Saturday, October 30, 2010

Fall quilt festival 2010

Let me start with a quick Thank You for stopping by my blog. I hope you enjoy my post. Feel free to look at some of my other posts, I always welcome more visitors. I plan on trying to check out as many post as possible this week myself, I know its a busy blogging week. Have fun !

NINE MONTHS OF LOVE
Designed and quilted by: Tove Leggett

This quilt was inspired by finding the already cut 3.5 inch squares, left overs from another quilt or two. I must have really liked this 1930/40 reproduction fabric that I purchased almost 7 years ago. This is the third quilt I have made out of the original purchased batch of fabric.  I love the colors and the kitties, good thing being that I bought two much for one quilt. 

This is the idea I came up with using the 3.5 inch squares, a 9 patch how original!  I mixed in a couple other scrap fabrics from my stash to come up with my square.  I decided to do a white center and found some minke! The center square is so soft, I love it.  I love designing quilts; I am not as productive as some of you out there, but I seem to always be busy. This quilt posed its' own challenges as every quilt does. My big challenge that I would love to know, the correct answer to was my set  triangles. How to  figure the correct size. I ended up with triangles that were too big, thank goodness.  So I will be looking up the correct way to do those before tackling set triangles again. I love learning as I go.
I decide that the quilt top was to small and added the outer border. To my surprise it was the finishing touch, that I love. I can not imagine the quilt finished up without it. 
I am not sure if this picture will show the quilting very well or not but I quilted the whole thing on my sewing machine! Thanks Amy E. for convincing me to try machine quilting I love it!!!!!  It has a really neat design that happened just by my following the lines on the front.
 Yes, there is no label yet! It is saved on the computer with about six other labels I have made for mine and my moms quilts. I need to print them...... someday!  Soon, This is a baby gift for a sweet little girl  that was born on the Oct 25.  Oops her mom might read this post.

This is the original quilt made with this fabric.

Thank you!
Be sure and check everyones' blogs out!

Monday, October 25, 2010

One Challenge One week Complete!!!!!!

This week my challenge was to complete the quilt I was working on and finish my Christmas place mats! I am proud to announce that they are both completed, Plus some!!!!!! I have been rather productive this week, that even includes doing  the house work too. HA HA! We all know how sewing sucks us all in and house work suffers. But not this week, with the exception of the bar where I cut my fabrics. I certainly hope that everyone elses  week went as well with their Challenge items.



These Place mats were a long time coming project! I received the pattern last October and I purchased fabric in November, Alas that's all the farther they got. The fabric was put into the stash drawers after Christmas and the mats were not getting done. So this year I was determined to get them done.  Come to find out they were so easy!  They are simply two pieces of fabric, the only machine quilting is the corner miter seems, then you turn them and decide whether to use a decorative machine stitch or  to hand stitch them closed; which I chose. My fabric is so busy it didn't need the distraction of a visible seem. So there they are 8 Christmas place mats completed!

What is this? Is what you're thinking or your thinking its a place mat! Well those of you thinking it a place mat are wrong. :0)  It is a water proof mat for a baby!  We used to be able to by this  fabric that is was rubbery on the inside and flannel on the outside. The exact name eludes me.  But anyway it is super hard to find and this was my last piece of boring white.


So I decided cover it!  I think it is way cooler this way. It is the size of a standard place mat,  so it should be very usable and pretty to look at. It is totally water proof, so the many things that babies share with us will not get on that favorite bedding or clothing or guest lap or dad's best suit etc.... And it's totally washable!

Grab ball! Its jingles and it squeaks not to mention the fuzzy texture, what baby won't love this!
Ok, so now you have seen my place mats and my extra projects I took on this week, you probably are thinking where is  the quilt I mentioned.  Well, you have to wait! Sorry! I am saving it for the Quilt festival!
However if you look carefully at this photo there is a sneak peek!

Hope to see you next week for the quilt festival. Feel free to follow my blog or even look through the older posts  and leave a quick note. I do my best to respond to all posts. Thanks for stopping by.
Be sure and Check out the other challenge participants at Amy's Creative side

Monday, October 18, 2010

Fall has arrived!

With the turn of the seasons upon us, it was time to pick my pumpkins! At least the Little Jack pumpkins, they took forever to get growing but in the end I was very surprised to see the plants start blooming in September. I got a whole six! I am so happy with them, aren't the cute!!!!!!! They are accompanied by my little pumpkins I made last year.  I hope everyone is enjoying your fall and the changing of colors and weather in your area.

Saturday, October 9, 2010

The wedding gift quilt I made!

This quilt is a disappearing nine patch. I make my squares a little different then I was taught...As you can see I laid my whole quilt out with only  the 1/4 square not the four already sewn together.. I like the control on the patterning and colors staying separated that I get this way verses the randomly sewing four back together after cutting them apart.

I decided to machine quilt this one myself! Heres my sandwich! Great idea that taping it down. Thanks Amy! However the pinning sure got challenging in the cramped space of the kitchen once the quilt took it all up.

 After deciding on my pattern, off to taping I went! I like the blue painters tape to mark my pattern but was out so masking tape is a good second, though it sticks more.
 All taped up with the pattern, rolled and ready to go! This is my largest machine quilting project! it was so fun. I was so proud of myself and nervous at the same time. After all this is a wedding gift!
But in the end it turned out so good.

 All done! Washed and shrank! I am very happy and proud of the result. If I have not started this quilt with the purpose of giving it away it would have been so difficult to do. I love it.

 I remembered a tag!!!!!  Pslams 115:1, there names and who made it.!
 My first totally complete quilt this year! So many small projects this year and several tops done but first one totally complete!