 Check out this lovely Trip Around The World quilt that I just finished quilting for my friend, Carol. Her mom pieced the top many years ago from a kit which instructed that the top be tied at every corner of every square so that each square was kind of puffed up. It never got tied, and I have been offering to quilt it for Carol for a while now. She finally agreed :-)  I quilted the top with the pattern Flowerumpus with dark blue thread. You can't see the quilting on the top because of the calico prints, but it looks great on the back.  I experienced some frustration on this quilt with major thread breaks and shredding, and so I'll share this experience so that maybe it will help someone else... I changed my needle, changed my bobbin case, changed my bobbin, re-threaded the machine, tried adjusting tension, checked the timing of the machine. I even pinned some practice fabric to the end of my rollers to try and recreate the thread breaks and figure out what was causing it. I could not make the thread break on my separate practice fabric. I think it must have had something to do with the older fabric of the quilt top, though it didn't feel unusual like there would be a problem. The backing was brand new Kona solid fabric, and the batting was black Quilter's Dream. I had read about quilters using silicone spray to help with different stitching problems, but I was not going to spray a product all over someone's quilt top. I found this product - Ease-A-Thread - which is a silicone liquid that you apply to the cone of thread. It was the answer!!! I had not one thread break on the last two-thirds of the quilt when I started using this product. If you are having trouble with thread breaks and/or shredding, I recommend giving this product a try.  And finally - there's the whole quilt! Thank you, Carol, for letting me quilt for you!! I hope your mom will be happy that you'll soon be using the beautiful quilt she made, too.
As usual, I'll be linking up over at Crazy Mom Quilts Finish It Up Friday. Thanks for visiting!
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 I recently quilted this pretty quilt for my mom. She worked on this project down at the Little Foot Quilt Shoppe where she likes to hang out on Wednesdays. The pattern is called Prairie Path designed by Pam Mildren, a local quilter. Mom used fabrics mostly from the fabric line Sugar Pie by Lella Boutique for Moda. The pattern and fabric are a lovely combination!   I quilted this one with white thread and the edge-to-edge pattern called Camellias.   Jakob helped me take a few pictures this morning outside down by the creek at my parents' house. It was a beautiful spring morning. I'll be linking up over at Crazy Mom Quilts Finish It Up Friday. Have a wonderful day, friends, and thanks for visiting!
 Today I finished binding this cool quilt. As Jakob and I were outside taking some pictures in the wind, I thought this quilt kind of looks like green grass coming up among the dirt and melting snow. It was nice to be outside, and even Butterscotch was happy to be hanging out with us. The quilt pattern is called Wistful from Villa Rosa Designs. It was easy and quick to chain piece.   These are the two block units that make up this quilt. I used some fabric that has been stashed away at my house for a couple of years, a black and white jelly roll and blue/green yardage. It's soft and fluffy with white and black flannel backing. I quilted it with a spiral edge-to-edge design called Be-Bop.   This one is going in my small collection of quilts for charity. Hopefully it will make somebody smile and feel special. I'm linking up at Crazy Mom Quilts Finish It Up Friday. Thanks for visiting!
 Several weeks ago I shared some clues to a quilt mystery that I was trying to solve. You can find that post here. Finally, all of the puzzle pieces fit together to reveal the mystery! This was so much fun to make with the Grids Girls Facebook group, teacher and designer Deb Heatherly, and some of my favorite Creative Grids USA rulers. I purchased the background fabric and the dark blue border fabric, but all of those bright colors are from my batik stash (I'm kinda proud of that stash :-). Below are the 4 different blocks we made.     The Creative Grids rulers used to make the blocks were the Pineapple Trim Tool, Cats Cradle Tool, Strippy Stars Tool, and the Ultimate Flying Geese Tool. Many quilters in the group found that once you learn to make some of these basic units, you start to see how you can use the tools in many other quilt patterns to make piecing easier and more exact. Who doesn't love that?  I need to quilt this still, but I think I might hang it on the wall, maybe even in this spot.
It feels great to get some sewing done! I haven't touched my machine much in the last couple of weeks. I hope you can get some sewing in this weekend, too. Thanks for visiting, and I'll be linking up over at Crazy Mom Quilts Finish It Up Friday where she has a fantastic quilt finish to share!  This week I finished up Aunt Brenda's Cruisin" Under The Stars quilt that she pieced at Quilt Camp 2016. Yes, it's now 2018, but that's okay. Usually quilts take some time, you know? The pattern uses Creative Grids Scrap Crazy 6" templates. You can read more about Quilt Camp 2016 and the patterns here. . . and here.  Above is what one pieced block looks like, but when you put them together, depending on the color values of the fabrics you use, they create a secondary pattern like the one below.  I quilted this one with silver gray thread and a pantograph design called Cascade. Very pretty, I think!  And now for some fun - here are pictures of all the 2016 Quilt Camp Quilts made by me, Mom, Aunt Sharon, Aunt Alice, and Aunt Brenda.  Thanks, Aunt Brenda, for letting me quilt for you!!
Isn't it wonderful to see the same quilts each made with our unique fabric selections? I'll be linking up over at Crazy Mom Quiltis Finish It Up Friday where you can visit for more quilting inspiration. Thanks for stopping by :-)  Isn't that Dutch Rose quilt block above beautiful? It's my favorite block in the quilt that I finished up on the longarm this week. My mom pieced the top following the Modern Sampler QAL (quilt-a-long) pattern that can be found at Elven Garden Quilts. Some of the gals down at the Little Foot Quilt Shoppe were working on this project. She didn't quite finish all of the blocks there, but the ones she did make fit together perfectly.  I quilted it with a pantograph called Daydream using cream colored thread.  Here are a few other close-up shots of some blocks.    I just love those blocks! They all seem pretty traditional for a "modern" sampler. I think maybe it's just the setting style of the blocks that is modern. Just above on the right side - there's that Cat's Cradle unit that inspired my little wall hanging a few weeks ago.
This quilt is being donated to a fundraiser to help a family in need in our church and community. So Mom is getting the binding on it this weekend. Way to go, Mom, and great job on the piecing!! (Great job rotary cutting, Dad :-) I'll have to get something new on the quilt frame tomorrow. Hope you get some quilting in this weekend, too! I'll be linking up at Crazy Mom Quilts Finish It Up Friday. Thanks for visiting!  Last week I shared my progress on a mystery quilt I'm currently working on. This past week I finished quilting one of my own quilt tops that has been waiting patiently to be quilted for 5 years! This was the Winter Mystery Quilt from (one of my favorite local shops) The Quilt Company in Allison Park, PA, back in 2013. It was meant to be a scrap buster. All of the fabrics in this quilt were from my stash. Even the white is a collection of different white-on-white prints mostly. I love the combination of blues, greens, and sprinkles of yellow and orange here and there.  Above you can see (picture from back in 2013) I had all of my pieces cut and ready to sew - all 1,400 of them!! This is the actual block . . .  . . . and here's the whole quilt.  It was such a nice day today I thought maybe we could get some pictures outside. It was Friday afternoon, and we were all feeling goofy, I guess.  The backing fabric is this great aqua/blue flannel with circles. I love the happy colors in this quilt, and it's great fun to see some of the little prints up close and remember what I made with them. I might bind this quilt with white which should frame it nicely, though I'm not 100% sure.  It was quite windy outside today also, but I'm thankful for my helpers :-)
Don't be discouraged if you have a project sitting around for years! It's definitely possible to get that quilt finished if you still have some love for it. Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts Finish It Up Friday. Thanks for visiting!  I have been having a lot of fun over the last 4 weeks participating in a mystery quilt project created by Deb Heatherly, the creator of some wonderful Creative Grids rulers. It is a free quilt-a-long for the Grids Girls Facebook Group. It is a private group, but if you are interested, you can request to join. If you are a Creative Grids junkie like me you might want to check it out!  This quilt requires the Pineapple Trim Tool, the Strippy Stars Tool, the Cat's Cradle Tool, and the Ultimate Flying Geese Tool, all from Creative Grids USA. These are specialty rulers, but they all have the ability to help you create many different sizes of quilt block units. The fabrics that I am using are from my batik stash. I did have to purchase a light background and a dark contrasting constant fabric.  First clue was to make some of these units with the Strippy Stars tool. It's too soon to tell how these will be used yet!  Here are some long rows of Flying Geese. I think I'm going to like this.  There are 4 blocks like this made using the Pineapple Trim Tool. This isn't the usual pineapple block but a variation of it. The top picture is the 4 blocks put together, but this probably isn't how it is going to be. I love a good mystery!  The last unit is the cat's cradle, made using the Cat's Cradle Tool, of course. How do you think this piece of the puzzle might fit in?
In 4 more weeks the mystery will be solved, and I get more curious each week. This isn't genuinely a quilting finish, but I have completed all of the clues. I'll definitely share the real finish with you when it happens! For now I'll link up at Crazy Mom Quilts Finish It Up Friday. Deb Heatherly has some awesome patterns to accompany the rulers she has created. You can check them out at her site here. Thanks for stopping by :-)  Hello, friends. I just finished this fun little quilt that I'd like to share with you. This was an experimental project using a Christmas present that I received, the Cat's Cradle Tool from Creative Grids. I asked for this tool/template because I'm currently working on a mystery quilt that requires it. Though I'm trying to be diligent about finishing already-started quilt projects, I just had to see how this new tool works!  The good news is I didn't buy any new fabric for this quilt! Last year I had purchased one of those scrap collections from Moda (Basic Mixologie) down at The Little Foot Quilt Shoppe, and I decided to see what I could make with that. This was the first time I bought one of those fabric packs, and I didn't know what to expect really. You can see the strips in the pic above. Most of them look about 3" wide, but they do contain selvage edges, so by the time they are trimmed to actual usable fabric, some weren't even 2" wide. I probably wouldn't buy this product again, but, hey, I gave it a try for around $10. I was inspired to make that quilt block that was part of a daily quilt calendar. Can you see the cat's cradle unit in there? It is made up of 12 cat's cradle units and 4 squares for the corners. I haven't really thought much about this quilt unit before, but it's really quite common in many traditional blocks. That star is a 10" finished block.  My mom is currently working on a sampler quilt that inspired the blocks below. It is a much quicker one to make. I made the biggest units that I could with the size of the fabric strips that I had, and these are 5" finished blocks.  In deciding how to put them all together, I added some strips with cornerstones around the green blocks and sashing with cornerstones to bring everything together. I love it when quilt designs flow like this and it's hard to tell where one block stops and the next one starts.  I even had this backing fabric with the green dots on hand that I decided against using in a quilt a few years ago, and just the right amount! Confession: I did have to buy the binding fabric. There just weren't enough 2-1/4" wide pieces in the scrap collection to make a scrappy binding. I ordered 1/4 yard of matching fabric from another Etsy seller, and it was in my mailbox in just a few days.   There are SO MANY POSSIBILITIES with the cat's cradle tool! It makes various sizes which is great. When you use it, everything is trimmed down to the perfect size, so the units fit together just right, and getting nice points on the triangles and squares is pretty easy. This quilt is 33" square and will soon be hanging in my house somewhere. Wouldn't this look great as a big quilt with more blocks, bigger blocks? How about setting the whole thing on point like below?  It's a very wintery weekend here, perfect for sewing a lot, which is what I plan to do. Thanks for visiting and reading, and I hope you were inspired to sew! I'm linking up at Crazy Mom Quilts Finish It Up Friday. See you soon!
 Dwight the Deer is finally finished and in his new home. He was the one thing that I didn't get done for Christmas. Lydia and I decided that he would be a great Christmas present for Aunt Brenda and Uncle Dave. The week before Christmas my longarm machine was out of commission. I ran over a quilting ruler and had to re-time my machine. I never did that before (yes, I was a little sick about it), and it took me a couple of days to get the problem resolved. So instead of being a Christmas present, Dwight was a New Year's Day present.  The pattern for Dwight The Deer is designed by Elizabeth Hartman. She has many pieced animal patterns. I have a lot of fun making them because they aren't typical patchwork. You cut up various sizes of triangles and rectangles - lots of them, and you HAVE TO FOLLOW DIRECTIONS very well. I find them to be a fun little challenge. I have some of Elizabeth Hartman's other animals in the works, too, and I love them all.  Over the years Uncle Dave has hunted many deer and has given us lots of venison for our freezer. So we got to give him a deer for a change. I think this one will look good in their beautiful home.
It's Finish It Up Friday over at Crazy Mom Quilts where I'll be linking up. Thanks for stopping by. I'm looking forward to a weekend full of sewing in my nice warm house. I wish the same for you, too! |
This is me...I LOVE to quilt, and every day I must sew for my sanity! Archives
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