Katie's Grandson's Quilt

Baby boy is due 27th. and Grani is anxious to have the quilt finished for his arrival, so I got it quilted up over the weekend in between running around after "The Boy"!

 Quilted with peacock feathers, So Fine pale yellow thread and Quilter's Dream Angel batting

 It is just adorable!

 It's a two sided quilt, and I love both sides equally.

The giraffe design came from a book but clever Katie designed the other side herself.

Wholecloth Quilts

The youth group at our church is having a fund raiser and I offered a quilt for the event.

 However these small quilts are easy to do two at a time using a single piece of fabric for top and another for the backing. Wide Kona muslin works nicely, with two layers of batting Quilter's Dream on the bottom with polyester on top to give definition to the quilting.

I mark out a rough outline with erasable or disappearing markers, then freehand the quilting. Next time I will take a few pics of the process from the marking part onwards so you can see how it goes.

This time I decided to quilt the crosses with Superior silver metallic, the balance was quilted with Superior So Fine.
Now to bind them, by machine of course!

Paper Pieced Blocks

The blocks made from the "ugly quilt fabrics"are all ready to applique. 

The pattern for the large block is "Spinning Star" from Peggy Martin's book "Quick Strip Paper Piecing" which is a faster method of PP.

 Here are a line of blocks on the machine........

 and here's how it looks when you flip them over before cutting them apart.

It really is quite a lot faster.

To finish the raw edges of blocks for applique, I like to use the following method.
Place a piece of a very thin interfacing the same size as the block on the right side, sew around the raw edge then cut an X in the interfacing,  turn to the right side and press just as I did with the small blocks above.
The past couple of days between caring for little man, I made five of these tiny PP stars to scatter between the large blocks.

 Now I am thinking perhaps the background should be larger? It looks a little crowded to me. Hmmmmm........would a border help?
This is definitely a work in progress!

More On The Ugly Quilt Fabric Challenge

OK, so I took another look at my PP blocks and decided to remove all the corners and applique them to black fabric so they'd look sort of like comets - or something space-like!
However, having nothing in stash that would suit I headed to my nearest QS, " Quiltz" less than 10 minutes down the road. I still had my "get out of jail free" card [viz. the one new fabric purchase allowed for the challenge] and I found this black that I think will work, and purchased 1.5 yds. with a 25% discount coupon.

So, now I have a plan to make a two sided quilt [no idea how I will quilt that] using these 6 blocks on the front,

                  and perhaps working the print below [from stash] into it all!

 Right about now you're thinking "she is insane!" And you may be right, but I am going to see if I can do it.

The other three, the obnoxious blue blocks, will go on the reverse side

with this, also from stash, for a background. That's the plan and I hope to work on it tomorrow after Matthew goes to his other GM, so check back for updates! I am still not sure how this will work out but it will, I will make it work!

Ugly Fabric Quilt Challenge-UFQC!

These are the fabrics that BJ presented to me for a challenge.

 In an effort to rid herself of them BJ gave the identical challenge to 3 or 4 quilters including Suzanne at coloradolady.blogspot.com who needed more of the pale green for her project and traded mine for the same fabric in beige.

 The method I chose to use them was paper piecing but now that I have completed the blocks I have to figure out a way to use them, help! For the challenge we are allowed to add as many fabrics from our own stash as we need and may buy one new fabric to complete the project, so I pulled several from stash that coordinated. Now that they're done I see how obnoxious that blue is, and wish that I had used a softer blue, that's what makes those three blocks stand out so much from all the rest. Hmmmm I could remove the corner triangles and replace them with something else, so off to the stash to check out possibilities.

 

The only common color is red so perhaps I can somehow tie them together with a red similar to the one in the photo above?
How on earth do I put these together? I may well need to design two separate projects. Or they may become permanent UFO's.

Last time I participated in the UFQC challenge I ended up with this quilt and as wild as it is someone fell in love with it and so I was delivered from it, LOL.

Lauren's Quilt For Her Dad

Lauren's quilt was 90% finished on Tuesday when I ran out of thread.

  So another cone of Superior So Fine #402 had to be ordered from Sewthankful in NM, they are so very helpful and prompt and I love dealing with a small family company like this. The service is always exceptional, these companies keep our nation's retail engines going. The thread arrived yesterday, and this afternoon I was able to finish the last 12" or so of the quilting.
 Lauren decided that she wanted overall feathers, and they do compliment the quilt's simple construction.

The backing is the same fabric as on the front.

That's all I was able to accomplish for the week due to that fact that right after I ran out of thread my back gave out and the rest of the week saw me laying flat in bed. Unfortunately there's not much else to be done for my "severe spinal stenosis" until I can get into the neurosurgeon late next month, we have tried every other less invasive treatment.

Wordless Wednesday

Hanging out with Daddy and the "bi-Pad"!!

August Craftsy BOM

Craftsy BOM for this month are stars and here are mine. For once I am ahead of the game!

 

Trying to use up a lot of batik scraps, by year's end there will be enough blocks for a queen size quilt. I am really loving the contrast in these batiks, it will be a very bright quilt!

 Some months I have done extra blocks, as in last month I got carried away and made several Dresden Plate blocks and have enough pieces cut for another couple. One month I skipped totally because it was English paper piecing and I avoid handwork like the plague!

 Went to lunch with an Aussie friend just back from DownUnder, she had brought me back a big new jar of Veggie, 600gms.[ that's 21 ozs.]  I was getting perilously low!
We ate at Pita Jungle, wonderful food,  Ahi Tuna and hummus, yummy.

Notice that Kraft Australia are sponsors of the Aussie Olympic Team. Australia was #10 in the medals winners, not bad for a country of about 22 million only 58th. in the world population wise. Pretty athletic lot, the Aussies! Did you know that Aus ranks #5 in the world for beer drinkers and also # 5 in longevity, wonder if there's any correlation, LOL.

Sue and I chatted for a couple of hours and caught up on the news from our families in Aus and here then checked out Bernina Connection for their new quilting supplies and I found a batik on the sale rack that came home with me.  

My stash never seems to have enough lights and with three batik quilts in progress at present this piece will be a nice addition to the collection.

Weekend Sewing

Saturday I went to Meredith's to sew and began work on these blocks.

 Somehow in spite of double-checking before cutting, I managed to goof it up and had to cut a whole lot more rectangles to be able to use those already cut! This will now either be two medium or one very large quilt! I think I have around 140 blocks, 6"x7.5".
Deciding on rectangles rather than squares made things way more complicated than necessary and in hindsight I should have simply stayed with HST's. You do know that hindsight is 20/20, LOL.

The pattern I decided to use for a basis was published in Fons And Porter, March/April 2008 by Karla Alexander .

It is the same design I used for the recent pink and brown quilt on my blog here, but will not look anything like it as you can see the fabrics in these newest blocks are monotones.

Sunday BJ and her friend Jacki came to sew and we were delighted to have Lauren too after quite a long spell, most weekends she is busy helping out at her parents with her invalid Dad.

We took a short break to eat at Einstein's and then stopped by "Quiltz" to take advantage of their coupon for 35% off and each of us managed to find something we "needed", then it was back to the "sweatshop"!

Lauren brought this top made for her Dad that I am to quilt. She used CW style repros. and we all agreed that it turned out just great and a perfect masculine quilt

 Last week was quite productive for me, in addition to the tops I quilted, these four below are bound and now off the UFO list! Trying to keep the list down to one or two, I get terribly uncomfortable if there are too many incomplete projects!

Vintage Jacob's Ladder

This top is hand pieced and came from an estate sale according to the eBayer from whom I purchased it, when no one bid and I took pity on it!

 It pleased me well enough but lacked a border.

 The rather strange tone of the old pink plaid, almost a feed sack weave, resulted in a lot of rejects until I finally settled on a small vintage-looking print that blended better than anything else I had seen. The green picks up the odd stripe in the plaid that might be green but it's very hard to be sure.

The backing is a wide back "Beach House" from RJR  fabrics. There's nothing left of the border fabric for binding so after a search of the stash I may have to purchase something.

Vintage Sunbonnet Sue

These hand applique blocks from an estate sale are sashed with 30's replica fabrics and custom quilted with small peacock feathers.

 The thread is cream and the batting Hobbs Heirloom 80/20 which gives very nice definition. 

Quilting shows nicely on the Kona muslin backing.