Happy 2014!

In 2013 I finished 16 quilts, one table runner, and a plethora of smaller goodies for my friends and family.

This first collage is a recap of all the quilts.

 This next one is of all the smaller non quilted items I made throughout the year.

It is fun to see everything I created grouped into these collages.
Some months I felt so busy with school and sewing for other people that felt like I didn't have time to work on some of my own things, but these pictures prove otherwise.  It was a great year for crafting!

I have big plans for 2014 in the sewing room: 

Use more of my Stash
Finish up more of my UFO's 

Start on some of those Kits I keep buying

And of course start a couple new projects in between.

~Happy New Year~

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Last Finish for 2013

I wanted to get one more finish in for 2013. So I worked on this little quilt late into the evening.

This is my Jacks Schnibbles quilt.  It only took me 2 hours to quilt the whole thing.

It is fairly small, it measures about 45 x 60

That gives me 5 finishes so far off my FAL 4Q list.
Link up for the Finish Along starts tomorrow and goes till the 8th.

So Technically I can work on more finishes for the quarter. But as of now I have 5 completed.

Happy New YEAR!!

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Starry Night Complete - 4th Finish 2013 FAL

I've had quite a busy December and didn't get as much sewing done as I'd like (I'll give more info about my December adventures on Monday), but I did get another project knocked off my 2013 FAL list.  I finished binding My Starry Night Quilt late last night.  Got it done just in time for Christmas next year. 

  

I went down to the beach today to visit with family so I decided to bring my newly finished quilt along for a photo shoot.  No fancy quilting on this one, just some meandering and some continuous curves.
This quilt is for me and will be used till it wears out.  

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3rd Finish for Q4 FAL

I was working on my Starry Night Quilt in hopes of having it ready for Christmas, but I had some cat interference and then I ran out of white quilting thread.  So what is a girl to do when the closest shop that sells white Guterman thread is 30 miles away?  ....

She gets out her yellow and pink threads and quilts up a different project on her Fourth Quarter Finish Along list.  

This is my Schnibbles Leap Year quilt.

I made it when I was playing along with Another Year of Schnibbles.

It was cold at the park today, but the sun was nice and bright.

My daughter's artistic view of how quilts should be displayed.  :)

I really like this yellow fabric, but as I started quilting it I made a mental note to myself to watch out for fabrics that have something "imposed" on them instead of it being part of the print. 

 I'm not sure what this white overlay stuff is, I usually see it on white on white fabrics, and I have been good about avoiding those but I didn't think to look for it on colored fabrics. So when I saw this yellow in the discount bin I didn't even think about it being like those white on white fabrics that my machine hates so much.   When my needle hits it a glob of white stuff head on it jerks slightly, makes a big hole, and gets me off my groove, which makes my next few stitches out of whack.

And sometimes it will make the machine skip stitches.

What ever that white stuff is, it is too thick in places and my needle doesn't like it at all.

Sometimes, it will just flat out break the thread as the needle goes down.

The fabric is pretty and feels nice to the touch, it just doesn't make for fun quilting.

This must be Sheen's favorite spot.

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My Christmas Advent Calendar

I finished quilting my Christmas Advent Calendar at the end of September, just in time to turn it in for display at the South Carolina State Fair.  I picked it back up this week along with a blue ribbon to go with it.  :)

 I am glad to have it back home because I didn't get a chance to get a photo of it before I sent it in.
So as soon as I got it back I took it to the park for a photo shoot.

It was a little over cast outside, but still good enough weather to take some good photos.




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Another Finish for the Q4 FAL

I completed another one of the projects on my Q4 FAL list. It was my second oldest UFO. It was started in 2006 and put aside for various reasons throughout the years.   It was even put on my New Year's resolution list in 2009, but that obviously didn't go over too well. I did get the top finished that year though so that was progress right?

 It has been basted since February 2012, but again I got side tracked with other projects that took precedence.  This quilt has always been for me though, so that is probably why it kept getting moved to the bottom of the "To Do" list.

For the quilting I did some simple meandering on the pinwheel blocks, and then did a little more fancier quilting in the yellow inner border.


It is nice to finally have this one finished.  I plan to use it as my winter quilt in the family room.
Once all the Christmas decorations are put up, it will be nice to have these colors to brighten up the rest of the winter season.

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Wicked Blog Hop Starts Today!

Today is the first day of the 2013 Wicked Blog Hop and I am excited that I get to help kick it off.
For this hop all I could think about was witches and their hats.
  So I designed a wall hanging filled with six different witch hats.

The hat on the top left is one of my favorites.  I made it a little more rugged than the others.
My next favorite is the one on the right.  I love the curly tip.

I hope you like my little creation,
Now I am off to hopping, I am excited to see what everyone else has whipped up.

Make sure you check out the rest of Hoppers today!

Tuesday, October 22^nd

Grammie Q's

Stitchin By The Lake

Quilted Delights

Buzzing and Bumbling

Vroomans Quilts

Life in the Scrapatch

The Quilted Cat

Meadowbrook

Patchouli Moon Studio

The Nosy Pepper

Sew Incredibly Crazy

Click on the image to see the whole schedule.

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I.S.T.H Finished - First for the Q4 FAL

This is my first finish for the fourth quarter of the Finish-A-Long.  You can see my finish list here. I decided to start with a project that was mostly finished to give me a kick start to the quarter.

For this one all I had left was to finish the quilting in the purple border and the yellow in the stars. I decided to leave the curves in the light purple fabric as they were.  The original hold up for this project was trying to decide if I wanted to add feathers to those curves.  I decided to keep the quilt soft and not put in the feathers. Once the rest of the quilting was done, binding it was quick.

While I was taking photos, some of the ducks at the park kept getting closer.
They seemed really interested in what we were doing.  

 

Or perhaps they thought we had food.

I sure love my quilt holders. This holder is my youngest son.
He is the perfect height to hold this one up. 

One finish complete, that leaves 11 more for the quarter.
I'm fired up to get these finishes knocked out, some have been waiting a long time.
Lets hope that fire doesn't die out after the first month.

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Orca Bay Quilt Complete

The Opportunity Quilt for my guild is now complete.  I finished the binding on the Ocra Bay quilt the other day, but was waiting for some good weather to take photos.  That day was today.  The day started out cloudy, but by the afternoon the skies were blue.



I took my boys to the park with me and had them help me hold it up.

For the back I used the wide backing fabric from Connecting Threads.
It sure was nice not having to piece the backing.

Since the quilt is so busy, I decided to quilt it with an all over design.

 I'll turn the quilt over at the November meeting and we will start selling tickets for the drawing in March.  We'll pull a winner at the end of the Civil War Re-enactment which is usually held the first weekend in March.

I really love this quilt. So much so that I may have to make one for myself. 

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Busy Quilting - Tish's Pastel Quilt

Wow, based on my blog posts this summer it looks as if I haven't been at the machine.  That is quite the opposite though.  I have spent most of my time at the machine this summer quilting for others.  Unfortunately  I have to wait before I can show the quilts I have been working on since they are surprises.
I do have one that I can show now though.
  

This is a Quilt I partial pieced and quilted for Tish.  Since she was able to show it off at our guilds UFO Challenge meeting I can now show it off.  She had given me three large 12 inch pieced blocks (the two on the bottom, and the top left) and the large Dresden block in the center and asked me to do something with them. She gave me her pastel fabrics to work with.  After a couple different layout decisions I came up with this.  I had to make another large 12 inch block, the green and yellow Dutchman's puzzle, and then I made four smaller 8 inch pieced blocks to go in between the larger blocks. I surrounded everything thing with 2 inch alternating squares.  I really love how it turned out.  For the quilting, since Tish doesn't like a lot of heavy quilting, I did a loose meander for her.  It turned out lovely.

For the back Tish gave me a large pieced flower block.  I want to say this is a version of the Carolina Lily block, but I am not certain.  I added the yellow corners to it then added enough borders to make it match the front of the quilt.  It makes a nice double sided quilt.

Tish also had me quilt a small table runner for her, but can you believe I didn't get a photo of it!  It has been a long time since I have forgotten to take a picture of a project.  I sure don't want that to happen again!

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4 Small Quilts

Sometimes you just need a walking foot.  I made the tops in the spring for my guild's charity project and they have been patiently waiting for me.  With the September Guild meeting coming up I lit a fire under myself to get them finished to turn in. I spent my labor day at the sewing machine and got them all finished. (I wasn't the only one inspired, we had over 15 donation quilts turned in during the September meeting.)

 It took me less than an hour per quilt to get these done.  No fancy free motion quilting, just straight lines with the walking foot and they turned out great.  Sometimes all you need is some straight lines and in the ditch quilting.  They measure around 24 x 36.

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Family Tree Quilt Complete

The family Tree quilt is finished, has been picked up, and will soon be on its way to Canada

for a 60 year anniversary party.

The piano key border really helped bring all the leaves together.

I tried to quilt the main part of the trunk so it would have a little bit of texture.

I think it turned out pretty well.

I added names using the same bark fabric and green lettering.

This sure was a fun project to work on.

It was interesting to see all the family traits pass on from generation to generation.

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America the Beautiful On Display

Here she is... Miss America....  er I mean my America the Beautiful quilt.
It is officially on display at the Hartsville museum for the summer with all the other quilts from my guild,
with the theme "America the Beautiful: Home Sweet Home".
It measures approximately 70 x 47 inches.

To represent America I used several state themed quilt blocks:
Ohio Star, Carolina Lily, Kansas Star, Colorado Beauty, Texas Tears, Road to California, and Oregon Trail.  For the ocean, I used the Storm at Sea Block.  I made each block finish at 6 inches and shaped them to fit the different regions of America.  My two beach sections are crumb pieced with all the brown scraps I had on hand.

For reference, this is the original drawing I used to design the quilt.
The drawing has little houses scattered on it, but I opted to delete those for the final project.

For the past couple weeks I've been showing bits and pieces of the quilt before it was quilted.

Today I am going to show them again, but this time with with the quilting.

And with the lyrics to America the Beautiful, which was the inspiration for the quilt.

"Oh Beautiful for spacial skies...

For amber waves of grain...

For Purple mountains majesty...

Above the fruited plains....

America! America!

God Shed his grace on thee...

And Crown thy good with brotherhood...

From sea to shining sea!"

I am super excited about this quilt.  I love all the colors in it.

I enjoyed making all the different blocks and making them fit in their sections.

On the left in the above photo is the "Road to California" block.
This is the only block that didn't get a preview last week.

Since this post is already loaded with photos, I will save the photos of the other show quilts for tomorrow.

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