Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Finished my June top for Le Petite Challenge

Just in time for me to head to the beach for the rest of the week.
:)


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Thursday, June 23, 2011

Ric Rac Triangles Cut Out

We were offered a choice between 2 different patterns for the June LePetite Challenge.
I have chosen to do the Schnibbles Ric Rac pattern.
It needs 294 triangles.  I cut them out last night.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Table Setting Finished

The table topper was done this Saturday, and the 4 place mats got finished this morning.

I am one day behind my schedule.  I wanted to have these in the mail yesterday, but we had a bad storm come through and the power kept flickering, so I turned off my sewing machine.  It is plugged into a spiffy power supply, but since the machine costs more than I can afford to replace right now, I decided to not risk it getting fried and turned it off.

But with priority mail, these should still arrive in TN in plenty of time.




These will be going on a white table, and will look way better on that than my wrinkly blue table cloth.
I have an iron, but since I have no plans of quilting the table cloth, it gets to stay wrinkled.  
Besides, with 4 kids and one husband, the table cloth wont stay clean long and will end up back in the wash in a day or too.   





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Saturday, June 11, 2011

Jungle Animal's Done

 Yay for Netflix and a Glee marathon.   I finished up this baby panel last night while the Glee kids sang to me.  :)

I put the binding on this morning and snapped it's picture.

I had a lot of fun quilting this.  I outlined the animals and leaves, then did some meandering quilting, some cobblestone quilting, and finished it up with squiggly lines in the sky.  For the border, I went around all the brown giraffe spots.


Panels are great to work with when you want to try new quilting techniques or perfect your old ones.  I always enjoy quilting panels, it gets my creative quilting juices flowing.

Next on the quilting schedule is to finish the table topper and place mats.
Then come Monday I can ship them and this baby quilt to their new home in TN.

(and now I have the "Come Monday" song by Jimmy Buffet running around in my head)

:)


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Friday, June 10, 2011

Table Set

Wow, I haven't been doing much sewing around here since the end of May.  I thought with school ending I would have more time to play around with my fabric, but things keep popping up and I am finding myself more and more away from the sewing machine.  I had some pretty ambitious sewing goals for these past 10 days, but only one got accomplished and even then I felt like I was snatching minutes every couple days.  But I am happy to report that I did finish the tops for this table set.  I also got the batting trimmed, so all I need to do is cut the backing and baste them together.

So far my calendar is empty for the next couple of days, so I am planning to finish these by this weekend.


The table topper measures 23 in square and the 4 place mats are 13 x 19.


While I was cutting out batting for the place mats and table topper, I also trimmed up a piece for this cute baby panel that my friend sent to me.  It is for her niece's new baby.  This panel is super cute and I am excited to do some free hand quilting all over it.  I even got it basted. Since it was small enough to fit on the table, I was able to jump right in and start.  Normally for larger quilts I have to move furniture, sweep, and scrub the floor before I can even start basting. And it sure was nice to be able to sit at the table, instead of crawling around on the floor while basting.  :)





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Friday, June 3, 2011

"Label it Nine Patch" by Tish

This is the quilt I mentioned in April but wasn't able to show a photo of till now.  The quilt was made by Tish and she asked me to quilt it for her. She had been collecting unique and fancy labels from clothing and sewed them all onto this quilt.  She has labels mixed in her 9 patches and the border is full of labels.  I stitched around each individual label in the border and then in the ditch of all the squares.  It is really a fun unique quilt.  You could stand for a long time examining all the different labels in this quilt.  Some are very colorful and are tiny works of art all on their own.



Thursday, June 2, 2011

I won a Ribbon!!

I won a red ribbon for "Best Use of Theme" at my guilds Quilt Challenge Show!  The theme this year was "9 Patch". For my entry I finished up the 9 patch quilt from the quilt along I started over at Amanda Jean's blog in the summer of '09.  I actually finished the quilt at the beginning of May this year, but I didn't want to post a photo of it till it was revealed at the show today. All the quilts were revealed this morning as part of our June guild meeting and awards were handed out at the end of the meeting.  I was really surprised when they called my name out.  There were lots of fancy quilts there and I really didn't think my quilt would place at all.

All the quilts will hang in the Hartsville, SC Museum for the summer so if you are in town, stop by the museum to see them in person.



Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Block Progress

        Today was a busy day for me around the house, but every now and then I would steal 15 min or so and sit at the sewing machine to work on some projects.  I am simultaneously working on two projects and during my short bursts of sewing time I made 5 more string blocks and the Sawtooth Star blocks for the table topper and place mats I am making.  I am impressed at how much I got done during those several 15 minute sewing sessions.  I really felt like I didn't have much time at the machine today, but when I take a peek at the blocks on the design wall, I must admit I got more done than I realized.

Tomorrow looks to be another busy day with three of my kids out of school.  My oldest has two more days left filled with exams, but she also has early dismissal at 11:45. So between kids, chores, and school pickup, I may have to do 15 minute sewing intervals again tomorrow.








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Monday, May 30, 2011

Started the String Blocks

I sewed together all the 9 patch and border strips this morning and got a start on the string blocks for the shirt quilt I am making.  Only 20 more string blocks to go, but I need to cut up more shirts.  I had only cut the sleeves during the first cutting session, and that has gotten me pretty far, but now I need some longer strips for these string blocks, so back to the cutting table I go.   














Earlier today, when I was cutting out my 24 base squares for my string blocks, I also cut out the pieces for some place mats and a table topper.  They will be for my good friend's grandmother. These should be quick and fun to sew up.




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Saturday, May 28, 2011

Finished the 9 Patches

This morning I finished up all the 9 patches for the shirt quilt I am working on.

I will have to sew them to the sashing later on tonight though, because right now I am off to a matinée to see a pirate movie with the kids and after that I plan on hitting the craft stores for their Memorial Day Weekend Sales.  Hope I find some good loot.  :)



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Monday, May 23, 2011

Side Tracked with The Abbey Bag


I got the new Connecting Threads catalogue in the mail the other day and saw this cute scrap bag kit.  It is The Abbey Bag pattern and uses their new line of sewing themed fabrics.  I thought they looked really cute and ordered myself a kit.  It came in the mail Saturday and I started on it right away.  I finished them both up Sunday afternoon and can't decide which one I like best. I suppose I could keep one at my cutting table and one at the sewing machine.  :)



Very seldom do my two cats sit by each other, they usually prefer opposite couches, but this morning I guess the sun coming in the window and the soft quilt made them both want to relax in the same place.
Jasper and Sheen




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Saturday, May 21, 2011

Sewing Progress


I got a little bored cutting shirts, so I decided to shift to sewing for a bit.
I got all the sashing strips sewn together yesterday and half of the nine patches.  
I have a pile of squares ready to go for the rest of nine patches, and once those are sewn together I will start the string blocks.




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Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Slow and Steady Progress

Cutting these shirts into strips is taking way longer than I thought, but I am making steady progress.  I have all the strips cut for the sashing and most of the squares for the 9 patches in between the sashing.  I took a small break from cutting and sewed a few sashing strips together and a small 9 patch.  Only 34 more 9 patches,  53 sashing strips, and 24 string blocks to go.  :)

While I was cutting and sewing, I had my daughter cut off the buttons of a few more shirts so I can cut more strips for the string blocks.  In the photo are two sets of sleeves I will cut next. Hopefully I can finish cutting the rest of the shirts up by this weekend and get sewing on the top next week.

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

The Start of Something New


During my craft time the past couple days I have been cutting up men's shirts.  My husband's Uncle died last summer and his Aunt has asked me to help turn his old shirts into quilts for her children.   So far I have cut off the collars, button plackets, and seams of 8 shirts.  There are many more shirts, but this will give me a good start.

I am going to make a slightly smaller version of this quilt on the right.  It seems easy enough to figure out the pattern just by looking at it.  If I knew the name of the pattern, or a link to who posted the photo, I would add it here, but unfortunately that isn't the case. When I snagged the photo years ago I didn't think to rename it to something that would tell me where I found it.  Instead I put it in my "Quilts by Other People" folder.  Now I am really wishing I knew who posted this so I could link to their site, so if anyone knows who made this quilt, please let me know so I can do just that.


*UPDATE*  
Thanks to Natasha of Scraps-A-Plenty, I now know the blog where this photo is showcased.  You can see it as the banner photo of  JulieKQuilts.  The pattern can be found in Evelyn Sloppy's book Strips and Strings. Thanks Natasha!!  




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Saturday, May 14, 2011

Last of the 5

Last night around midnight I put the last hand stitch in the binding of my pink Zig Zag quilt.  This one was the last of the 5 quilts that I basted all on the same day at the end of March.

I can't decide if I like this quilt.  Some of my daughter's friends, who came over while I was working on it, said, "oh I really like that," and sometimes when I glance at it I really like it too, but on occasion when I stare at it too long I think, "ew, I shouldn't have used that shade of pink".  The main reason I made it was to try out a technique posted by Amanda Jean of Crazy Mom Quilts.   So I am undecided as to what to do with this quilt.



In between the 5 quilts I basted in the end of March, I finished 6 other quilts and one diaper pouch.  They are all pictured below (except for one which has to stay secret till June 2).  They all had deadlines for the end of April/May so I made them a priority over this zig zag quilt.  I suppose that is another reason why it took me over a year and half from start to finish for this pink and white quilt.  Since it didn't have a preset destination or wasn't needed for a special event, it kept getting put at the back of the to do list.  




The last photo of my cat napping on a quilt at my sewing machine is now a finished quilt, but I don't want to show that one all the way until it is revealed at my next quilt guild meeting in June.  It is for my guild's yearly challenge.  The theme for that challenge was 9 patch.  In June all the quilts from the challenge will be revealed at the Hartsville Museum and be on display all summer for everyone to see.  I am excited for that meeting.


Now I feel the need to baste 5 more quilts so I can have something to work on in between customer projects and quilts that need to get done for special days like birthday's and upcoming holidays.







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