A Late Christmas Quilt

Looking at the date of my last post I realize it is almost two months since my last post.  My life has been so busy since then.  We are no longer babysitting weekly since our son and family have moved out of the area.  We are now providing doggie daycare for our daughter's doggies.  If it is not one thing, it is another around here!  LOL!  My husband and I really miss the grandbabies.

The picture above is of a Christmas quilt that I donated to our guild's November raffle.  It is Bonnie H. Hunter's Carolina Christmas pattern.  I sewed it along with Bonnie (and many other quilters) from directions on Bonnie's blog back in 2009/10.  The top sat in the stack of "to be quilted" tops.  A couple of years ago I had it machine quilted.  The quilter did a super job on the quilting.  Then the top sat in the "to be bound" pile until I finally pulled it out a couple of months ago and completed the binding.  At that time I was in a binding frenzy and five or six quilts received bindings, one after another.  When I finished the binding on the Carolina Christmas quilt I needed a break!

There are still a couple more big quilts that need binding.  I also have a few tops that I need to finish before anymore binding happens.

I wish you all a Happy and Prosperous New Year.

Happy Quilting

Happy Halloween

Here is my latest finished Halloween quilt.  I donated this quilt to my quilt guild for their monthly raffle.  This quilt was made as a sample for a class I taught over a year ago for my quilt guild.  The class was lots of fun and many of the students finished their quilts and they were displayed at our quilt show last July.

This quilt was the second sample for my class.  My first sample was finished and gifted to a friend's granddaughter who was going through some tough dental work.

This is a pattern from the Missouri Star Quilt Company.  It was called the Tea Bag quilt when I first saw it, but it was renamed One Lump or Two when it appeared in a Quilting Quickly magazine.  Ten inch squares are the basis of this pattern.  It is really easy-peasy.  It sews up fast and is great in so many different fabrics.

The best part of this story is that a dear friend won this quilt.  I was so happy for her.  She decorates her house each month with different theme quilts and accessories.

If you celebrate Halloween, I hope you have a fun Halloween and get lots of goodies.

Happy Quilting
 

New Patriotic Quilt Top

A quilt group of which I am a member have exchanged sets of blocks twice this year.  The quilter who receives the blocks in this exchange will make a quilt top from the blocks they receive.  Last weekend our quilt group exchanged the quilt tops that we made from the exchange blocks we received at our last get together a few months ago.  This picture is the quilt top that was made with a set of my patriotic blocks.   It is a fun design and I like it a lot.  I am so happy to see these blocks put together.  They have sat in a bag in my sewing room for several years just waiting for their moment in time to shine.  They do shine in this quilt. There is patchwork, applique and embroidery in this top.

The quilt top that I made from a friend's blocks has a St. Patrick's Day theme.   It was fun to see all the different quilt tops finished with other quilters blocks.  It always gives me inspiration to sew my blocks together.  I will post a picture of it after she receives her quilt top.  She was not at our exchange so I brought her top home.  I hope we can get together soon so I can give her the top I made for her.

Happy Quilting

Granddaughter's Posies

This picture is of a grouping of flowers and leaves that my 4 year old granddaughter put together the other day.  She asked me to take a picture of it.  I told her it was so pretty.  I thought she may be a floral designer when she grows up.  She loves to pull all the blossoms off the plants, and leaves off the bushes and trees that she can reach.  So you know there are no flowers blossoming below four feet, only the tops of the bushes have blooming flowers!

I do not have a quilt to show in this post only because I forgot to take a picture of my Halloween quilt that I donated to our quilt guild for October's monthly raffle.  Hopefully I will be able to take a picture of it before it is given away at the monthly guild meeting next week. 

Happy Quilting and Flower Gathering

Car Themed Quilt

 

Here is a picture of a car themed quilt that I made for a friend of my husband.  Our friend has a collection of cars, one of which is under the blue tarp behind the quilt.  That car is an old Cadillac (that I would love to own).  Our friend has various other cars including a Jaguar, a Camaro, and a Porsche.  He is a great guy.  I had been collecting car fabrics for a couple of years.  When our friend became sick I decided that I should get his quilt finished and gifted to him.  The pattern I used was Turning Twenty Again.  It was a challenge trying to decide where to place the blocks and in what orientation.  I finally decided to just go for it and get it sewn together.

  

Play Mat

This is a little play mat that I sewed up for my grandson.  He loves to play with his cars and trains.  Since this piece was small enough, I quilted this myself on my sewing machine.  I was so excited when I finished it.  I just knew he would love it.

The grands came over to play with Grandma and Grandpa one day.  I presented the little guy with his play mat.  He was holding one of his cars in his hand.  When he saw the play mat I knew he would be driving that car all over this mat.  This play mat has a vehicle roadway and a  train tracks roadway so I thought that it covered both of the grandson's favorite modes of transportation.

When I brought out the  finished mat to show our grandson I put it on the floor in front of him.  I was so excited to see his reaction.  He looked at it for a couple of minutes then he commented that he did not have any trains to play with.  He then proceeded to get up and run into the kitchen then out the back door.  I thought...wait a minute!  What just happened?  Did Baby Boy just reject the prized play mat that his wonderful grandmother had crafted  so lovingly for him?  All my joy and excitement flew out the window.  My poor heart was broken.  Yes ladies, it was absolutely broken!  This cute-as-a-button two year old had just torn my heart to shreds!  I am not sure I will ever recover!

My hubby tried to boost my spirits by saying that Baby Boy would play with it some day.  Maybe he was too young to be that interested in the play mat at this time.  What is a grandma to do?  Really, what is a grandma to do?  Well, I still really love that little guy but now whenever I see that play mat, I shed a tear!

Happy (sniff) Quilting

Second Posie block finished

This is the second of my Fresh Picked Posies BOM by Piece 'O Cake designs.  I have had this BOM for a while and did not make any of the blocks.  I sewed up the first block a while ago.  Since I have so many applique projects in progress, I decided I need to get busy working on them.

When I started to applique this block, I could tell that my skills were lagging.  I remember my applique teacher saying that she had good applique days and bad applique days.  She also said that if she did not applique for a while, she had to find her rhythm again.  I certainly had lost my rhythm for sure.  By the time I was over half way through this block, I felt that I had made good progress toward my goal of finding my rhythm again. 

Next I want to pull out my Whimsical Garden blocks and sew up another one of those blocks.  I have several Piece 'O Cake projects in the works.  Some almost finished and some just barely half way done.  Time, time, I need more time!  LOL!

Happy Quilting

A found quilt top

This picture is of a found quilt top.  I found it in a bag in my first sewing room with another quilt top while I was cleaning this sewing room out in preparation to move into my current sewing room.  I have no idea where I obtained these quilt tops.  It could possibly be from a silent auction at our quilt guild Camp Stitches event.

Last month I trimmed the edges and bound this quilt.  I still have the second quilt from the "found" bag to trim and bind.

But the best part of this is that I found a home for both quilts.  My DIL's mother (Julia) said she wanted me to make a quilt for her.  I told my DIL that I had some quilts already finished and would like her mother to see them before we talked about making a new quilt.  I would be glad to make her a quilt, but since I have so many finished quilts that are not being used, I was hoping she could find one she liked in my quilt stash.

DIL and her mother came by today (with my darling grandbabies in tow).  I had pulled out a couple of quilts last night in preparation for the viewing today.    I thought Julia was only looking for a king size quilt for her bed.  She decided on one of the first two quilts that I had picked for viewing.  Then I brought out three other large quilts that still need binding. She liked all three of these quilts, too.  So after I bind those quilts I will gift them to her to use on the other beds they have in the house.

This quilt has an interesting design, yes?  I wonder what this quiltmaker had in mind when she was making this quilt.  Was it intended to be a larger quilt?  Did she become sick and could not finish it?  Maybe she became tired of it and decided to stop where she was at?  Or maybe this is what she had intended for the design all along.  What do you think?

Happy Thinking and Quilting

Quick Strip Quilt

This is a quick quilt that I made with various size strips of fabric (wof) for a friend's grandson.   He is a Thomas Tank Engine fan.  Since I have so much Thomas fabric, it was no problem to cut strips of the fabric and sew them together.  The lesson I learned with this quilt was to measure the width of the fabric and make them all the same length before I sewed them together.  It would have been advantageous of me to do that before, instead of after, sewing the strips together.

On Angie's blog she had posted some strip quilts that she had made.  I thought that these quilts were a great idea for a fast and fun quilt.  Little did I realize that fabrics in the same design line from the same manufacturer would be different widths of fabric, but these were!  It was a challenge for me to line up both sides of the quilt and make it straight.

Before I sent this quilt to the machine quilter there was a Thomas fabric with a black background with the train logos on it (like the yellow fabric in the quilt) sewn on as borders.  When I received the quilt back from the quilter, I decided I could not have this little boy's quilt contain a black border.  So, I cut it off, squared up the quilt again, and sewed on the binding.  I did sew the binding all on the sewing machine.  The more bindings that I sew like that, the better I become at lining up the edges and making proper corners.  It is not my favorite method of sewing on bindings, but it works in a pinch.  Since this quilt will be much loved and used by a three year old boy, I think the binding sew on all by machine is a good decision.  This little grandson can pull and tug on his quilt and hopefully the binding will hold tight.

Donation quilt reaches its destination

This is the donation quilt our quilting bee made.  Last week Roberta (peeking up over the quilt), Jeanne (on the right) and I went to an Alzheimers office to donate our beautiful heart quilt.  In this picture, the lady on the left is Sheila who works at the facility.  She was so sweet and kind.  I can see how she would work well with Alzheimers patients.  The manager came out of a meeting to greet us and accept the quilt as a donation for their upcoming art auction/sale.  We are hoping this quilt will raise lots of money for this Alzheimers organization.

Cindy Carter is the designer of this quilt pattern.  Our quilting group had a fun time making the blocks for this quilt.  I sewed together the blocks and added the borders, Jeanne did the binding and Roberta crafted a great label for the quilt.  One of our members did the machine quilting.  I wish you could see it up close so that you could see the beautiful machine quilting.

Now that this quilt is finished and donated, it is on to our next project.  I truly enjoy working on group projects like this.  It gives me a great sense of community when we can make and donate a beautiful quilt like this to a worthy organization.

A Second Baby Quilt

This is another baby quilt that I finished last week.  It has already been gifted, and the baby boy was born last Friday.  The focal fabric I used in this quilt was left over fabric from another baby quilt that I made for one of our teachers at the school I was working at the time.  I do not remember buying so much of this fabric, but I have enough left to make one, or maybe two more baby quilts.  There were several teachers having babies that year as I remember.  I was making baby quilts for months!  I still make lots of baby quilts it seems.  I think baby quilts are my favorite quilt to make.  They are small, and usually fast to make. 

This quilt top was made in a weekend.  With nine patches and an alternate square of the focal fabric, it went together quickly.  I really like the diagonal pattern made by the nine patches.  My inspiration for this design came from a book by Ursula Reikes, Even More Quilts for Baby Easy as A B C.

Happy Spring and Happy Quilting

Another baby quilt

Part of this quilt is a panel.  I added borders so it was a quick one to do.  I sewed the binding all by machine - my first time using this technique.  I had some issues with the corners, but by the fourth corner, I had conquered the technique.  It certainly was faster than sewing the back down by hand, but I do like to do the binding by hand.  It is satisfying to me to push the needle in and out of the binding.  My corners are better when I hand sew the binding.  I did go back and hand stitch the miters on the corners on this quilt so that the binding on the corners would not pop out at any time.  I also know how much babies like to chew on things.  I was worried our grandson would chew the corner off on his quilt, but it held well, thank goodness!

There are two more baby quilts I have to bind.  I have more time to do these two even though the baby may be born already.  One quilt is for the new baby and the other is for the big brother.  Big brother's baby quilt is really too small for him now even though he will not give it up to his new brother!  So I made him a bigger one.  It ended up much bigger than I had intended.

Yesterday was National Quilting Day.  I joined some sister quilters and actually did some hand quilting on a quilt I am working on that is for my husband.  I have a couple more rows to go before that one is finished.  I hope you had some time to sew or quilt yesterday.  

Happy Quilting
 

First completed UFO for 2014

This is the row quilt I have shared before when it was a completed top.  It is now quilted and bound.  I like it a lot more since it was quilted.  The machine quilter did a great job on the quilting. 

A friend asked me if I would be interested in participating in a row quilt exchange.  Immediately I said yes to that.  The exchange group was started in March 2010.  The rows were completed mid 2011.  It took a few years in the "waiting to be quilted" pile before this quilt rose to the top and was actually quilted.  I finished the binding last weekend.

Last night I took my quilt to my guild's monthly meeting to share it.  There were three other women there who had participated in this row quilt exchange.  They also had brought their finished quilts from our row quilt exchange.  It was great to stand together at show and tell with all our quilts.  It was fun to see what the other ladies had done with their rows. 

If you have an opportunity to participate in a round robin, or a row quilt exchange, please take the opportunity to take part.  Hopefully you will enjoy it as much as I did, and have done.  I have many block exchanges that need to be sewn together.  A few  of those block exchanges made it to the "finished" stage.  This is my first row quilt exchange and my quilt is actually finished, and it is my first UFO finish for the year 2014.  Hooray!