Mermaid Tail was a Success!

Friday, I posted a picture of the mermaid tail that I made for my granddaughter's birthday gift.  We gave it to her Friday night and it was a HUGE success. YIPPEE!!

Sadie told me that she doesn't like this gift, she LOVES it and will NEVER, EVER forget it. :-)

Sadie was very kind and let her sister Quinn have some fun flopping around as a mermaid.

Sadie had a great time posing as if she's a mermaid sunning herself on the rocks.

And then they wondered if there would ever be a two-headed mermaid. There is now!

I love it that all of the grand kids play together! It may be loud, but it warms my heart to see them all together. They are playing with Bailey's little wood box toy. There are a bunch of different shaped blocks and you put them in the box by matching up the shape to the correct hole. All of the grand kids have loved doing that since they were very young.

I love it when I see the kids playing with or snuggling up with quilts that I've made for them. Peyton is wrapping a doll in a mini chenille I made for Quinn and Sadie back in 2012.

Of course Peyton has to share the doll quilt. She didn't want to use the matching larger quilt. Nope, she just wanted to share with the doll.  :-)

And Quinn and her siblings are so lucky to have another grandma who is awesome. They call her Grandma Honey, and Quinn sure does love to snuggle with her. I was glad she was at the birthday celebration!

Old Bags Day Recap, Part 3

As promised, here are the final pictures from the Old Bags Day Sew-In. For the first two posts click HERE and HERE.

After gettting home and sleeping in, Ann's chenille quilt got bound. She and Claire had to leave so she didn't get it washed before they left. :-(  Here they are together. Ann sent me a picture of it washed, but I don't know where I saved it.

 

Jerry spent some time with possible layout options for all the blocks he got sewn. He and Jack put some serious thought into these layouts. The running joke is that this is the salad quilt, because all the greens look like lettuce. I think he should add some orange for carrots and some white for mushrooms.(They aren't really sideways doing this. For some reason I can't get the picture to be right side up here. It is saved correctly, but I can't get it to work. Guess I won't add the other ones that are of them working. Sorry!)

 

 

I was with Darla yesterday and she has all of her blocks sewn together now. Aren't these fun fabrics?

 



 

Here's what she's adding for the borders. I think her granddaughter is going to love her quilt!

 



 

Chenille

As I stated in my last post, I've been on a bit of a chenille run lately. I really find these to be easy projects, but they aren't cheap. They use a lot of fabric because you have multiple layers. I often use flannel or homespuns, but as you can tell from the last one, I also use regular cotton prints.  The prints don't always "rag out" like flannel or homespuns, but I still like them.

You do have to be careful when choosing fabrics though. If the backside of the fabric (flannel included), is mostly white, that will rear it's ugly head in the final product. I try to make sure the print is bold and large, and that having white show through won't destroy the final look.

Here's the homespun chenille I made for Lynn a couple of weeks ago. She only wanted a small lap quilt for when she rides in a car with air conditioning. Her legs and feet get cold and this is perfect. I started with layers of fabric that measured 1 1/2 yards by the width of fabric. (That's about 54" x 44.") After it's quilted, trimmed and washed, it does shrink up, but it's still a good size for her. Unfortunately I didn't measure this before I gave it to her. DUHHHH  It looks really small in the photo, but that because she took this picture with her phone and e-mailed it to me. That also explains why it doesn't look anything like the purple and tan that is really is.

One way that I can make these so quickly is because I use electric scissors to cut the channels.

You can't believe how this speeds up things. And, it is so much easier on your muscles!

Here are the two, ready for the washer. Stay tuned for pictures of the finished projects.





Design Wall Monday & More

I haven't posted in a while, but that sure doesn't mean I haven't been busy. I have lots of different things on the design wall today so let's take a look.

Here's the back to a chenille blanket that is ready for cutting the channels. I picked up the fabric for this Saturday afternoon and my plan is to have this in the washer this evening. YEAH!! I think that's a pretty darn good turn-around time for fabric.  :-)

I decided to make the back a bit interesting so I pieced it using a strip of the fabric from the front and the pink fabric that will be used for the binding. I like how it turned out and I know you can't really tell in the picture, but I like what the diagonal quilting lines does to this.

Actually, I'm making a small version of this blanket also, as these are a gift for a very special young girl. She and her baby doll will have matching quilts! Happy birthday Sadie Jane!!  :-)

Here's a close up of the doll chenille. You can probably see the quilting lines better if you click on the picture to enlarge it. I simply used the edge of my walking foot as my guide for keeping the stitching lines straight. It sure does eliminate a lot of time marking lines.  

It's funny but I seem to go in spurts when it comes to making chenille blankets. I hadn't made any for a few years and them I made a couple last year, along with a few chenille rugs; and this is the fourth one I've made already this year. Go figure!

Chenille Update: They are in the dryer as I type this! I also forgot to tell you that the print fabric is a Riley Blake Design - Enchanted Gardent by Samantha Walker. It is so fun!!

I still have the Gateway to Paradise on the wall, but all of the blocks are sewn together and I'm ready for borders. I have the first narrow black border ready to go. See it to the left of the quilt? I hope to get to this yet today, but well see.

I just finished an embroidery order for the Remembrance Center and that is the second one this week. I like to stay near the machine when it's running, so I'm working on the binding for Kare's quilting samples. Don't you love multi-tasking?

This past Friday, Lynn and I spent a little bit of time (less than 2 hours) freezing some crock pot dinners. We put together 9 meals each and now we're ready for some of those busy days ahead when we know we'll be getting home late and just not have enough time (or energy), to fix a decent meal. YUMMY!!

Oh yea, I picked up the fabric I need for my Totally Groovy Quilt Along Saturday and I'm really excited to get working on that! I'll keep you posted on that progress.

Check out what other quilters have on their design walls today.

Go to Judy L's Patchwork Times.