Banners, Pillows and Progress

It has been a busy week.  I made a fun banner for the 4th of July.   had enough material left to make 2 more for my Etsy shop.  :)

 

 I had enough material left to make 2 more for my Etsy shop.  :)

A sweet friend saw the banners and requested a similar banner to announce the name of her baby girl who is due in August.  Her nursery is all vintage and shabby chic.  How perfect are these fabrics for her banner?  I can't wait to get these done.

 I made a TON of tooth fairy pillows for an upcoming show.

 

And of course I am chugging along on Colin's quilt.  I have about half of it done.  Here is the front.

 And here is the back. I am loving the way that it feels.  Am I the only one who pets their quilts as they are quilting?  It makes me happy.  :)

Thanks for stopping by!

Comfort Quilts and machine quilting practice

What do you do when it is time to destash and clean out your fabric? 

 I am usually a hoarder.  I keep EVERY. TINY PIECE. because I am sure that I will be able to use it in something.  But sometimes fabric is passed on to me by sweet friends who know I can't turn away free fabric.  When I know that it is just not my style, I turn it into a comfort quilt for some sweet little one in need.  This next quilt is a perfect example.  Someone had passed on about a yard of this butterfly fabric to me, sweet but now my style.

I love triangle quilts and that that the butterflies would be perfect for a triangle quilt.  I think it turned out really cute!  And I managed to use every last bit (because I hate waste)!  Check out the cute backing.  I used the very last strip of butterflies and the rest of the two purples from the front.  And did you notice?  I machine quilted it!  All by myself!  It is not perfect but look at that fabulous pattern it made on the back.  And it was so fast!

Look at the cute little stars made by the stitching at the points.

Feeling inspired, I made another one from bits and pieces I no longer needed/wanted.

Now I was really in a cleaning out sort of mood, so I tackled a stack of leftover 3 inch blue squares from an Oceanwaves quilt I made for my dad last year.  ( I told you I can throw away NOTHING)  I just matched them up with some leftover whites and Voila, a sweet little boy quilt.

And of course, I machine quilted this one as well.  This is about as big of a quilt that I could do on my own because the throat of my machine is tiny, but it is a start.

And one more quilt, some frogs that I hope will make some little one smile.

Thanks for stopping by!

Hand Quilting vs. Machine Quilting

I am a hand quilter and always have been.

 I enjoy the process, I love the final product and I feel like it makes my quilts seem "heirloom worthy".

 And, if I am being honest I don't like change.  This is how I started quilting and it is hard for me to let go.

You might be wondering why I am even writing this post if I am so content with the process and results of my hand quilting.

Well, here is why...

That is a stack of 17 unfinished quilt tops.  In that stack is a beautiful Swoon quilt, a Row Along by Lori Holt and my version of Tula Pink's City Sampler.  There is also a quilt top that I pieced about 15 years ago.  They are all just sitting, waiting to become a real quilt and to be used and loved.  The problem is that I can piece together those tops a lot faster than I can get them quilted.  And there are sooo many cute patterns, and sooo many beautiful fabrics that my list of quilts to make just keeps growing.

So, I took a leap.  That stack was 20 tall a couple of months ago.  I took one in to our local quilt shop whose owner has a long arm.  I handed over my lap-sized great granny and held my breath. 

And....I love that the quilting pattern is traditional.  I love that it was done in like a week - while I was still quilting another quilt.  And after its first wash, it wrinkled up just a beautifully as a hand quilted quilt.

I also sent 2 quilts to my friend Shirley who just bought her own long arm.  She does free motion, so I picked out a couple of quilts that I thought would be perfect with some cute little squiggles.

 Aren't these little squiggles and loops adorable?

 This top would have just lingered in that stack for a long time while I tried to figure out how I wanted to quilt it.

But now it is a finished quilt.  Ready to be used.  And I love it.

I'll share the second quilt I sent Shirley later when it's finished.  I am going to be adding some hand quilting to the machine quilting she did.

I still feel like I have cheated a little having someone else quilt my quilt for me.  But...

I have 2 finished quilts that would otherwise still be lingering in my unfinished pile!

Next in the Hoop...

Up next in the quilting hoop is Colin's Quilt.

 My youngest asked for a quilt for his bed.  Well, if your baby asks for a quilt - you make a quilt.  You stop all of your other projects and make that quilt. He didn't care what pattern, his only requests were that it be blue (to match his walls) and green (his favorite color) and that it have batik on the back (because he has no idea how much batik costs). So we decided on a simple pinwheel and got to work.  He even helped me do some of the sewing and arranging.  Sigh.

So now that the red, white and blue stars quilt is out of the hoop, Colin's is in.  I hope to have this one done by the end of June.  This may be unrealistic, but I like to give myself deadlines, I feel like it helps me stay on track.

I also finished 10 more blocks for my Churn Dash Along.

Only 8 more to go!

A Friday Finish!

My Red, White and Blue quilt is complete! It even spent its first night as a "real quilt" keeping one of my boys snuggly and warm.

 I love ALL kinds of quilts.  But, scrap quilts are my favorite.  I love the variety of fabrics and how it just makes you spend more time looking around at all of the different combinations.  I love the thriftiness of using up your leftover pieces.  And I love how it links us to the past when making do was just part of quilting.

 It is fun to look at the pieces of this quilt and see past projects.

 I decided to try something new on the back.  This was really a step out of my comfort zone, but I am SO glad I did it!  The back of a quilt can get really expensive at 6-8 yards of fabric so I decided to continue the scrappy idea to the back.  I headed to Goodwill and bought 5 men's shirts for $.99 each, cut them apart and started piecing.  I added in a couple of plaids from my stash for interest.  I absolutely love the way it turned out.  I almost like the back as much as the front. And, I will definitely be doing this again.

Here is a close up of the quilting from the back.  I quilted 1/4inch in from each square and 1/4 inch around each star.

Thanks for stopping by!

Churning Along...

8 more churn dashes down!

The first Post!

I've been putting off my first post because it feels like it should be important.  A big lengthy introduction to me and what I do.  But I've decided that no one really cares about all that.  We just want to see pictures of quilts.  So, let's get to it.  Here are a couple pictures of what I'm working on now. 

There is ALWAYS a quilt in a hoop on the end of my couch.  If I sit down to watch TV, I am under a quilt quilting.  This is a quilt I pieced about a year ago, inspired by a quilt I saw at Cluck, Cluck, Sew.  It was sitting in my WIP pile until about 6 weeks ago.  It is almost done!  I have one more row to quilt and then it will just need to be bound.  It will be done in time for July 4th!  I guess it will really be more for decoration than anything else.  We won't have a huge need for warm quilts here in Tennessee in the middle of July.

 I am having fun following the Churn Dash Along with Amy Smart at We All Sew.  The low volume fabric you see in these first 4 blocks above was my inspiration fabric for the rest of my fabric pull.  I love how it is coming along.

Here is what I've got so far.  22 blocks down and 26 more to go.  I am loving it!

Of course as most quilters I always have a multitude of projects in the works - I'll get some more pictures up soon.

Thanks for stopping by!!