Fancy Foxes

I made my first fox this month.

 I combined him with 41 other foxes and then shipped them all to Tennessee.

The pattern is Fancy Foxes by Elizabeth Hartman

I used a jelly roll plus two extra strips from my stash.  Each strip let me cut two foxes.  I only used one of each in this quilt though.  Which leaves me with 42 more foxes.  I plan on turning them into another lap quilt but I want to use the same background fabric, which I had to order more of. It will arrive early January. The background fabric is Architextures Grid Plaid Shadow by Robert Kaufman.  It is my new favorite background color.     

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas!

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My Schnitzel & Boo Mini Quilt - Round Four

I decided to enter the world of swapping again.  This time it is mini quilts and all of the activity was on Instagram.  It was a new way to be a part of a swap, but since I love Instagram it was super easy to follow along.  My updates were all done on my quilting Instagram account: quilteddelights, but I want to post them here too.  So this post will be my mini quilt from start to finish.

I was going to make a mini New York Beauty quilt, but I didn't enjoy trying to sew one inch curved seams.  So I chucked all my paper pieces in the trash along with fabric from my first attempted block.  No pictures of that mishap, but it was a relief to trash it and move on to a more feasible and enjoyable project.

I really enjoyed making the Schnibbles Hook pattern last year and wanted to see how it would look in a tiny version.

I love my wonder clips. They helped keep all my hexagons in order.

The mini quilt went together pretty quick.

 All the fabric came from my batik scrap bin.  

Even the background fabrics came from the scrap bin.

It will be landing in its new home this week. 

Size is 11.5 x 12.5 inches.

I hope its new owner loves it as much as me.

This is the mini I received in return.  It was fabulous.  I really was worried about joining the swap world again, but after receiving such a lovely quilt I decided to keep swapping and joined a few more mini swaps on Instagram!

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Halloween Haunts Blog Hop

Today is the start of the Halloween Haunts Blog Hop. 

I am happy to be one of the bloggers who get to kick off the festivities.

For this hop I decided to dig into my stash of Halloween Fabrics and I made three different items.

First up,  I got out my old packs of Haunted Mansion by Moda and mixed it with a little bit of Kona solids in Snow and Pewter and whipped up this spiffy little quilt.

I used the Scnibble pattern Brocante and made it a wee bit bigger so I could drape it over the couch.

If you are having trouble finding a great Halloween pattern, take your favorite regular pattern and use Halloween fabrics.  It will turn out fabulous!

I love this backing fabric.  I found it on sale at Hobby Lobby and knew it would be perfect for backing some of my Halloween projects.  

Next up I used some of my Connecting Threads Rest In Pieces fabric and made a table runner for my front room. The pattern is a freeby and is called The Easy Christmas Table Runner.  Of course I altered the fabrics for something a little more spooky. 

My last item is really 8 items.  I made 8 small Treat Totes. I love making these little gift bags.
The pattern is from Happy Zombie and you can find the pattern here.

 I used several different Halloween Scraps for these tiny totes.  They whip up super fast!

All they need now is some candy to fill them up.

Make sure you check out the other hoppers today!

Featured Haunts on Friday, October 16
A Stitch In Time
Marjorie’s Busy Corner
Ravelly
Words & Stitches
Quilted Delights  - (Me)

Also the Fat Quarter Shop is hosting a Give Away every day of the hop. 
Check it out!  Most days the giveaway only lasts one day.  But on Friday's they last the whole weekend.
 a Rafflecopter giveaway


Happy Haunting!

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Strip Tube Quit Finally Finished

 I finally settled on a binding fabric for my Strip Tube Quilt!

After months of agonizing decisions, I picked a red batik for the binding.

When in doubt stick with my favorite color - Red!

  And now I finally have a finish to turn in for my third quarter Finish-A-Long!  

It's been almost a year since I finished one of the UFOs on my list.

 I got the pattern from A Bright Corner, but copied the fabric choice from Grace and Favour and made it slightly bigger to fit the queen size bed in the guest room.

Another UFO off the list!

Started April 2012   ~  Finished September 2015 

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Black and White Plus One - Lonesome Beauty

Today was the reveal of the Swamp Fox Quilter's 2015 Guild Challenge and now I can show of my entry!  The theme this year was "Black and White Plus One." There is no gray in the quilt at all.  The illusion of gray is formed by picking out fabrics with tighter prints and varying amounts of black or white in each print.   

 The designed for this quilt came about by fusing three different quilts I saw on the internet:  The center Lonestar the outer ring of Lonestar blocks, and the stripped diagonal border.

I took several progress photos along the way with my cell phone.

 Since I worked on this quilt at various times each day, they all have different lighting.

Working full time and trying to get this quilt finished in time for the show meant random sewing times and several quick 15 minutes sessions during lunch breaks.

As I was putting the top together, I noticed the outer edge of the Lonestar got a little lost next to the black and white border fabric, so I decided to give the whole Lonestar section a skinny black outline.

Basting with the help of Sheen.
It never fails, when there is a quilt on the floor to be basted, Sheen is always here to make sure the pins are all in the right spot.

 I did continuous curves in all the diamond pieces, and some freehand in the New York Beauties.

 The borders got some fancy feathers, but they get lost somewhat in the busyness of the darker fabrics.

All those hours of shopping for the right fabrics, cutting, sewing, and quilting paid off and I am excited to say the quilt won Best of Show in our little quilt show!  It also won Best Piecing, Best Use of Theme, and second place for Machine Quilting!  I am super excited!

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Bird Tree Blog Hop

I am excited to be a part of this blog hop. The birds in this fabric line are so pretty and I was lucky to be able to find the bird house panel and some coordinating fabric to go with it.

I cut each birdhouse and put them into a square in a square block on point...sort of.  The birdhouses aren't quite square, but I made them work all the same.  I used some of the all over bird fabric as the alternating blocks.  I figured the best way to show off this fabric was to cut it in a nice ten inch square.

The blue and the yellow sashing also come from this fabric line.  

They are soft colors and compliment the panel perfectly.

As I was contemplating what fabric I wanted for the back I thought about keeping it a nice pastel color to match the front, but I didn't have enough of anything in my stash that matched.  My stash is mostly jeweltones and bright rainbow colors, and a lot of halloween (which definitely wouldn't work). After letting the quilt sit for a while, I decided to go with this hydrangea print and matched some colors to go with it.  After all, birds live in bushes and trees.

Since I was only able to find the bird houses panel online, I am keeping my fingers crossed that I win one of the bird only panels from some of the other hoppers this week.  I have some left over scraps from this fabric line that would go fabulous with more birds.  ;)

If you haven't already, make sure you hop on over to these sites to see all the other bird related creations.

Friday, March 20 

Freemotion By The River

Sew Incredibly Crazy

Tea Time Creations

Baa's Amazing Adventures!

Selina Quilts

Ramblings of a Quilter

Busy Bee Quilts

Quilted Delights - (Me)

Grandmama's Stories

Thanks to Mdm Samm and Lana for getting everything set up.

To see the whole list of hoppers, click HERE.

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PQ6 Week 5 - Your Favorite Fabric

This week's theme for Project Quilting was: Your Favorite Fabric.

We were suppose to take our favorite piece of fabric (or set of fabrics) that have been sitting on the shelf for too long. The challenge was to actually make something out of it instead of caressing and admiring it.

I have a shelf that I store all my favorite fabrics.

Only the best of the best get put on that shelf.  The rest get stored on my other shelf by colors.  On this particular shelf are are several charm packs, a couple layer cakes, several random fat quarters, and two full fat quarter bundles.

For this challenge I decided to go with these two charm packs from Moda.  

I am tackling two projects this week with one quilt.  I also needed to make a quilt for my new grand niece and I knew these charm packs were the perfect fabrics for a cute little girl quilt.

Next came the hard part of figuring out what pattern I wanted to use. I knew I would be short on sewing time this week since I had to go to Rock Hill, SC for All State Choir with my son, so I ended up picking out a pattern that I could sew together in just a couple days.  I used the Jelly Roll Turn Over pattern from the Moda Bake Shop.

Yes, I am one of those people who sew over pins.  Usually I don't have any trouble but this week I wasn't so lucky.  I hit the pin in just the right spot and yanked the whole needle out of the socket, bent the pin a perfect 90 degrees into the machine, and yanked the throat plate off.

Luckily the machine and the fabric were just fine, but I have decided it may be best not to sew over pins for awhile.

I had the whole top completed and basted by late Wednesday night. Sheen was more than willing to help out, but I had to shoo him away when he decided he wanted to chew on the basting pins.  Can't have him eating those.


Since I had to leave town right after work Thursday, I packed up the sewing machine and took it to the hotel and did the quilting during choir practice.

During my son's lunch break we went to Glencairn Gardens and had a quilty photo shoot.

With the help of Sharon, a fellow project quiltian, I have named this quilt "Blooming"

It measures approx. 50 x 70 inches.

I used cute little frogs on Lilly pads for the back.

They go perfect with the flowers and butterflies on the front.

 All over swirlyness for the quilting on this one.

Click here to see all the other entries.

Voting starts Sunday Afternoon and lasts till Friday!

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Project Quilting: Week 4 - Have a Heart

The theme for week four of Project Quilting is Have a Heart.  Our project had to have at least twelve hearts in it somewhere.  I started with a photo from this post over at the Quilting Board.  The pattern comes from a book called "The Bargello Heart" by Nancy Podolski.  I didn't have time to order the book though so I had to calculate my own dimensions.  Mine turned out double the size from the inspiration photo, so I doubt I got the dimensions right, but mine looks like the photo and I am good with that.

I started out cutting 2 1/2 inch strips from 12 different fabrics.  

Then I sewed them all together in a tube and cut them in what looked like the right size widths,

After that it was just a matter of opening the tubes at the right seams to get the heart design.

I finished the quilting and binding late last night with 12 hours to spare for today's deadline.

I named this one My Growing Heart.
The twelve hearts start in the center and grow in size with each new color.

The quilt measures approximately 72 x 53.
 

I did a lot of different quilting designs in my all over quilting - hearts, feathers, flowers and swirls.
Just what ever I felt like quilting when I got to that section.

I used an orange flower print for the back.
Since it was only 44 inches wide, I split it down the middle with a blue strip.
Fastest way to do backings for me without having so much fabric leftover.

One last picture of it, because I love it so much!

Make sure you check out all the other entries for this week
here at the Persimon Dreams blog.

Voting starts at 1pm eastern time today.

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