On the road again, like a band of gypsies we go rolling down the highway.....

I had great hopes for a few weeks working at home. Working all day, going on long bike rides, making home cooked meals and sewing in the evening. I had gotten back into sewing full force spending lots of time in my sewing room. I was starting new projects left and right. I got all the blocks for the nurture circle do.good.stitches and was playing with the layout and started putting it together. 

And then I got thrown back on the road again.....Its hard to plan for anything with my job. I am covering a woman that is out unexpectedly. So I am back in my home town of Pittsburgh. I working to work off the fluff while I am out on the road. We are trying to do a half marathon in November. I would say or die trying, but I don't want to tempt fate. Yesterday I decided to do the steps in the Cathedral of learning. 36 flights up up up into the sky. My father went to college at the University of Pittsburgh and used to take us there when I was young. I had lots of time to think about him while I was hoofing it up the steps, down the elevator and up again. I left looking like I had been rode hard and put up wet, very very wet.

On the sewing front I am working on my traveling scrap buster. I have been grabbing fistfuls of scraps from my bin and making these hexie stars. I have no color scheme other than trying to make the star and the border of the hexie play nice together. The purple and white star at the bottom doesn't quite hit the mark. There is not enough contrast between the fabrics. I am not sure if it is easily fixable or if I should take a deep breath and let it go. Selective bleaching? 

Linking it up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced

Organized like a Dusseldorf bus schedule

Over the weekend I had some time to sew sew sew. When I got back on the sewing wagon I didn't just start one WIP, I started like 4. So here is some progress on two of them. 

I was able to make some more HST for this quilt. I am still not set on the layout so I am just sewing and waiting for the spirit to move me. I am however running out of floor. Our September house goal is to refinish the floors in half our upstairs. Then I can have my sewing room set up and I can get off my knees.

I briefly thought why be so structured, why not just throw all the HST in a bin and randomly lay them out. Then I had a panic attack and had to rock myself back to sanity while breathing into a paper bag. I need the planning and structure, otherwise it drives me mad, mad I tell you. Granted I never work from a pattern and I love making scrap quilts, but there has to be a theme, color theme or general design or I start getting twitchy.

In accordance to Murphy's law the instructions for the September do.good.stitches quilt came out and it is exactly what is below. Random HST and to make me extra twitchy pink and red together. I am going to need to be medicated to make the blocks for the quilt this month. But I am going to embrace my crazy and move on!

Then to soothe myself I put the HST together in this pattern. Oh yeah that's better!

Since we are redoing our bedroom I thought it was time to make a quilt for our bed. I also thought that my scrap bin is out of control. In an attempt to solve both problems I started working on this quilt in the style of a Spring cleaning quilt I saw here. I have been working with all pastels for the stars and low volume for the background. I have one full star done and alot of middle pieces. I have to get working on the points. Unfortunately working with scraps leads to smaller scraps, but that is a project for later.

Linking up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced

Weekend Floor Play

I admit I have been neglecting my sewing room. We painted it and put together some furniture and then drug in the totes. But then we decided that we were going to refinish the floors and I didn't want to unpack everything and then have to repack it to move it. So it has stayed in totes. We were going to start the floors "'as soon as it got warm enough to open the windows". As you can tell we are a little behind. At this rate we are going to find ourselves back in winter with the windows closed and the room unfinished. The point of my story is that my design wall has not yet made it to the wall. So anytime I need to take a picture I have to clear a path to the floor and set it up there. If i am not quick enough some animal dashes through the blocks. I was able to get a picture of my newest WIP. 

I found inspiration at Sew Crafty Jess

And also here at Kat and Cat Quilts 

I can't decide which layout I like better, However the second quilt is all HST with white on one side and I have started making some HST with color on both sides. We will see as it progresses. 

Linking up to WIP wednesday at Freshly Pieced

Finish it up Friday - EPP for the littlest Peach

This is a quilt I started quite some time ago, might have been last year. When I found I was pregnant this spring I started working on it for the new baby. After I lost the baby I packed it up and shoved it in a closet. I took it out and finished up the top last night. I will add the fabric corners to square it off this weekend. I am not sure what I am going to do with it, maybe to charity, maybe for a future kiddo if we are blessed again...for the time being it is in memory of Georgia Peach our littlest Peach

linking it up to Finish it up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts

Works long in progress

I pulled out some old WIP's. I will go into more detail later as to why they were shelved. One reason is that my job has me driving more and flying less. A lot of time I spent on planes and in airports were consumed with working on these hand projects. I am breaking them out again in the hopes of making some progress in my free minutes. Hotels are not designed for quilt photography and perching on a dresser to get a shot will most likely be the reason they find me dead at in a Holiday Inn.

 This baby quilt in progress is almost finished. My mother reads a lot about quilts and always tells me that there needs to be a surprise in every quilt. For this quilt it is the white star in the upper corner. Just a couple edge pieces needed to be added to this project. I have the fabric at home to square off the corners and for the backing. But then again we don't need to talk about how much fabric I have at home. 

I'm not sure what I am doing with these hexie stars. But I have started a couple and we will see where they end up. 

How I learned to EPP

Life under Quilts

I am linking up to WIP wednesday at Freshly Pieced

do.Good.Stitches-Nurture Circle......August Block

Greetings.....Welcome to the Peach Patch if this is your first visit......I've been oftly quiet recently.....

Today I am posting a tutorial which I hope you will enjoy. This is my first month as quilter for the Nurture circle of do.Good.Stitches. I had been trying to get involved with this program for some time and some space opened up. As a bonus the Nuture circle makes quilts for one of my favorite charities; My Very Own Blanket. I have had the chance to make quilts for this charity before and go to the workshop to sew in Ohio. I struggled to decide what block to pick for the quilt. I flipped back and forth from traditional blocks, tutorials already floating around the internet or creating one of my own. In the end I created on of my own, at least I haven't seen it before. As of now I am still working on a name for this block
.....Spider Star
......Crab Star
........Sunshine Star
.....Supernova/Exploding Star
....I haven't figured it out yet, send your suggestions.....

So to get started on this block we first need to select our fabrics. For this block we are going to have three fabrics. For this quilt I would like to keep the color scheme to Blue/Green/Orange. I would prefer bold jewel tone fabrics that contrast well with the background and colors that are complimentary to each other. Please stay away from pastels for this project.

A - Background star points- Blue or Green or Orange
B - Main star - Blue or Green or Orange
C - White/Cream/Low volume background fabric

The fabric cutting for this block is pretty simple.

A - Background star points- Blue or Green or Orange
1 - 8" Square

B - Main star - Blue or Green or Orange
6 - 5" Squares

C - White/Cream/Low volume background fabric
1 - 8" Square
2 - 5" Squares
4 - 4.25" Squares

Once we have our fabrics take the two 8" blocks (A & C) and place them with front sides facing and sew a 1/4" seam around the entire perimeter of the block.

Next cut the block on the diagonal in both directions

Set the seams and press open

 Press the seams open

Line up the 45 degree line on your ruler up to the seam of the block and trim down to 5"

Draw a line perpendicular to the seam of each of the half square triangle blocks as well as on the diagonal of the 2 5" (C) blocks. Pair one 5" (B) block to each of these and lay them face to face.

These lines are used as a guide. Sew a straight line 1/4" from the mark on both sides. Using your rotary cutter, cut these 6 squares along the mark between the two seams.

 You should now have 4 of each of the following

Set the seams and press them open on each of the blocks

Line up the 45 degree line on your ruler up to the seam of the block and trim down to 4.25"

Add the remaining 4 4.25" (C) blocks and you should now have 4 of each of the blocks below

Now to assemble the star yet to be named block
Place the 4 4.25" (C) blocks in each of the corners
Place the 4 4.25" HST in the middle with white facing in

Next place the squares with the accent fabric to the right as shown below

The remaining squares with the accent fabric to the left finish out the layout

Sew each row together and press the seams open
Beware that the intersection at the corners of the inner white square are bulky and should be sewed and pressed carefully

Sew each row together and trim the block down to 15.5" square

Please make two blocks and send to the address below.
Feel free to contact me with any questions :)

Dhia Peach
519 Smith Road
Fremont, Ohio 43420

Do Good Stitches....Nurture

Been sewing here and there......been mostly working on the house. I will keep this short and sweet. I joined the nurture circle of Do Good Stitches last month. Here is my last two months of blocks. Seems like I am unable to just make two blocks per month. I do love to sew!

April blocks

May Blocks