Day 24-Lego City Advent Calendar 2015

Day 23-Lego City Advent Calendar 2015

Day 21-Lego City Advent Calendar

Day 20-Lego City Advent Calendar 2015

NC Book Girl: A Wish for Wings that Work

NC Book Girl: A Wish for Wings that Work: I did not record this book.  It is one of my fvorite and I tghink this wonderful version hits all the right notes.  It is An Opus Christmas ...

Day 19-Lego City Advent Calendar 2015

Day 18-Lego City Advent Calendar 2015

Day 15 Lego Advent Calendar 2015

NC Book Girl: NC Bookgirl reads The Christmas Promise

NC Book Girl: NC Bookgirl reads The Christmas Promise: The Christmas Promise by Susan Bartoletti is a great historical/realistic fiction story.  It is set during the Depression when jobs were sc...

Day 14- Lego City Advent Calendar 2015

Day 13- Lego City Advent Calendar 2015

NC Book Girl: NC Bookgirl reads Olive the Other Reindeer

NC Book Girl: NC Bookgirl reads Olive the Other Reindeer: I love sharing this story by J. Otto Siebold and Vivian Walsh with my kindergartners!  Olive is so cute and the play on words with Rud...

Day 12 - Lego City Advent Calendar 2015

Day 11 - Lego City Advent Calendar 2015

NC Book Girl: NC Bookgirl reads Hanukkah Lights, Hanukkah Nights...

NC Book Girl: NC Bookgirl reads Hanukkah Lights, Hanukkah Nights...: I found this book unexpectedly in my library collection.  It has hidden from me but was a great surprise.  My standby by Hanukkah book for u...

NC Book Girl: NC Bookgirl reads Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer

NC Book Girl: NC Bookgirl reads Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer: This copy has been a favorite from childhood.  It was always my favorite TV special, my favorite holiday song, and story book.  I love the R...

NC Book Girl: NC Bookgirl presents Click Clack Ho! Ho! Ho!

NC Book Girl: NC Bookgirl presents Click Clack Ho! Ho! Ho!: I found this great book at my November book fair.  Doreen Cronin has a series of books about Farmer brown and his farme animals.  The origin...

Day 7- Lego City Advent Calendar 2015

Sunrise Sunset

Its time for the spring Bloggers Quilt Festival!

Sunrise Sunset

Entered in the Original design category.

title:  Sun Colors

pattern:  Original created and sewn by Colleen Yarnell

quilted:  by me with Aurifil 40wt in yellow on my Babylock Sofia, design freehand drawn with chalk pencil

fabrics: hand dyed from stash, background is woven

binding:   hand dyed scraps

inspiration:  

For Project Quilting 2015 challenge 2 I pulled all sunrise/ sunset hand dyed from stash.  Thinking about doing strips that became hst.  thinking of how the sky looks when kayaking in Canada.  

Hand dyes from the 1990s, some made my me some purchased from Sherry Wood

I subcut the strip sets but then decided to turn them into hst

Sofia helped with the layout of the HST

Using the yellow 40wt Aurfil made the quilting really stand out.  I am please enough to put it into the living room quilt display lineup.

keep dreaming...Colleen

Its tiring for Sofiasewing and quilting all day.

Rainbow Forrest

Its time for the spring Bloggers Quilt Festival!

This is my entry in the ROYGBIV category.

Title: Rainbow Forrest

Size: 32" x 32"

Pattern: original by Me

Quilted:  by me

Fabrics: top-scrap stash.  back-Heather Ross Pin People

my inspirations:

My friend Cora Quilts beautiful Rainbow log cabin top and

the scrappy log cabin QAL.

Recent sorting and organizing of scraps by color.

And of course trees.  Pine trees and log cabins.  
A dream of mine to someday live in one in the mountains or at least camp in a lot of national and state forrests.

I straight line quilted the log cabin blocks.  And did some dense pebble like quilting-i was thinking snowballs.

This quilt is now going to reside in my new popup trailer.  #makeyourcamperpretty

keep dreaming...Colleen

Sofia's Surgery

So this past Monday Sofia had her important surgery.  It was time as she kept going into heat and was not a happy kitten.  I went to sleep with her cuddled next to me...

and I woke up to a cutie on my shoulder.  I dropped her off around 8:30 and then went to run some errands.  I came home to an empty house.  It was said and lonely without Sofia.  I slept a while as I was still suffering a severe sinus infection.  

Later I set up the caticco where she would stay why she recovered.  She did well but needed to stay calm and not jump around.  

It turned out to work well!  I found it on amazon.  

You can see her little shaved belly, and she still sleeps alot,...

but she is also feeling her frisky self.

keep dreaming...Colleen

Its time to vote for Accuquilt block contest.  I entered my Butterfly High block I made last summer.  You can vote here once a day until April 19 and help keep me in the top ten!

Charming Patchwork

So I finished the 6th and last Project Quilting Challenge of this season:

  Isn't it Charming?  

The challenge was to use 20 or more 5"charm squares only on the front of the project.  I went straight to my Denyse schmidt stash of charm squares.  I have a foot tall stack from the many swaps I have done.  I thought I might make four patches and piece a bag I could use to hold my quilt pin collection.

However time and tiredness just left me no time this week.  So I decided to make a little mini quilt to use as a topper on my 185k sewing machine cabinet.  I love making these in different sizes to decorate with.  

title:  Charming Patchwork

size:  16"x 20"

location:  Lewisville, NC

inspiration:  I love charm squares and can honestly say Im a bit of an adict.  I have an old cd shelf full from swaps I have done.  I pulled out some from my favorite designer Denyse Schmidt.  I wanted to make scrappy four patches using Lori Holt's method.  Then decided I wanted a topper for my vintage sewing machine cabinet.   The backing and binding are also DS prints.  Her fabrics always make me happy and I love decorating with patchwork.

quilted:  I straightline quilted it on my Baby Lock Sofia.

Check out the other Projects here at PersimonDreams and vote for your favorite.

keep dreaming...Colleen

Its time to vote for Accuquit block contest.  I entered my Butterfly High block I made last summer.  You can vote here once a day.

Starlight Garden

2015 Project Quilting Challenge 5:  
My Favorite fabric

title:  Starlight Garden

pattern:  Starlight by Gina Fornecker

made, tied, and quilted by:  Colleen C. Yarnell

size:  56" x 64"

location: Lewisville, NC

inspiration and process: 

When I heard favorite fabric I first went to my Denyse Schmidt shelves.  Yes I said shelves-I'm a little obsessed.  But nothing was inspiring me.  I already decided on the pattern which had been sitting on my cutting table since Gina gave it to me.  It had large stars and squares to showcase larger prints.  So I looked at my other favorites. And pulled out a Melody Miller Cotton & Steele print.  

Aqua with gold dots and flowers along the edge.  

I wanted to use the sparkly part as two of the stars. 

 Then I looked for another favorite to showcase in the larger star and found a fav Amy Butler Soul Blossoms print.  Last I knew what to use in those background squares-my bundle of Anna Marie Horner Pretty Potent!  

I redrafted the pattern so it would use my 8.5" and 16.5" square rulers.  It also brought it down to a nice lap quilt size.

Sofia helped with the cutting of course,

and supervised while I sewed.

I figured out the layout and worked hard to have the directional prints go the same way.  

I then looked for a backing fabric and found another favorite Amy Butler Soul Blossoms fabric.  Im really trying to sew with my stash this year.  I'm always buying favorite fabrics and need to use them!  I have enough of the bak print left to mach a mathing pillowcase.

I decided to tie it as a legacy to the quilts my Grandmother Myers made for me.  

Plus my tied Amy Butler charm square quilt is one of my favorites, so a smaller throw will be nice to cuddle.  

Sofia helped me pin the quilt layers to the floor,

and tie it with a variegated wool yarn.  

A little friend liked the Anna Marie Horner flowers too.

I also quilted an outline inside each of the stars.  

It makes it a little more secure without taking away the puffiness of a tied quilt.

I found another favorite Amy Butler print, one of her Martini Dots which I love to use as binding.  Some have such overly bright unusual colors and they set off the bold prints perfectly!

and of course I bound it with a little help from my friend.

I have already snuggled under it as I couldnt resist sleeping under it last night!

keep dreaming...Colleen

Sofia checking out the stack of fabric and projects at the end of the cutting table.

Kitty Love

I love when my quilting challenges overlap.  A two for if you will.  

Project Quilting 2015 challenge 4:  Have a Heart

plus

Kitten Mini Quilt Swap 2015

equals

title:  Kitten Love

size:  28" x 27.5"

sewn and quilted:  Colleen C Yarnell

pattern:  original

inspiration:  I had been pulling all the kitten fabrics from my stash.  My partner favored rainbow and it had been in the back of my mine but I couldnt get a handle on it.  Enter Project Quilting challenge this week where you have to have 12 hearts in your design.  Then my friend Sarah was working on a 

charm square heart quilt and I channeled my swap quilt from last January into a heart idea.

We had snow/sew days last year when I made this and we had 4 snow/sew days this week!

Here is the fabric pull I started with.  

Then I fussy cut all the cat fabric into 2.5" squares.  Two fabrics required 4.5" squares.  

Then I pulled out my scrap boxes and cut a rainbow of 2.5" squares and some three inch squares for the hst. I also pulled low volume prints and cut background squares including some heart fabric.

I laid it out on the small design wall over my machine.

I pieced it Bonnie Hunter web style, two columns at a time.  It went together very quickly!

I decided to use part of a Pam Kitty Morning selvedge that had 11 hearts on it with the big heart that would be 12!  Though with the heart fabric in the top and back there are a bazillion!

I turned my design wall around and basted the quilt on the flat side.  No crawling on the floor!  The backing was an old VIP Cranston print of red with tiny white hearts.

I straightline quilted it up and down and across.  The binding was

I hope my kitten mini swap partner will love this quilt!  Funny thing is I have all these awesome rainbow miniquilts I have made and given all by my Rainbow Forrest one away in a swap.

keep dreaming...Colleen

Sofia was my trusty helper, sitting and sleeping on the stool beside me as I worked.