Wild Plum Picking

This week has flown by fast but been pretty productive. I finished quilting the damask quilt last night and will get the binding finished this weekend.

I  picked wild plums on Sunday, we have had so much rain this year, that the branches are loaded.
This is just one round of picking so far, there is probably 3 times this amount in green plums still on the branches.

I cooked down this batch last night and got exactly 6 cups of juice from the wild plums. I will come in tonight and make my first batch of jelly for this year.

Look how pretty that juice looks! I let the juice cool down and stored it in the fridge overnight I will take it out and warm it up and make the jelly from that, I normally go straight in and make jelly but was limited on time last night. I am hoping it does not affect the juice letting it sit overnight in the fridge. 

2nd Quilt of The Year!

I feel as if I am on a quilting roll right now, I had not completed one quilt this year till a week ago, now I am on my second one! I have to confess this quilt top has been made for sometime just waiting to be finished!

This top is a scrappy quilt for sure! The damask print is where I came up with this particular quilt design, it is the scraps left from bibs in my Etsy shop, then I just built around that fabric. The pink is from a quilt I made my daughter back in high school and the teal and white polka dot was left from a donation quilt I made a few years back. The pink with white polka dots fabric was purchased to add more pink to this quilt and has ended up  being the backing and binding. Originally I was going to use the damask, but ended up feeling like that was too busy. I made strips and laid them out in a traditional fence rail pattern. Funny I did not notice the one lighter pink strip in the quilt till I took pictures, my eyes keep going to that one strip, Oh well I think it adds character to the quilt!       

                                                                          

On Sunday I worked on getting the quilt basted, my preferred method of basting is to spray baste and pin, I have tried doing just one method or the other but have found the best results for me is to do both. This quilt is a baby size quilt so it took me less than 30 mins. to get it all basted and ready to quilt. Hopefully I will have it all quilted and ready to bind by this next weekend.

Minion Quilt

The year started off my goal was to complete a quilt a month, well I think I completed a quilt row a month. I made a Minion quilt for a customer last winter and posted it on Facebook then immediately I got another order for one, this one they wanted a larger throw size. It really is a super easy and fast quilt design. The middle is a premade panel then I just take coordinating 6" fabric blocks and add to the quilt making rows. This version I added quilt borders on the side, the finish size was 62 x 52 a perfect throw size. The back is solid Minions fabric and the binding was made with the same dark blue print that is in the quilt. The quilt was quilted in a cross hatch design, I really love this design for panel style quilts, I use a friction pen and draw the lines on first with a yard stick, then once all stitched hit the quilt with the iron and erase those pen lines! I have 1 panel left in this print and enough coordinating blocks already cut out to make one more in a toddler/ young child size. Hopefully I will get it made in the next couple months and put it up for sale in the Etsy Shop!

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And so it begins, I have started a blog. I've thought about it several times but always chickened out. I guess I am starting it more or less as a kind of scrap book to keep track of my crafts and work. So let me give you a little background. What is Addie's Things?
Addie's Things started when I began sewing about 5 years ago, I wanted to make quilts and learn to sew, I think my husband thought I was crazy. I convinced him to buy me a cheap sewing machine. He tells the story quite often, he figured I would sew on it a couple of weeks and it would end up in the closet. I did sew on that machine for 2 years & about wore it out! You could hear it all over the house...thump..thump...thump. I started out sewing baby bibs it looked easy enough and was great practice, I made a couple and sold them on eBay, so I started thinking I might could make a few a month and sell them and have a little extra income or fund my new obsession with buying fabric. When I say obsession I mean I need to be in a self help group.. well 5 years later that couple of bibs grew into a hundred a week! It took off! So I opened a Etsy Shop. Since then I have made about 30 quilts and thousands of bibs, we have stepped off into embroidery and applique and that has grown the business even more. When I say "we" my husband now has to help run the embroidery machine to get it all made and out the door on time. 

So this blog will probably have a lot of my creations, adventures and family. I hope you enjoy it and if no one reads it I will have a great scrap book in the future!!!