Quilting Feathers.... Sort of

I have read online that one way to get better at doing freehand machine quilted feathers is to practice drawing them on paper. Well, I did just that, but I think I got a little carried away.  Can you still see the feathers I started out with in this doodle?

It started out as an all black and white image, but my son told me to add some red to it, so I did.  I don't usually doodle in color, but here is the results.

A place for my knitting needles

I spent most of this week working on a new knitting needle case. I have lots of needles but I don't really use them all.  I got a good deal on eBay a few years ago for a whole pile of knitting needles. For a couple of dollars I got the few sizes I wanted and a lot of sizes that I didn't need. But being the pack rat that I am, I decided to keep the ones I didn't need with the thought that I may need them for some future project.

As I was cleaning out my room the other day I decided it was time for them to have a good home.  For years they all have been sitting jumbled together in a drawer in my night stand, and I always end up looking through the whole pile just to find the size I need. So that very day, I went to the internet looking for a good pattern. I came across quite a few, but this one from Alexandra's blog was my favorite so I printed out her tutorial and got to work.  I could have made this case from a pile of fat quarters, but since I didn't have a pile of fat quarters, I had to cut the pieces from my yardage.  While I was cutting my large strips, I realized I only needed half the strip I cut, so instead of having lots of leftover strip peices in various sizes, I decided to make two cases at one time. 

I did alter that pattern a bit by sewing more lines on the first pocket row.  I did this so I could add my crochet hooks to the roll.  The pattern said these wider pockets were good for holding circular needles, but I don't have any of those and didn't want to make another smaller roll just for my crochet hooks.  So for the one I am going to keep, I have one inch pockets on the bottom right instead of two four inch pickets.  I also altered the pattern by adding some decor bond behind each of the pockets and a layer of fusible fleece to the outside fabric.  The main reason I did this was because I didn't want the case to be flimsy and feel individual needles while I carried the roll around in my hands.  I was worried at first that all that extra layers might make it too stiff to roll, but it turned out great.  I love it!!

Orange Spider Web

I have had a change of pace from quilting and have picked up my crochet hook.  What started me in this direction was the other night when I was looking for a small quick spider web crochet pattern to put on my web postcards for Fabricards.  Instead, I came across this pattern.  Years ago I had printed out this same pattern with all the intention of creating this spider web. But for some reason I never made it.  So that very night I went to my closet and grabbed my orange cotton thread and my size 7 hook and got to work.  Three days later I finished it.  It spent another couple days on my blocking board trying to get it to stay in web shape.  Today I gave it one last spritz with the iron and took the pins out and everything stayed right where it was suppose to stay.  YAHOO!!  I now have myself an orange festive spiderweb doily to decorate my house this fall season.  Right now it is all by itself on the lazy susan on my kitchen table.  But next week I will get out the rest of my fall decorations and it will be lonely no longer. 

Indian Summer Mini Quilt

Here is my version of the "Indian Summer"  mini quilt swap for my Fabricards group.

 When I think of "Indian Summer"  I always think of changing leaves near a nice lake.  So I paper pieced some log cabins using fall colors and surrounded them by some blue fabric.  I had some left over fusible fleece just the right size for this quilt so I used it as the batting.  It sure gives it a different feel from the cotton batting I regularly use.  This quilt will head on it's way to Deborah in Florida tomorrow.  Hope she likes my interpretation of this theme.  :)

Tam's Pumpkin Patch Lap Quilt

This is my newest finish.  The block I used came from The Quilter's Cache.  It is called Tam's Patch.  This quilt has been sitting for awhile just waiting for me to finish the binding.  I didn't want another Halloween to pass without it being ready to use so I sat down last night and sewed down the three remaining edges.



















For the quilting, I put the feed dogs down on my machine and just went to town.  I did some fancy swirls in the light colored blocks and did some close stippling in the black fabric.  The border also has some loopy swirls going up and down.











My Jack-O-Lantern fabric wasn't quite wide enough to fit the whole backing, so I added some black starry strips on each side to make the backing big enough.












I really love this quilt, but have decided to post it in my Etsy Shop in hopes that it can raise some money to help fund my quilting and fabric postcard addiction.  ;)   Fall is coming and those are my favorite types of postcards to make and recieve.   So you will most likely be seeing lots of fall postcards popping up on the blog soon.

Another Girly Rag Quilt

Another finished quilt.  I finished clipping all the seams last night but I didn't get it washed and frayed till this morning and since this is a rag quilt you can't really declare it finished until it has the ragged look.  This one is for another little baby that is due in the next couple weeks.  These quilts sure are soft and snugly. It makes me want to have a big one for myself.  :)