Lots of Quilting Going On

I spent the past couple weeks busy quilting.  Some of my own stuff and some for others.  A couple of them are for my guild  quilt show in June.  I am so excited to show them off, but I don't want to spoil any surprises so I will only post some teasers of those.

This is the quilt I turned in for the show.  It was a kit from Connecting Threads that my mom gave me for Christmas a couple years ago.  The backing was made from the left over fabric from the kit.  I was surprised and excited to find that there was enough fabric leftover to piece together a backing.

This makes Finish #12 for the year.

This next one I quilted for Martha.  I love it!  Can't wait till I can show more of it.

This quilt belongs to Tish and isn't going in the show so I can show all of it.

She calls it "No More Peas Please".

She doesn't like a lot of dense quilting, so I did some straight lines through the chains and then some loops in the half square triangles.

I also finished all the quilting on my Summer Day quilt, I didn't take a picture of it yet though.  I am still working on hand stitching down the binding.  I have two more sides to go!  Should be done tonight and I will snap photos tomorrow.

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Summer Day Top Done

I finished the top for my April Schnibble last night.  Thanks to the inspiration from Vroomans Quilts, I even added a scrappy border.  

Since this quilt is going to a sweet baby girl, I embroidered her name on the bottom right corner.  I already have it basted and have started with the quilting!  I will show it all finished when I get done with the binding.  I want to do a hand stitched binding so it may be a day or two for the finishing photo.

Can't wait for the Schnibble parade tomorrow!

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Busy Quilting and I'm a Liebster

I have been busy this week working on one of my own quilts.  I am finishing up the quilting on this applique quilt and plan on entering it as my guild challenge piece for the year.  The theme was "Quilting in the Carolina's"  which was difficult for me,  I had too many ideas for it. It could be anything and I ended up spending the year trying to figure out what to make instead of actually making something that really fit the theme.  Time was ticking down though so I decided to go with my flower applique quilt.  The Carolina's have lots of wonderful flowers right?

Quilts are due at the next guild meeting, which is the first Thursday in May.  They are suppose to be secret until the big reveal so That is why I am only showing a part of it.  After the June meeting, which will be held at the Hartsville, SC Museum, I will post the whole thing for you all to see.  If you want to see it in person and live close by, it will hang with all the other challenge quilts at the Hartsville Museum from June to July.

Also,  My Old Quilting Soul nominated me for a Liebster Blog Award!
Thanks so much for letting me be one of your favorites!!

Now it is my turn to introduce you to some of my favorite quilt bloggers who have 200 followers or less.

I follow quite a lot of bloggers and it was hard to choose favorites I like them all!  Plus a lot of the ones I follow have already been Liebster blogs, so today I have picked two blogs to share with you.

Natasha at Scraps A Plenty - I stumbled upon here blog when were were making similar quilts at the same time and have been a follower ever since.  

Janet at Rogue Quilter - I found her blog when I was trying to find pictures of Faceted Jewel quilts.  She had made one from a pattered called Eye Fooler.  I loved her blog and started flowering her right then.

Check out their blogs when you get a chance, they are wonderful!

Here's some more info about the Liebster;

The Liebster Award (Liebster means favorite in German) is for bloggers with 200 followers or less. As a recipient of the award, you have the chance to thank and link back to the blogger who gave it to you as well as pass it along to five other deserving blogs.

The Liebster Conventions say: 

1. Thank your award presenter on your blog and link back to him/her

2. Copy and paste the award to your blog 

3. Present the Liebster Award to 5 blogs that you think deserve to be recognized 

4. Let them know by leaving a comment on their blog

5. Have faith that your follower will spread the love too !

Summer Day

It sure doesn't feel like a summer day here today.  I woke up to 37 degrees.  I was sure the hot temps of the past couple weeks were here to stay, so I was surprised by the sudden weather change.
I still went for my morning walk though, just had to add a jacket.  

In the meantime, I have caught up on my Summer Day Schnibble quilt.  I got my geese grouped together and the sides stitched on.  Next step is putting them all together.

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April FNSI

For April's Friday Night Sew In we were challenged to make one pillowcase for for Conkerr Cancer, who distributes pillowcases to critically ill children.

I had 28 inches left of this cute frog fabric which is the perfect size for a pillowcase.   It came together super fast.  I even did the french seams on it and it was still fast to put together.

Which meant I could use the majority of my sewing time last night for finishing up the quilting and binding on Sara's Turning 20 quilt.

Sara, a guild mate of mine, had been gathering flower fabrics that represented each state where her children were born.  She also added some other fabrics that represented each child and her husband.  The top and bottom border are forestry fabric to represent her husband and his long career in that field.

I did an all over flowery loop quilting for this quilt.

I love all her flower fabrics, they are all so soft.  My favorite is this pink flowered fabric.

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First of the 9 Patch Quilts Finished

 I finally got the binding on this quilt this afternoon.

  That makes two complete quilts for my shirt quilt project. 

 And finish #11 for the year.

  Yay!!

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Gaggle of Geese

I must have some form of Quilters ADD.  I can sit at the sewing machine or cutting table for hours no problem, but I usually end up working on a couple different projects during that time.  Very seldom do I take one project and work on it from start to finish.  For instance, yesterday I started fiddling with my tube blocks, but then I ended up cutting and sewing together all my flying geese for my Schnibbles "Summer Day" quilt this month.  

Luckily this time I didn't' have to spend time picking out fabrics for this project (which sometimes takes me days) because a couple months ago I bought a kit from Quilt Taffy that had the pattern and all the fabrics picked out for me.  So when they announced "Summer Day" as the new pattern this month I got excited since I already had everything I needed.  The girls at Quilt Taffy picked out a Sophie charm pack and some yardage to go with it.  They did a great job, I am loving all the geese in these soft colors.

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Tube Blocks

I made some good progress on my Strip Tube quilt last night.
I cut and pressed all the blocks and got a few of them sewn together in pairs.

Then I fiddled around with the scraps.  I figured if I don't trim these up now they will sit for who knows how long.  There were some extra triangles at the end of each strip tube that weren't quite big enough for a full block, so I trimmed them up and sewed them together in smaller hour glass blocks.  On each tube I also had enough fabric to trim off  2.5 inch  strips.  I'm thinking of sewing these all  into blocks and adding them to the back of the quilt. That will reduce the yardage I need for the back and look pretty spiffy at the same time.

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Baby Cakes Top Done

I've been busy sewing blocks together and got my Baby Cakes top together.

I also got the quilting done on my second shirt quilt.  All it needs is the binding.

It is sitting next to the lily I won at our last guild meeting. 

They were the centerpieces for out Southern Tea Party activity.

At the end of the meeting they gave them all away as door prizes and the last name they picked to take one home was mine!!!  

I also won the guild block of the month!  

WAHOO!!

I am super excited about that too. 

I laid out all the blocks last night to get an idea of how I wanted to put them all together
and have decided to turn them on point.  I am two blocks short though.

I thought about moving the two in the center to the bottom and putting two empty squares in the middle so I can quilt something spiffy on them. Or I can just make two more blocks.

I also need to figure out what color sashing I want to use.
I will think on it for a bit while I get the quilting done on some of my other quilts.

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Blocks and Strip Tubes

I finished sewing my Baby Cake blocks yesterday. 

With Chain piecing they went together pretty quick.

Later on in the evening I worked on my Strip Tube quilt.  

I got all the tubes sewn together.

Did you notice I flipped my cutting mat over?  

I was ready for a new color on the cutting table.

Two sided cutting mats are wonderful!!

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Lorene's Quilt

Here is the quilting I did on Lorene's Quilt

It is all freehand feathers and loops.

I did mark the arcs on the triangle blocks though so I could have a uniform shape for all the curved feathers.

 I also marked some straight lines in the other triangle blocks so could have a line to base all the loops on and so the adjoining triangle loops would line up together.

I love all the blues and browns in this quilt.  Lorene did a great job picking out the colors for this beauty.

I didn't think it was that windy outside till I tried to take a photo of this quilt.

It is amazing what a little wind can do.

I finally got it to lay still for a brief second.

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Tish's House Quilt

I've been busy quilting. 

In between working on my own projects, I have been working on this House Quilt that Tish made.

She told me to add the blue border on for her and do what ever with it.

I had fun playing around with thise one.  I really love her woven pineapple.

I put some grass quilting in her front yard.

and did some more circle feathers.

I stitched around the windows and doors and the frame of the house, you can see those better from the back.

I also finished up Lorene's quilt this week. I will post that one tomorrow.

Now I am off to the machine to sew up some Baby Cake blocks.

I am watching the baby this week so I better take advantage of that afternoon nap!

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How I Paper Piece

The other day I worked on some fabric postcards.  This particular swap was themed "Black and Orange". 

I had the idea in my head of what I wanted to do for these cards, but I couldn't find the right sized paper pieced tree pattern, so I made my own.  As I started the paper piecing process I kept having trouble lining up my next piece.  I'd use the light box to help line it up, but then things would shift as I took it to the machine. and I wasn't quite sure where the line was anymore. I would either have the top too far off or the bottom in the wrong spot, so I decided to try it a little different.

Instead of trimming the pieces to a 1/4 in seam allowance AFTER I sewed the pieces together, I decided to trim it BEFORE the actual sewing.  Here is what I mean:

This is what I have so far.  It is ready for the next piece of fabric.

I flip my paper over.  The piece I am adding next is piece #7.

I find the line I am going to sew on next and fold the paper right on that line.

Fold it all the way and crease it.  You can now see all the extra fabric from my last few pieces.

Line up your ruler and trim that fabric off.

Since I was making a postcard that won't get washed, I used a 1/8th seam allowance.

Flip your block back over.

You now have a nice straight edge to line up your next piece with.

Line it up and take it to the machine.

Sew on the proper line.

Press that piece open 

The iron not only presses the fabric, but it also presses out the crease you just made in the paper.

Continue the process for the rest of your pattern.

Feel Free to use my Paper Piecing Tree pattern to make your own 4 x 6 postcard.  

These trees would also look great as Christmas trees, or winter evergreens. or even pastel spring trees.  

The possibilities are endless.

Four pretty orange trees making their way across the US.

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A day of Cutting

I didn't do any sewing today.  Instead I took a break from the machine and spent it with my rotary cutter.

First I cut out the Baby Cakes kit I ordered from Connecting Threads.
I had it on my wish list for awhile and finally snatched it up as soon as it went on sale.  

The fabric is from their Wild Ones line and is all flannel.  

After I grouped up all the Baby Cake squares and rectangles, I got out my Reunion fabric for my Strip Tube Quilt. I cut the 4.5 inch strips I need to finish up the tube.

The last thing I cut up was another kit from Connecting Threads.  This one is their Wild Thing Kit with their Urban Odyssey line, one of my favorites from them. Its also the same fabric I used for my Bibelot quilt. 

 Can you see the gray in the top right corner?  It is Sheen again. 

He didn't hop up on the cutting table until I pulled out this last kit.  

He must like this fabric line as much as me.

 With all this cutting done, I will have plenty of projects to choose from for those nights when I just want to piece something on the machine.

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