Saturday, October 17, 2015

And Another Start

 Using another toy, my Accuquilt Go I cut out flying geese blocks.

These are made with African fabrics and batiks. The pattern is called the Dutchman's Puzzle, Spinning Windmill.

The windmill is the in center, the middle fabric is the same.

Another Finish

Every January my friend Carole and I go to the Arizona Quilt and Craft show at the fair grounds. A couple years ago Carole and I met Loralie Harris. She designs fabric and machine embroidery designs. I purchased some designs, went home stitched them out and promptly put them aside. My original thought was to make a quilt in red, black and white. As you can see that plan didn't work out. 



Most of the fabrics were also designed by Loralie. After some thought I decided to quilt around the embroidery. It's only the second time I have done so - I think it would have been OK to stitch over the embroidery because it is a single color embroidery and the designs aren't dense. But it did give me some practice with semi-custom quilting. 



T-Shirt Quilt

This is only the second t-shirt quilt I have made. It might be my last. I had a few struggles with it. I used a special stabilizer; it was a grid on point. In theory it is a good idea, but it is really hard to work with. You need a large table and a lot of space. You lay out the quilt on the back side of the stabilizer but the lines of the grid are hard to see on that side. I think it would have been better to have the lines on the back side because when you sew it together you are using a standard stitch of 1/4 to 3/4 of an inch so if the quilt has been laid out correctly the blocks will line up.

For those of you who have questioned the thickness of quilts, here is an example of a quilt using a thick polyester batting. The batting is an inch thick. It was difficult to quilt because of the thickness. Thick batting is best for hand quilting. The quilt is heavy and polyester batting holds the heat so this quilt will be very warm this winter. It's new home is in Tennessee so it will probably come in handy.

Thursday, July 23, 2015

Start one . . .

 

This is a small baby quilt I made for a co-worker. I guess this would count as a new project since I started it this year. It actually took me only a couple of days to piece the top. I just used scraps from some of the baby quilts I have made. I did purchase some solids for the sashing, but all of the prints were from my stash.

If you look closely in the second photo you can see the quilting. It is little bunnies; cute but a lot of work!

Tuesday, July 7, 2015

Machine Embroidery

Several years ago I purchased my 1st embroidery machine. I love machine embroidery and have made several projects which incorporate embroidery and quilting.

These are my latest project. An in the hoop, which just means that I used an embroidery machine instead of a sewing machine to make it, cell phone case. They are large enough to hold a smart phone. Don't you think it's kind of funny that we started out with large phones and they became smaller and smaller, now we have smart phones and they are getting larger and larger?



Start One, Finish One

I don't do New Year resolutions, well not really. But at the beginning of the new year I do have some things I would like to try and accomplish. No pressure, if I do it great, if not, oh well. So this year I decided to try to reel in my ever expanding pile of fabric. I admit to being a bit of an addict. Fabric is another one of the things I go overboard over. Dishes are another, but that's another story. My non-resolution this year; for every project I start I have to finish one. Here is one of my completed projects. It's sort of a sampler. I found a pattern I liked, although I rarely follow patterns (even after I have purchased it); I sort of followed it. Since I started this quilt about 2-1/2 years ago, so this qualifies as the "finish one."

The original pattern had a panel in the center. I used my embroidery machine and appliqued a lion's head for the center. I wanted just an African mask, but ended up with the lion's head. 


The quilt includes flying geese, pieced stars and log cabin blocks, all in African fabric.

I have a couple of new quilt projects (the "start one"); they still need to be quilted. I'll post them in a later post.

Red, White and Blue

I have been on a roll since last summer making patriotic quilts. It started with my neighbor and his thank you quilt since he loves anything patriotic. A co-worker saw his and asked me to make some as Christmas gifts for her military family members. Here's what I made:








Tuesday, January 6, 2015

This Christmas

Prior to Christmas I was on a red, white and blue roll. I made 4 quilts with two more to go. As is my custom I try and give my quilts a good home especially around the holidays. Here are a couple of the red, white and blue quilts and the quilt I gave to my sister for Christmas.