Tackling some UFO's - Another finish

I've been working on some UFO's in my spare time and finished my Christmas Table topper.

It measures 25.5 inches in diameter.

I started this one in November of 2011.  I made one just like it for my friend for Christmas that year and liked it so much I decided to make one for myself at the same time, but I only got as far as making part of the top.  So when I picked it up this week I had to add the center, quilt it, and bind it.

This is a free pattern from Phillips Fiber Art using their 10 degree ruler.
It is called the Mini Ten Table Topper. Once you sew the strips together, it is just like cutting and sewinging a dresden block together, just on a larger scale.
This is my 5th finish from my my Q1 Finish A-Long list.

I am also going to link up to Handmade Christmas for February.

Several of the items on my Finish A-Long list this quarter are Christmas projects, which fits right in with the goals for Handmade Christmas.  I want to be ready for Christmas this coming year before December comes around.   This topper will decorate my small circle table for the holidays.
To see more Christmas ideas and projects that others worked on this month, click on the icon below.

After I got the binding done on my Christmas table topper I pulled out my Wild Thing quilt.  This UFO is also on my Q1 Finish A-Long list.  I have had some of the same projects staring at me for few weeks so I decided I needed to working with something different today.  I was able to sew all the quarters together for each block before I was called away from the sewing machine.  When I get some more personal sewing time I will sew these into blocks.

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Project Quilting Week 4 - My Who-niverse

"Across The Universe" was the theme for week four of project quilting.  I wasn't quite sure what I would make when I first heard the theme last Sunday, but I knew I needed to have a great background fabric.  My husband and I visited a few fabric shops on Monday while running errands and he found the perfect universe fabric for me.

Once I had the fabric I still wasn't sure of my game plan.  I knew I wanted some stars though so I downloaded this four point paper pieced star from Crafsty and made a total of 8.

Then I felt like the project would need a sun and in my searching I found this Supernova pattern, again on Craftsy.  At this point I still wasn't sure of my layout but I knew this Supernova was perfect for my big light source.

Once the stars sewn together my mind kept going back to Dr. Who. I am a fairly new Whovian and this week's theme was perfect for that show.  I had seen some great Tardis patterns on the web in the past and when I went to go grab one I ran across a brand new one posted this Tuesday by Trillium Designs. The block is called "Tardis in Flight" and is the last block in their Dr. Who paper pieced series. Perfect timing for me and my Who-niverse quilt!

Once I had the stars and the Tardis complete it was time to figure out how to put them all together.  I laid out my background fabric on my design wall and fiddled around with placement, but there was still so much empty space.  And then it hit me, the universe needed some planets and moons.  I found the perfect batik fabric in my stash and got busy cutting circles.

Once the layout was decided and the planets hand stitched into place it was a piece of cake to quilt up.  I used some heavy weight thread for some of the galaxy quilting and then did a small meandering all over the rest of the quilt in a dark blue (which is hard to see in the photo).

I am loving my own little Who-niverse!

It measures 38 x 44 inches.

Go check out all the other week four challenge entries here.

At that same link you can vote for four of your favorites.

Just click the heart in the upper right corner of the photo you want to vote for.

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Doc Freshly Crinkled

This is my Doc Scnibbles quilt in all its crinkly goodness.
I finished the binding on it during the last ice storm we had.
And it finally had its turn through the laundry cycle.

I had it marked up with my blue marking pen and was contemplating the best way to get all the marks out.
I thought about spritzing it, but the marks sometimes come back after it dries.

I decided to go ahead and wash it in the washing machine and dry it.
The quilt was made from a Moda Charm pack.  I didn't prewash the charms and I didn't use a color catcher.  There was no bleeding of the reds.  Moda is some good stuff!

This is another finish of my Q1 Finish A-Long list.

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Ice Storm and a Quilt

I can't believe we had two winter storms within two weeks of each other.
Seldom do we get one winter storm, but two and so close together... Why that is unheard of in these parts.

 

There was no snow this time.  At least not for our neighborhood. 30 miles north got 6 to 8 inches of snow.  All we got was freezing rain.

And with tree branches falling all over the neighborhood from the weight of the ice, we ended up losing power.

We lost power at 3:30 pm on Wednesday and didn't get it back till after 7pm on Thursday.

Some of our neighbors got their power back this morning.  Others are still waiting.
Shouldn't be too long for the rest of the neighborhood though.  All the ice is gone and they sky is a beautiful blue.  Other than all the branches down throughout the neighborhood no one would know we just had a spectacular ice storm.

While the first of the ice was coming down, I finished the binding on this quilt.

It is one of the UFO's on my Finish A-Long list.  It is a Schnibble pattern called Dimestore.

 It is also my February Finish for "A Lovely year of Finishes".  I quilted it using my current favorite design of swirls and feathers.

I put this quilt as my February finish because I had plans for it to go to a friend this month and wanted to make sure it got done on time.

It got done on time, but the ice had different plans for me delivering it on time.

Everything shuts down here when there is ice. Even the Wal-Mart was closed.

Everything sure is beautiful encased in ice, but it sure does cause a lot of havoc.

My poor Birch tree will never be the same.

The ice was just too thick for a lot of trees.

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Mug Bag Winner Announced

Thank you all for stopping by to visit and leave comments during the She Who Sews Blog hop.
They were very much appreciated!!

Congratulations to Sandy she has won the Mug Bag Giveaway.

I have sent her an email.

Thank you again to everyone who stopped by and left a comment.

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Project Quilting Week 3 Entry - Sweet Treats

The them for week three of project quilting was "Sweet Treats".  Your quilting project could be anything as long as it was inspired by sweets.  I choose lollipops.  I call this one Lollipop Orchard.  It measures 30 x 20 inches.

 When I think of visually appealing candy I think of great big swirly lollipops.  When I was a kid I loved seeing them in the store and wished I had one in my hand.   So I knew I wanted to do something with lollipops for the challenge.  

I started out by finding the perfect swirl graphic and printed it on the back of some wonder under with my regular printer.  This made it easier to mark and cut out the different swirled fabrics.

I used my exacto knife to cut out the center of the smaller swirls since my scissors were too big.  The exacto knife had no problem going through the paper and the fabric.

Once I had the lollipop tops complete it seemed natural to put them into a landscape scene.   

I did raw edge applique for this one.

It seemed the easiest choice for the smaller swirls given the time limit.

I thought about adding pink fluffy clouds for cotton candy clouds, but they didn't look right, so I went for pink binding instead.

There were 42 different entries this week.

You can see them all listed at PersimonDreams.com.

You can also vote for 4 of your favorites!
My Quilt is Number 28. ;)

Head on over and check them all out.

And don't forget to vote!

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She Who Sews Blog Hop

Today is the last day of the "She Who Sews" blog hop,  hosted by hosted by Carla of Creatin in The Sticks and Mdm Samm of Sew We Quilt.  All the previous projects have been wonderful and have definitely given me inspiration on how to use up the rest of my fabric.    

I am excited to show off my creations and I am going to start from largest to smallest.

First up is a new wall hanging for my sewing room. 

I call this one, "Just the Ladies"

My favorite lady is the the Hearts lady. I love her red hat and her green wings.

And her lips are the perfect shade of red.

 Second in the line up is my new wall organizer.

It will hold my smaller rulers and current (or next in line) patterns that I am working on.

The pattern is called Four-Pocket Organizer and was originally in the February 2011 Quilter's World magazine, but I bought the digital pattern from Annie's E-Pattern Central.

 Next up is a Mug Bag. Complete with built in mug rug.

I fell in love with this bag as soon as I saw it.  It is a free pattern from www.Red-Brolly.com  

The bag is meant to safely carry your special tea or coffee mug to your friend's house and back.

When you open it there is a pocket for your coffee and tea bags and a place to set your mug while you are drinking, but since I am not a coffee drinker I turned it into a small sewing bag.  Right now I have my yo yo makers in it.

It is perfect to carry around for road trips and doctors offices.

Here it is opened up. In the background is project number 4.   

It is little zippered sewing pouch.  You can never have too many pouches.  ;)

This one measures about 5 inches. Maybe a wee bit bigger with the binding.

 Now we come to the smallest project in the line up.  A needle and thread carrier. 

 Sometimes I do bindings in the car and this tiny pouch is perfect for that.

 The tutorial didn't call for velcro, but when I was trimming the extra strings I wasn't paying attention and I cut off the thin cord that was suppose to hold the case shut. Instead of un-stitching it and putting the cord back in I added the iron on velcro.  Perfect fix.

I had a great time making all these little storage containers and my new wall hanging.

This is a fun fabric line to work with.

Yep, there are two Mug Bags.

Since I made the mug bag out of strips instead of fat quarters and was able to get two bags out of one strip, and was able to sew two bags at a time. One for me and one to Giveaway.  I'd love to share one of the Mug Bags with you. Just tell me where you are from when you leave a comment and I will put your name in a hat to win my extra Mug Bag. I will pick a winner sometime Monday February 10.

Thanks so much for stopping by and make sure you check out the other ladies who made projects for us today.

February 6th

Lixie Makes It

 How ART you?

 Seams To Be Sew

threads on my socks
Quilted Delights  (Me)

Life in the Scrapatch 

krislovesfabric

Sew We Quilt

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Another Finish - Ric Rac

Since Wednesday was a snow day and I didn't have class, or any assignments for class, I spent the night finishing up Ric Rac.  This one has been basted for too long so it was time to get it finished. It is a small quilt., about 40 x 46 inches, so it was easy to quilt and bind in a couple hours.

We still have snow, which is even rarer than getting the snow.

Usually when snow comes it is gone within a couple hours.

Since the roads aren't too bad it is fun for it to still be here.

 I did some simple quilting on this one.  Trying to figure out what to quilt on it was the main hold up for this UFO.  I was trying to come up with some super fancy quilting for it, when I should have realized that sometimes meandering is just what is needed. Particularly if it is going to be a quilt that gets used a lot, which this one will.

This is my second finish for the 2014 Q1 Finish A-Long

and 4th finished quilt of the year.

I love all the icicles! They are so pretty with the sun shining on them.

 There wasn't much wind when I was taking pictures, so it was actually nice to be out.
My fingers didn't get cold while holding the camera.

 I sure love the "fluffiness" of our birds in the winter.

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