Freda's Hive: October 2012

I hope you are having a fun and safe Halloween. I think of some the children on the east coast that won't get to celebrate Halloween this year and my heart goes out to those families.

Halloween holds great memories for me as a child. We would go out trick-or-treating 2 nights. Everyone did that where I grew up in Pennsylvania. Halloween was a big deal.

I'm blessed to have my daughter Whitney and her 2 girls living with us. We are happy to have them and it is especially fun on a day like Halloween. They are doing well. Both of the girls are growing and happy. We take them for a well child check-up tomorrow with their new pediatrician.

Shelbie knitted this cute red riding hood cape. I got this skirt for Allison. If you notice it is out of red riding hood fabric along with the red dot skirt bottom. I love it. And she can wear it after Halloween. Allison doesn't really like keeping the hood over her head so this is the only picture we got with her in full red riding hood costume.

Eliza is super Lizzy for Halloween. Whitney made her a tiny cape and added the L to this flannel. The occupational and physical therapists come to our house and say she's doing so well. Look at that smile. Lizzy is 8 months old now. Sunday she fed herself goldfish crackers.

This was taken in our front yard but I love how Allison looks like she's in the forest headed to Nanny's house.

The leaves make a great setting for little red and Allison makes a perfect little red girl. We are really lucky to have great weather today. I think it was 73 for the high.

Trunk-or-treating at the church tonight for the girls. Happy Birthday to Shelbie. I had a baby on Halloween 29 years ago.

-nanette

I was pretty excited to finish my London 2012 quilt but even more excited when my fabulous machine quilter, Wren Woodland (Sew Small Sitches, contact info at the end of the page), called to tell me my London quilt was ready to pick-up. Wren did an amazing job. I can't say enough about how her beautiful quilting enhanced my quilt top. Her custom artistic long arm skills brought out all aspects of the quilt blocks, to my delight.

I finished hand stitching the binding this weekend. And all the time while binding, I kept admiring the beautiful stitching. I love the flowers in the border. They are upside down in the photo above, but still beautiful.

I really love this quilt. It is now my favorite, ever. I'm going to wait until after the holidays to hang it up in my entryway but I simply had to do some on-the-fly photography to show you right now.

I plan on putting a label on this quilt asap so it always tells the story of the summer of 2012 and the happenings in the UK. I felt so connected to the country of my ancestors through this project.

The vintage fabric from the Queen's coronation was the inspiration for the project. Look at the movement of the quilting around her.

I hope you can see the pebble quilting (which I love) around the teaset above. It really makes the objects pop.

I love the attention to detail. It really makes my quilt an object of art.

This crown is one of my favorite blocks. Very regal. The egg cups above is another favorite block.

This Olympic fabric was purchased from Spoonflower. I had such a fun time searching for and picking out fabric to suit the events.

You have to use your imagination to see that this is the London Eye. I pops, too.

I think this block is the most fun. I belong to Helen's e-zine club at Bustle and Sew. This corgi is her block pattern.

The stitching detail on the houses is really amazing. Pebble quilting in the background and then stitching to create the illusion of architectural details.

Every brick is stitched around. Every single brick. Truly astounding and time consuming.

It was bath time at my house when I was taking photos. You can see Allison's wet shiny feet dancing on the quilt. They were clean, after all. Why not let her dance on Big Ben and a Double-Decker bus.

My apologies for the photography, but I hope you can appreciate London 2012 somewhat from this vantage point. I'm tickled with it!

-nanette

I'm unveiling my next block in my new quilt project using Pam's fabric. The quilt will have basic quilt blocks along with a little applique. I like to do both in projects.

I love little dresses. So I brought them into this quilt by slightly changing a past project.

Pam's fabric is sew beautiful and versatile. I love using it in my blocks. I'm using faux buttons I found here. There are lots of sellers for the little button appliques if you look in etsy.com. I've used real buttons in quilts in the past and of course they could be used in this quilt, too. But I like the soft button "look" I'm using this time.

More later.

-nanette

I had a busy weekend. How about you? Saturday morning I went to a neighboring town and did a small trunk show and pattern making chat to a long arm quilting group for my friend and machine quilter, Wren. It was nice to meet with those ladies. It is always fun to talk to quilters.

I managed to get a bit of sewing done. I'm progressing with my new quilt/pattern and enjoying every minute of it. This block I'm calling Bow Basket. Of course it is made with the latest and greatest PKM fabric.

If you look at my last few posts you can probably see a theme emerging.

I hope you had a nice weekend.

-nanette

I'm on my way with my next pattern using Pam's latest line of fabric as the star. I've proofed my blocks with other fabric along the way but I'll show you my latest blocks using Pam Kitty Love.

This block is called half-hearted and is a very simple 2 fabric block that works up really quickly.

It is fun to see how the block changes with different fabrics.

Fun to sew and more fun to look at.

-nanette

I've been waiting and planning for Pam's latest fabric with Holly and Lakehouse. This line is everything I love in fabric and Pam and Holly have a hit on their hands.

Friday I received a fantastic package with cuts from all Pam's line "Pam Kitty Love". Look at that stack! Yummy.

This line exceeds all expectations and it fits perfectly with the drawings and ideas I've been planning for it.

The fabric will be out in stores in December. This will give everyone plenty of time to sew after Christmas and make Valentine projects. I adore vintage inspired Valentine fabric.

The hearts and stitching print is very sweet. I am super excited to have the addition of black into this line of Pam's colors.

One of my very favorite cuts is this little bird print. Too tweet!

I love dots and gingham. This line has a very nice mix of both. I like the 2 sizes of gingham and the addition of the gray.

I do really enjoy roses in my fabrics. As a girl, I was drawn to roses in fabric for the dresses my mom would make. These prints are so pretty. Little Nanette would have loved a dress made from that blue.

This print is another very favorite from this line. I like the mixture of different flowers together.

This is a block from the quilt I'm making with "Pam Kitty Love". I've planned a new quilt pattern with this fabric so I have high hopes that this project will do the fabric justice. The center is an appliqued circle using one of the ginghams.

This center in this block may look like I sewed on a real button. But I fussy cut it from the button panel and then hand appliqued it to the center of the block. This fabric is sew versatile. See how different the blocks look with the center "buttons" changed? Can you guess the theme of my new quilt?

Here are all the designs in this line, above. Visit Fat Quarter Shop or LakeHouse to get a better view of the sweet fabrics. I just adore them. Thanks so much Pam!! Sew delightful.

-nanette

Lori has the next row up in the Row-A-Long tutorials she's hosting at her blog. This row is apples. And they are mighty delicious. You must go check it out.

If I don't keep up with each row, I won't complete this project, and I'm really trying to not start new things I don't have time to complete. So when Lori put up the directions on Wednesday, I snagged some time to go cut my pieces out. And per usual, I missed a few things and had to go back and recut. But I think this time I got it right.

Picking out the fabric is such a treat when you can choose anything from stash. And I adored the apple pattern. Lori did such a good job with this block. I may want to make an entire apple quilt at some point.

Each apple is fun to look at and each leaf is unique. And I think my background fabric works well with the blocks.

The apple cores were my favorites to make. I think they are just darling. I haven't put the apples into a row yet. Maybe tonight if I have some time. Now I can't wait for the next row.

If you aren't making this project, rethink that. I'm so incredibly glad I caved and joined the fun. I'm busier than ever but not too busy to enjoy making these blocks. Thanks so much Lori.

-nanette

Last week I exclaimed my love for patchwork.

I even ordered a patchwork iPhone case for my new phone. I was so happy to have found this case.

I really like this Japanese Patchwork magazine. It offers great inspiration.

These patchwork pieces are more 9-patch blocks I've been making to add to the 120 blocks I need for the king-sized quilt I'm making. I love these colors and fabrics.

-nanette

You know how much I love PKM fabric. It is fabric I would design for myself if I had gumption, talent and Holly. Pam's new fabric is coming out at the end of the year and I'm super excited for her (and me).

Pam is having a preview giveaway for some of her button card fabric. You gotta run over to Pam's blog and get in on this chance for button fabric. What could be cuter than vintage button cards set to fabric? Love it.

-nanette

It seems like I'm always starting new projects but only finishing half of them. And I'm always on a crusade to stop myself from doing this. However, holidays approach, so be ware that there may be more of this bad quilting behavior. So of course this means I've started a new project, yet again.

I do love 2.5" squares and patchwork. I'm always excited about showing off fabric by just using squares. It is the foundation of my quilt making/designing. And I just can't help myself. I love a nice 9-patch block.

I really like the idea of putting buttons in the middle of a 9-patch. But I don't like buttons on bed quilts. However, buttons are great on sample quilts, wall hangings or table runners. This quilt is actually going to be a king-sized quilt and will hopefully be used.

I decided to use this fabric with faux looking button flowers. I've just started making my blocks so I have quite a bit more work to do. Back to cutting and sewing....

-nanette

The hive has been so busy in September. Last weekend was my annual retreat for family members and it was fun and wonderful to be with family. I regret I didn't take the time to take many photos. We were so busy and the time just flew by.

Good food is always part of the fun. Everyone pitches in. Cake is a big part of the tradition.

My niece Tricia finished her Freda's Beehive quilt. It turned out great Tricia.

My sister Michelle made a queen sized Beehive quilt for her bedroom at the ranch. This will look perfect on her bed.

My sister Polly made a table topper from her hives. Super cute I think. My niece Tana hasn't finished her project yet but is well on her way. And my sister Teri finished her pillow case from the ranch this past summer. Darn. I didn't get photos of those projects.

A great time was had by all. I always look forward to getting together with the girls in the family.

-nanette

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