Creatively Distracted……

unfinished projects

The weather is beautiful today – the next few days we have 80 degrees predicted and then rain. So I would rather be outside walking on the beach than working. But alas I need to work to continue with my creative habits. As I have mentioned before I purchased a spinning wheel. Oh the fun I am having!! I have worked with 4 different rovings since I brought my machine home. It is really amazing to see the difference in the yarns that I am spinning. I do see some improvement.

I plied 2 strands of spun yarn to have a thicker yarn. The fiber that I was spinning had lots of variations in the color. I am really please with the results of the yarn – the variation in color reminds me of the ocean.

while still in the process of being spun

This is the yarn after I spun the 2 strands together. Pretty cool don’t you think. I think this will be knitted into a Christmas present for someone who will remain nameless.

– the last of my fiber to be spun until the end of next week

So I will finish up this fiber that you see above and then I will dive into my quilting. I am going to promise myself that I will work on my quilting at least 2 hours every night. The way that I am talking it sounds like a punishment – it of course is not – I love to quilt and to make quilts but I am like a kid with an attention deficit problem – I keep flitting from project to project. Lots of fun flitting!!!

So my spinning is part of my distraction – the nice weather is part of my distraction – the desire to cook (because of the cooler weather) is part of the distraction. But as you can see by the photo at the top of the page there are quilts to be finished. 1 is a baby quilt, 2 are Christmas quilts that I have been working on for years, one is a mystery that needs to be marked for quilting and then quilted. Plus I have many other projects on my shelves waiting for my attention. I also have not mentioned the unfinished sweaters that are in the bags by my couch. Far too much to do and far too little time for it. There needs to be more time in the day, if only I didn’t need to sleep I would be getting much more done.

Remember to let your creativity shine – it is fun and rewarding.

Be Kind…

Faith

Latest Quilt challenge….

Aug28

Fabrics for Challnge

Back in April we signed up for a challenge at Evergreen Quilters – we were given 21 8″ blocks. I wrote about it here – https://quiltingonthecove.com/2013/04/03/faith-in-me/. I had an idea of what I wanted make but I have to admit that I procrastinated for over a month and then I started cutting and paper piecing the background. I used my Electric Quilt program to print up several various 4″ log cabin blocks. My plan was to use the fabrics to make a background for my garden. The lower part of the quilt is the ground and the steps into the garden. There is a stone path and as your eyes work upward the sun is setting. I was thinking of a fall sunset with all of the reds and oranges as the sun goes down. Ok, so you may need to use your imagination but that is what creating a quilt from a disjointed pile of fabrics is about.

Flower Garden Challenge Quilt

I added bias cut stems and 3 dimensional flowers. I am really pleased with the final outcome.

3 Dimensional Flowers

I neglected to take a picture of all of the wonderful creations that my fellow quilters made. Silly me, but they were amazing!!!

I have a ton of projects in the pipeline – several with deadlines. So I will be very busy in the next few weeks. I also have pickles to pickle and salsa to make so it will be a crazy few weeks. Life is good – fall is coming and I am ok with it all.

Be Kind…

Faith

One UFO done…

Aug24

My quilt guild has a UFO challenge every couple of years. This year I signed up to finish 4 quilts. They are all pieced and only need to be quilted. Two of them have been UFO’s for over 10 years. One is all hand pieced star blocks done in Christmas fabrics. I love the top and I need to find just the right long armed quilter to quilt it for me. The other one is a Dresden plate quilt block that is machine pieced and machine appliqued. Hopefully they will be done soon, but they will not be done by Monday when the UFO challenge is taking place.

I did finish one of the quilts that I signed up to complete. I started this quilt my years ago at a quilt retreat in the Catskills. It was a wonderful retreat and a fun class.

Part of what took me years to complete was the hand quilting. I quilted some feathers in the corners and along the edge.

I machine quilted the rest of the quilt with metallic thread. It gives the quilt a little extra Christmas sparkle. This will either be used as a wall hanging or a table topper. For now it will be stored in a closet in a pillow case to keep the dust off of it, but come December it will be used to decorate as well as reminding me of a great fall weekend with friends.

I have also been spinning yarn with my new spinning wheel. Here is a picture of the yarn that I have spun. I am happy with it. Not bad for a novice. I really love it and hope to, take a class soon to really learn what I am doing right and wrong.

First spun yarn

Have a nice weekend,

Be Kind…

Faith

Being inspired…

Jul28

This is the Best in Show at the Maine State Quilt show. It is called Zen Garden. It was made by Maragaret Solomon Gunn of Gorham, Maine. It is machine pieced, hand appliqued and machine long arm quilted. It is even more beautiful in person.

This is the center.

This is the right bottom corner.

I am not working anything quite so ambitious. I however was inspired to pull out on ongoing (by ongoing I mean never ending) project. I really want to complete this wall hanging. I am hand quilting some feathered wreaths in the corners and on the edges. I have one more corner to complete. Which is shown here.

I will post a picture when it is complete.

Enjoy your Sunday, be creative.

Be Kind…

Faith

Giving back…

Jul19

my geraniums are finally blooming

I live in a wonderful coastal community in southern Maine. Every summer our Community Club has a Seaside Fair. We have local craft vendors, lobster rolls etc for lunch, a bake sale and a silent auction. The money raised goes the the Community Club to help fund scholarships, and other community activities.

In the winter when the summer people are gone we have movie nights, bean suppers, pot luck dinners and lots of wonderful gatherings to keep us connected during the long winters that we have in Maine. It is a wonderful group of sharing people.

I believe in giving back. I love to bake and I love to sew, so the logical conclusion would be that I would bake something for a bake sale and sew something for the auction table.

As you are all aware it has been very hot lately – I don’t have central air conditioning. UGH – my house is hot, but I needed to bake a pie last night. I figured since I was baking 1 pie for the bake sale I may as well make one for us as well. Nothing is much tastier than a homemade mixed berry pie with a big scoop of vanilla ice cream. I used strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and blackberries. YUM!

Two Mixed Berry Pies

I also made a cute little bag for the auction. People always ask me how long it takes to make something like this. It took me about 2 1/2 hours last night. I am really happy with the way it turned out. I love to work in bright colors and this just seemed very summery to me.

cute summer bag

I hope that you are enduring the heat and I also hope that it breaks soon. It is very unhealthy for many and for others it just makes us cranky. I sadly fall into the cranky category.

Enjoy the weekend,

Be Kind…

Faith

One of my favorite times of year…

Jun10

Today am not going to write much – instead I am going to let the pictures do the talking.

Iris split and transplanted from my neighbor Helen’s garden.

What a Beauty

Some of my peonies. I love them and so do the ants.

I love the way the purple of the Iris contrasts with the orange of the Poppies. I would never think to pair these 2 colors together but nature does it and it works beautifully.

My Dogwood Tree is beginning to bloom – when this is in full bloom it is absolutely amazing!

Some of the pretty colors from my potted plants:

I hope you enjoyed this little tour of some of my flowers –

When I am struggling with color choices for a quilt, I will look at the wonderful pictures of Spring and Summer. I usually can find the answer in the garden. If I would see the colors together in nature then they are OK together in a quilt. So when you are undecided walk outside – if you see it in the garden go for it you may be really pleasantly surprised.

Rain is coming tonight – we have had way more than our share of rain this Spring. I just hope that the weather patterns change soon or we will be having a cool, damp summer. Not good for the gardens or the local seasonal businesses.

Be Kind….

Faith

Nothing quite as good…..

May23

as sleeping under a new quilt, that you made yourself.

Easy Street

The first quilt that you see here is my Easy Street quilt, designed by Bonnie Hunter. I have posted previously about my progress on this quilt. It was Bonnie’s mystery quilt this past November. It started the day after Thanksgiving and Bonnie posted her last series of instructions in February. I loved making this quilt. I learned several new techniques and the use of some new time saving rulers. Such Fun!!! I took a class with Bonnie in May a was able to show her my completed quilt. That was a lot of fun.

I took this picture on one of the few nice days we have had here lately. While a lot of the country has been experiencing late Spring it still feels like April around here.

I am a member of the Pine Tree Quilt Guild and of the local chapter Evergreen Quilters. Every May we have a Tea Party. We ask members of our chapter to bring their quilts and give us a show. They tell us about how they got started quilting and they show us some of their wonderful quilts. We have some very talented quilters in our group and I always look forward to them showing us their treasures. As a bit of a reward for their effort and a show of appreciation members of the group make them a gift. This year I offered to make a wall hanging for one of the presenters.

Spring Skinnie

The pattern is called Spring Skinnie. It was published in the March/April ’13 issue of Quiltmaker. I had such a fun time pulling colorful scraps to make this quilt. I did all of the stitching by machine. I am going to make myself one also. Maybe this weekend since it is supposed to be rainy and cool.

The one advantage to the miserable weather that we have been having is that I don’t mind having a quilt in my lap to work on. When it is hot and muggy I don’t want to do hand work because I get too warm. These days with the heat off (it is after all the end of May) having a quilt in my lap is actually a good thing.

Have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend. I hope wherever you are it is nicer than it is here.

Be Kind…

Faith

A bright Tuesday morning…

Apr30

Pansy

It is a beautiful Tuesday morning here on the coast of Maine. The sun is shining and wonderful things are popping up through the dirt. Several years ago I had pots of Pansies on my side steps. The past 2 years they have come back – I have not planted a Pansy in 2 years but there they are smiling up at me when I walk out the door to get the paper every morning. I love Pansies!

Ocean Waves

I have been doing alot of sewing/quilting lately. This pattern is called Fruit Cake – it is made using a collection of fabrics called a Layer Cake – A layer cake is 10″ precut blocks. I love the batiks in this quilt – it reminds me of the sun shining on the waves in the summer. The edge is praire points – these are squares of fabric folded and added to the edge. I machine quilted this quilt with my new sewing machine. I used an entire spool of thread on this quilt. Thankfully I ran out just as I came to the last stitch. Happy, Happy!

Another project that I am working on is Potholder quilts for our returning soldiers and veterans. My quilt chapter is of course helping me with this project. We will be making 12.5″ finished blocks that are quilted and bound. We then stitch them together to make a whole quilt.

pratice block – oops too small

Ohio Star blocks 12.5″ quilted and bound. Just hand stitching left.

We are hoping to have a pile of quilts done by Veterans Day 2013. I was inspired to start this project by a lecture given by Pam Weeks who is the curator of the New England Quilt Museum. Pam wrote the book Civil War Quilts and came and did a lecture about the quilts that were made by the woman of New England for the soldiers in the Civil War. It is a fascinating book and story of what women did to help the war effort.

2 blocks for our Potholder quilts

These are 2 of the blocks that I made for the Potholder quilts. They didn’t take me too much time and I really enjoyed digging through my Red, White and Blue fabrics to make some Patriotic Blocks.

My project for today is to get the binding on my Easy Street Quilt. My friend Clara did the longarm quilting on this quilt for me. It is much to big for me to quilt on my sewing machine. Someday I may have the confidence to quilt a quilt this large but not yet. Hopefully I will have a picture for you within the next few days.

Enjoy the beautiful sunny day…

Be Kind…

Faith

Faith in ME…

Apr3

I am involved in an online block swap. I have written about it here – https://quiltingonthecove.com/2013/03/07/block-swap/

All of the people who are participating in the Swap are posting on a Forum. When I sign my posts I write Faith in ME. Of course my name is Faith and I live in Maine. Hence the sign off.

One of the other participates mentioned that she appreciated the signature because it caused her to pause and have “Faith in ME”. I was touched by this sentiment. We do need to have Faith in ourselves, we need to have confidence to take a risk. We need to have the courage to do things that may make us a bit uncomfortable – an example of this is me writing this blog. I still have doubts when I think of a topic that anyone will even be interested enough to read it.

I have doubts when I pull piles of fabrics out of my stash to start a quilt. Do these fabrics really go, should I use one color or another? All of these self doubts bombard us on a daily basis – sometimes it involves our relationships, sometimes it involves our jobs or career choices. We have to learn to trust our guts!!! Don’t have “buyers remorse”.

Right now I am working a quilt challenge – all of the participants had do bring in an 8″ square of fabric. 21 of us are involved.

Fabrics for Challnge

So we each need to make a quilt using all 21 different fabrics and it can’t be larger than 144″ outside dimension. So I started to cut these fabrics and work out how I was going to use them all to make a quilt. I have to have “Faith in ME” that I would choose the correct design and use of these fabrics. I don’t have any extra – once it is used it is gone. I will keep you posted – I started to sew last night. So far so good. I have an idea I just have to be very careful not to make mistakes that prevent me from achieving my desired results.

Learn from your experiences and have Faith in ME.

It is chilly and breezy here today – hope some warmer weather is on the way.

Be Kind….

Faith in ME

National Quilting Day and a trip to the Beach….

Mar26

Full Bloom

March 16th was National Quilting Day – to honor this day and to have some fun, 10 friends – some new friends and some old friends loaded into 2 cars and went on a road trip. We started our journey at 7:00 AM. We all live in southern Maine not far from the coast, our destination was the mountains of New Hampshire. QUILT SHOPS!!!

Our first stop was the Attic Cat which is in Effingham, NH. The road or roads to the Attic Cat are windy and hilly. I am not sure if I would have ever found it if I didn’t have capable co-pilots with me. What an adorable little shop, the Attic Cat was offering a 25% discount off of your total purchase. Loads of lovely fabrics, books and tools. We all did some damage to our bank accounts when we stopped there. We left inspired to quilt and to shop some more.

Next stop was a quilt shop known to many – Keepsake Quilting (www.keepsakequilting.com) in Center Harbor, NH on the coast of Lake Winnipesaukee. Many of you, I am sure have seen their catalog, flipped through the pages looking longingly at the quilts and fabrics. The first place we headed was the SALE room. We wanted to snatch up any wonderful kits, fat quarters or yardage that was not only on sale but also 20% off. Such bargains, such dreams of wonderful completed quilts. We all did some damage in this area as well. I bought several kits to make quilts with. One is very intricate and sort of modern, the other is very traditional and made with 30’s fabrics. I can’t wait to start both of them.

Quick break for lunch at a lovely restaurant called the Canoe which sits on the edge of the Lake. Very nice views of both the lakes and the mountains. We were all hungry but also anxious to get back to shopping. We had so much fun discussing our purchases and our quilts and getting to know each other better.

Back to Keepsake for the final hit of the day. Purchases made, bags stuffed into the car and off we go. One friend mentions that there is another quilt shop that maybe open just over the bridge in Laconia. The Quilted Frog. Ladies, do we want to stop? Of course, we are here, why not? As we piled out of the car and into the shop the owners thought that maybe a bus had arrived. Once again purchases were made, and bags were stuffed into the car. We decided that this had to be the last stop because there was no room left in the car.

We were headed home – laughing all the way. What a wonderful day we had. Good company, beautiful fabric and quilts and lots and lots of laughs!

Thanks Ladies for a wonderful time!

The next part of my journey took me to Florida to visit family. My husband and I traveled the day after a snow storm to Florida. It was a trip that took a few hours longer than expected but we got there. Plane de-icing and missed connections and all.

It was so wonderful to walk on the beach with our feet in the water.

Heaven

We had some company for part of the walk.

This beautiful Heron decided to walk with us for a bit. I think he thought we had some food foe him. Since I don’t think Heron’s drink wine he was out of luck with us. Isn’t he a beauty though! The birds are so tame it amazes me.

We had a wonderful but short vacation – we visited with family, laughed alot, ate good food and too many desserts but that is what vacation is for.

Have a very Happy Easter! I hope where ever you are spring is on its way. We may have to wait here in Maine because there is still alot of snow left to melt.

Be Kind…

Faith

quiltingonthecove

A peek at my life. My quilting, my cooking and a look at the beautiful place that I live!

Archives

Creatively Distracted……

Latest Quilt challenge….

One UFO done…

Being inspired…

Giving back…

One of my favorite times of year…

Nothing quite as good…..

A bright Tuesday morning…

Faith in ME…

National Quilting Day and a trip to the Beach….