Friday 1-23-15

Linking up to TGIFF….

This is my Project Quilting Season 6 Challenge 2 Entry: “Sunrise/Sunset”. It is a set of 8 quilted coasters with a paper pieced sunburst with appliqué quarter sun sewn from my scraps. The green border/backing is a velour that I had in my stash. The finished at around 5 ½ inches square and just what we needed to brighten up our house this spring. The sunbursts are quilted in straight lines along each burst with decorative stitching around the circular part. They were then backed with the same green fabric and finished with the envelope method where I stitched around the sunburst square to create a nice border; one of these are showing the back in the picture above.

This is my aurifil mini for January all completed. I tried out a new binding method that I found here. I thought it was easy but I had to fenangle it a little and will be tweaking it for future projects until I am fully happy with it as a binding method. It has a hanging sleeve and I quilted swirls in the white and left the red to “pop”. The red border has one of my favorite bible verses quilted around it:

James 1:2-3New International Version (NIV)

Trials and Temptations

2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.. 

This will be a surprise gift for a dear friend…..

Thanks for looking 🙂

WIP Wednesday 1/21/21015

I’m linking up with Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday again.

1. Hearts Table Runner – no progress 😦 

2. Bright Stars QAL I am slowly working through sewing my HST – i am doing 5 at a time as leaders/enders when I am working on other things.

3. Hip to be Square challenge

I have finished sewing all my blocks with 1 inch finished squares (8x8s), they all have borders now. I have sewn some 2x2s with 4 inch finished squares and these have borders too… now to cut more scraps and get sewing some 4x4s with 2 inch finished squares, border them and then get the “Minecraft” quilt top put together in time for the deadline!!!

4. Half Hearted Quilt  All the pieces are now cut out… I had to recut and finagle the background triangles because I didn’t quite have enough of the paw print fabric but I added a different fabric that I think will work out well. Now to get sewing…..

5. Mystery Mondays I have all my pieces cut out and ready to sew…. I changed up my color choices a bit and really like this combo…

6. Pat Sloan Vacation Time BOM This months block is complete…..! I already posted it under my BOMs away Monday post, so will remove this from my WIPs list and put it with my other BOM updates instead.

7. NYD Mystery Quilt – no progress.

8. Customer Pinwheel Quilt … Is on the frame ready to be quilted!

Thanks for looking!

BOMs Away Monday!

1. First up, Not really a BOM this year but the Aurifil Monthly mini quilt top is done:

Now to quilt and bind it 🙂

2. Our LQS “Quilts n Things” has a BOM and I am doing their “sewing” themed quilt. As long as you complete your BOM and take it to the store on the first Saturday or Wednesday of the next month, they give you the fabric for that month to make the BOM for that month. There is a small cost to join the BOM program and you have to purchase a magazine with tons of blocks in it for the instructions but it is a great way to get a quilt top at a VERY affordable price. Here is my block:

3. Pat Sloan’s “Vacation Time” quilt

I am going to use the “keep calm” fabric as a constant in each block and change up the accent fabric. I might also keep the purple swirly fabric as a constant “background” fabric. There are actually two different pinks in this block, one is a large scale flower and one is a marbled “solid” but its hard to see in this picture… I would have like more contrast between the two even IRL but, I am not going to redo the block because of it 🙂 I also changed the design slightly 🙂

Thats it for my BOMs this week! Thanks for looking 🙂

2015 Finish a long Q1 Goals

Linking up to 2015 Finish a long Q1 hoping for accountability~

1. Hip To Be Square Quilt:

This is to be a bed quilt for Big J when his room is decorated as he wants a “Mine Craft” theme. We hope to remodel our kitchen plus change up the closet spaces in the kids bedrooms very soon and so I want to get this finished this quarter ready for his new room.

2. Hearts Table runner and placemats 

This was a free pattern I wrote for Sewing and Embroidery Club January when I demoed the new #97 ¼ inch foot.  You can get a copy of my pattern for free here. I want to have these finished and ready to take to February club as well as use for valentines decorations in the house.

3. Half Hearted Quilt

A lap quilt that will be a family quilt in lots of fun colors.

4. NYD Mystery Quilt 1 – Straight

5. NYD Mystery Quilt 2 – On Point

Both tops, backs and bindings are ready – just got to get it on the longarm. 

6. Hubby’s Shirt

I am picking apart an old shirt of his that he LOVES. He prefers the look of fitted shirts but the designer shirts just don’t last well and aren’t the best fabric … so I will be recreating his favorite shirt in pattern form and then sewing him a shirt in much nicer fabric with the goal to make many of these and then dye them in his favorite colors. I have the shirt about half unpicked, the fabric ready to go as soon as I have all the pattern pieces made and cut. I have been promising him this for too long and need to make sure that I get to this this year 🙂

7. Sewing Caddy

This is a sewing caddy that i started for myself last year following this quilted suitcase tutorial, I really want to get it finished so I can store my things in it and take it with me when I sew with friends.

WIP Wednesday 1/14/15

I’m linking up with Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday and as usual I have a ton of things that I am working on!!! 2015 is the year that I am planning to USE my stash as much as possible, source my scraps etc AND finish UFO’s, PhD’s and NYS’s, so expect to see many projects that involve scraps or weird fabrics lol!

1. Hearts Table Runner

This is a pattern I wrote for Bernina Club this month as I was demonstrating the new #97 foot (Which is FANTASTIC!). I taught two methods of making HST’s and gave out copies of my pattern. My plan is to make 9 placemats and a table runner (and have them completed by Feb club eek….)

So far I have one block completed and the others in various stages of progress!

2. Bright Stars QAL

I have all my 4 patches sewn together, all my bright squares cut, I am working on cutting background squares and the triangles now for the “star” pieces.

3. Hip to be Square challenge

These are my scraps, I try to cut them as I finish project(s) but they often pile up on me! When I get a chance to cut them I have a variety of strips, squares, bricks, triangles or sledges based loosely on Bonnies system that can be found here.

I think it looks so pretty sorted by color don’t you? I have 4 blocks completed, its very time consuming as I am using 1 inch finished squares. I have a variety on colors not just green and blue, but now I see these on the design wall I am going to make this into a quilt for J hopefully for his bed as he wants to decorate his room in a “Minecraft” theme.

4. Half Hearted Quilt

This is a lap quilt that I am working on from a block that I created in Quilt Pro 5. Some friends and I got together to cut fabric and sew these last Friday but my cutting went slowly… I am still working on cutting it all out but once I get sewing it should go fast right (?) 🙂 It will be really fun to see how our 4 quilts all turn out since we all use different fabrics and are working in different sizes.

5. Mystery Mondays

I need to have 4 main fabrics and 4 accent fabrics, the white/blue/red at the top will be the background but I need to add one more main and one more accent – I am thinking maybe a mustard color or something? Not loving these colors BUT I pulled them from my stash, AND this mystery doesn’t really give any direction in terms of color/value choices such as how much contrast is needed etc….. I will get cutting these out before Monday so I am ready to go next week.

6. Pat Sloan Vacation Time BOM

So… more fabric pulled from my stash!!!! Not sure WHAT direction I am going in here at all lol! All I do know is that I will use the “keep calm” fabric as a focal piece in each block, and maybe the blue/purple as a background in each block with an accent color…… we shall see as time goes on 🙂

7. NYD Mystery Quilt 

My Quilt top(s) are done! Backing is pieced and its all waiting to get on the longer frame  to be quilted. I split my blocks into two quilts instead of one big one. I can’t decide if I LOVE these or HATE them lol! Fabric was all pulled from my stash once again, and before I filed the scraps into my approriate scrap bins, I sewed the binding for each together ready for once they are quilted.

Thanks for looking!

Pat Sloan’s “Hip to be Square”

Since I love a challenge, and I frequently cut and sort my scraps into a variety of sizes such as strips, squares and bricks I couldn’t resist the “Hip to be Square” challenge that was posted recently.

Since I am using a lot of my 2 ½ inch squares and strips for my scrappy “bright stars” quilt-a-long I decided to dive into my 1 ½ inch squares scrap box! I sorted them loosely by color and and working on sewing them into 8 x 8 blocks. I plan to play with the arrangement, sashing etc once I have the blocks sewn and I know how many of each color I have been able to make.

Flag quilt is finished

The quilt is finished! I love how it came out.

 

The border with the stars and swirls to enhance the “firework” theme with white thread on blue/pink/red really sets it off nicely.

Here you can see the quilting in the blank spaces, I chose a more dense wavy pattern to allow the stars to puff up and be seen once it is washed.

On The Frame 1/12/15

This is a quilt for a customer, It is a series of large and small stars with some plain blocks in between. After talking through various design options we decided on quilting that would allow the stars to “pop” and an all over thread color of white. Although the quilt has some pink in it she wanted to stay away from “girlie” motifs and try to keep the design friendly to her husband and teen sons as well as her and her daughter.

The same design is being quilted in both the large and the small stars. I decided to frame the star with a loopy border and then accent the points of each star with curved lining inside the white.

Here you can see the borders taking shape. I plan to quilt a swirl/star pattern inspired by fireworks. Once the borders are quilted I will go back through the quilt top filling in the plain squares with quilting that is not too dense but that will stop these areas from puffing up and detract from the stars.

Thanks for looking!

Project Quilting Season 6 Challenge 1 – Trees

This is my entry for the “trees” challenge. The project is called “Fear Not”. It is a quilted portfolio Cover made from scraps left over after I finished my New Years Day Mystery Quilt measuring approximately 13 by 11 inches.

There is a snap closure with two loops for pens. On the inside there is a hard canvas board inserted into the pocket for the back of the cover to give it some rigidity. A notebook, calendar or planner can be placed here with the back cover inserted in this pocket. On the left side are two pockets, one large and one small for keeping receipts or lesson handouts etc…

This is my first time entering into the Project Quilting challenge and I really enjoyed it. The pattern is my own design and I freehand drew the tree appliqué then quilted the bible verse around the tree.