It looks like I did a lot but a couple of these things have been on going projects.

This first project I’m showing you is my beginning design process for a quilt for Hubby’s great niece for her wedding.  I started out with this and a phone call to Kelli….

After talking it over with Kelli I was happy with the idea so I worked on it some more……

For most of you this is a bunch of gibberish.  For me, it’s the pattern written out in short hand.

I put a quilt on the frame.  This one….  Check it out… [Read more...]

I had an awesome weekend filled with family and chores..and time with Hubby too.  I was what I call a perfect weekend as I got a little sewing time in too.

I’ll start with telling you about the sewing side of things…I worked on this top.  If you remember I started out wanting to make a quilt for Hubby’s great nephew.  I ended up making two.  One went on and will be published in a future quilting magazine.  That one went to my friend Carla at Longarm Quilting Inspirations and she quilted that one.  That left me having to do the one for Jonathan.

On Instagram I asked for some advice on which color of thread to pick.  There were all sorts of opinions.  With this, I really don’t think any of them are wrong.

I ended up using the variegated…..

Carla had such a great idea to quilt motif with the first one that I ended up copying her idea…..of course Carla’s was much better looking..but I didn’t do too bad.  Thanks so much for the inspiration Carla and thanks for getting me to try something new.

I got the binding tacked down but the rest is going to have to wait for another sewing session.

Here’s a sneak peek at the quilting…. [Read more...]

Sorry there was no blog post yesterday.  Kelli and I planned a weekend to sew..and sew we did.  I ended up so busy I forgot to check the blog and see if there was a post….I’m here and didn’t disappear.  I was busy…and then Sunday night the flu hit here.  Hubby and I are both sick.  No childcare..and as of yet no food.  It’s the kind of sick I’m afraid to eat but, I did get enough energy to write a blog post.  Here it is.

Last week I showed you the wonky blocks that I was working on…I got them all sew together.  Here’s how it looks.

I had help with the ironing again.  My grandson Carver thought he could be a help.  I keep telling him he’s a little too little.

Well after that top was done I started cleaning up the mess but then looked and thought there might be enough left overs to make a second quilt.  Well rather than put it all away, I made a second top.  As you can see… [Read more...]

Hubby’s niece had a baby earlier this month.  The new baby is Jonathon and of course he needs a quilt.  I have so many things on my plate but when a baby comes some of that has to be put on hold and a quilt needs to made.

I had no idea what to make and honestly, I’m not good at boy quilts….No matter how I look at fabric or color schemes all I see is florals or things that look girly to me.  For some reason even polka dots can look girly to me.  Plaids are about the only thing that look boyish to me.  I also don’t ever make quilts with pastel baby prints for a boy or a girl.  I want to make something that grows with a baby.

With my attitude you can see that it’s hard to figure out what to do when I need a boy quilt.  I decided to just think about for a bit and work on a few other projects….well early last week I was cutting up some scrap fabric so that my Neighbor Girl would have more 5″ squares in case she comes to sew.  Well in the bag with scrap fabric was this….

They seem to be the left over trimmings from someone’s project.  I know the fabric came from a blog reader but I have not idea who or what the left overs were from.    That’s when I decided that’s it.  These are going to be the start of the baby quilt.

I knew I had some solid gray fabric and thought maybe I could add that.  Here’s what I ended up doing.  I sewed the gifted pieces into 4 patches.  Some of them were different sizes so I decided that I would trim the four patches so that they would look wonky….and I added the gray borders.

From there I decided to dig through my own solids and see if I had any matching (or close colored) solids.  I did and cut them into random width strips.  I started adding the strips around the block with the intention that I would finish the block with gray around the outside and the block would be 12 1/2″ unfinished.

This was free form pieces with no pre cut units.  I added to the block however my mood desired.  I quickly learned that it was really handy to lay my cutting ruler in front of my machine so I would know when to stop adding colored pieces and add gray instead.  

I had to be up and down ironing these a lot.

Finally it was time to trim the blocks….a new blade in the rotary cutter was very appreciated.  (why do wait so long to replace the blade?)

After two morning sewing sessions and one evening session I have 16 blocks made.  Then it was time for a layout…what do you think? [Read more...]