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!

Fall Quilt Festival 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

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.

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!

My very productive week!

On thing One week challenge ! I chose to finish up my Simple sampler quilt top! Done and checked off. I even deicided to add to it for size.  I also finished up a disappearing nine patch I started at sewing group.

I love how both quilt tops turned out. Now  to choose backs. But first I have a wedding gift  to make.

It too will be a disappearing nine patch.  So fast and easy I love it.

August Sewing in a nut shell!

This month has been a busy one with summer coming to a head. And  the kids getting ready for school, who knew it took so many little details to get them ready. As soon as I think they have it all we remember something else.  In between all the running of social activities for kids and doctors appointments and house work I managed to find sometime to sew.

Week 6

      For those of you that have been following, you know I have been working on my sons  Shadow quilt and  Amy's creative side quilt along quilt. I have also add a disappearing nine patch to the mix(But you will have to wait to see that, I working on it for a possible gift!) All of which I have managed to get to the point of calling them quilt tops! Two tops still need sashing and one I am debating adding a sashing to make it larger.  All three quilts are special in there one way, but I have to say my quilt along quilt has been the most challenging!  Amy  designed a beautiful quilt which has been so much fun to see how different everyones' quilts are.

Week 7

 The down side to that is, I challenge myself to make it so much more perfect; like anyone can see any flaws over the Internet: So there was a lot of ripping so seams to make them match perfectly or  as close a I can get.  Amy designed the pattern for beginners and where I am not a beginner, I am a self proclaim triangle avoid er. Not anymore though! I am quite comfortable with them now!

Week 8

I am even working on a design using HST's. But don't hold your breath that project would be down the road. But When those ideas hit you have to get them on paper.   But back to my quilt squares. As I was so excited and post to Amy  that I had caught up and they were all done, no sooner did I discover that three were larger then the rest. Not just a little but almost a have inch! Can you guess what I did?

you already seen the blocks. There beautiful! But not for long!

I ripped them apart!

notice the ironing board cover ick! time for a new one

I ripped the three blocks apart to discover I either forgot to trim them altogether or trimmed them using  the wrong line on the silly ruler. Either way my blocks were all to big! resulting in over sized blocks! The lesson learned is take your time, know when your tired and its time to stop sewing and oh the important one TRIM CAREFULLY!   

                                       

The three remakes!!!!!!! I am actually happier with all three so the time was worth it!

But my struggles didn't stop there! I struggle with finding a good sashing white wouldn't work. I found this sashing you see at  Quilted Straight quilt shop, the shop owner was very helpful in helping my work through my total mind block.  I came home all happy cut my strips to discover I couldn't decide on the little cap squares!

Choosing my cap squares! None of which did I like!

Again off to the LQS this time I went to Kingston Quilt shop which was a gamble they are in the process of being sold and there stock in low! But the gal that help me was great.  So I found a fabric easy! And now my quilt top is done!!!!!! Yeah! I may go back and get some more of the cape square material to add a border to enlarge the quilt a little. 

                                      

Its done!!!!!!! Yippee!!!!!!! Well  the top anyway!  I think I know what I want for my back!

And I'm really leaning toward an extra border piece. Decisions, Decisions!

Project update on my Shadow Quilt

Look it's a Big block!!!!!!!! Now to turn these big blocks into a quilt top!

Maybe I'll stop dreaming about 96 squares truning into 48 and 48 turning into 24 etc....

I'd love to say them is sewn together but it's not,  it is just layed out to share.

Curtis is getting excited!