Changes

Just like in quilting, I find that my tastes change over time so I'll be making some changes to the appearance of my blog in the upcoming weeks. I'll keep the links, pages, etc., but will be updating the overall look and feel of it and I'm really excited about it.

I've been thinking about this for quite some time but just haven't taken the plunge. It's time! My daughter Nikki is quite adept at computer and design work and she'll be guiding and helping me through the process. Stay tuned for updates and changes. 

Quilt Finishes

I was able to finish the Star Light Star Bright quilt that I showed on Monday and am happy with the results. My quilt has quite a different layout than the one shown on the pattern, but I don't mind at all. While I know that it's usually the picture on a pattern that draws people to a particular quilt, I really like to see the finished product take on the personality of the quilt maker. I'm not a quiet or shy person by any means and this bolder layout is more fitting for me. 

 

I chose a fun backing that I had on hand and think it adds a nice feel to the quilt. It's much more subdued than the bright fabrics on the front.

I only have two pictures of this quilt because it was raining and although I don't mind taking pictures during a light rain, it started to rain harder and the raindrops were getting on my lens. I want to get more later and will share when I do.

Before the rain chased us inside, Jack and I were able to get a few pictures of my Sonoma quilt. This one was taken out back by the ravine where I took the Star Light Star Bright pictures. I love the backdrop and try to get pictures here often. 

Before we headed to the back for pictures, we spent some time in the front of the house and used the balcony to hang quilts. For large quilts, our balcony works well I needed some pictures of Breezy, a quilt I made to test an upcoming pattern by Rachel Rossi. I made the king size version of the quilt and posted about it HERE, before the borders were added. It was too big for me to quilt on my own, so my friend Judy quilted it and I love how it looks. I'll post those pictures in the next couple of days.  

Because he was already up there and it wasn't raining too much, we hung Sonoma out there too. I'm glad we did because we had fun with these pictures! This is what I saw when I came around the corner of the house. Jack was just hanging around waiting for me. 

He looks kind of bored, doesn't he?

I take a few close up pictures first... 

and then look up to see Jack in this pose. He said that he's "looking out at his realm." I asked what he sees and he says "many, many quilts!"

I think the quilt hangs nicely from the balcony.

I am so lucky that Jack supports and even encourages my quilting. I'm not sure how many husbands would go to the lengths he does with helping me get pictures. He even keeps a list of locations he thinks would be good for quilt pictures. 

Stop back tomorrow for an announcement about some changes that will be coming the Everyone Deserves a Quilt. I'm excited, but a bit nervous too. 

Design Wall Monday

After a really busy week and some computer issues, I'm back and even have another project on the design wall. (Sorry if I didn't respond to your comments last week. I will get to those later today as well as new ones.)

This was a kit from Craftsy called Star Light Star Bright using the Madison Park fabric from Lily & Loom. A friend, who is a new quilter, fell in love with the picture on the Craftsy website and I agreed to let her buy one for me and in return I'd work with and teach her along the way. It was on sale and it really was a great deal.  😊  We got the kits in early December of last year and had hopes of getting the quilts made by the end of the year or beginning of January. 

The kit consisted of a pack of 42 - of 10" squares, binding fabric (a very generous amount), and the pattern. While the fabrics are beautiful and fun, the instructions were a bit lacking. It really wasn't difficult to figure out, but for a new quilter, it was a challenge and I rewrote the instructions for my friend. We were able to work on her quilt in early January and she did an awesome job. I didn't work on mine at the same time, but instead chose to concentrate on hers. She's thrilled with her quilt and already using it.

As I said, I didn't make mine with her, but decided that since I've had it out for almost four months now, I might as well sew it rather than pack it up and put it in a tub. Plus, since it uses 10" squares, I can use this as a sample for my "Using Pre-Cuts Demonstrations." Yay! I started making the HSTs as a leader/ender project and before I knew it, my blocks were ready to put on the wall. 

My fabric placement and layout is quite different from the picture on the website, but I'm happy with my choices. Here's the picture from the Craftsy site. I'm sure you can understand why my friend fell in love with this quilt!  

My blocks are sewn into rows and I just have to sew the rows together and quilt this puppy. My goal is to do this week, but we'll see.

The Totally Tulips quilt that was on the wall last week is done and I'm in the middle of quilting it. I didn't get a picture of the completed top, but I will get one and posted when it's quilted. 

What are you working on today?

Check out some quilting eye candy at

Judy's Small Quilts and Doll Quilts

and

Beth's Monday Making

Design Wall Monday

I've got a busy week again, but I did take time to work on something and it's ready for me to sew, even if I only have a few minutes.

The pattern is Totally Tulips from Missouri Star Quilt Company. 

I'm not making mine as large as called for in the pattern, so all of my blocks are made. I need to add the small sashing strips between the vertical blocks and then add the long vertical sashing. I haven't decided what I'm going to do for borders yet, and won't until the inside is sewn together. 

This was fun and easy, but I have to say that I will be more careful if I make this again. I basically did what Jenny Doan did in the video and pressed willy nilly and didn't pin. I found myself getting lazy and some of the blocks show it. 

I've got a couple more Jelly Roll Rug strips put together and even have another "rope" ready to start sewing the rug. These really addictive. My justification is that I've had to make some for class samples and really perfect the technique before I can teach it. (With a quilt, I have to make a bunch of blocks, but not with this.)  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.  :-) 

Here are some pictures of the last two that I completed.

What are you working on today?

Check out the quilting eye candy at

Judy's Small Quilts and Doll Quilts 

and

Beth's Monday Making 

H2H - Tips, Tutorials ,and Recipes

It's time to start prepping for the 2018 Hands2Help, if you haven't already done so. I've got one quilt complete and ready to go, and I've got another one kit up and ready to sew. Yippee!!

One really neat thing that Sarah does at the beginning of the H2H Season, is create a post/link-up for us to share our favorite tips, tutorials, and recipes. The goal is to help out each other and make creating our charity projects easier, and more fun. Check out Sarah's post HERE.

My all time favorite tip, and one that I share with my students is to get yourself organized for whatever project on which you are working. (I realize that organize is often a bad word for many of us, but it doesn't have to be. I am NOT the most organized person by any means, but if I do the following with each project, it keeps me on task and much more productive.)

Basically you are "kitting up" the project on which you are working. I cut the pieces and label them. I clip or bag each piece and place them inside a larger bag, along with the pattern. Even if I only have 15 minutes to work, I can pull out a bag and start working. I put a post it note or check mark next to each step I complete so I don't have to waste time figuring out what I've done and what I need to do. 

My favorite tutorial is one that I posted a few years back on flange binding. Since many of the donation quilts I make require that the binding be machine stitched, I feel that my bindings look better if I use this technique. Click HERE for the tutorial.

And finally, since I don't want to spend a lot of time thinking about meal preparations when I'm on a sewing mission, I have a couple of "go to" links for crock pot and instant pot meals.

Check out the other tips, tutorials, and recipes on Sarah's blog  

Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Have a great week!

Through the Woods - a Rachel Rossi pattern

I've been busy working on a variety of projects lately, but don't have pictures to show.  😞  I'll try to rectify that in the next day or so.

In the mean time, I'm thrilled to announce that Rachel Rossi has released the Through the Woods pattern that I helped test for her. Remember this post about my Secret Sewing Reveal? 

This was a fun quilt to make and I was honored to test it. Here's Rachel's blog post about the new pattern, including some really awesome pictures. 

The pattern is very well-written and a pleasure to make. Don't let the paper piecing scare you. A number of the pattern testers had never done it and they all raved at how easy it was. Not only does Rachel include very good instructions, she includes a cutting chart for the background pieces as well as minimum size cut pieces for everything else. Ahhhhh...no guessing involved and no swearing when I've cut something too small.  I even fussy cut for a few of pieces and knew exactly what I needed. 

I like the feathers in this narrow house and even played a little to try and match up the blue dots on the bigger house. I wasn't totally successful, but it's not bad.

In the picture below, it's easy to see the feather in the door of the narrow house, but not so easy to see the words on the church. (I'd take a better picture, but the quilt is up at M&E Quilt Shoppe because we're going to schedule a class.) Right above the door it read, "Hope is the thing." and above that (although it's not complete due to size restraints), it reads, "Feathers that perch in the Soul." Along the sides of the door are words such as "Silent song". I placed the words "Best" and "Never Stops" in the steeple. They aren't together on the fabric, but I liked them for the top of the church. I really like this block, even though it's not a strong contrast with the background.  

I quilted this on my domestic machine and it was quite easy because the finished quilt measure 40" x 62," although you could easily add borders and make it larger if you want.

Taking a cue from the background fabric, I quilted small swirls in the background and then stitched in the ditch along the blocks. There really is no rhyme or reason to the swirls, I just dropped the feed dogs and tried to fill the spaces evenly. :-)

I quilted a diamond grid in the large sashing pieces and think it works well against the wavy horizontal lines of the fabric.

And because I know that many people like to see the quilting on the back (me included), here is a picture.

I think I fell in love with this backing fabric when I saw it and knew that it would be perfect for this quilt. A bonus is that I bought it during a store-wide sale. How cool is that?

It's too late to make a long story short, but I enjoyed making this quilt and know you will too. You can purchase this pattern, along with Rachel's other patterns HERE. I know you won't be sorry!

Stay tuned for a table runner that I'm making using some of these blocks. It's going to be so fun! 😍

Design Wall Monday

I'm late posting this, but it's still Monday, so I'm calling it good. 😊

Here's what's on my design wall and a few other things that I've completed recently.

This OSU Champions Quilt is ready for binding. This is the fourth or fifth one of these that I've made because they are very popular with Ohio State Buckeye fans. There are four size options on the pattern from which to choose and it is made using squares and half square triangles. I like to make them scrappy, and I made this one as a leader/ender project. This is the small lap size and it measures 50" x 66".

This is a king size Breezy Quilt, minus the borders. I tested this pattern for Rachel Rossi and am very pleased with the results. I had a border sewn on to this but didn't like it, so out came the seam ripper. I've come up with alternate border options and in conversations with the other testers, we all like the new border idea. I hope to get those sewn on later this week and get this ready to quilt. Stay tuned for updates. 

Here are some close ups of the blocks and fabrics. Jack chose these fabrics because he wanted something a little more masculine than what I had picked. It took me a while, but they've grown on me and I now like them. Oh why do I doubt him when he picks fabric? He's right most of the time!

Rachel has some wonderful tips and hints on making these pinwheels, and I know you'll love them. I'll keep you updated on the pattern release date.

I finished this Jelly Roll Rug, made from Quill by 3 Sisters for Moda Fabrics. I think it's pretty and love the colors.

There are definitely some rough spots in this (mostly around the center when you have to make some sharp turns), but it's really not too challenging to make this. It's time consuming, but not challenging. Using one Jelly Roll yielded a rug that measures 30" x 44". Love it!

Here's a picture taken outside, to try to give you a better idea of the fabric colors.

And finally, here's a 12" Hoop Quilt that I made, just because I wanted to do so.  😄  I love the colors in this and have enough fabric to make at least one more; but I'll use a different outside ring fabric. I have an idea of who I want to receive it and know she'd love these colors.  

What are you working on today?

Check out Judy's Small Quilts and Doll Quilts

and

Beth's Monday Making