Project on Points

It's been way too long since I have blogged! It has become very apparent that my life needs some sort of different organization in order to get even the basics done. Everyday involves some sort of activity related to my sewing/crafting room. Even days that it is not possible to physically be in this room working, my mind is working on some part of a project. But it is becoming more and more difficult to actually get 'it' done. Not sure ...need to think on this problem and come up with a workable solution. I think I just have so many BIG projects in the works at once, it is just taking too long to keep them caught up.
HOWEVER....last week I did manage to FINISH a project. A not so big project, but a VERY intense one. Well, intense for me!  :-) One of my favorite online groups "Quilt With Us" sponsored by Connecting Threads had a quilt along entitled "Perfect Points Quilt Along" using the Perfect Points Sampler Pattern. (This group, the pattern and lesson instructions are still up and available (free) at the time of this posting if you are interested.)  Instead of just choosing a random colorway and doing the little quilt as a practice project, I decided to go with a character theme and turn it into a wall hanging that went along with our lake house decor. With that in mind, off I went in search for just the perfect fabrics....or as close as I could come. Keep in mind, we are on a very remote part of Bull Shoals Lake  on the Missouri side in the heart of the Ozarks. Uh huh....bears, lions, tigers, oh my...well, bears at least, and racoons, squirrel, deer, fish....you get the picture. I found some really cute fabric with bears, squirrel, deer and racoons. Then added some fish fabric and fish lure fabric and some bee hives and bees...Anyway, I think it came out really cute! It was pointed out to me that I did not include blue birds...oops...state bird. There are 'flying geese' blocks included, so those can represent the real geese we have on the lake, or the blue birds for those that insist! It was also pointed out that I  neglected to include frogs, lizards, snakes, opossums, ticks, chiggers, crickets, spiders....ok, and the list just went on and on....People! It's only a SMALL wall hanging, NOT a double sided king quilt. Give me a break, there was only so much room, and I stuck with the original pattern, so only so much room for creativity. Ok, all kidding aside, this was a fantastic project to help perfect...attempt to perfect my points.

Here is the picture of the finished piece:

I tried to upload this a and XLarge image, but it was looking out of focus. One thing that doesn't show up very well is the center of the blue block at the left bottom and the borders of the bear paw and friendship star block is blackberry print fabric. (We have lots of wild blackberries here as well as domestic ones in our garden.)
It is free motion quilted in little loopy-loops...sort of looks like the bees flying around. And as an experiment, I used silk thread. It quilted in great. I really like the silk thread, but it is rather expensive and I probably won't do that again. Just keep the silk on hand for applique work if that.

And if that isn't enough....my current quilt along project with the Quilt With Us family is the Barn Blog Quilt Along and we are doing "The Little Red Barns" pattern. I have block one constructed, but the applique work is not finished yet. Plans are to wait and do all of the applique stitching when all of the blocks are completed. This is SO much fun and I love the little barns!!! We just started on the 2nd barn yesterday. I have it all cut out, but not together yet.

Here is Barn 1 minus the applique stitching:

The color is a little off in the photo and you can't tell that the corn is a yellow with white polka dot fabric, but overall it's pretty good.
Ok, time to go fix my dinner. Until next post....you all have a sew fantastic time!