Boo!

 Don't be afraid!! You have 54 days until Christmas. The countdown is on. You better get busy if you have gifts you want to make.

 I finished one more pillow cover for my daughter-in-law for Christmas. I wanted to add a fun trim to the pillow. Something like spider webs. I found this eyelash yarn at Jo-Ann's. I hand stitched the yarn around the edge three times. I like how it turned out.

I am linking up to Quilting Daze. If you made a Christmas gift this month you can link up too.

With Passion,
Carrie P.

Just Finished...

my flying geese row from Lori Holt's row along. I am so glad she showed us how to make the geese using a different technique. To hard to explain. You can see how she made these tiny 1 1/2" by 2 1/2" geese on her blog.

I had to show you this one. Looks like the bears are coming out of a cave. They better get back in because winter is on its way.

Some of you are already feeling winter. I hope you have made it safely through the hurricane. The north Carolina mountains are getting a lot of snow but I have not seen any here. (sad face)

I am now going to work on the "apple" row. I will show all the rows put together when I finish the apple row.

With Passion,
Carrie P.

Sewing and Cooking!

Yesterday I was able to do some Slow Sunday Stitching. I am working on two Christmas gifts.

 This one is a pillow cover my daughter-in-law.

 I also got caught up on the block of the week by Dawn Heese. You can find these blocks on the Henry Glass Fabrics blog. The one for today is not up as I write this post.

 I decided today was a good day to make a big pot of vegetable soup because it is cold in North Carolina today. The hurricane is not really affecting our part of the state. (the Piedmont) Lots of wind and clouds. We could see a snowflake or two though from the cold front. That would be fun. It was really brisk when I went out to the garden to get some veggies for the soup. My hands were so cold by the time I got done picking.

 The peas were not added to the soup because I really like to eat them raw.

 Look at these beauties. There is nothing like a fresh carrot. I even used some of the tops in the soup. I added some potatoes that I grew and some butternut squash I bought from the farmer's market. I also added some frozen shredded zucchini which is not shown in the photo.

Look at all those yummy colorful veggies. This is before I put the liquid in the pot. I can't wait for dinner.

Today my plan is to catch up on two rows I have not done yet from Lori Holt's row along.

Stay safe if you are in the path of the hurricane and stay warm if you getting all that snow from the cold front.

With Passion,
Carrie P.

Bonus Free Motion Quilting Challenge

SewCalGal had a bonus free motion tutorial in August by Susan Brubaker Knapp. Susan lives in North Carolina. She visited our guild several years ago. She is very talented and has written many books and patterns. The quilt with the pink border in my header is one of her patterns.

Let me tell you about this challenge. Susan wrote, " Go outside or inside your house and shoot everything you see with a strong obvious texture or pattern. Try to disengage your brain, don't think about what would be pretty or interesting. Don't overthink. Just shoot, shoot, shoot."

Here are some of the photos I took outside my house. It was fun just going around the yard taking photos of whatever caught my eye.

I picked one of the photos, traced the printed photo on tracing paper, then traced it onto my fabric. I quilted this in variegated thread and did lots and lots of circles. Here is my finished project.

 Here is the photo I decided to use. This is a circle of iron that once used to be the base of a glass table. It was my son's table and the glass got broke in a move. He was going to throw the iron part away and we told him we would take it. We now use it as the circle of our outdoor fire pit.

It was a fun challenge and I would like to try more of this type of quilting.

Here is another fun fall photo. Love those Carolina skies.

With Passion,
Carrie P.

October Free Motion Quilting Challenge

Time to do the free motion challenge for this month. This one was really fun. This challenge was presented by Terri Lucas. Her quilting is amazing. 

 First I had to draw a six inch square, write my name, and then fill in with different designs. I was supposed to use silk for the top layer but I didn't have any. I would like to try quilting on it sometime though. I was also supposed to use wool or bamboo batting. I did have some of that.

 Next I was also supposed to use some different thread. I don't have a whole lot of choices but I did use rayon, cotton, and polyester.

 So after I quilted my name in the middle of the square then I filled in the square using the different threads. One of the things I learned was to use edge of the foot as a gauge when doing cross hatching on a piece.

 My final piece is a little different from my drawing. Look at the nautilus shell I did. Pretty cool. It was one of Teri's designs.

With Passion,
Carrie P.