Finish it up Friday with some Scrap Love

Have you ever bought a group of fabrics that you just love?  Fabric you love so much, that when you start cutting it up for a pattern, you save just about every square inch of the scraps?  Fabric that you keep all together, scraps, strips, small and large pieces, long after the original project is done?  Yeah, me too.  These two hearts were created out of such scraps.  Every member of my Guild is making a 12 inch block for a huge Quilts of Valor project.  I figured I would make a Star of Hope block and use fabrics that I had used to make a Quilt of Valor from last year.  Once I took out the fabrics, there were only a few large pieces of fabric and those were the lighter fabrics.  I didn't have enough of one blue or one red to make the Star of Hope block.
Naturally, I had the fabrics spread out and I had a handful of squares and rectangles which I had set down on lighter fabric and they looked very nice so I started playing with them and this is what I came up with!   I liked the first one so much that I made another one for me and used  2 1/4" blocks to go around.  I sewed a 1 1/2" strip of dark blue all around and quilted it with the regular sewing machine, not only was I in too much of a hurry to do a regular binding, but I am trying to conserve the dark blue as I don't have much left.  The blocks were 2 1/4 instead of 2 1/2 because that was the size of strips that were left over from the original project.  It was fun to make and gave me a lot of ideas for other scraps that I love!   I would love to do an entire quilt like this and I just might!  Happy Quilting!!

Chevron Love

 We are expecting a new little girl in the family this fall, so I was very  excited to make her a quilt!  I wanted to try zig zags with white and I had pinned some choices on pinterest. My niece chose one very similar to this one.  More chevron than zig zag and I love the mixture of different fabrics in each row.  I was so happy to find everything I needed at my local QS,  Nancy's Calicos!  I pulled the colors from many different lines of fabric, Nancy's Calico  recently added a modern quilt section, and all of the fabrics came from that section.  The link on pinterest didn't offer any information about the quilt, who designed it or where to get the pattern.  So I figured it out the best I could, I think I made my blocks (accidentally) 1/2" smaller than the quilt on pinterest, but it still turned out a nice size.    I also made 14 burp cloths from the same fabric using dimensions that my niece sent me.  She had wanted me to use towels as the        



backing, but I couldn't find any in the right color or that didn't pull easily.  I used very soft and fluffy fabrics from JoAnnes.  My long arm  finally returned repaired after  9 1/2 weeks, so I was a bit rusty quilting, especially the straight lines.  All in all, I like the designs of the quilting and overall, I LOVE the quilt!  Happy Quilting!!

Finish it up Friday

Had very little left to do on this puppy towel, just needed to  sew the tail, stuff it, sew it on the towel and hem the bottom of the towel - done!   I used a towel that was on sale at Target for $2.   This is a play towel, so I don't care what my GN does with it, but I will never buy that brand again, the strings pull out with the slightest touch!  I was sewing the tail on and some of the threads pulled out.   I  also finished figuring out the Elmo towel, I was not using directions for either towel, kind of just figuring it out as I go.  I cut up the entire red towel trying to figure that one out, I will buy a better quality red towel to sew one up to send.  Once I finally got the hood done, I didn't have any towel left!  Did remember to write down the basic directions, now to find a good red towel before I forget where they are.  Happy sewing or quilting!

May Day, May Day!

Wow!  It is alarming at how much time has past without blogging, and also without out as much sewing as I would like.   I am finally feeling much better.  The long and the short of it is that I have discovered I am lactose intolerant and have celiac's disease.  Many things I can no longer eat, lot's of changes to my baking, but I feel so much better. Could be better, could be lots worse!   In spite of it
all I have gotten a few things done here and there, trying to get back at it!  First I sewed the snaps on this little needle keeper that was a little class at a guild meeting.     
 Also in March I made a March Table Topper.  I tried the pattern for March, but it was just coming out so wonky and since I wasn't in love with it, I used the fabric in the kit and redid February's pattern but used a fabric shamrock instead of a wool heart.  (no green wool).
 For April's table topper I revisited a pattern I created for a wall hanging called April Showers.   I enlarged the umbrella's a bit to fit in a larger block so that it would be close to the same size as the other table toppers, it's about 1 3/4" smaller.  I added the 16 patches and love how they pull it all together.   I am working from my scraps so I couldn't make the border as wide as I wanted, my largest pieces are fat quarters except for the solids. I have more of the table toppers started, one is also a Christmas project of the month, but I ran out of the solids and I had to order the fabric via mail and am waiting for it to arrive.

All that was done in March, in April I started out trying to catch up on my long arm work and I was doing pretty well, then my machine started acting up and I had to wait for the weekend for my DH to come home and look at it, and then it needed parts so we're waiting for those.  It will be nice if they come before this weekend, otherwise it will be another week until he can install said parts.  In the meantime, my DH had two birthday parties to attend, and wanted purses for gifts.  She chose the fabrics, styles and the sizes.  I had to machine quilt them on my Janome, at first I was aghast at how wonky it was, but I used variegated threads and quilted heavily and now I love how they turned out.  So does she, and most importantly - her friends were thrilled ! 

 

 It was my turn to host the Quilting Sister's Bee and since many of the ladies were off and about we had a pretty small group.  Since I have a pretty small house it was perfect for doing a small project with sewing machines, normally I don't have enough room to set up everyone's sewing machine so the small numbers worked well.   I taught the ladies the quilt as you go reversible strip purse, I finished two that were WISP's and I have one more waiting in the wings.  Instead of using purchased handles, I made my own handles from coordinating fabric this time.  Well, that's it for me so far - some neat projects coming up, just need to finish up some things so I can start on some fun stuff!  Now I'm off to check to see if the mailman has brought me anything good today.   Happy Quilting!

  

March Finish

Looks like I have two finishes for March, doesn't it?  That would be nice but I am still not feeling 100 % , and unfortunately the children's school and sports activities are going full throttle with only myself to take them to and fro.   I was able to finish this in time as a birthday gift for my Step Mother in Law.  She loves red and is a fabulous cook, so I thought she might enjoy this apron.  I used my stash, and I noticed that I usually only by 1 yard pieces of my favorite colors, black, white and red.  That will have to change as I need nearly 2 yards of the main fabric to make this apron.  I improvised and used a different color for the back/lining of the apron.  If only the ruffle was a fabric that was reversible, but I didn't have any of that.   Perhaps I could have made the ruffle different, cut the strips wider and folded it in half?  I'm not sure that it would have been to heavy?  I didn't have enough time to play with it, but I love the colors of both sides.  The photo on the left is actually the "right" side.   Happy Quilting!

February's 1 XMAS a Month Item

I loved the Christmas Apron that I made one of my neices for Christmas last year, so when my local quilt shop placed their Christmas fabric on sale right before New Years Eve I just had to see if there were any fabrics that would work well for another Christmas Apron.  I literally arrived on the last day of the sale with barely an hour to spare, so the choices were sparse.  I do love the print and am very happy with it.  The red striped fabric for the ruffle and top straps was actually with a line of patriotic fabric and the green was found elsewhere in the shop as well.

 This quilt bag is not actually another Christmas gift, I made it for another customer with a beautiful huge quilt.  Sadly, you do not see the quilt in the bag because two days after I finished the bag, I caught a persistant stomach bug that gave me 48 hours of total misery.  I could barely do much of anything the following day, now I'm feeling stronger every hour, but I still don't dare eat anything exciting and have now been caffine free for four days.  I so miss my coffee, but as I must have cream in it, I don't dare chance it quite yet.   I haven't even looked into my studio, it would just make me feel worse.   I hadn't quilted her quilt yet!  Darn it, now I'm behind again!  

I will be happy, when I am quilting again!

Happy Valentine's Day!!

 A couple of sweet table toppers finished, just in time for their big day!  These are the second in the table topper of the month series by Cotton Way.  I bought the kit with the pattern and I decided to add fabrics from my stash (the plaids and white with hearts) and I mixed the fabrics together and was able to make two!   


These are cute little Valentines that my DD whipped up last night, they only took her about 30 minutes.   I got the idea from pinterest, except they used brown paper and cut out the shape of a pumpkin and used a large running stitch around them.   I gave my DD scrap booking paper to use and figured a zig zag stitch would be easier and more forgiving for her.  She cut out the hearts, sewed them up 3/4 of the way around, filled them with milk and dark chocolate m&m's and then sewed up the gap to seal them up.  She had to go around a couple of them a little extra in spots where she kind of slipped off, but she really improved as she went!  Hope your Valentine's Day is full of love and Laughter.  Happy Quilting !