day when I changed out all my quilts for red, white and blue until Labor Day. For 3 years, I didn't have an available wall to hang it. Since our last move it hangs over our bed, where it  compliments the colors in the bedspread and quilt on the bed and the curtains.
I didn't plan it that way and it was only after I hung the quilt that I realized how good it all looked together.

I took all  these photos with my new camera that arrived on Monday. It is  supposed to have an image stabilization feature for people with shaky hands. I'm not sure how well that works or it it is something for which I have a setting. I will have to spend some time with the manual. I am just happy to have a camera that takes a picture when I push the button.

Neighborhood House

I received this sweet little house block in the mail Friday as a thank you for participating in the Neighborhood Block Party hosted by Irene at  Hilachas and her sister Ida at My Sister Made Me Do It.  

I will be doing something with it but not sure yet what that will be. Right now it is up on my bulletin board.














 In 2011 Beth from Love Laugh Quilt hosted the Neighborhood Block Party. Everyone who participated  received a little fussy cut house patch. I made this one block curved log cabin wall hanging with the little house patch in the center; I hang in in my sewing room in February.

I like this house

I had other things I should have been doing today but I didn't. Instead, I worked on this house. It is finished except for a few threads that need to be buried; I always seem to miss a few even when I bury them as I go along.

I turned it pillow case style because I did not want any kind of binding. I added a pocket at the top (from the peak of the roof to where the roof joins the house) to insert something stiff if need be but I don't think I will need to put any thing there. I am just going to hand stitch some sort of hanging loop or ring at the peak of the roof.
I layered the top with just batting and I quilted in the ditch around every patch. after I added the backing (and the pocket)  and turned it I quilted again in the ditch enough to hold it together and keep it nice and flat. I like my inhabitants they inspired me to trim off the upper left side and make this a house. The house is 24 inches tall and the main part of the house is 17 inches wide just below the roof overhang. The house isn't perfectly square but I am not the least bit concerned about it.

 I can picture this hanging in a little girls room. I am thinking about little boys rooms and maybe big boys room. I think I will make more houses. I can picture sports stuff, cars, trucks, trains, robots, drums etc. I am not sure the 4 great grandsons would really appreciate bed quilts at this point  but I am almost sure they would like a house to hang in their room.

Houses

I decided to take a break from sewing the black and white triangle patches together. It is tedious and exacting with lots of points that I want to come together perfectly... well, yes perfectly. It is going well but slowly.
Beth at Laugh Love Quilt is having a neighborhood block party and I am joining again for the 3rd year. Depending on the number of people who join there will  be some winners for  sets of 9 -12 blocks.

I have not been very fast at this either but it has been fun sewing. Any time I do something improvisational I agonize over every piece of fabric and of course second guess myself at the end. I start out thinking every house block has to  have green grass and a light blue sky looking fabric for the sky and some shade of green trees. Every house has to have a chimney and a door and at least one window. I like to have inhabitants in my houses too. This time it didn't take me half a dozen houses to break some of my own rules.
These two 12 inch blocks took two days. I did have interruptions and stops and starts while I tended to other things (like baking a cake, going out shopping and a trip with Jack for routine follow up with the eye doctor). I think that was a good thing because when I came back to work on the houses I changed some things that bothered me.
I will be sending these off to Beth soon. I will a so send along  a few 12 1/2 inch orphan blocks that she will use in a quilt for some one in need, as Beth says, after Sandy there are lots of people in need.

Maybe you would like to send Beth

a couple of house block and some orphans.