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There are only so many shapes that you can use in quilting. Once you’ve used them all, what is there to do? Now we get to play with how we place them. Squares are just squares until we put them on their points, then they are diamonds. With the use of color, we can place squares to form diagonal lines and X’s or crosses. Sometimes we can create shapes from their placement that can be more interesting than the original block you created. Check out what some of our longarm machine renters did with diagonals and squares on ...

Have you stitched On Ringo Lake by Bonnie Hunter? I decided back in October that I would try Bonnie Hunter’s annual mystery quilt. Of course, I then decided to overthink the whole thing,...

See more sewing and quilting adventures from Jen Eskridge of ReannaLily Designs

We talked with the Scientist in Training last night.  She said she was really sad at how fast Sunday came this week.  The semester is going so fast, but yet the weeks seem to drag.  Yep, that's how I'm feeling about this winter.  Half way through February, but boy getting from Monday to Friday at work has been a chore!  

It was nice to spend some quality time in the sewing room over the weekend.  By Sunday though, I realized it was time to stop and take stock of what each project needed to keep moving it towards ...

It's the last Monday in January, seems like a good time to see how my sewing room strategies for 2019 are working.  I really want to move some UFOs off the list this year.  

Block of the Month, Mystery Quilts, and Quilt Alongs are three types of social quilting that many of us enjoy. In these activities, we gather together once a month or even once a week. There a teacher can teach us the next step in creating some masterpiece that they have prepared for us. This can happen at either your local quilt shop or online via youtube or simple blog posts. Either way, we create as a group and can therefore share our creations to receive feedback we need, or just the support we want. Bonnie Hunter created one of these ...

Hard to believe Christmas is over and the end of the year is less than a week away.  It's the time of year for reflection.  Cheryl of Meadow Mist Designs makes reflection fun by hosting her "Best of 2018" Linky Party.

Patchwork times has an ufo challenge for 2019. I have enjoyed using some sort of ufo motivation for my quilting these last couple of years. She suggested 12 of them. I am sure my One monthly goals will also use help finish these projects along.

A couple of years ago, my daughter and 3 other quilty friends exchanged houses every month. It had to be before I was blogging since I can't find any reference to them here on the blog.They were to finish at 4 inches but could be anything and any fabric. It will be fun ...

Stitching time was pretty much nonexistent this last week.  Between playing catch up on special projects at work, Christmas shopping and wrapping presents, my stitching time has been pretty limited.  I'm using a single fabric for Good Fortune's Clue 4, so not much to show off there.  The plan is to find out where clue 4 fits in and see how my color choice of black works with the other pieces.  If it doesn't work, I can change it out.  So for now, I'm not going to cut those rectangles.  

So while there is no progress ...

I have been making progress on several quilts, but no noteworthy pictures, that don't look like several pictures I have already posted. I did finish clue 3 of good fortune but will post that on Monday with the link up at Quiltville.
I did some mindless string and crumb piecing last night, mostly to clean up a mess. I string piece on a treadle in my living room, and it's time to make it a little more holiday worthy. But there were some strings hanging out on the cabinet that I could just play strings.

This morning I finished pulling the last of my fabrics for Bonnie Hunter’s 2018 mystery quilt, Good Fortune. I decided on a partial color palette for this mystery almost a year ago. As with Allietare, another one that I chose a color palette for long before Bonnie released her color palette, Bonnie’s palette includes some of the same color families as mine. Darn it! One of these years I want to make a mystery quilt that uses completely different colors so it doesn’t look like hundreds of others. This isn’t the year.

Here are the fabrics ...

Some time ago I sat down and designed my back for On Ringo Lake. For Bonnie’s mystery quilts, my habit is to blow up a block from the front to make the back. I was so pleased that it went so smoothly. I cut the first pieces, then had to set it aside for other obligations. I was excited to get back to making the back today.

My draft of the block with measurements.

My cutting list:

I finished cutting the pieces and put them on the design wall.

It went together very smoothly. Everything fit perfectly and it ...

What did I do? Let’s leave that for later.

Here’s the view from my driveway yesterday. They’ve started construction on the final group in my development which happens to be directly across the street from me. The next few months are going to be even more annoying than the last few since they’ve run out of space to store their supplies. These are the forms for the concrete walls. They poured the footers last week.

I expect to see this again tomorrow. The many, many concrete trucks line up along the street and one by one ...

Way back in December of 2017, I participated with Quilting Jetgirl's 2018 Planning Party by putting together a set of quilting ambitions for the year.  Now that third quarter is over it's time to assess how things have gone so far this year.  

Ambition #1: Shorten the UFO List

Hello October! I was more than ready to say good-bye to September.  Work was a zoo last month. Though, it's not going to be much better on that front this month. Performance reviews and a high priority project are going to keep this month busy there.  Shoulder problems sidelined me the last week of the month, but on the bright side, that forced me to deal with the poor ergonomic set up of my sewing table.  

The final coup-de-gras for the month was not paying attention to where things were on my cutting/ironing table and my wrist made ...

It's been a slow paced Saturday. I slept in for a change and lazed my way through three cups of coffee while contemplating what to focus on for my September One Monthly Goal.

Here’s a brief update on how the year is going. Results so far are in italics. UFO & WIP Finishes – at least two of these: Disappearing Pinwheels – I seriously need to do this! As of last week this is … Continue reading →

Since my mom came into town for the long weekend, we got to spend a lot of time sewing and gabbing in between eating and forcing her to watch all of the sports with my husband and I (bless her heart!). She also brought me not one, but two finished quilts!

I finished my version of Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt called On Ringo Lake. I call mine the Chocolate Lovers Edition, since my cornerstones and other pieces are made of fabric printed with chocolates and chocolate chips.

I changed Bonnie's aqua to green, but I stuck with her other suggested colors.

On Ringo Lake--Chocolate Lovers Edition (76" x 92")

On Ringo Lake (detail)

On Ringo Lake (chocolate detail)

On Ringo Lake (backing and binding detail)