Bloggers Quilt Festival - A river runs through

This is a quilt I made for my step daughter Michelle. An exercise in stash busting and so many HST. My least favorite part was trimming up all the HST. I used low volume fabrics along with blue, greens and purples. I added a navy strip to the sides and trimmed it with a lime green binding. She loves it and it should gets lots of use this winter.

 I am adding it to the large quilt category of the Blogger's Quilt Festival at Amy's Creative Side. Check it out here.

Scrappy Stars for my little Peach

This is my first entry into the Blogger's Quilt Festival at Amy's Creative Side. I always mean to enter but end up missing the dates. 

The first quilt I am entering is the quilt I made for my new baby Mirabelle. It is an homage to the Spring Cleaning Quilt featured in Fat Quarterly. I blogged about it here.

I have to work on better quilt photography. Here are a couple pictures of the quilt in use.

A perfect shade between lucky penny and chocolate ribbon....

Rachel at Stitched in Color recently wrote a post all about brown. I have to say that my stash is greatly lacking in brown. I tend toward white/grey/black tones as far as neutrals go more than browns. I am hoping to make more of an effort to include brown in some projects. 

What a great time of year to embrace brown. As the leaves change color and melt to brown and indoors there are big pots of chili and hot chocolate. 

Rachel is sponsoring a mosaic contest with Fabric Bubb. Her post is here. I love the pictures she picked, especially the picture of the chocolate lab. I have my own brown puppy for inspiration. I found this picture when Turkey was so weeee and small. It seems like just yesterday he was a baby. He had passed out in a cubby where I stashed my fabric. 

And also a picture of my wee baby in a snazzy brown leopard outfit. It makes me sad to think that she will grown up and be big in the blink of an eye just like Turkey.

Here are the mosaics that I designed for the contest. Hopefully they come across as cohesive and read "brown".

This one ended up more mustardy than I expected. I loved the forest print and used it for the basis of this mosaic. It a sunny brown group.

For this mosaic I was inspired by the butterfly print. There is a hint of brown in the print that I highlighted with several dark chocolate prints. Reminds me of valentines day and chocolate covered strawberries or roses/wine and chocolate. 

Take a swing at the contest and enter by 10/18!

The best thing I've ever made.....

This project has been a long time in the making. My husband and I tried to start our family when we got married in 2009. We struggled to get pregnant but were able to in early 2014. That pregnancy ended in miscarriage and I had about given up hope that we would be able to have a child of our own. A few months passed and Thanksgiving day 2014 we found out that we were expecting again. I was hesitant to get excited until after we saw the doctor. The pregnancy progressed smoothly and we were planning for the baby to arrive in early August, Two weeks before I was due I was admitted to the hospital due to complications. Mirabelle made her way into the world on July 23rd. She is by far the cutest thing I have ever made!

Now that she is 8 weeks old and I am getting a little more sleep I have started sewing again. The best part is that if I bring her sleeper into my craft room the sound of my sewing machine soothes her right to sleep. If she isn't sleeping then she "talks" to me while I sew. Since Mirabelle was born I have finally gotten this quilt done for her. I have a few more in the works for her but they are behind a few more urgent projects.

This quilt originally started with inspiration from a quilt I had seen on the cover of Quilt Magazine called Spring Cleaning. You can find the original here. It started as a quilt I was making for our master bedroom and a way to work away at my scrap bin. In the end I changed gears and changed it to a smaller quilt for the baby. And although I used a lot of scraps I still have a mountain left.



I finished the top at the end of April. I had some trouble finding a backing I liked. It was one of the few times I was willing to pay full price for fabric but couldn't find anything I liked. I came across this fabric in Allegan MI. It was an end of the bolt clearance and they barely had enough to back the quilt. I love the storks and babies. I couldn't be happier with the fabric just got lucky and got it for a steal.

I think I auditioned every fabric I owned for the binding. I settled on blue with

white stars. 

I even broke out the manual and figured out how to do more than a straight stitch on my fancy machine to make a tag with her name and birthday. Pictures of the baby on the quilt coming soon. Linking it up to Finish it up Friday @ Crazy Mom Quilts.

Fantastic Finishes.....

Ok so it's been a hot minute since I posted. Here are some of the things I have finished up in the meantime.

August do.good.stitches Nurture circle blocks. The call was for any star blocks in red with a white background. I went with my favorite block, Scrap Jar Stars found here.

September do.good.stitches Nurture circle blocks. The call was for a block called Granny's front porch from Canoe Ridge Creations and the instructions are here. 

Using this color pallet

Here is how they turned out, I have blue fabrics a plenty!!!Wish I had more of that great purple in my stash.

Here is the finished top from July for the nurture circle of Do.Good.Stitches. The pattern is called Americana Rose. I blogged about it here. I have to quilt it and send it off to the charity group. 

That's all for now, more on the latest happenings will be posted soon.

Linking up to Crazy Mom Quilts 

Finish it up Friday

Laundry list of excuses......

I could go through a lot of reasons why it took me so long to finish this quilt....

* Pregnant - and it's hard to quilt while you are sleeping

* Millions of drs appointments - See Pregnant Above

*Broke Machine - Now twice, and I have put it in the corner to think about what it's done

*Vacation - Went to Boston and New England - I was busy eating chowda

Home Renovation - My kitchen is a hole where a kitchen used to be

Now that you have pictured your favorite excuse here is the quilt

This is the March quilt for the Nurture Circle of Do.Good.Stitches

It should have been done by the middle of May

Little late, but it's done!!!!!

And once I finished quilting it I had to beat off a horde of mosquitos to get the picture.

The rain has been something else and now our backyard is a breeding ground for pests and mud.

And just to top off the list of things to do right before you have a baby I am thinking about getting an English Springer Spaniel puppy to go with the one I have. They will be a matched set!

Linking up to Finish it up Friday @ Crazy Mom Quilts

Nuture Do.Good.Stitches July Block

It is my month again for the Nurture circle of Do.Good.Stitches charity quilt. Since 4th of July is right around the corner I took inspiration from this quilt, called Americana Rose.

 I switched around the colors some and removed the 4 patch blocks. 

For these blocks I would like you to select  Cherry red, White and Royal blue prints that are tone on tone or solids. You can choose one fabric of each color or raid your scrap bin. 

Cut the following from your fabrics. 

A - BLUE - 3.5" X 6.5" - (4)

B - BLUE - 4.5" X 4.5" (4)

C - BLUE - 3.5" X 3.5" (4)

D - BLUE - 1.5" X 2.5" (20)

E - BLUE - 1.5" X 1.5" (20)

F - RED - 1.5" X 1.5" (40)

G - RED - 2.5" X 2.5" (5)

H - WHITE - 3.5" X 3.5" (8)

I - WHITE - 6.5" X 6.5" (1)

Step 1: Using A and H sew together 4 flying geese blocks

Step 2: Take the  flying geese you created and lay them out with C and I blocks in the pattern below.

Step 3: Sew together each row of pieces pressing toward the solid squares

Step 4: Sew together each row with the seams nesting

The final big star will look like this - kapow!

 And will finish up at 12.5" x 12.5"

For your second block you are going to create many many flying geese (so sorry!!!!)

Step 1 - Take your D and F pieces and create 20 wee mini flying geese....

Step 2 - Take 4 of the mini geese you created in the last step and add together with 1-G square and 4-E squares and lay out in the orientation below.

Step 3: Sew together each row of pieces pressing toward the solid squares

Step 4: Sew together each row with the seams nesting

 Repeat 5 times and you will end up with blocks looking like the ones below

Step 5 - Lay out your red and blue stars you just created with 4-B blocks.

Step 6: Sew together each row and press toward the solid blocks

Step 7 - Sew each row together and next the seams.

The resulting block will look like the finished square below.

It will finish at 12.5" square

Please send them to me at the address below.

Dhia Peach

519 Smith Road

Fremont, Ohio 43420

freshly pieced

Going through withdrawl....

My machine is on the mend. It is at the shop getting fixed and tuned up. Before I broke it I was able to finish up these two tops. 

This is the top for the March Nurture Circle of do.Good.Stitches, Triple Irish Chain pattern is an old but a goody. I love how it turned out.

Here is the top again outside in the spring sunshine.

I finished up this baby quilt top for the newest little peach. I couldn't get it to lay flat. It may not be as square as I had hoped. I figure the quilting will smooth it out. 

Linking it up to Finish it up Friday @ Crazy Mom Quilts

Growing and growing.....

I'm growing, the baby is growing and this baby quilt is growing. One of several baby quilts in process. Hopefully I will get these done before the baby gets here!

Linking it up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced

In like a lion, out like a lamb.....

I didn't post much of anything this month. In my defense I have been busy. We went on vacation to St. Louis, Memphis, and Nashville. We were able to do all sorts of touristy things like go into the St. Louis arch. (So scary!!!). It so high and so dumb. Save your ten dollars, there is no need to go to the top. Just a terrifying 4 minutes in a confined space. I would say I sound old but my mother doesn't whine about stuff like this. Other than being scared of heights St. Louis was so awesome, we may have to move there some day.

From St. Louis we headed south to Memphis. We enjoyed Memphis less but did go see Graceland and eat lots of BBQ. 

We finished up our trip in Nashville and headed to the Grand Ole Opry for my husbands birthday. By this point in the trip I guess I stopped feeling like a tourist and didn't take any pictures. So I will have to use stock footage to complete the photo journey.

We saw lots of entertainers at the Opry including Trisha Yearwood who is our favorite! This inspired my husband to listen to blue grass music for the 13 hours we were in the car taking our sweet time getting home. After a week away I was very glad to sleep in my own bed. Travel sure makes you realize home is where the heart is.

While my husband was driving I was able to do some hand sewing and make some flowers for Eleni. More details can be found here. I have been following Rachel's blog for sometime and have been participating in do.good.stitches for almost a year, My thoughts go out to her family and many prayers for little Eleni.

On a personal note Aaron and I are expecting a baby of our own in August. They believe it to be a girl. She says hello! I have been organizing my craft room and sewing like crazy. I will post pictures of baby quilts soon.

Finally my April blocks for the Nurture circle of do.good.stitches. The instructions were here. We has pretty free rein which was a blessing and a curse. I find that I will take so much longer to decide what I want to do. In the end I came up with these two diamond blocks.

I feel like the first block ended up looking a little like corn in the pictures.

This one I kept fiddling with to the point of madness and it is not how I imagined it in my mind but fits what was asked for. They will be going in the mail in the morning before they get lost in my craft room.

Linking up to Finish it Up Friday @ Crazy Mom Quilts
Fabric Frenzy Friday @ Fort Worth Fabric Studio
Link-A-Finish Friday @ Richard and Tanya Quilts
Can I Get A Whoop Whoop @Confessions of a Fabric Addict
Thank Goodness It's Finished Friday

March Do.Good.Stitches Nuture Circle Quilt

It is my second turn as quilter for the Nuture circle of Do.Good.Stitches. My first go round was last August and we created this fun quilt. If you are so motivated to make this block you can find instructions here.

I have been on a kick working on my Triple Irish Chain quilt in recent weeks.

I figured since it is March I would continue with the Irish theme and my obsession with this classic pattern. I have a shameful amount of blue fabric in my stash and scrap bin so I decided to go with blue as the color pallet for this quilt.

To begin we are going to cut our fabric for the two blocks we will be making for the triple Irish chain quilt. I have decided on a scrappy theme for this quilt to make it more stash friendly. You will need to raid your stash or scrap bin for white or low volume fabric, light-medium blue fabrics (blue and white only) and dark blue fabrics (blue and white only). 

White/Low volume

1  -  10.5" x 10.5"

4  -  6.5" x 2.5"

17  -  2.5" x 2.5"

Light Blue - Medium Blue

24  - 2.5" x 2.5"

**Additional Note** Some of my fabrics did not read with as much contrast from the white fabric in the final block. Make sure to select blues that have good contrast from the background. 

Dark Blue

20  - 2.5" x 2.5"

Then we will begin assembling the blocks according to the following diagram. 

Block A

Lay out your 2.5" squares and sew together the 7 squares in each row. Once each row is completed press the seams. Rows 1/3/5/7 will go in one direction and rows 2/4/6 will go in the opposite direction. Once you have pressed your seams sew each row together with the seams nesting,

Your finished block A should look like this. (14.5" x 14.5")

Block B will be assembled using the following diagram

To begin assembly of this block take each 6.5" x 2.5" rectangle of white fabric and sew a dark blue 2.5" square to each end. Press the seams toward the dark blue fabric. I will refer to these as a side unit.

Take two of these side units and attach a 2.5" light blue square to each end. Once you have sewed the light blue fabric on press the seams toward the dark blue fabric, These are now top units. 

Take your 10.5" square of white and sew on a side unit to opposing sides. Once you have completed press your seams toward the side units. 

The final step is to sew the top units to the two remaining sides of the 10.5" white square. The seams should nest. Once you have completed sewing press your seams toward the top units.

Your completed Block B should look like this. 

In the end you will end up with two blocks that look like this. They should finish about 14.5" square. Please do not sew together.

Once completed please send to

Dhia Peach
519 Smith Road
Fremont, Oh 43420

Linking it up to Freshly Pieced WIP Wednesday