The UFOs are getting finished..

Three more UFOs are done and off the list! :)  I'm so happy.  

First up in a miniature Panda quilt.  Quilted on a really crappy machine mostly by me (in 2011 - thank goodness that I've improved!!) and partially by my hubby who was trying to fix my tension issues.  It's cute, but I'm not in love with it (hence why it was a UFO for so long). Started it in 2011, finished on June 16, 2013.  *Jumping for joy* it's done.

 

Next up is another fairy quilt.  It's my own pattern, quilted mainly by my 4 year old.  She wanted to help me, so I let her.  This one was going to be my sample quilt for my Craftsy shop, but I'll probably be making another one for the display picture.  Kiddo wants to use it as a doll quilt (and it's already in use)

No more cutting Hexagons!

So I'm a lucky lucky girl. 

It might be Fathers Day, but my hubby got *me* a present. He bought it on EBay - it's a Creative Memories punch. Makes 1 1/4 and 1 1/2 inch hexagons. And he also got me the smaller one 3/4 inch and 1 inch. :)

Yahoo!!  No more hand cutting for me. Just slide the paper in and punch.  I have a ton of file folders that are too big, and I had to trim them up so there's a ton of extra manila around.  :) 

 

Added 2 More UFOs.. whoops

Well, at least they won't be UFOs for long.

Seriously - don't laugh.  I have DEADLINES for these!!

This one is going to a friend who is retiring on Friday the 21st.  Yes, you read that right.  This coming Friday.  I've made 4 of these blocks - thank you to Missouri Star Quilt Co for the amazing and easy tutorial.  When it's done (no later than Friday!!)  It'll be 52x52.  This picture was taken before I added sashing - so it's bigger now.

And this one is for a good friend of mine who just had a little girl.  Since I took the picture, I've evened up each side and added a 3 inch light green border.  Now all I need to do is quilt it.  It's all sandwiched.  My idea is to quilt the babys name in the purple tumblers and loose stipple in the bunny.  Once it's done the quilt is getting shipped off to the adorable girl in Ireland.

Berenstain Bears - UFO Done!

Beam another one up! 
Another UFO is now able to be snuggled under.

Here's a picture of the Berenstain Bears quilt hot off the machine.  It's not the best quilting job ever, but the kiddo wanted this quilt ASAP. Once I got the tension issues fixed up which took about an hour or so I was good to go!

 

I'll have to get a good picture of it after the kiddo wakes up tomorrow.  Rarely do I do a total machine binding (usually I hand stitch on the back) but kiddo wanted this quilt so much I got it done as fast as I could by doing the entire binding by machine.  It went really quickly and it's not perfect but it's done and kiddo loves it, so that means it's ok with me.

First attempt at Ripple Crochet

My Mother In Law taught me to crochet earlier this year, and I like it.  I don't know any fancy stitches yet, but hopefully soon I'll start learning more advanced things.

One of the girls in my quilting group showed us a photo of a crochet afghan she's making and it's a ripple crochet.  Then she posted a link to the awesome tutorial she followed. The tutorial can be found here at The Lazy Hobbyhopper.  It's a great tutorial full of photos that detail each step.

Without further ado, here is my first attempt at ripple crochet. Despite the crappy photo the yarn is really a honeydew green.

 

And further progress:  

4 rows of honeydew green and soon to be 4 rows of camouflage.  After that, I'll do another 4 rows of the honeydew green. 

Moving beyond Stippling (part 1)

Part 1

Disclaimer: By no means am I an expert at free motion quilting. This is ONE method of doing free motion quilting and there are hundreds of different ways. No way is more "right" or "wrong" than others.  You have to find the way or ways that work for you.  Depending on the size of the throat of your machine, you might have to blend a few ways into something that you can work with.

What you need:

A Quilt Top

Here's the top I'll be using.

 

Tracing Paper; a Pen; Stencil; Quilting Pattern

 

What you do:

Do a rough layout on your quilt as to where you want the quilting pattern to go.  Test it out - see if it fits.  Play around, you may need to use a photocopier to shrink a quilting pattern. 

 

Play with the stencil/s. See if it fits your quilt.  It's a process of trial and error. Sometimes they fit, sometimes they don't.  If you're very new to free motion quilting, stick with stencils that are "continuous line" to quilt.  That just means you're not going to start and stop. The whole design will be quilted with ONE huge line. 

 

Once you've settled on a design, trace the design on tissue paper.

I'd suggest cutting a square, but I forgot to take a picture. Sorry!  So, cut a piece of tissue paper, and trace the stencil onto the tissue paper. If your fabric is dark, pick an ink color that you can see (doesn't matter what color, you'll be quilting over it. Yes, you're actually going to be quilting ON the tissue paper.

 

Here's a (kinda bad) picture of the traced stencil.

  

Once you've settled on a design for the border, trace the design on tissue paper. Make as many as you need. Since my quilt is square, I need 4 corner pieces.

 

If it's a pattern that I'll need more than once (as in the case with the corners) I'll trace one and then check to make sure it fits. It does, so I'll trace 3 more.

Then, continue to trace the rest of the pattern.  The one that I chose to use for this quilt had the corner pieces as well as the border pieces. I got the free pattern at Forest Quilting. 

  

When you're done tracing the borders, lay out the tissue paper on the quilt top and see what you think of it.

 

If you notice, I didn't do the zig zag part yet, or the outer border. I ran out of time tonight, and to be honest, I'm still thinking on how I want to quilt those parts. For right now, I'm thinking that the inner tan part will have small feathers, and maybe pebbling in the zig zag - I'm not quite sure. :)

Real life is going to be kinda crazy the next few days, but I promise that I'll get back to the tutorial next week after I have some time to think on how I want to quilt this one! :)


As another side note:
There are some amazing quilting motifs out there, and a lot are free.  If you like one, don't hesitate to download it/print it/buy it. It is important to note the name of the designer of the motif, especially if you want to put the quilt in a show.


The site that I got the free pattern for the border from is Forest Quilting. Stop by her site, she has a ton of free Quilting Motifs and a bunch of free paper piecing patterns.

And BINGO was her Game-o

In my quilt group, UFOQueen, there's a BINGO game going around.  We get to print out a Bingo board and fill it in with our UFOs.  Then two numbers are called each month and it's our challenge to get those UFOs finished.

Other rules state that we can work on other UFOs in the meantime.  If we complete those UFOs before that number is called, then we can treat that as a wild and work on finishing another UFO.

Here's hoping this gets 24 UFOs off of my plate.

My BINGO board: