 We keep saying at our house, "I can't believe it's almost February!" With that comes thoughts of love and hearts everywhere, right? One of my two favorite local quilt shops, The Quilt Company, is having a UFO challenge for 2015. I decided to participate, and in searching through all my quilty stuff I found this wall hanging that only needed the binding finished on it. Why did I stop just inches from finishing the binding? Well this seemed like the perfect UFO to get finished for Valentine's Day.  I used to watch Simply Quilts! with Alex Anderson. I loved that show! Alex is a great teacher, and I used to watch the show, tape it on the VCR, and I would take notes and write down the pattern directions. I made a couple of quilts from watching the show, and this is one of them. In trying to figure out how long ago that was, I did a quick Google search and found this website/blog with Alex's guest teacher on this particular episode, teaching how to make heart blocks from doilies. I was so happy I found it! The episode was from 2000, and the teacher was Sharon Rexroad teaching her Doily Magic. If you want to try making your own, click those links and Sharon will show you how on her blog. In finishing this quilt, I can see how my quilting has improved over the last 15 years! So it is a nice reminder of my progress. Continuing with the heart theme, this week I also finished a quilt for a client named Joyce. She made this for her little granddaughter who is moving up to a big girl bed.  Joyce chose the Curly Hearts pantograph and purple thread. I haven't used this panto for a while, and it was so fun to see it quilted up again. You may not be familiar with how the edge to edge quilting is done with a pantograph. I thought I'd show you a picture of how the pantograph design is on a long roll of paper and set up at the back of the quilt frame. A laser pointer shines down, and I follow the dark black lines while the machine is running.   I loved seeing those Curly Hearts on the back of the quilt. Thank you, Joyce, for letting me quilt for you!!
I'm linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts Finish It Up Friday. We are covered in snow here, so it is a perfect weekend for staying in and quilting. Keep warm, and thanks for visiting!
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 The new year has begun, and I am getting very busy with my Innova. I love it! This week I finished up two quilts for a new client, Carol. The first is this adorable snowman quilt. The middle is a panel that she purchased, and then she added borders to it. She chose the Snazzy Snowflake pantograph and a cream colored thread. This is a beautiful wintertime quilt, and I think it is a great idea for turning a panel which you might just think of as a wall hanging into a nice lap quilt or throw quilt for the couch.    Carol's second quilt is made from beautiful Christmas fabrics. I don't know the name of the pattern, but she said it was made from a layer cake. I love the vintage feel of the fabric prints and the color combinations. Carol chose the Holly Berries pantograph for this one and a dark green thread. The stitching really stands out nicely. This is another gorgeous quilt!    Thank you, Carol, for letting me quilt for you. It was a pleasure!
I am sharing these finishes with Crazy Mom Quilts Finish It Up Friday. I'm just glad I have some finishes to share this week. I've had too many works in progress and nothing completed lately. Thanks for stopping by to see what I'm working on. Have a great week!  Once upon a time there were two fabric jelly rolls. They sat upon my sewing desk, up on a shelf looking down at me for a couple of months and caused me to have a happy little quilting daydream every time I saw them when I sat down to sew. Though one was Moda and the other was Robert Kaufman, they both arrived to me via the USPS from the Missouri Star Quilt Company. After spending so much time together, they found that besides being a MSQC daily deal, they really had a lot in common and became best friends. They now have a bond so strong it can only be broken with a seam ripper... Ok that's enough, right? I know I've said this before - I really have no business starting a new quilting project, but the truth is I really couldn't wait to open up these pretty jelly rolls. And after working with all that brown, blue, and plaids from the Old Shirt Quilt, I needed a pick-me-up.  Part of those happy little quilting daydreams about these jelly rolls included my Creative Grids Double Strip 90 degree quarter-square triangle ruler and what I might do with them. I had only tried this ruler once when making a pillow cover last year, and wanted to use it for a larger project. I began by opening up the jelly rolls and pairing up a solid strip with a printed strip. Yeah, that was some fabric fun, for sure.  The next step is to sew the strips together. Press the seam allowances to one side. I chose to press toward the solid fabric.  Each strip set is then rotary cut using the Creative Grids Double-Strip ruler. I got 8 triangles from each strip set. That means I can make 2 blocks that are 8" finished size from each strip set. If my math is correct, I should have 80 blocks when they are completed. I haven't had much time to dedicate to piecing this week because I am getting busy with longarm quilting for clients, but even so these blocks go together very quickly. With accurate cutting and stitching, these are really easy to piece. It will be fun deciding how to arrange them all when I'm done.  So this story is kind of a "choose your own adventure" at this point in time, but I'm pretty sure the tale of these two jelly rolls will have a happy ending.
I'll be sharing this blog post over at Freshly Pieced WIP Wednesday. Thanks for reading. Happy Wednesday!  I can't think of a better name for this quilt right now, though it doesn't sound very appealing. I finished this quilt today (minus the binding) after working on it sporadically for about a year and a half. I am so happy to be done with it. It is a gift for someone special who doesn't read blogs, so I think it is safe to share it with you. The hexagons in this quilt are all made from men's shirts that I collected and cut up into 2-1/2" strips. A few were my husband's dress shirts that he no longer wore, and some I bought at yard sales. I refused to pay more than $1 per shirt. I tried to collect a variety of colors, stripes, and plaids. If you are thinking this sounds like a good idea that you'd like to try yourself, please be warned that it is a lot of work washing, ironing, cutting up shirts. Opening up a jelly roll of fabric is much easier!!! This is actually the second quilt that I made from these fabrics. I made one for my dad (you'll see a picture of that below) with all the same fabrics and had enough left over for a second quilt.  The pattern that I used is called "Caught in a Web" from the book Sizzlin' Sixties by Heather Mulder Peterson of Anka's Treasures. I also used the Creative Grids 60 degree double strip ruler. Because I didn't use actually jelly roll strips that are 40"-42" long, I had to do a lot of little piecing of different length strips to make those triangles. I quilted it on my Innova longarm machine using the pantograph "Spring Thing."   The back is pieced with some flannel and also a print from Alexander Henry called "The Great Outdoors" which I found at the Little Foot Quilt Shoppe. The person receiving this quilt recently said he would like a hunting themed quilt. I started piecing this so long ago that I wasn't going to change the front, but I thought maybe I could incorporate some hunting type fabric print on the back. This was the best thing I could come up with. I think a single guy with a good sense of humor will appreciate it.  The binding for the quilt is going to be the dark blue fabric used in the inner border. I'll be working on that tonight. Below is the quilt I made for my dad back in 2011. The pattern is from the same Sizzlin' Sixties book, "Oh My Stars," which is on the cover of the book. I didn't have the longarm back then, so I free motion quilted it on my Janome. I love this pattern and actually have fabric to make another one.  It feels really good to finally have this quilt completed. As much as I really like it, I can't wait to work on a different quilt project with NO HEXAGONS and pretty girly colors!!!
Have you finished anything up this week? I'm linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts Finish It Up Friday. I wish you all a Happy New Year filled with lots of creative sewing. Thanks for stopping by! |
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