Falling Triangles

Hello Kitty LoneStar

One of my friends has an adorable little girl named Juliet. Juliet loves Hello Kitty.

This one will be for Juliet.  I'm waiting on a fabric order for a border for this one.  The first border is going to be a thin red border and then Hello Kitty for a wider border.

It's up on the design "wall" and I'm just not tall enough to get it wide enough or high enough on the wall for it to lay smooth.  But, rest assured that it is smooth.

Show Quilt Sneak Peek part 2

So I know I said I wouldn't post the final quilt, and I won't, but I will post a small sneak peek of the quilting in the fan blades. :)

"Cracked" Pot - Focus Picked

So, guess what.  Based on my INFJ nature, I thought I might have a directional print stuffed somewhere in my stash, and went looking.  I did have something awesome.  :) 

Now I just have to pick coordinating fabrics. :)  This is going to be very fun.


I'll be able to use up my oranges and yellows.  Who knew that orange was going to be considered a "dark"?!?

Show Quilt - Top done

My quilt Pieces of Me is going to be shown with Stretching Art and Tradition exhibit at the Philadelphia National Quilt Extravaganza XX held September 19-22, 2013.  I'm so excited to be participating in it.  My quilt won't be judged, just exhibited.

The theme is Hi, it's Me!  so I've been working on Dresden Plates because of the circular nature of life.   I wanted to start out with larger ones and work towards smaller ones, all with things that represent who I am.

My husband helped me come up with the center idea of putting my silhouette in the center and as the Dresdens go from larger to smaller have a piece of the silhouette covered up.

So, let me share a bit of what each Dresden represents.

Pink and Purple - my DD's favorite colors and represents me as a woman.
Blue and Anchors - my Dad used to be a commercial fisherman, I grew up at the NJ shore and had a boat before I had a car.
England and Red Paisley - my love of travel, DH is from England originally and I was in Puerto Rico studying Spanish.
Coffee Beans and Blues and Browns - One of the things I love, coffee.  The blues and browns represent my love of Mother Earth and Nature.
Pencils and Cream Crosses - My profession as a teacher and my faith.
American Patriotic - I'm American, part Native American, and where a lot of my roots are.

I'm not showing off the final outcome with the quilting.. but I will share that it's bound in dark green. :)

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.

The Big Reveal: Rainbow Carpenters Star

Here's the finished Carpenters Star.

Add borders if you want, then quilt and bind.

There you go - a Carpenters Star quilt without any Y seams. :-)

All previous parts to the tutorial/sew along:

Stitching The Rows Together 

Row Stitching Instructions 

Cutting Instructions 

The Beginning: Picking Fabrics 

All that's left is for me to decide if I'm adding borders, or not and the quilting.  I've got a few ideas on how to quilt it, just need some time.

Picking the thread to quilt it.  A friend taught me to NOT lay the spools of thread on the quilt top like this:

And why not you ask?  Good question.  Thank you Jess for helping me out. :)  If the thread is all coiled up on the spool you won't get a good idea of how it would look laid out over the different colors of the quilt.  What should be done is to pull some of the thread off the spool and lay it over the quilt top more or less what it would look like if it was quilted.   Try it on the different colors and see what works for your particular quilt top.  It also depends on if you want the thread to blend in or stand out highlighting the quilting.

For me, I picked the rainbow thread.  See how pretty it looks?  Now all I have to do is decide on the quilting motifs.  If you've got any suggestions - I'm open to them! :)

Sew Along - Stitching the Rows Together

A more detailed explanation of how to sew each row together is coming along shortly. I need to get my husband to help with the computer aspect of labeling things. 

Two rows together:

Halfway point:

Using 8.5" *unfinished) squares, it currently is 32.5"x64.5" (unfinished)

 

Ok.. I really need to get a design wall. The floor thing isn't working out to well. LOL.

Previous Parts to this Sew Along:

Sewing Instructions

Cutting Instructions

Choosing Fabrics

Sew Along - Rainbow Carpenter Star - Cutting Instructions

All righty!! Ready to do some cutting?

 

From your BACKGROUND - 16 SQUARES, 32 TRIANGLES

Dark Red - 4 Triangles

Red - 4 Triangles

Pink/Rose - 8 Triangles

Light Purple - 4 Triangles

Dark Purple - 4 Triangles

Blue - 8 Triangles

Teal - 4 Triangles

Dark Green - 8 Triangles

Light Green - 4 Triangles

Yellow - 4 Triangles

Tan - 4 Triangles

Orange - 8 Triangles

When you do the cutting and trimming, make sure that you're consistent with the rulers that you use. Whatever ruler you use to cut your squares - use that one to square up your Half Square triangle blocks. Consistency is important.  Over the years I've found that each ruler is slightly different - so whichever ruler you start cutting with, keep using that ruler. It'll save you a ton of heartache.

New Miniature Machine

It's cute, and pink. And I just won it on eBay. I actually bid on it so my little friend can sew with me, and it wasn't too expensive so if she doesn't like it, it's just precious. There's a little bit of wear and tear on it, but still, how precious is this? I know.. I know.. I'm gushing.

When she's asleep I might just have to make some of my Dear Jane blocks on it..  wonder what DD is going to name this gorgeous little one?

These are the pictures from the eBay auction - I paid about 10 minutes after winning the bid.

It measures 4.5" x 7"!  So I'm not out a lot of space if my little one doesn't want to sew.

But when I showed her the photos, I was told that I am "the best mommy in the whole wide world" and that "we're going to make some quilts together right mommy?" Makes me so happy!! :-)

Maybe I should start cutting up some fabric into manageable squares for her, huh? And cut some nice batting fabric so she can quilt her own doll quilts. :-)

Spring/Summer Runner

Made this one earlier today.  I know it's a finish the UFO year, not start a new one, but I just had to. Major quilting add.. it needed to be made. Just needs to be sandwiched, quilted and bound.  I'm going to be quilting it with flowers. It'll be so pretty!

Whoo Whoo's cute?

Joann Fabrics had this adorable owl fabric. Of course a yard and a half popped into my basket. I fussy cut the owls out and cut up my scraps to make wonky log cabin blocks.  I'm going to make each one measure about 14.5" unfinished so it'll be a really nice size quilt. 

And I'm using up my scraps which will be the best part ever. I have so many scraps I just need to tame them. This should help.

Look - wonky log cabins with the owls as the center:

 

Needing to be trimmed:

 

One complete block done and in the tub:

 

Aww, what a cutie patootie:

Whoo couldn't love those eyes?  Since there's so many colors in the owls anything goes - the best part ever for using my scraps!!

Baby Shower Gift - Complete and Ready to Gift

So one of my friends is having her very first baby in a month and the shower's coming up soon.  I let her pick the pattern and colors and I made her a quilt.

Since the little girl is not yet named because the parents are still deciding on names, on the label I just put a generic Baby XXXXX.

All completed on my tiny Brother sewing machine. This was the machine that I got when my Singer went on the fritz and I needed a backup for my backup.  So it's not the best quilting job in the world, but when you're attempting to quilt something this large in such a small throat space, I think it turned out all right.

Measures 52"x52".  So not only is it a good size for a newborn, but also for a toddler to drag around.

Having a "Crumby" time..

Well, not really. I'm not in a bad mood or anything! While blog hopping again, I found Bonnie Hunter's awesome tutorial on crumb blocks again.  Naturally, I just *had* to try them again.

I think at one point I started making crumb blocks, but they got put to the side, and the scraps just went into a Rubbermaid bin. And I kept making bigger things, and the scraps kept adding up. So I went digging into the pile and started randomly sewing pieces together.

Instead of trimming the blocks at 4" (because that's way too small for me!) I made mine 6.5" unfinished - the size of one of my most used rulers.

Because I'm super geeky, I'm putting a little sticky tab on the back of each block with the row it should go in, and the total number of pieces used. I'm hoping to embroider the number on the label when I finally get the quilt done. It'll be my big work in progress, but I'll get there eventually.

Received Boom Blocks

Wow. I've received a few Boom 6 Blocks. I'm so excited.

Cheerful Garden, a Lap Quilt

It's still un-named, and unbound - but it'll be getting bound in a dark pink. If anyone has some name suggestions I'm open for a name. I'm leaning towards Cheerful Garden for the name, but I'm not sure.

My mom went to AC Moore for something for Christmas and called me and said, "They have fabric, I picked you up something round." I had no idea, but it was a Fabric Expressions jelly roll. Since Mom doesn't quilt or like working with fabric this was so impressive. (and the Jelly Roll was the 'round' thing)

I decided to whip up a lap quilt with it. I'm so happy with how it came out! My DD picked out the backing fabric - it's actually leftover seersucker from when I made her a dress. The quilt is 40"x40" and I didn't have a pattern, I just made it up as I went along.

I had a few issues with the FMQ - the thread kept breaking, but it might have just been the June Taylor basting spray. I think where the thread broke it was on too thick. I did spray it thick in a couple spots.

It was FMQ'd on my Singer Confidence. I'm not the biggest fan of the machine, but I'm starting to like it more, especially for FMQ. Please ignore some of my boo-boos, I'm not the worlds greatest at FMQ.

Best view of the quilt: It's 40x40


FMQ Close Up #1


FMQ Close Up #2


FMQ Close Up #3


Best shot I got of the backing:

And it begins again.. Boomerang 6

I'm INSANE. Yep. I've joined Boomerang Six! I joined 2 groups again, and said that I'd be a standby if a small group needed someone else to "play."

I swear, sometimes I really think that if I didn't do these Boom swaps I'd never get any large quilts made.

Wanna sneak peek of what I'm sending for one group? Curious as to what 35 envelopes stuffed with a Fat Eighth looks like?? Sure, I know you are! And of course I live to share!

This particular fabric I've been holding onto for 6 years or so (I think.) It's a Robert Kaufmann print and I just love it to pieces. I finally made the first cuts into it. Let me tell you - cutting it hurt, but at the end of this Boom, I'll finally have a quilt for MYSELF!!!



I only had enough of the coffee print fabric for 16 envelopes (I've designated myself to making 4 blocks with this print...) So.. this is what 16 envelopes looks like stuffed with the F8th, a letter - the original is handwritten but I photocopied it - and no addresses on the envelopes or stamps just yet.


And this fabric is going to be for DD. She picked it, she wants bright happy colors. Since there are 35 people I send to, and I'd already had 16 people, there are 19 Fat Eighths here, and I'll be making some blocks with the leftover fabric I have. I'm sending out 10 yellow Elmo F8ths, and 9 Pink. DD told me that I have to make her at least one pink block - so there's the 20th block.




And here is a photo of what 35 envelopes looks like! Each has a letter inside it, and the F8th in a baggie.



Now, all I have to do is decide on what I'm sending out to the second group. I do have an idea, but I think it'll be a surprise - and I'll post all the blocks as I receive them and maybe someone can guess. :)