Prepping and Staying Focused.

I've not touched my Sarah Fiekle Happy Days Quilt for some time and signed up for her new Down The Rabbit Hole on which starts at the end of this month.  So I prepped some of the pieces for one of the last applique blocks to take to my sit and stitch with friends today.  The flower petals are English Paper Pieced Hexagons with a curved outer petal.  The leaves are a half hexagon piece.

 I also neglected my 366 Circle project in July and have decided to work backwards from December and prepped some snowflake, star and Christmas themed circles that I used on my Santa and Tree project.

 I also prepped a couple from the Row by Row home fabric and a couple of October Halloween, autumn themed ones to also applique.

 I prepped the flowers and leaves for my next Mika block which is 16" square.

 Here are some of the fabrics for the background cut so I can start at the beginning of February.

 Last Friday I went for a walk to see the ice in the Fraser River.  We were expecting rain to arrive on the weekend.  One of the pieces got caught up on a dead head in the river.  When the tide is in you don't see the roots and it will float off.

 We've two Witch Hazel trees one orange and on yellow.  The yellow is about to burst forth with it's spidery leaves.  I saw someone on Instagram share a photo of one on the North Shore already out.  It's been cold along the river and ours are late.  The yellow variety is always later than the orange one.

 Another view of the ice on the tree root and more ice across the river.

 A look towards the mountains, it was very damp and chilly along the river.

 The last remnants of the snow are now long gone as we've had about three or four days of rain.  Some major flooded intersections and large puddles. Today is sunny right now so time to go and get ready to stitch.

Hope your weather is pleasant where your are, I know a lot of snow and ice along with big melts are happening all over.  We are back above our typical temperatures and yesterday only had a one degree Celsius fluctuation in our day.

2017 Plan For The Year...

This was the beginning of the sunset on January 1, 2017, the bright reflection caught my eye.

 This is about twenty or so minutes later, love the blues, pinks and mauves in the sky.

 Yesterday I got a surprise in the mail from my friend Anna from Woolie Mammoth Blog.  I won one her 12 Days of Christmas give aways!

 She also sent along this lovely card.

 Santa made this delivery in person.  He is just so sweet, love the looped fringe on his hat and the french knots on his pompom.  He looks like he is disappearing down the chimney!

 Anna is hosting a couple of sew alongs for UFO's and she chose this Sunflower Gathering kit from Primitive Gatherings.  Well I've also got that kit and have failed in completing it so plan to join her.

 Confession time.  I did do two of the blocks and then I stalled.  But as you can see there are many pieced blocks also to add to the quilt so I'm starting with them and also finishing prepping the third one. This was the first block I made and you can see that they extend into the neighbouring blocks.

 This is block 2 on a white background.

 Another big stall for me was my Mika quilt, I'm picking it up also.

 Here is what is considered to be block one, a combination of a pieced and appliqued block.

 Block two.  So I'm going to start prepping the double block three.

 I stopped in July on my 366 challenge as I couldn't find the safely stashed piece of fabric I wanted to use for July 1st.  I've found it but decided I'm going to work backwards from December and finish it up.  A great take along project for my Friday stitching group and guild meetings.

 I am going to continue with these free cut trees I started just after Christmas.  I had hoped that a couple of friends would join me and we could swap them but I don't think this will be happening.

 I've made three sizes and will add strips of fabrics and probably offset the trees rather than have all the same size.

 This is a new project, actually two that I cut out yesterday.  To be revealed later.

 On my last post in December I wrote out my phrase for 2016 here.  This year I've decided Stay Focused will be my phrase this year.  I'm saying STAY rather than BE as I often can be very focused on something and then a flash will come and I'm off checking out the shiny thing that caught my eye. This year I hope to STAY FOCUSED.  I'll be checking in with Anna's blog though out the year as part of the challenge.  I may add some new projects because I know some are in the works.  I may add some other UFO's but not until I get a good forward direction on some I've mentioned.

Off to do some prepping so I can get started.  What is your focus for 2017?

What was lost is now found!

Don't you hate it when you look for something you bought and can't remember where you put it?  When I got home from Spokane I took two days to empty my car of everything.  Dropping bags here and there as I came in.  I thought I had left this black and white sunflower batik at The Quilting Bee but happily I found it today in another bag!  The best thing is that it was clearance so double the pleasure.

 I had tucked it inside the bag that held these lovely black and whites with a bit of turquoise and green from Hattie's Quilt Shop.  I had complete forgotten about these ones.  Off to cut some more background for my 365/366 Quilt Project that I need to catch up on for a post at the end of the week.

Gwennie Inspired Part 2, 365/366 Circle Project 2016

My friend Ethel who doesn't have a blog shared her Sea Basket with me and I offered to share it with you.  She took some lovely wool fabric to make a basket filled with some fish, a sand dollar and a cheeky mermaid peeking out behind her bangs with a starfish.

 I'm also happy to share my May Circle 365/366 Quilt Project plus one.  Now to catch up the rest of June.

 This one honours my dad who passed away in May 1988.  He was an avid golfer.

 I always love lemon in my tea on Summer days that will soon be upon us.

 Starfish spotted along the Oregon coast remind me of my Mom's May birthday.

 Love this print on the left, I've used it as fish scales for a Victorian Painted Lady House and also for feathers for a bird along with another print below.  Mushrooms one of my favourite veggies.

 Wildflowers in the distance and lime Margaritas!

 Fish scale fabric used for a fish block swap along side a multi colour stripe I used for a bird's tail.

 Remember using the big dabber markers when playing Bingo?  Lots of threads from hand and machine sewing quilt blocks.

 Ice cream on hot Summer's days, driving to Spanish Banks in Vancouver and Peter's Ice Cream, black licorice was my favourite.  Can't find it any longer.  Lemon Drop Martini's!

 Grandma and Grandpa's house.

Linking up with Lori's Humble Quilts Gwennie Inspired Medallion QAL and Quilty Folks' Quilty 365

365/366 2016 Circle Quilt Project.

Last night I got caught up or so I thought on my circles.  Today when I went to photograph them I was two short so I quickly stitched them up.

I've been busy working on my Sarah Fielke BOM and my cousin and another friend are in from out of town so my stitching of circles has gone to the wayside.

I started with some animal, the bunny being for April Fool's Day and then one of my favourite birds a Flamingo. Then I let whimsy take over my decisions.

 I found this spool ends fabric and decided the White Sale print was a perfect match for a background I also love the bird in a birdcage in this next group.

 I love clocks, and vintage sewing machines, the date below the pink on is 1970's which is when I really started sewing mainly clothing for myself.

 I've got a fairly interesting group of different fruit fabrics and decided to have some fun with them this month.

On Friday my cousin and I went out for Mexican food so ending the month with some hot sauce and Margaritas seemed appropriate.  Also some more sewing themed circles.

Here are April's all laid out together.  I may restitch the Margarita circle onto another fabric but I'll think on it.

 I replenished my bobbin supply of Masterpiece threads the other day.  Most times I try and match my applique thread to the circle.  The baggie is of miss winds and test spools, there were 50 in the baggie, I plan on adding some of the neutrals to my sewing kits rather than a full spool of thread.

 Here are my January thru March circles.  I've bagged them all together as I've got an idea of a layout that will require sewing them all together once they are all pieced.

I'm linking up with Quilty Folk's link party, click here to see what they are up to. Enjoy the rest of the weekend.

365/366 Quilt Project.

A day late and a block short I've got almost the first three months of this year completed.  Just before writing this post I cut some more backgrounds so I can catch up and have all done to today. I plan to bundle the first three months together and won't sew my blocks together until all are stitched.

 The ones on the far right are new for this month, they didn't photograph as well as I'd like so I'll do them again before I pack them up.

 Love the bottom right one, it looks like an anemone to me.

 Along the bottom are more of the blocks I stitched yesterday.

 The bottom row of what is up on the big wall.

 Love the typewriter with the quilting words behind. The scissors with buttons and two rows below thread.

 Some of these were from last month, they fell off and had to be place on the wall again.

Here is a better picture of some of the new blocks on the wall.  Love the mini hexagon print and the Jen Kingwell one on the right top.

 Ants in the garden and for the birds to eat.  Button, Button who's got a button.

 More birds and a few Spring Bunnies for March.

Finished stitching this block a short time ago, my dad used to drive a VW pick up truck for his work, I always wished we had one of these camper vans back in the 1960's.

 Here are my first two blocks for April 1 and second.  Decided to hop to it and get a good start for the month.  Now to keep stitching one a day.

 Happy Spring finished on Easter Monday.  It is a freebie from Kaaren Johnston and her blog the Painted Quilt. You can find it under her Friday Freebies called Happy Easter.  I decided to change the lettering more to my handwriting and say Happy Spring!

 All stuffed and ready to join the other Spring Easter pillows I made.

I'm linking up today with Quilty Folk blog, I'll do it once this post goes up. Then back to stitching the remaining circles.