Chandelier Quilt Finish And New Projects Ready To Start

  I finished the chandelier quilt.  I love this backing and binding fabric.  I found it at Thousands Of Bolts online.   

   I used the leftover 2.5 inch pieces from the charm squares to make the middle strip in my backing.

   

    Now I have a couple of Christmas items to make for dear daughter.  I also found a pattern and fabric to make fabric strawberries.  I will also be working on the next  four quilt tops that I have fabric for.   And I  pulled out my strip scraps to start a scrappy quilt top or two. 

    I stumbled on a 20 yard bolt of cotton batting that is 90 inches wide for $89 at Joanns, so all I will have to buy for the next ten quilts will be backing/binding fabric.  

It's Been Awhile Since I Last Posted

   I wasn't sewing, crocheting, knitting, painting or doing anything creative so I didn't feel much like posting.  Last month dear daughter and I went to Disney World for a family reunion of sorts.  There were only ten of us and it rained two of the park days but it was still a fun time to meet up with family.  After we left Disney I came home to host my big brother and his wife at my house for 4 nights.  They are both allergic to cats so I had spent several days deep cleaning my master bedroom and bathroom for their use.  I also cleaned up the living room, kitchen and dining room including shampooing carpets and taking drapes down for cleaning.  It was a production but all of my spring cleaning is done now and I can make quilt tops.

  

   I've had the material for this quilt top since 2018.  I bought several charm square packs of Home Sweet Home which shows Goldilocks and the three bears on several of the prints.  It's a cute line and I've been dying to work up a quilt top with it.  I found the chandelier quilt top tutorial by Missouri Star and decided to use two of my charm packs for that quilt.  Here my quilt top.  I framed the squares with an aqua mini dot.  I love it.  It's not the best picture but once I get it sandwiched and quilted, I'll get a better picture of it.

   I have three more quilt tops I want to make now.  I'm going to take 10 inch squares and make 7 rows by 7 columns for a nice size quilt top.  It's an easy way to get my sewing fix without a lot of cutting.

One Last Fall Pumpkin Project And Some Extra Crocheted Bandanas

 I fell in love with the picot and popcorn stitch this fall.  

The popcorn stitch pumpkin tutorial is on youtube right here,  It's a tutorial by This Southern Girl Can and I enjoyed making this pumpkin.  I made two, one for me and one for dear daughter.  I also included a crocheted green leaf and vine (you can use any pattern you find, both are easy) and a crocheted brown stem (another pattern I found on youtube that was very easy).

I made three additional picot stitch bandanas.  That tutorial is here.  The Turtle Trunk is gracious enough to do a youtube tutorial and provide the pattern.  It's a really good one.  I made one in July for my daughter and I had to have one or two.  So I made three more, two for me and one for a friend.  It's a fun make and doesn't take more than four hours to complete.  Each bandana stitched up quicker than the last because I had memorized the row repeats.  The little picots remind me of baby bobbles/popcorn stitches.  You can see them in the second picture, so cute.

We took a another trip to Disney World at the end of last month.  It was a 5 night stay at the Polynesian, including dinner at Ohana, breakfast at Ohana, with two park days at Epcot (the food and wine festival was going on and we saw Billy Ocean do 6 songs at the Garden Theater in the American pavilion) and one park day Magic Kingdom including breakfast at Cinderella's Royal Table, dinner at Tony's Town Square Restaurant, and tickets to Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party.  We spent one day relaxing at the resort and exploring Grand Floridian resort.  We had a wonderful time and we did everything we wanted to.  We rode Guardians of the Galaxy (love that franchise) and dear daughter rode Tron.  It was so much fun.  Love staying at the monorail resorts.

A Few Small Projects

     I've been working on my Halloween embroidered pillows this past week.  I got the embroidery pieces trimmed and I put a border on each of them.  I just have to make the backs and inserts.  

      I made 16 of these pinwheels for fall and Halloween.  I kept half and my daughter got half.  I had fun picking fabrics for the Halloween pinwheels.  So many choices.

    I finally covered three books that I couldn't part with.  I decided to use them as decor in my bedroom and covered them with this lovely green velvet I found in the clearance section of Joann's.   I used the youtube tutorial at this link.  It worked great.  They suggest you use a woven fabric but I didn't have any trouble using the velvet I bought.  These were easy to make.  I just wish I didn't buy so much fabric.  I should have done some measuring before I bought my fabric.  

   I did crochet another bobble kerchief for myself but I'm not thrilled with the results.  I used Coboo by Lion Brand and the yarn did not do the pattern any favors.  The kerchief finished all curled up and its not supposed to curl up.  Ugh.  I'm keeping it, but I want to make more with the Dishie yarn from Knitpicks.  The one kerchief I made with the Dishie yarn was perfect.

Garden Art, Another Project That I Have Been Wanting To Make For Awhile

     I finally did all my research for supplies, and adhesives and started gathering them up last month.  I needed bottles and my daughter provided empty wine bottles for this project.  I ended up buying large and small clear plates on Amazon and painting them with stained glass paint (also purchased on Amazon) because our plate selection in thrift stores is sorely lacking.  Painting the clear plates was fun.  I got to make what I wanted.  These flowers were easy to make.  I only had to wait for the paint to dry, the glue to dry, and the mod podge to dry.  I made three of these over the course of Sunday night and Monday night.  They were ready to install today.  Of course I made duplicates for my dear daughter.  

   I painted the large dinner plates and the smaller plates, when the paint was dry I added the glass beads to the smaller plate with Gorilla Glue Indoor/Outdoor adhesive.   Once that glue was dry I glued the smaller plate to the larger plate and let that dry.  Then I glued the wine bottle to the back of the large plate holding it in place with shoes.  Then I applied two coats of mod podge to the painted areas of the plates.  The flower is now done.  I used a 48 inch 3/8" rebar post to place the bottle on it.  I put a piece of felt on the tip of the rebar and a piece of felt at the bottle neck.  Love these flowers.

Two Small Quilt Blocks and Two Wood Plaque Projects

     I have had this postcard from Biltmore House since we went in April 2022 and I have always wanted to decoupage it onto a wood plaque.  I painted the plaque and added the postcard with Mod Podge.  All done. 

  This riser was a spur of the moment project.  I've been wanting a riser and I've made some from plates but I didn't like them.  I was looking at different youtube channels talking about how to make simple risers and I had to try to make something I would like.  This is a wood plaque with wood beads for the legs put together with e6000, and painted navy blue.  Now I have something that was pretty simple to make that I absolutely love.  I've got my hand crocheted doilies and large white teapot on it.

  I also made two small seasonal quilt blocks for my little quilt block frame.  I made the patriotic star and the primitive pumpkin.  So simple and made from stash.

   I'm gathering materials to make garden art next week.  Glass plates, stained glass paint, with extra pretties that should look like flowers and all put together with gorilla glue onto wine bottles and placed on rebar posts.  I can't wait to see how they turn out.