Women of the Bible - Week 2

Now this week was about Sarah and boy was it a slap in the face for me.

Sarah and Abraham wanted a child desperately.  To the point that Sarah offer Hagar, her maid, as a wife to Abraham so that Hagar could bare their child.  Theban that Sarah had on her own really caused a lot of problem and heartache between her and Hagar.  The women grow to despise one another.  All along, God had a plan for Abraham and Sarah that they weren't aware of.

God has a plan for us also that sometimes we aren't aware of or we just don't wait for Gods plan to work.  Sarah was in her 90's when God told them that they would rule a nation and have a son.  Sarah just laughed because of their age but she did indeed give birth to a son.

How many times in our life do we know that God is there with us and saying, JUST SLOW DOWN, IT ISN'T TIME YET?  How many times to we just keep going, full speed ahead and create heartache and problems for ourselves?  I know I do that all the time.  

I pray Lord to seek Your wisdom and guidance in my personal life and in my business life.  Lord please help me to be aware of Your voice and help me to slow down and wait on Your plan.  I do not want to take a single step without Your approval Lord.  Please help me to be aware of Your presence and know which step leads me closer to You.  Amen!

The block I made is just beautiful.

Sticking with the colors of the original pattern however, I included a special hand dyed fabric to respresent sent the struggles of dicisions that we make and to represent the turmoil of the troubles that we create when not on God's path.  I wanted to solid to be he exact opposite.  To represent the calmness when we wait on God's timing and are right were He wants us to be.

This is a picture of my lovely sewing area when making this one, six inch block.  Let me warn you, I am not a frugile quilter and have NO PROBLEM wasting a little fabric in the sake of time.

Yep, that little pile of scraps came from this one little paper pieced block.  Notice that some of that is paper.  When paper piecing, there is one thing that is new to my quilting area and that is tape.  We know that sometimes we have to remove stitches when piecing.  When paper piecing, we use really tiny stitches to allow for removal of the paper easier.  You can put a small piece of tape over the stitches to be removed, on the paper side.  This will secure your paper from being torn apart and allow you to remove stitches as usual.

If you are interested in following along with this study, please go to Women of the Bible.  It is a FREE group, you just have to request in.

Remember to go check out our website as we have recently added Electric Quilt software and study guides.  Shop Stitches N Stories Quilting

Happy quilting!

Women of the Bible Quilt Block & Lesson - Week #1

I have followed a wonderful group for over a year now and am finally able to participate.  This is a weekly Bible study of the women of the Bible.  Week one was of course Eve.

After studying about Eve this week, I realized a couple different things.  God puts temptation in our paths and if our heart is right, I feel we will make the right choice.  HOWEVER, if we make the wrong choice, God is still there beside us and will never give up on us.

One thing that I did question was about forgiveness.  Even though God punished Adam and Eve, he forgave them from that sin.  My question that I ponder is was Eve able to forgive herself.  I know when I do things to others, sometimes even though they have forgiven me, it is really hard to forgive myself.  I wonder if Eve was able to let go or did she hold onto that decision everyday of her life.

The green colors are for new growth in the Garden of Eden and the yellow is for the bright sunshine.  The cross may represent the forgives from God while the diamonds represent windows into our hearts.

I pray that God will help me to make better choices and make the choice that leads me closer to Him.  I pray that God help me to find peace and forgiveness within myself for my past sins. 

If you would like to study along with us, please go to Women of the Bible.  This is a free group except you will want to buy the study guide and if a quilter, but the pattern.

What a great quilting weekend...

What a great retreat weekend here in Alabama...

For starters, I finished quilting the new Bonnie Hunter Mystery Quilt, Celtic Solstice.  This is a finish for me and I am so excited.  The quilting design is a free handed meandering flower.  I think it's pretty cute.  Most of these pieces where cut using the Acccuquilt GO! Fabric system.

Next, I finished a snowball quilt top for an upcoming class that I will be teaching in earlier February.  Need to figure out backing and get this one quilted quickly.

Then for the joy of my weekend, on the Sewitsforsale group, I purchased some pattern for the adoption call, or Cabbage Patch doll, for my sweet little granddaughter.  I finished one of them this weekend and she was so excited.  We then went to the dollar store and bought some baby clothes (yep, I said bought, I have no desire to make those).  I don't think she has put the doll down for more than a few minutes since I finished it.  She is4, by the way,  and such a blessing.

 

Also pieced 10 more blocks for the string quilt, and like the rest of you, my bucket is not emptying at all.  That makes a total of 50 squares, but I plan to make a Roman String so that means 100 half-square triangles.  I think I have enough.  I will use my AccuQuilt to cut these as well.  I will cut the string blocks and the solid using my 6" half square triangle die.  Can't wait.

Thinking of adding this as a class soon.  Not sure if it would be more of a "sew in" instead of a class.  We'll see!

And last, work on my sweet daughter in laws double wedding ring.  A slow project that I just work on a little bit at a time.  If only the piecing went as fast as the cutting.

For me, it was a nonstop weekend.  I only have two more weekends that my guys will be hunting and after that, I will slow down a little bit.  Gonna take full advantage of the last two.

Remember you can shop with us at www.stitchesnstories.com for all your AccuQuilt needs.

Treadle Challenged

Wanted to hare a small bit of humor this evening.

I have my great grandmothers Singer threadle machine.  I have wanted to get it out and use it but have just been to busy.  Well this evening I did just that. Set the machine up, have her a good oil treatment (still needs more detailed treatment) and gave her a try.  NOPE, I am treadle challenged.  It appears I can only see backwards. 

I tried with thread first and then removed the thread and just ran fabric through.  I have never been the most graceful or coordinated person but sewing machines are my friends.  Guess I will put her back away for just a bit.... But I will try again soon and I will figure this out.

Final Reveal of the Celtic Solstice Bonnie Hunter Mystery Quilt

So Bonnie send out the final clue and reveal on New Years Day!

I have decided to keep myself in a little more suspense and not lay out my blocks until after it is complete.

So here is block one:

And here is block two:

I am a little nervous about my color choices and that's why I am waiting for the top to be assembled before I look.  :). Silly as it may be... That's what I'm doing.

.....time lapse.....

While piecing my blocks together, I got to the bottom and realized I was missing TWO COMPLETE BLOCKS.  Now how could that be.  Even though I was trying to wait, I had to lay it out and figure out what was happening.  My husband has a funny way of hiding puzzle pieces but surely he wouldn't hide my blocks.  ;)

Oh my goodness. I was so nervous about the colors and look at it.  I love it, except for those two missing blocks.  Walked back into my quilting room and like magic, they were laying beside my cutting table.  One the very first row, I had added eight instead of seven, removed them and sat them aside, forgot about them until full panic.  :). 

Here it is spread on the quilting frame.  Can't wait for the finish because this is my keeper.

To see more finishes, check out Bonnie Hunters Link Up page at http://quiltville.blogspot.com/2014/01/mystery-monday-link-up-part-6.html.

Most of these pieces were cut using the AccuQuilt GO!.  You just can't go wrong.  If you are interested in your own GO! Fabric Cutter or ready to add new dies, check out our website at www.stitchesnstories.com.

Week 5 - Celtic Solstice, A Bonnie Hunter Mystery Quilt

Wheel the clues come and the pieces are assembled.  Still no idea of what the finished block will look like and I CAN'T WAIT.  This has just been so much fun.

Once again, all my pieces were cut using my AccuQuilt GO!  It sure does speed up the process.

So this week we took the half square triangles and made into a bigger block.

And here is my tray (or baking pan) of pieces.

Check out all the progress at Week 5 Link Up.

And as always, if you are interested in your own AccuQuilt Go! so that you can get piecing faster, you can shop at Stitches N Stories Quilting.

Now let's GO! Quilting.

Webbing your quilt top - chain piecing to the next level.

I always recommend to chain piece whenever possible.  It makes things go by so much faster because you aren't cutting threads all the time, stopping and starting and you don't have to worry about that nasty wad of thread when you go from piece to piece.

Well, this week I read a blog post about Bonnie Hunter webbing her quilt tops together.  I had to give it a try.

You can't really see it that we'll in the photo but look at the bottom.  You can see that my quilt top is "together" even though it hasn't been stitched yet.  Let's see if I can describe this in text.

Rows are all laid out...

Piece block 1 & block 2 of row one... Chain piece block 1 & block 2 of row two... All the way to the end of your rows.

Now back to the top we go.  Piece block 3 to block 2 of row 1... Chain piece block 3 to row two.... All the way down.

What you end up with is your quilt top stitched together.  When you have everything chained or webbed together it made it easy to go back and stitch the row together without having to reorganize or keep track of rows.  Lay them out once and your good.  Now it did seem to add a little extra weight while stitching the blocks and rows together but again, it seemed to save a lot of time and in my world, I need more time.  :)

In case your wondering, this is a sample quilt for a class being planned in February using the new AccuQuilt Snowball Die.  More details coming soon.  If you want to go ahead and purchase your die, please go to Stitches N Stories.

Now let's GO! quilting!