T is for Turtle

I have finished this months "Another Year of Schnibbles" all the way down to the hand stitched binding.

The official name for the pattern is Bibelot, but I think I will call mine "T is for Turtles".

The fabrics remind me of green and brown turtle shells swimming in blue water.  

I picked a blue and green paisly-ish fabric from my stash for the back.

I had planned to do some fancy swirly stuff in all the T's but I thought that would take too long, so I decided to stitch in the ditch around EVERYTHING, which ended up taking as long as my previous plan.

Either way I Love It!!

 I am going to put it in the family room so it can keep little legs warm while watching tv.

I love this stripe binding.  

oh, and it is definitely cat approved.

This time Jasper had to take a turn sitting on it while I was adding the binding.

He rubbed his head all over the machine,

then stretched out and got comfy

This makes finish #10 for the year!

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Quilting Done for Sara

This was the first quilt I basted last night before Sheen decided to play around on my other quilt.
The top was made by a guild mate of mine named Sara.  

I used a variegated pastel thread from YLI.  It looks great on every fabric in the quilt.

I started out with some in the ditch quilting to separate the diagonal rows.  Then did some open feathers in the triangle rows and some echoing loops in the 2 inch squares.

The borders got some swirls and wiggly lines.

Sarah picked a lovely blue for the back.  

I used a matching thread so it is hard to see the quilting on the back.

 

I enjoyed working on this little quilt.  I will give it to Sara next Thursday during guild meeting.

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Sheen

So there I am, minding my own business, trying to baste a couple quilts in the quiet hours of the night...

and along comes Sheen,  He let me baste one quilt no problem,
but as soon as my Bibelot top came out he had to lay all over it.

What should have been a 20 minute process took almost 45.
He did let me rub his belly though and that made it all worth it.  

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Bibelot Schnibbles - Top Done

Finished sewing the top together this afternoon.  

I think I might change the name to "T is for Thomas" and give it to my little Thomas guy.  

:)

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T Blocks

I finished all 69 T blocks for my Bibelot Schnibbles pattern.  The pattern only calls for 49, but I am adding two more rows to make a rectangle quit.  I used some Urban Odyssey charm packs from Connecting Threads.

I am going to try and find some time tomorrow and put them all together.

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Fat Quarter Stars Quilt Along - Top Done

After a slight obstacle named Sheen, I was able get my top together just in time for the FQSQA picture deadline.

He usuallly sneaks on the stuff I am working on when I get up to iron, but this time he plopped himself right on my block when I was right in the middle of sewing.  He was definitely telling me I had been at the sewing machine too long.  So I took a break and played with him for a bit.  Then I ate a little lunch before going back to the machine.

I finished right around 5 and that is the evening sun shining through the slats in the fence.

If I can find some yardage of one of these fat quarter fabrics I might add another border.

If not I will quilt it the way it is and add a slightly thicker binding when the time comes.

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Butterfly Quilt Top

4 years ago I joined an online swap group called IFQ (International Friendship Quilters).  Unfortunately it shut down awhile ago, but I enjoyed it while it was active. The very first swap I signed up for was an applique butterfly exchange hosted by Tarnyia.  I signed up to swap two sets of 6 butterflies so I could have 12 blocks when it was all said and done. These are the blocks I sent out.

Since the swap, the blocks have been sitting in the top 12 x 12 butterfly box in this end table.  

Also in that box are blocks for three more different quilts.
The black box has shirt strings, and the bottom one is filled with orphan blocks that were donated to me.

When Sinta Posted about her BOM Rehab it got me to thinking.  I have only done one BOM online, the Fat Quarter Stars Quilt Along, and I am up to date on that one, but I do have some blocks from older swaps that needed some love, so I got out the 12 x 12 box and pulled out the butterfly blocks I received.  I put them up on my design wall and got to thinking of how to put them all together.  This is what I came up with:

Blocks are done by:

Me - Pamela M.  - Beatrice M.

Pauline G. - Tarnyia S. - Carole B.

Me - Val D. - Karin F.

Maureen M. - Ann M. - Nancy N.

I have wonderful quilting visions of flowers and clouds in all that wonderful open blue in each block.

Hmm, not sure when I will get to do the actual quilting though, my quilt top pile is growing faster than I have been quilting lately...

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#6 Top Complete

Shirt Quilt top #6 is now finished.  I added the borders on this morning.

Now it is time for basting and quilting.

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More Shirt Progress

This morning I sewed up the blocks for the second 4 patch shirt quilt.  Now I have a total of 5 tops done for this project.  It helped that I laid out all the blocks last night.

I took a quick photo before going to bed last night just in case something fell off the design wall in the night.  That way I could consult the photo and put them back in place if any went astray.  Luckily though everything was still in place when I woke up.

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After I finished sewing the 5th top together I started on the 6th.  For some reason I miscounted and made 5 extra 4 patches per quilt top, so I had 10 that didn't have a home.  I decided to make 10 more and use them all for the 6th shirt quilt.  

This is the layout I am playing with for now.  I was undecided as to which type of border to use. The smaller 3.5 solid squares on the left  or the larger 4.5 alternating solid/stripe squares on the right.   So I took a vote among the kids. 3 voted for the big squares and 1 voted for the smaller ones.  

I am thinking of using black again as the sashing, or perhaps an off white this time.  Ah decisions decisions....

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FNSI - Shirt Quilt #4

Last night for Friday Night Sew In I had intentionally decided to play with my Reunion Jelly roll, but when I actually sat at the sewing machine I felt like sewing together the blocks to make shirt quilt top #4.

I used the instructions from Crazy Mom Quilts for this top.  It uses both the solid and the striped shirts.   There are 9 different solids, and 19 different stripes.  The white is Kona  Cotton White.

Shirt quilt #5 will use this same pattern.  #6 is going to be a different pattern, but I haven't decided which one yet.  I have a lot of 4.5 and 3.5 squares left over as well as lots of 1.5 inch strips.  Perhaps I can find a way to incorporate all those sizes in one quilt.

When I got up this morning I was still in sewing mode, so I opened up the Reunion Jelly roll and matched up the strips and sewed them together in sets of two.  I am using the tutorial from A Bright Corner, but I want my quilt to look like the one from Grace and Favour's blog.

I am excited to do the next step for this quilt, but the sunshine coming through the window is making me want to go out side and get my garden started.

Dirt, here I come!

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Tish's Sudoku Quilt

Tish gave me a couple tops to quilt for her this month.  The first one finished is her Sudoku quilt.

I used a wonderful blue, yellow, and green variegated thread from Sulky.

It is 12 wt. and I had to use a top stitch needle to keep the thread from breaking.

 I love the backing fabric Tish chose.
It wasn't quite wide enough for the 47 inch wide top so I added a blue strip to one side.

The quilting and the binding were finished sooner than I anticipated.
I am babysitting this week and I seem to be more productive when the baby is here.
Believe it or not, I find myself not wasting as much time as I normally do.
I take full advantage of nap times and use every minute of it.  

Tonight is Friday Night Sew In and now that this quilt is finished I think I might work on one of my projects.  I bought myself a jelly roll of reunion a couple weeks ago to make a copy of this quilt.  Perhaps I will start sewing those strips together tonight.

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Shirt Quilt #1 Finished

 I finished the quilting over the weekend and had a chance to put the binding on this morning.

 This quilt is made from 19 different striped shirts and one yellow oxford shirt.

The only part that isn't a shirt is the binding and the backing.

This was my first time trying circle feathers.  I rather enjoyed them.

I was going to go with a solid blue fabric for the binding but then decided to go with this striped fabric from my stash.

This makes finish #9 for the year.

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I have also started quilting shirt quilt #2

I had it draped over the couch to make sure I was liking where this design was going and my husband was impressed with how the block changes as I add each set of quilting lines.  He said I should take a photo of these three blocks in progress, little did he know I had already done it.  :)

The rest of the quilting on this will have to wait till next week though.

I need to spend the rest of this week working on some client quilts.

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Another Pathway

I finished another Black and White sketch yesterday.

I started this pathway before I made the one from last month.  

It was going to be the path in the woods, but it wasn't turning out like I envisioned, so I made the other one.
Not wanting to toss this path out I turned it into what you see now.

When I was making this part of the drawing my hubby asked if I was making a dragon.  

I wasn't, but I decided to put one in the picture.  Do you see it? My Hubby and son didn't see it right away. I suppose he gets lost in all the swirls.  That is the main reason I decided to add color to these types of drawings.  Sometimes my objects aren't as visible as I want them to be till I add color.

I will add color to this one as soon as figure out what color I want my dragon to be.

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Shirt Quilts Progress

Yesterday I finished up the 40 blocks I need for two more shirt tops.  

They will go with these blocks I finished at the end of February:

I was going to put my design wall up to layout all these blocks and start sewing them together, but I am baby sitting this week and need easy access to the room I sew in and the living room. Since the design wall covers the french doors that connect the two, I decided to wait.

Instead I started the quilting on Shirt Quilt #1. 
 I am almost finished with the stitch in the ditch, I have 1 side of the border and a wee bit left on the other corner. Once that is done I will break out the darning foot for some free motion quilting in the string blocks.


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