Found My Machine

After a busy summer spent on the road visiting relatives and playing at the beach I have finally returned home long enough to play around on my machine again. First thing on the list, finish up some client quilts and a donation quilt.

This first quilt wasn't made entirely by me. A guild member donated the top and backing to the guild and asked if someone would quilt it and I volunteered.  One of our members is from Japan and she has set up a project to have a bunch of needed quilts sent to Japan in the middle of August.  So this is my contribution to that cause.  I was going to just meander all over it, but for some reason the quilt just wouldn't let me do that. It begged me to do something different  ;)  So I did some free hand quilting in each block.  It was really fun coming up with ideas for each block.

 This next one is a quilt made by one of my guild mates.  She hand embroidered all the flower blocks and paired them with some nice batiks.  First I did an echo stitch around all the flowers, then I did some swirl meandering around each one.  My guild mate doesn't like dense heavy quilting.  She likes the quilt to feel more soft and fluffy.  So for the rest of the quilt I did a loose meander all over.  Then I trimmed the batting edges so all that she needs to do now is add the binding. 

Next on my quilting to do list is to finish up another quilt for this same client.  It is already basted and ready for quilting.  After that I need to add a sleeve on one of the quilts I made for my neighbor in December.  They want to be able to hang it on the wall instead of drape it over the couch as they first envisioned.  That should keep me busy the next few days.

=^..^=

Cotton Dishcloths

On my travels this summer I took my yarn with me.  Lots of driving time and relaxing at relatives gave me plenty of time to finish up this set of dishcloths and hot pad.
These are all free patterns I found on the internet.  

Janelle's Star Dishcloth

Double Bump Dishcloth

Starburst Hot Pad

Ball Band Dishcloth

Crochet Flower Dishcloth

Not much Sewing going on

There hasn't been too much sewing going on around here lately mainly because the kids and I have been have been traveling. But today I did manage to make some pickles from cucumbers that came from my brother-in-law and sister-in-law's garden.  I added a couple of cucumbers from my own garden, but I didn't have nearly as many as I got from my BIL last night.

The kids and I have really been enjoying the summer. We spent half a week in NC visiting in-laws, then we spent a week at the beach last week.  We came home for a day and then went back to the beach for the 4th and tomorrow we hit the road again and will be gone for a long weekend.  Seems like the days in between trips are spent getting laundry ready for the next trip and other odds and ends that need to get done around here.  That doesn't leave much time for crafting, but it's summer!! Time for other kinds of playing.  :)

=^..^=

Finished my June top for Le Petite Challenge

Just in time for me to head to the beach for the rest of the week.

:)

=^..^=

Ric Rac Triangles Cut Out

We were offered a choice between 2 different patterns for the June LePetite Challenge.

I have chosen to do the Schnibbles Ric Rac pattern.
It needs 294 triangles.  I cut them out last night.

Table Setting Finished

The table topper was done this Saturday, and the 4 place mats got finished this morning.

I am one day behind my schedule.  I wanted to have these in the mail yesterday, but we had a bad storm come through and the power kept flickering, so I turned off my sewing machine.  It is plugged into a spiffy power supply, but since the machine costs more than I can afford to replace right now, I decided to not risk it getting fried and turned it off.

But with priority mail, these should still arrive in TN in plenty of time.

These will be going on a white table, and will look way better on that than my wrinkly blue table cloth.

I have an iron, but since I have no plans of quilting the table cloth, it gets to stay wrinkled.  

Besides, with 4 kids and one husband, the table cloth wont stay clean long and will end up back in the wash in a day or too.   

=^..^=

Jungle Animal's Done

 Yay for Netflix and a Glee marathon.   I finished up this baby panel last night while the Glee kids sang to me.  :)

I put the binding on this morning and snapped it's picture.

I had a lot of fun quilting this.  I outlined the animals and leaves, then did some meandering quilting, some cobblestone quilting, and finished it up with squiggly lines in the sky.  For the border, I went around all the brown giraffe spots.

Panels are great to work with when you want to try new quilting techniques or perfect your old ones.  I always enjoy quilting panels, it gets my creative quilting juices flowing.

Next on the quilting schedule is to finish the table topper and place mats.
Then come Monday I can ship them and this baby quilt to their new home in TN.

(and now I have the "Come Monday" song by Jimmy Buffet running around in my head)

:)

=^..^=

Table Set

Wow, I haven't been doing much sewing around here since the end of May.  I thought with school ending I would have more time to play around with my fabric, but things keep popping up and I am finding myself more and more away from the sewing machine.  I had some pretty ambitious sewing goals for these past 10 days, but only one got accomplished and even then I felt like I was snatching minutes every couple days.  But I am happy to report that I did finish the tops for this table set.  I also got the batting trimmed, so all I need to do is cut the backing and baste them together.

So far my calendar is empty for the next couple of days, so I am planning to finish these by this weekend.

The table topper measures 23 in square and the 4 place mats are 13 x 19.

While I was cutting out batting for the place mats and table topper, I also trimmed up a piece for this cute baby panel that my friend sent to me.  It is for her niece's new baby.  This panel is super cute and I am excited to do some free hand quilting all over it.  I even got it basted. Since it was small enough to fit on the table, I was able to jump right in and start.  Normally for larger quilts I have to move furniture, sweep, and scrub the floor before I can even start basting. And it sure was nice to be able to sit at the table, instead of crawling around on the floor while basting.  :)

=^..^=

"Label it Nine Patch" by Tish

This is the quilt I mentioned in April but wasn't able to show a photo of till now.  The quilt was made by Tish and she asked me to quilt it for her. She had been collecting unique and fancy labels from clothing and sewed them all onto this quilt.  She has labels mixed in her 9 patches and the border is full of labels.  I stitched around each individual label in the border and then in the ditch of all the squares.  It is really a fun unique quilt.  You could stand for a long time examining all the different labels in this quilt.  Some are very colorful and are tiny works of art all on their own.

I won a Ribbon!!

I won a red ribbon for "Best Use of Theme" at my guilds Quilt Challenge Show!  The theme this year was "9 Patch". For my entry I finished up the 9 patch quilt from the quilt along I started over at Amanda Jean's blog in the summer of '09.  I actually finished the quilt at the beginning of May this year, but I didn't want to post a photo of it till it was revealed at the show today. All the quilts were revealed this morning as part of our June guild meeting and awards were handed out at the end of the meeting.  I was really surprised when they called my name out.  There were lots of fancy quilts there and I really didn't think my quilt would place at all.

All the quilts will hang in the Hartsville, SC Museum for the summer so if you are in town, stop by the museum to see them in person.

Block Progress

        Today was a busy day for me around the house, but every now and then I would steal 15 min or so and sit at the sewing machine to work on some projects.  I am simultaneously working on two projects and during my short bursts of sewing time I made 5 more string blocks and the Sawtooth Star blocks for the table topper and place mats I am making.  I am impressed at how much I got done during those several 15 minute sewing sessions.  I really felt like I didn't have much time at the machine today, but when I take a peek at the blocks on the design wall, I must admit I got more done than I realized.

Tomorrow looks to be another busy day with three of my kids out of school.  My oldest has two more days left filled with exams, but she also has early dismissal at 11:45. So between kids, chores, and school pickup, I may have to do 15 minute sewing intervals again tomorrow.

=^..^=

Started the String Blocks

I sewed together all the 9 patch and border strips this morning and got a start on the string blocks for the shirt quilt I am making.  Only 20 more string blocks to go, but I need to cut up more shirts.  I had only cut the sleeves during the first cutting session, and that has gotten me pretty far, but now I need some longer strips for these string blocks, so back to the cutting table I go.   

Earlier today, when I was cutting out my 24 base squares for my string blocks, I also cut out the pieces for some place mats and a table topper.  They will be for my good friend's grandmother. These should be quick and fun to sew up.




=^..^=

Finished the 9 Patches

This morning I finished up all the 9 patches for the shirt quilt I am working on.

I will have to sew them to the sashing later on tonight though, because right now I am off to a matinée to see a pirate movie with the kids and after that I plan on hitting the craft stores for their Memorial Day Weekend Sales.  Hope I find some good loot.  :)

=^..^=

Side Tracked with The Abbey Bag

I got the new Connecting Threads catalogue in the mail the other day and saw this cute scrap bag kit.  It is The Abbey Bag pattern and uses their new line of sewing themed fabrics.  I thought they looked really cute and ordered myself a kit.  It came in the mail Saturday and I started on it right away.  I finished them both up Sunday afternoon and can't decide which one I like best. I suppose I could keep one at my cutting table and one at the sewing machine.  :)

Very seldom do my two cats sit by each other, they usually prefer opposite couches, but this morning I guess the sun coming in the window and the soft quilt made them both want to relax in the same place.

Jasper and Sheen

=^..^=

Sewing Progress

I got a little bored cutting shirts, so I decided to shift to sewing for a bit.

I got all the sashing strips sewn together yesterday and half of the nine patches.  

I have a pile of squares ready to go for the rest of nine patches, and once those are sewn together I will start the string blocks.

=^..^=

Slow and Steady Progress

Cutting these shirts into strips is taking way longer than I thought, but I am making steady progress.  I have all the strips cut for the sashing and most of the squares for the 9 patches in between the sashing.  I took a small break from cutting and sewed a few sashing strips together and a small 9 patch.  Only 34 more 9 patches,  53 sashing strips, and 24 string blocks to go.  :)

While I was cutting and sewing, I had my daughter cut off the buttons of a few more shirts so I can cut more strips for the string blocks.  In the photo are two sets of sleeves I will cut next. Hopefully I can finish cutting the rest of the shirts up by this weekend and get sewing on the top next week.

The Start of Something New

During my craft time the past couple days I have been cutting up men's shirts.  My husband's Uncle died last summer and his Aunt has asked me to help turn his old shirts into quilts for her children.   So far I have cut off the collars, button plackets, and seams of 8 shirts.  There are many more shirts, but this will give me a good start.

I am going to make a slightly smaller version of this quilt on the right.  It seems easy enough to figure out the pattern just by looking at it.  If I knew the name of the pattern, or a link to who posted the photo, I would add it here, but unfortunately that isn't the case. When I snagged the photo years ago I didn't think to rename it to something that would tell me where I found it.  Instead I put it in my "Quilts by Other People" folder.  Now I am really wishing I knew who posted this so I could link to their site, so if anyone knows who made this quilt, please let me know so I can do just that.

*UPDATE*  

Thanks to Natasha of Scraps-A-Plenty, I now know the blog where this photo is showcased.  You can see it as the banner photo of  JulieKQuilts.  The pattern can be found in Evelyn Sloppy's book Strips and Strings. Thanks Natasha!!  

=^..^=

Last of the 5

Last night around midnight I put the last hand stitch in the binding of my pink Zig Zag quilt.  This one was the last of the 5 quilts that I basted all on the same day at the end of March.

I can't decide if I like this quilt.  Some of my daughter's friends, who came over while I was working on it, said, "oh I really like that," and sometimes when I glance at it I really like it too, but on occasion when I stare at it too long I think, "ew, I shouldn't have used that shade of pink".  The main reason I made it was to try out a technique posted by Amanda Jean of Crazy Mom Quilts.   So I am undecided as to what to do with this quilt.

In between the 5 quilts I basted in the end of March, I finished 6 other quilts and one diaper pouch.  They are all pictured below (except for one which has to stay secret till June 2).  They all had deadlines for the end of April/May so I made them a priority over this zig zag quilt.  I suppose that is another reason why it took me over a year and half from start to finish for this pink and white quilt.  Since it didn't have a preset destination or wasn't needed for a special event, it kept getting put at the back of the to do list.  

The last photo of my cat napping on a quilt at my sewing machine is now a finished quilt, but I don't want to show that one all the way until it is revealed at my next quilt guild meeting in June.  It is for my guild's yearly challenge.  The theme for that challenge was 9 patch.  In June all the quilts from the challenge will be revealed at the Hartsville Museum and be on display all summer for everyone to see.  I am excited for that meeting.

Now I feel the need to baste 5 more quilts so I can have something to work on in between customer projects and quilts that need to get done for special days like birthday's and upcoming holidays.

=^..^=

Cat Nap

Of all the quilts to sit on in the room, I wonder why my cat, Jasper, always likes to sleep on the one I am working on.   I am halfway done with this pink Zig Zag quilt, but Jasper is sleeping so sound I will have finish it once his cat nap is over.

=^..^=

Don't Faint...

I have actually finished a project two and a half weeks before it is due!     

This is my version of the Candy Bar Pinwheels quilt, the May pattern for the "Le Petite: A year of Small Projects".  This is a small quilt that I plan to use on my rectangular coffee table in the living room.  I started it on Mother's Day and finished sewing the binding on this afternoon. 

Usually I am up till the wee hours of the morning the night before in order to get my projects finished on time. So this feeling of being done early is rare and feels very nice.  And this isn't just a top finished in the nick of time, it is actually quilted and bound.  A true completed finish. Yay for finally overcoming my desire to procrastinate! (at least this one time anyway)

I used a charm pack from Connecting Threads called Abigail's Garden.  I don't usually buy charm packs, or any precuts for that matter, because when you add up the fabric that comes in pre-cuts and compare it to the price paid for yardage, you sometimes end up paying $12 to $15 a yard for pre-cuts while regular yardage is about $8 or $9.  With such a huge price difference, I figure I can do the cutting myself and I usually stick to buying yardage.  But when I was at the Connecting Threads website buying orange thread for a different project, I saw that they had a some charm packs on sale at a great price so I bought a few to try.  I admit they were easy to work with (the pattern called for 2.5 squares, which meant no waste of the 5 inch charm), and I enjoyed having a whole variety of different fabrics to work with. So perhaps when I find more charm packs at a price that brings them closer to yardage prices, I may end up adding a few charm packs to my stash.

=^..^=