St. Patrick's Wall Hanging

Yesterday I made this cute little wall hanging for St. Patrick's Day.  This is a picture of the completed top.  I layered it up last night and quilted it today (on the sewing machine).  The binding it attached and ready to be turned, but I won't work on the binding until my next road trip.  But hopefully it should be ready to hang on the wall by St. Patrick's Day.

Lilah's Rose Garden

Here is a picture of the finished quilt that I made for my soon-to-be granddaughter.  Her name is going to be Lilah Rose, so that is why it has an "L" in the center.  The picture was taken today at the baby shower.  I still need to make a label for the quilt, but I am waiting until I can put her birth date on it.

Second Moda block

So many small pieces in this one.  The smallest patches are cut at 1 inch square.  If I was going to make this block again, I would scale it up two or three times bigger.  It would make a pretty wall hanging if you did that.  I'm not sure about continuing to make the blocks at the given sizes when they have all these little pieces.  It was not fun at all.

First Moda Block (Half of February assignment)

Yesterday I worked on my blocks for the Moda Class.  This year we are doing the Quilter's Patch quilt from Edyta Sitar's book by the same name.  I still have another block to do before we meet this month on the 15th.  It took all afternoon to make this one block.  There are so many small pieces.  This is a 12 inch (finished) block, just for the record.

I am doing mine in batik fabrics instead of the Laundry Basket fabric that the original is in.  I am trying to follow the same color scheme, though.

Valentine Place Mats

This month for our quilt guild project, we were supposed to make a heart table runner.  I didn't really want to make the table runner, because it was too big for the table that I use a table runner on.  So, instead of making a table runner I wouldn't actually use, I decided to use the elements of the table runner to make a couple of place mats.  I had to do a little figuring to translate it into place mats, but for me that is half (or maybe more than half) the fun.  The finished place mats are 13 inches by 16 inches.

I also did something new, for me, when it came to quilting them.  I free-motion quilted them using my regular home sewing machine.  I had never actually done that on a project before.  Anytime in the past, when I had tried it on a scrap, I always ended up with a snarled mess on the back of the fabric.  It has been a long time since I tried before, so I'm not sure what all I did differently this time.  But I didn't adjust the tension at all and I didn't drop the feed dogs.  I just put on the darning foot and quilted it.  I think it turned out looking really nice.  It isn't perfect or anything, but I like the way it looks.  You can see the quilting a little better in the picture below.

Lilah's quilt top

This is the finished quilt top for the quilt that I am making for my new grandbaby that is due to arrive on April 3rd.  Her name is going to be Lilah Rose, so that is why there is an "L" in the center of the quilt.  The "L" is machine appliqued.  The top is made of simple half square triangle blocks.  I put them together into 4-patch blocks, added the applique, then sewed the 4-patches together as a large 9-patch unit.  Really fast and easy.  The finished top is approximately 39 inches by 39 inches.

2016 In Review

Last year I finished 9 quilt and 1 quilted candle mat, made 6 quilt tops that didn't get finished (UFOs), and did a couple of small projects that weren't quilted items (some burp clothes and a Christmas ornament).  That makes 12 completed projects for the year, which is always my goal.

I suppose that maybe in 2017 I should try to finish up some those UFOs that I created in 2016.  But part of the problem with that is that I'm not sure what I want to do with them, which is one of the main reasons that they didn't get finished in 2016.  One of them, however, is currently at the quilt shoppe to be quilted, so it should get done this year with no problem.

I still have one project from my 2015 quilting to-do list that I have not finished - hand quilt something.  Maybe I will get around to that this year as well.  I do like hand quilting, but it just takes so much time.  I am thinking maybe I will do a pillow.  Possibly something whole-cloth with a nice quilting design.

Checkerboard & Squares

I call the pattern for this one Checkerboard & Squares.  I haven't actually come up with a name for the individual quilt yet.  It is machine pieced and machine quilted (by Front Porch Quilt Shoppe).  Melanie has asked me to write a pattern for it.  Hopefully I will get around to doing that soon.  The quilt finishes at about 42 inches square.  I used some of the extra jellyroll strips on the back to make the backing wide enough so that I didn't have to buy extra yardage.

Update: I named it Jelly Beans.

Grow! jellyroll baby quilt

I will be donating this little quilt to the Methodist Church where my quilt guild used to meet.  They always give a quilt to the babies that are baptized there.  I machine quilted it myself, quilting in the ditch around the two borders and in between the rows.  These are so quick and easy to make. They make great charity quilts or gifts. 

Watermelon Tourmaline quilt top

Here is my latest effort toward finishing up last year's quilting to-do list.  This top fulfills the "make a batik quilt" item on the list.  It is the quilt that I had in mind last year when I added that item to my to-do list.

The quilt pattern comes from Eleanor Burn's book, Quick Trip Quilts and is made from batik fabrics that I ordered from Keepsake Quilting's catalogue.  For a trip around the world quilt it was really fun and easy to make.  Even though there are lots of small pieces in the quilt, you don't sew any short seams.  It is strip pieced, of course, because it is an Eleanor Burns quilt, and it comes together really quickly.  I highly recommend the book if you are looking to make a trip around the world quilt.

The inspiration for the quilt was a trip to Maine that we took several years ago, in 2009.  When we were in Bar Harbor we went into a little jewelry shop where they had a lot of tourmaline gemstone jewelry.  Tourmaline is the official gemstone of the state of Maine.  They showed us some bi-color tourmaline that was popular, but expensive, called watermelon tourmaline that was pink and green.  I thought it was very pretty, but we didn't buy any.  Here is a picture of what it looks like.

I decided to make a watermelon tourmaline quilt instead.  It took me quite a while to get around to it, but I finally did it.  Well, I finally pieced the top anyway.  I still need to decide what I am going to do about the quilting.  Decisions, decisions. . .

Christmas Ornament

This year for our quilt guild Christmas party we are supposed to bring a handmade Christmas ornament to exchange.  I searched around on Pinterest and found this cute little Christmas tree ornament made out of yo-yos.  I searched through my Christmas fabrics and found several nice green fabrics to use, bought some jingle bells, beads, and ribbon, and put this little guy together in no time. 

I have a set of nesting biscuit cutters that worked really well for the different sized circles.  Five out of the seven yo-yos are from the biscuit cutter set.  I had to find a couple of bowls to make the larger circles because I wanted my tree to be a little taller.  It was really easy, quick and fun to make.

The Grandmother Sewing Begins

My middle son is expecting his first child in April, and she will be my first grand-baby.  We just found out last week that the baby is going to be a girl, so I can start sewing for her.  I found a pattern on Pinterest for a burp cloth that used flannel and chenille fabrics.  When I went to the quilt shop I bought some chenille to try it out.  I think it turned out good, but I kinda wish the chenille was a little thicker/closer together.  Before I make any more, I am going to let the parents-to-be look at it and see if they like the feel of the fabrics.  They love dogs, so I'm sure the flannel print will be a hit.

Bear in the Mountains - finished!

Here is the finished quilt that I made for our priest who is leaving us early next month.  I machine quilted it, quilting in the ditch around the individual paw blocks and around the mountain blocks.  I also quilted down the center of each mountain block to keep within the quilting distance requirements.  And I quilted in the ditch along the border seam.  As you can probably tell, I added a hanging sleeve to the back so that he can hang it on the wall (but that is my wall, not his).

Blue Roses

This is the quilt that I made in order to be able to have something quilted in the King Tut De Nile thread.  I saw the thread at the quilt shop and told the owner that I really wanted to make something that color so that I could have it quilted in that thread. 

When I saw this fabric I knew it would work.  The fabric is from the Christine line from Benartex by Eleanor Burns.  The top is mostly two charm packs with some yardage for the border and for a couple of 5 inch squares to make the diagonal rows work out right. 

The quilting design is Ribbons and Roses and the quilt finished 45 x 55 inches.  I don't know what I will do with it, but I think it turned out really nice.  Below is a closeup of the label.

Completed 2016 Moda top

Here is a picture of my finished top for our Moda class this year.  It makes a quilt for a twin sized bed.  I think it turned out fun and bright, just like I was hoping.  I am glad that it is finally finished. 

I don't know if I am going to do the Moda class next year or not.  The plan at the moment is to do the Gypsy Wife quilt.  I think it could be a neat quilt, but it also looks like a LOT of work.  With my first grand-baby scheduled to appear in early April, I'm not sure that I am willing to commit myself to that much work.

Bear in the Mountains

This is my latest quilt design.  I designed it as a wall hanging to give to my priest who will soon be leaving our parish for a new call.  His nickname is "Bear," he is originally from eastern Tennessee, and he loves the mountains.  So I designed a quilt using bear paw blocks and delectable mountain blocks to give to him as a going away present. My original design didn't have the bear paw blocks in the corners.  It was just solid blocks of the background fabric.  But I accidentally didn't buy enough background fabric to cut blocks that size, so I came up with the idea to add the bear paws and I think I like it better that way.

I will be quilting it myself, and I haven't decided if I will machine quilt it or hand quilt it.  I need to get it quilted quickly, as his last day with us is December 4th, so machine quilting is the most likely outcome.

And as something of a happy accident, I think it has a somewhat Native American feel to it, and he is also part Cherokee Indian.  I hope he will like it.

Moda Row for October and finished quilt center

The final row for our Moda quilt this year was the Mosaic block row.  It has 10 blocks at 6 inches each.  It really wasn't that difficult to put together.  We were also supposed to join all of the rows together, with the spacer sashings, and add the first narrow border.  Next we have to make 4 pinwheel blocks for the corners, and add them along with the final borders.  It is almost done!  Hurray!

Two from One!

These two baby quilts are made from the same jellyroll - Grow! from Me and My Sister.  I came up with the plan for the bottom quilt first, but it was going to leave several strips left unused, even with planning to use some for the binding and some on the back.  I figured out that I would have 13 strips left over, which was the perfect amount to make top quilt (I've made one like the top quilt before).  I pulled out the strips that I wanted to use for the top quilt and actually made it first.  Then I used what was left to make the bottom quilt.  In fact, one strip is partially in the top quilt and partially in the bottom quilt.

I'm really happy with how both quilt tops turned out.  They look very different from each other.  I'm glad that I pulled out all the darker purples and didn't use any in the bottom quilt. I really like the pastel look of the bottom one and I think the dark purple would have detracted from that.

Moda Row for September

This month our row for the Moda class was sailboats -- ten of them.  I can't say that it was fun, or that I necessarily like the outcome, but I'm definitely glad that it is finished.

Falling Petals

My cat, Cleopatra, is modeling this quilt.  It is made from Ellie Ann fabric using Missouri Star Quilt Company's Falling Charms pattern.  I also had it quilted by Missouri Star Quilt Company.  I went with the name Falling Petals because the charms that are falling have flowers on them.