Monday, October 29, 2012

taa daaahhh

Seasonal calendar is all done.  

Two weeks ahead of time before the next block (mini quilt) patterns are handed out at guild.  

Here is the Fall pumpkin completed.

with a little close up to see the vine stitch my Elna does. 


Base quilt is done.  (other than I have to get rid of my marking lines)


hmmm.....looks like "angry eyes" up there.  LOL

Here's a close up of my quilting.  


Taaa-daaa!

Finished project.


Next will be a snowman and a Santa. 

Stay tuned.  

Saturday, October 27, 2012

What am I working on?

I am going to call it a calendar, but it really isn't.

It's a block of the month, but it really isn't a block.

Our guild is offering a monthly pattern for the calendar/BOM and the first part is the background "quilt".  I am doing it mostly in homespuns, but my stash is made up of fat quarters  or smaller.  


So my friend Sandy over at http://sewthisismyblog.blogspot.com/ sent me her "beloved" stash of homespuns (actually I can't imagine her using homespuns, so don't know how that happened) and I ordered some larger pieces  on line.  I couldn't really get started without the extra pieces, so lo and behold, they both showed up yesterday while I was watching my little guy, Cole. 


He was my helper and wanted to sew with me, so first we opened the packages and this is what I got from Sandy. 


and this was my order.


So I started cutting and laying out the first quilt (each month is its own little quilt).


Then sewn together.


Unusual, huh?  Well this is the base quilt "top" and  the lighter section is where little quilts will hang that represent each month.

Next step is fusing the hearts and letters down the side  in either the family name or "welcome".  


This is the little quilt for October that is all stitched and ready to quilt.


This shows the "welcome" added to the background quilt. (both are just flimsys here)


I still have a lot of work to do on the  background quilt.  Machine applique the hearts and the letters, layer the quilt and quilt it, then bind it.  But as you can see above the little quilt is a little farther along.  

I have to have both of these 100% done before I can get next month's patterns and I believe we will be getting two ....a snowman and a santa.  

If you have the fabric, it makes getting things done a lot easier, so I am hoping to have these both done in plenty of time.  

I'll post pictures of the two completed quilts hopefully very soon. 

Saturday, October 13, 2012

Odds and Ends.....

When it comes to sewing lately I feel like all I get accomplished  are "odds and ends" and that is what  happened today in the sewing room. 
 
I was going through my pile of quilt tops "to be quilted" and realized the backing for my charity quilt ....
 
 
wasn't big enough to go on a longarm, so I cut it in half and added three rows of fabric similar to the front of the quilt.
 
 
Then before putting the fabric away, I made the binding.
 
 
Then while I was digging around, I found this little needle punch that I had made several years ago (I am ashamed to admit that!) and thought, I am not going through another Fall/Halloween without having this put together in the frame that I already had and get it displayed.  What was I waiting for?  It took no time at all to put it all together.
 
 
Oh, and by the way, the little witch sitting there on the table that I painted numerous years ago.....she is holding a little bouquet of flowers.  I just love her, but my little, 3-year-old grandson looked at her a little differently.  He quietly asked his mom "why is that witch showing her "private parts"?   Good grief....he is looking at her hands thinking it is cleavage.  LOL.... I will never be able to look at her in the same way.  You know.....kids say the darnedest things!
 
So, now I am sitting make some yo-yos to adorn one of the two quilt labels that I made this afternoon, too.
 
 
So, hopefully tomorrow I will be spending a good part of the day in the sewing room again and the first thing I will be doing is applying these little numbers in a floral type arrangement around one of  my quilt labels. 
 
That's it for me today.  Not much, but it's something.  I guess a little progress is better than nothing. 
 


Sunday, October 7, 2012

Miscuts = design decisions

I don't know what's going on with my head lately, but  in the last one week, I have made two....yes...I said "two" mis-cuts on the backing for my Swoon quilt.
 
 
 
I bought 6 yards of the aqua houndstooth to make the backing.
 
One seam...that's all I wanted to do.  I was just a few inches short to do a vertical cut, so I decided to do three horizontal pieces.  Don't know what I was thinking, but this is where I made the first mis-cut where I didn't make it wide enough. 
 
Put it away.....
 
Then a week later, I decided to get at it again.  Thought I had it all figured out and did the necessary piecing and lo and behold, I forgot to add the necessary 4" all around for the longarmer.  That's another 8" that needed to be added. (sigh)
 
This backing was turning into a real chore.
 
Anyways, it is done now with two miscuts/design decisions later. Here it is (folded) showing the asymmetrical aqua dots.  I am sure it will look "interesting once it is all together. 
 
 
Binding was made (without a problem, thank goodness).
 
 
And now the quilt is on the "to be quilted" pile.
 
I even got around to printing the label for the BTCT quilt tonight, too. 
 
I am so ready to start something new.
 
 
 
 
 
 


Thursday, October 4, 2012

Nancy's teeny, tiny log cabins

A couple times I have posted pictures of my friends' "works in progress" and each time I do, I get lots of questions regarding Nancy's little log cabins. 


This is what she had up on the design wall last month when we went up north  for our mini retreat.  

The picture is very deceiving  and hard to imagine just how small these little buggers are.
So, Nancy was kind enough to send me some blow by blow instructions on these beautiful blocks. 

First, she starts with the paper piece pattern.  Yesssss, that says 3 inches!


Here is  one little log cabin.....which is just one quarter of each block.


Here we have four "like" logs.


....and here is a finished block.


This is one of the "66" that you see at the top of this post!!!

Lots of work, huh?!!

Below are the actual comments Nancy sent to me regarding how she puts these together.

Picture 1 is of the paper pattern that I used to paper piece each little block. In the picture I indicated the size (3" x 3") of one log cabin block.


Picture 2 is showing the front and back of the trimmed block.

Picture 3 shows 4 identical blocks and how they will lay in each completed 5 1/2" block.

Picture 4 is the completed 5 1/2" block.

I should have also mentioned that I take the paper off the back of each little log cabin before I sew the 4 units together.....it makes it easier to sew the 4 together. I press the seams open when putting the 4 blocks together. It takes some of the bulk out of the center of the block.


I have to say, that Nancy is enjoying putting these blocks together. She has been working on them for awhile, but when she tires of them, she puts them away and then they come out again at another time.  

The three of us ....Sharon, Nancy and myself.....


did some brainstorming for Nancy while we were there.   How much bigger should the quilt get?  Should it ALL be log cabins.  Should she stop now and make borders?  Maybe an applique border?  Make it a big quilt?  Make it a small quilt?

I am thinking whatever Nancy decides to do with these log cabin blocks, it is going to be a beautiful, show stopping, awe inspiring quilt.  

Thank you Nancy for sharing this with us. 

Anyone wanna put your 2 cents in?


Michigan quilters, take note

  Come see us at our first Quilter's to Quilter's sale.   Don't know what that is?  Well, it will be 28 quilters/vendors selling...