Monday, July 4, 2022

Stars and Stripes 2022

 

The family fourth of July party was today and I brought another flag quilt to give away.  I made two last year for the fourth and ended up giving both of them away, so I needed one for myself this year.


Pattern is Stars and Stripes by Thimble Blossoms.


This pattern sews up super quick with 15 large flag blocks.   I actually made them both in less than a week.  I spent Wednesday and Thursday night after work cutting out the flag fabrics.  I used several different Island Batik Fabrics for the top and the binding.


On Friday night after work I sewed up the flags.  I sewed up the first set and thought it went super fast, so I timed my self sewing the second set and it took one hour and 7 minutes to sew 15 flags together.





Quality Control test halfway through by Boonky and Carl.






Saturday I had a lot more time to sew, so I had time to cut out the sashing, sewed the tops, and prepared the backs.  My plan was to make one for the party and only make two if time allowed, which it did.



Sunday I did the quilting and the Binding.  The long arm really helps speed this up.  No more rearranging furniture and crawling on the floor to baste quilts.  




I really like the navy sashing.  I made one like this last year and loved it and gave it to my neighbor but this one is staying here with me.




I did some wavy quilting on both of them using blue thread.  I wanted something that wouldn't look too stark on the navy sashing and would also go well with the white strips.  Blue worked perfect.



I used up a nice patriotic print I had in my stash for the back.



I like the sashing on this one too.  It is a little brighter than the aqua the pattern calls for.  It reminds me of pool water.  






I used a lighter baby blue thread to quilt this one. 




I found some cute 4th of July gnome fabric for this one.  I was walking by it in the store and couldn't pass that up.  It makes the perfect backing.  This quilt went to the winner of the balloon cup challenge at the 4th of July party.  





Carl wasted no time testing the quilts out.  Cat tested, Cat approved!








Happy Fourth!!





Happy Sewing!


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Saturday, July 2, 2022

Purple Triangle Quilt


 This quilt started as a special request from my youngest son more than a year ago. I finished this in May this year, but finally got around to blogging about it today.  My son said he wanted a triangle quilt... literally in the shape of a triangle,  and he wanted it big enough for his bed.  

I really was not excited about the triangle quilt at first, so I did drag my feet a bit, but as time passed and progress went extremely slow, I decided I needed to put a deadline on this so it would get done.  I picked my son's birthday.   


I started out making a diagram in EQ8.  I had to make the triangle wide enough but also make sure it didn't get ridiculously long.


 I came up with this rectangle paper pieced block.  It is just a wee bit longer than it is wide so it makes the length I wanted without getting super wide.  It also allowed me to create the triangle shape for the quilt by only sewing half the block for the edges.  



I also used this same block for my Island Batik Ambassador Project in January.  You can see that here.



The original design did not have a border, but my son said he wanted one, so I played around with colors and we ended up with a black inner border and a purple outer border.  This made the quilted even larger.

Boonky decided to help pick out borders too.

 


I was really concerned about how I could create a triangle back without wasting so much fabric and how to pin it to the quilting frame.



 I had the perfect fabric for the back, more triangles, but it wasn't long enough.  It didn't go all the way down to the end of the triangle. Luckily since the top was a triangle I could cut off the triangle shaped edges of the backing that stuck out from the top and sew those together to create another triangle.  I was able to sew that to what I already had and got the length I needed for the whole back.



Now I had to figure out how to attach a triangle shaped back to the quilt frame. I decided to sew some muslin triangles edges halfway down, just enough to get something to pin the the end of the machine.  It worked out pretty good even though there were some holes in it, and it needed some pins.



The backing rolled up just fine on the frame and I didn't have any issues quilting it.  



I did some quick wavy line quilting and added the binding just in time for my son's birthday.



My son did know I was working on the quilt for several months, but he had no clue it was even close to being finished.  I kept its progress hidden under other projects and when ever he would ask about it, I would tell him I was still working on it and that maybe, just maybe, it would be done in time for Christmas, 


The last few days I thought for sure he would come in the sewing room while I was quilting it and see it on the frame.  I did the quilting early in the morning while he was sleeping, but I needed two mornings to quilt it.  So it sat on the frame all day with the door closed.  I stayed out of the sewing room that whole day while he was awake.  Luckily he didn't go in there so so the surprise on his face when he opened it on his birthday was fantastic!.



Happy Sewing!


=^..^=





Friday, June 24, 2022

Here Comes the Sun Blog Hop



Welcome to the last day of the Here Comes the Sun Blog Hop hosted by Carol of Just Let Me Quilt.
I've sure enjoyed seeing everyone's creations.  If you missed any, you can find the whole blog hop list at the bottom of the post.





The challenge for this blog hop was Summer and Sunshine.

We were challenged to sew something that has a summer theme like: sunglasses, beach items, sunny skies, and/or yellow colors. It could be a quilt, a bag, a toy, or whatever we wanted it to be.



I went with yellow and lots of it!
I even threw in some orange and reds for hot summer sun colors.



I had snatched up these Island Batik color strip packs from Missouri Star a bit ago when they went on sale and this was the perfect hop to use them.





Half of each pack makes a whole lot of four patches!  I didn't even use them all for this quilt.  When I first started, I had no clue where this project was going.  I was just sewing four patches.

As I was sewing the four patches I felt like I needed something pointy for sun rays, so I added the red triangle in a square blocks along with some orange half square triangles and ended up creating the quilt I have now.  



The other red, white, and orange prints are left overs from my other Island Batik Ambassador projects and from my personal Island Batik Stash.  It was fun to play with these colors of the sun.  

I quilted it with Hobbs Heirloom Premium 80/20 Bleached Cotton/Poly Blend.  I like using the white batting when I have lots of white in the quilt top.





The back is older fabric from my stash.  I really like piecing my backs.  Helps me clear out the stash!





I am calling this one Summer Sun.  It measures approximately 64 inch square.





Wednesday, June 22, 2022

Island Batik New York Beauty Blog Hop - Winter Wonders



Welcome to week three, day three of the Island Batik New York Beauty Blog hop!





Today I am showing off my creation using the new Island Batik Winter Wonders fabric line by Kathy Engle and I have info on two give a ways at the end of the post!



These are beautiful festive prints hitting stores now, just in time for Christmas in July!
I started with four different New York Beauty blocks and picked fabrics for each section as I went along.




Switching from green to red to tan.  It was fun to cut and sew and not really worry about what was going where. They all play so well together!





 I sewed the blocks in sets of four.  Four patterns, four different color variations for each one.




Choosing a layout was fun.  I could have turned the blocks so many different ways.  There were so many different combinations, but four circles ended up winning the vote here, so that is what I went with.





I added some sashing blocks between the New York Beauty blocks and for the outer border.



For the backing I used a red print from the Island Batik Foundation collection called Scarlet. The strips in the middle are all from the Winder Wonders collection.




I quilted it with with Hobbs Heirloom Premium Cotton Batting and Schmetz Chrome Microtex Needles.






It quilted up fantastic.




I never would have guessed I would have a project ready before Christmas in July.
It sure feels good to have a new Christmas quilt done early! Lol!




Now for my Giveaway!  

I used almost the entire half yard bundle I received for this project, but I did have enough left over to make a couple stash builder roles and cut 100 mini charms.  If your interested  in winning these, leave a comment below and I will Pick a winner this weekend after the blog hop.

**WINNER UPDATE**

Congratulations GranChris! The random number generator picked your comment! You won my little giveaway! I sent you an email.


**WINNER UPDATE**






Island Batik is also having a giveaway.  

They are giving two people a chance to win a Fat Quarter bundle of fabric from the complete Island Batik collections featured this week – Tranquility by Deb Tucker’s Studio 180 Design or Woodblock Bouquets, designed for Carol Moellers Designs by Kathy Engle!





To enter for your chance to win these gorgeous batiks, please follow the easy-to-use prompts on Rafflecopter!

Check out the Island Batik blog for all the new fabric lines coming out and all the Island Batik Ambassadors showing off their New York Beauty Quilts.










Happy Sewing!


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