Swoon for French General

I am not sure how long I have had my Swoon top done, but it was back when everyone was Swoon crazy.

I actually used left over fabrics (French General....one of my favorite fabric lines) from my Beyond the Cherry Trees quilt.

It has been sitting on this pile of quilts designated (by me) to be custom quilted. 

Well, I searched online for quilting ideas; I stared at this quilt for a long time; and I procrastinated doing custom because it just wasn't talking to me.  Also, I think because it is so large (80x80) that doing custom ruler work was just too daunting of a job for me especially when I have other quilts that are "speaking" to me in regards to custom quilting.  

So, I  recently received three new pantos in the mail and one of them was designated just for my Swoon.....Diagonal Plaid. 

I am just getting started on it here.  

Here's a couple close ups of the finished quilt.

I had this fabric from Red Rooster "Whimsicals" set aside for this quilt for some time, too. I think it is adorable.

Here's a close up of it quilted.

Binding has been cut out since the top was done.  So machine sewing it onto the quilt  and then having some evening hand stitching to do makes for some enjoyable in front of the TV hand work.  But...hmmmm....how is it I have 6 yards and 7 inches left over of this binding?  Makes me wonder why I made so much.  I usually make a binding for a quilt with just a little left over.  This must have been made for something else? or two quilts? or was I supposed to use it for something else?  I don't know now.  I don't have any other unfinished quilts that this binding would go with.  I am really puzzled by this and what is even more  interesting is that everything for this quilt other than the background was left over fabric from Beyond the Cherry Trees.  So why so much binding?  It's a mystery.

Oh well...... I don't think I am going to remember this one.  I have put a note on the remaining binding so that I know what I have for the next time I do a French General or a red quilt.  

So here's my finished Swoon.   Oh....my arms aren't wide enough!

 

Here's a close up of the binding.

Nothing like getting another quilt completed on  my APQS Millennium and off my UFO list.  

On to the next one! Woohoo!!

  

Plus quilt....

This is another customer quilt.  

My first thought on seeing this quilt was straight line quilting and that did cross the customer's mind, too; but she said she was looking to make this quilt look old.  That is one of the reasons she used red and cream rather than red and white.  

Anyways, designs were running through her head....straight line quilting, a boxy motif and crosshatching were some of her ideas.  

Straight line was definitely modern; and I felt the boxy motif look was modern but too close to the hard lines of the pluses. I like to do the opposite of what the quilt blocks are.  If there are hard edges in the block, then go with curves.   Crosshatching would make the quilt look more antique, but that could get pricey depending on how close the crosshatch was stitched.  

I suggested the Diamonds are Forever pantograph.  It's modern, but gives a bit of a mock up of the crosshatch.

I was liking how the diamonds looked close up.  Once the whole quilt was done though, I think the design really sang for this quilt.

I can't wait to use this panto for something else...maybe for myself!

As always, my customer has great backings for her quilts.

Hope she is pleased with this one.  

What a lovely weekend.....

The weather was great, the fireworks were beautiful, family get togethers were fun and I even had time to work on my quilts.

I made a scappy binding for my very old 9-patch UFO  and completed it.  I sewed several scraps together that I still had gathered for this quilt to make the binding and in one day I sewed it on by machine AND hand sewed it down. 

You can see several different fabrics that I used in the binding in this picture.  A picture of the whole quilt will have to wait until another time when I have extra hands to hold this queen-sized quilt up.  

Then the topper today was when I got home to a package from the Missouri Star Quilt Company.  I hadn't ordered anything, but this is what was inside it. 

A jelly roll called Bunny Tales. 

Well, wouldn't you know....when I bought the magazine for the pattern Babes in Farmland, there was this one other quilt in there that I thought I just had to make.  

I think this fabric will work perfectly for that. 

What do you think?

I am thinking this might just be the ticket for this quilt. 

Thank you Sandy for the nice little surprise.  

Now to decide which UFO is next...hopefully something that I can complete in a short period of time as that gives me a great deal of satisfaction....to see something completed.  

Stay tuned!

Momentum is still at work.....

My little mini retreat last weekend got me motivated and the momentum is still at work.

 

I finished the baby chevron, machine quilted it and put the binding on....just needs a label.

 

Took this off the long arm Thursday.

 

 

I quilted it with "angel wings"

 

Friday night I got the binding on and hand stitched it down. 

 

 

Love my big dot backing. 

 

 

Then today, I got the ABC quilt top put together.

 

 

I have had these two fabrics (the red and the alphabet) in my stash for a good 5-6 years.  The red is called Little Apples by Aneela Hoey for Moda.  Can't wait to get this one on the long arm.  I have in mind what I would like to get for a backing, but I will have to see if I can find it.  So you will be seeing this one again soon, I hope. 

 

Also, today I cut up yardage (and I mean YARDAGE)  of a bright pink and orange "hibiscus" batik that will be the backing for my Hawaiian challenge quilt.  This quilt should be  third in line on the waiting list for the  long arm.  I can't wait to share this one with you. 

 

That's it for now.  Hope to keep this momentum up for awhile.  There are lots of projects in my sewing room calling my name. 

 

Happy quilting!

 

 

 



What? It's been over a month?

Where oh where does  the time go?

 

My last post was in February.  I have been busy sewing, but when you are working on a challenge quilt and you can't share it, it doesn't leave you with much to share.

 

I have plenty to share today though.  I went on a mini retreat with my friends and we had our own little sewing marathon and show and tell. 

 

 

Nancy has been working on a scrappy gray flannel Trips Around the World.

 

 

She, also, threw this beautiful shabby chic quilt top together this weekend.

 

 

She is still plugging away at her courthouse steps.

 

Now as for Sharon....she, too, is working on courthouse steps made from shirts.

 

 

She was, also, putting on the binding on a Bonnie Hunter quilt that she made (sorry, I don't know the name of the quilt. (Sharon let me know that it is called Blue Skies)

 

 

She, too, made a Trips Around the World quilt.  Hers is from salvaged shirts.

 

 

As for me....I worked on a few odds and ends that have been sitting around for some time.

 

 

This is a Ricky Tims "convergence" quilt.  Not one of his usual ones, but it was shown to us at the retreat that I went to last year.  This yard of fabric is sliced up and sewn right back together and then sliced the other way and only moved over one 2" square one way or the other.  My plan is to machine quilt a landscape or something like that on it. 

 

 

I got all these blocks cut out.  It is a quilt that Nancy did a few years ago and I had all the fabrics in my cupboard. Since I am trying to get a few things off my "list", I thought this would be a good one to get sewn together and finished.

 

 

I then pulled out my "Hearts and Hands" and got these three blocks to this point.  I just need to pick out a center circle and get that stitched on and then these will be done.  I am nearing the halfway point of this quilt. 

 

I, also, thought I was going to get started on a hunched back cat Halloween quilt (or at least a block or two ) this weekend, but I forgot my black fabrics.  I did get a few cats traced out on freezer paper, so I will be ready to get going on that as soon as time allows. 

 

Anyways, it was good to get together with friends this weekend.  I think we chatted more than we quilted, but that's ok.  I feel like my mojo is back as far as getting to other things now.  The challenge quilt top is done and I have a baby quilt top done.  I just need to get these quilted.  When I do and when I can, I will share them with you. 

 

Hope to be back soon with more to share.

 

 

 

 

 



Prepping for the holidays.....

It's sure been busy here at our house.  Just last weekend we celebrated Jude's christening.  Yes....I got his gown down in time (three days to spare). 

 

In the meantime, I had my Christmas get together with my mini group, Nancy and Sharon.

 

Here's a look at their show-n-tell.

 

 

Nancy has been working on her yellow and brown basket quilt for some time (it's a work in progress), but she made sure she had some of them together for us so that we could really enjoy them.

 

 

She, also, brought this great green and red quilt that she just had quilted recently.  Love the quilting on this one.

 

 

Love  her whirligig quilt that she just had quilted, too.  Hope you can see the quilting on this one. It's perfect for this quilt. 

 

As for Sharon's quilts, she has this great "shirts" quilt made with men's striped shirts. Love it!! and love the quilting on it, too. 

 



 

She did this fun zig zag quilt in her gray and yellows that I didn't think she would ever cut up.

 

 

 

....and now she is working on another "shirts" quilt that will be made into some form of either a trips around the world or another zig zag quilt. We will have to wait and see how that all turns out. 

 

 

We had a great time getting together for our show-n-tell.  We exchanged some great gifts, too, and one was a promise to get together again up at the farm (Sharon's place ) to sew for a day or two.   Can't wait. 

 

I did want to share with you that I experimented on them for our luncheon and I think it was a big hit. 

 

Taco Soup. 

 

Here is the recipe I used.  It was a quick and easy crock pot meal.

 

Ingredients:

1 lb. ground beef, cooked and drained.

1 can corn

1 can Great Northern Beans (white)

1 can black beans

1 can red beans

1  can diced tomatoes

1 hidden Valley Ranch packet

1 Taco seasoning packet

2 cups water

Tortilla chips

Sour cream

Shredded Cheese.

 

Instructions:

Combine all ingredients in crock pot except tortilla chips and shredded cheese and sour cream.

 

**** do not drain any of the cans. Stir and cover with lid.  Cook on low 6 -8 hours. Service with tortilla chips (crumbled on soup), a dollop of sour cream and some shredded cheese.  YUM..

 

Give it a try.  I think you might like it.  You can make it as spicy or not spicy as you like.  All depends on the temperature of the taco seasoning that you use.  ]

 

Well, I need to get my final Christmas lists completed.  Hope you are ready for the big day.

Have an enjoyable day!

 

1, 2, 3, 4...now I am on to something more....

One....

Two....

Three....

Four....

This one was WAY busy to work on. 

This is the last of my prepped Hearts and Hands, but there are still plenty that need to be done to complete the quilt, but I am not counting yet.

Now onto a project that I had seen a picture of on a blog last Fall, Pieces From My Heart... http://piecesfrommyheart-sgervais.blogspot.com/2009/11/anthoer-chance-to-win.html

and sketched out a rough drawing because I knew I wanted to make it, but was just waiting for the right charm packet to come along.  Well, that packet came along....

Awesome by Moda, so I laid out the charms

to match up with my rough sketch...

made my semi-snowflake blocks for the middle and sewed the charms together....

Prepared my Pick of the chick Tom pieces...

Appliqued them onto the background....

He needs a couple beady eyes, but I will wait until I have him quilted; but hey! it felt good to sit at the sewing machine for a change.

Now.....what UFO to pick up next?  I have until the 10th before the next Cherry Trees block is up and ready. 

Happy quilting.

Reached another goal....

Two more UFO's have bit the dust.

The binding is all hand stitched down on my black and cream toile quilt.

So here is the completed quilt. 

The binding is, also, on the Painted Daisy quilt.

....and here is the completed quilt.

Of course my goal was to get these two done before the 10th when the new Beyond the Cherry Trees block was available, but I missed it by only one day. I guess if I hadn't taken a couple days off to rest the 'ole wrists, I would have been ahead of schedule, but that's ok.  I still think I am doing good. 

So, the next project is #8 BOM (Cherry Trees).  I will be printing up that block and getting busy on it tomorrow. ( http://sentimentalstitches.net/free-stuff/polka-dot-garden/beyond-the-cherry-trees-album-quilt/ )

My goal this month after making the next Cherry Tree block is to make the binding for the brown batik quilt that is at the quilters right now (my Zen quilt) and just maybe get to a "crayon challenge" quilt that is due at a retreat in June.  I am not going to hold my breath on that one, but we will see.  I will have it started for sure. It can be as small as 22" square, so we will see.  I am just trying to keep up the momentum. 

There's shopping in my future....

Went to check what I had left over from my pallette of fabrics thinking I might just piece the whole back for the Home Sweet Home quilt, but there really wasn't enough to get very far, so I think I will be doing some shopping soon to look for a backing. I am just going to incorporate this into my stash instead.

Don't know if you remember my saying that I thought I had plenty of the border fabric left over  just in case I didn't want to remove the scallops that I had already done (incorrectly) and was thinking of starting from scratch.....well upon looking for the fabric this evening to make binding, this is all I had left of the border fabric.  Certainly not enough to re-do borders.  Good thing I went with what I had and didn't ruin them while I was picking out threads.

So I figured I would try and cut out my binding from this.  I cut my binding at 2 1/8".  I know...a little crazy, but that's the size that I like.  Anyways, I got the full length that I needed.

It is all sewn together, pressed and rolled and ready to apply to the quilt with this much to spare.

 

Is that cutting it close or what?

Well, I was on the "binding making roll" tonight so got the bindings made for the cream and black toile and the painted daisy quilt, too

So, my plans for this weekend are to get the bindings on the two black quilts.  Hope to get to one of my favorite quilt shops to find backing for the house quilt soon and really need to cut up scraps for the binding for the brown batik "Zen" quilt, but that seemed like too much work tonight.

 It's only a couple days before the next Beyond the Cherry Trees block of the month comes out and all else will stop once I get that, so I figure progress is progress and I should be happy with that.  So....happy quilting.