Design Wall Monday

8 more blocks are on the wall today. Doesn't look much bigger, but that's a lot of work. I rather liked doing 8 at once, but since one side of each round is sewn with the same fabric, there's not as much variation in the blocks.



I probably would have gotten more done on this if I hadn't started on the Town Square quilt that I bought some of the reds for yesterday. Here's what fits on my ironing table:

Gentry's Quilt

I just realized that I neglected to show the finished quilt that I made for Gentry, a co-workers sports-loving son. I gave it to her on July 11th, so it's been a while and I'm not sure how I forgot to post about it.



The kid loves sports, especially football, and I made him a quilt when he was very little, but his mom thought he needed a new one.



It was finished just in time for him to come home from a vacation with his grandma in Hawaii.....lucky guy, huh?



It's pretty wild, but he loves it!

Stashbusting 2011 - #31

Fabric Added this week - 14.5 yards
Fabric Added Year to Date - 90.625 yards

Fabric Used this week - 3.625 yards
Fabric Used Year to Date - 151.875 yards

YEAR TO DATE STASH USED: 61.25 yards

Well, I sure had a good time at the shop hop and I guess you can tell that by my numbers. I didn't just buy for the sake of buying fabric, I actually have a plan for all that I bought.

We all had money left, so we stopped at Rossville Quilts on the way home to check out the last of their Firecracker Sale. I've never seen so many motorcycles outside a quilt shop before.



These reds are for 2 different quilts. The Moda fabrics on the left came from Rossville Quilts and was $6/yard.



These are for the pineapple quilt. I really want to have a nice variety of fabrics in this one. The WOW jelly roll is for an upcoming project, so it has a purpose also. And at $10 for 20 strips, I thought that was an OK deal.

Kokomo Shop Hop

I'm off to the shop hop in Kokomo, with only a couple things on my list.
We'll see how that goes!

Janets BIG flower

Janet bought this duvet cover at Goodwill and took it apart. She added the red border and wanted it quilted. It doesn't look very big, but it is, it's 85x90.



I chose Feather Me panto, Superior Omni Pearl White thread and Hobbs 80/20 batting.



And the back:


This one's for you Viki:

It's all I can show right now, but I love it!

Keeping it in the Family!

As you may or may not know, my husband Dan has started a sewing machine repair business. While the business is starting up, he's been buying sewing machines at garage sales and flea markets. He services them and sometimes refinished the cabinets and then sells them. He has learned so much in these past few months and I suggested that he start a blog.

So, on Tuesday, he did just that. If you want to check out, here is: Perfect Stitch

I believe that it was at Mary's cookie exchange last December that Mona and Colleen made the suggestion to me that he should start servicing machines.

Design Wall Monday

4 more blocks added to last week's design wall.

Stashbusting 2011 - #30

Fabric Added this week - 0 yards
Fabric Added Year to Date - 76.125 yards

Fabric Used this week - 5.5 yards
Fabric Used Year to Date - 148.25 yards

YEAR TO DATE STASH USED: 72.125 yards

Only the backing for the latest scrap squad quilt.

Alices Caterpillers

I quilted this one real quick for Alice, who needs it for a baby shower. Circle Lord Swirls Template is perfect for this cute little quilt. PermaCore white thread and Hobbs 80/20 batting.



Speaking of batting,

I have piles of leftover batting pieces. All the ones that are less than 15", I cut up into 7" and 8" squares for frayed quilts and 4" pieces for coasters.


From this:


To this:


Now, what to do with the 15" to 30" pieces?

Quilt of Valor and my last Row-by-Row

I had the honor of attending the presentation of a Quilt of Valor to a wounded Marine yesterday at the Tippecanoe County Fairgrounds. It was one that I quilted and it did my heart good to see this young man and his family accept it.


I will be turning over my last row-by-row this evening and I must say that this has been one very long row-by-row. We ended up with 13 or 14 people and I thought we were only going to do the next 6 or 7 people on our lists, but we ended up doing all of them. I'm not really sure how I'm going to put together 14 rows, but I'll give it my best shot.

Here's Shelly's row that I made:

Happy Birthday Mabel!

Mabel is 4 years old. I can't believe it's been that long, and how well she has behaved for these past 4 years. She's all paid for so I may think about getting her some nice new accessory. She has quilted 397 quilts and if I had known that before right now, I probably would have quilted 3 more just to make it 400. That's one quilt every 2.7 days, which is pretty good considering I have an 8-5 job. Her timer has turned over at the 250 hours mark 2 times and is at 99+ hours right now, which is an average of 1.5 hours of stitching time per quilt.

All in all, a very wise investment for me. Happy Birthday Mabel!

Design Wall Monday

My design wall looks much like it did when i came home from Threads of Time last Sunday. The pineapple blocks, now 12 of them...

I'm not sure about the corners yet. The quilt that we saw and modeled our around had the same pink fabric in all the corners. Janet suggested just finishing the block with the appropriate fabric colors and I think that's a great idea.

Carla's Carol Hopkins Quilt

I finished this one today and the more I quilted, the more I liked it. The pattern, 250 Lilies for Connie, is one of Carol Hopkins.



I knew that I wanted to do some Continuous Curves and tried them in the dark parts of the block, but didn't care for those. I like the definition of only doing the background. It rather looks like a flower.



The half square triangle block design has some of the shapes of the quilting in the border.

Carla's Baby Quilt

I quilted this cute quilt for Carla using the Circle Lord Spirals templates. It's been a very long time since I used these and I am always so pleased with it when it's finished.



I used PermaCore Dyed Natural thread and Hobbs 80/20 batting.



This is the first quilt I have done for Carla....hope she likes it. The second one will be on my next post.

Stashbusting 2011 - #29

Fabric Added this week - 0 yards
Fabric Added Year to Date - 76.125 yards

Fabric Used this week - 0 yards
Fabric Used Year to Date - 142.75 yards

YEAR TO DATE STASH USED: 66.625 yards

I really did use fabric this week, but it was for my scrap squad quilt and I can't count it just yet.

Carole's Quilts

I quilted 3 quilts for Carole this week. She will be returning to Maryland on Saturday and I have enjoyed spending some time with her this week. I always enjoy quilting for her and this week was no exception.

First is a quilt for her daughter who collects gnomes. She put this together at our retreat last weekend and I'll admit when she first started putting up fabric on the design wall, I wasn't so sure about it. But, not to worry it turned out great.



Just a simple meander over most of it and a wiggly echo around the big gnome.



Hobbs 80/20 batting and Omni taupe thread. I am pretty happy with this new thread by Superior. It's very similar to PermaCore, which has been my standard thread. A little cheaper than PermaCore, which is good.

The backing is as wonderful as the front.



The next one is just 100" of African fabric.



I quilted it with a panto, Lime Tree, after trying to outline the ribbons. Over an hour got me only 2/3 of the way across the short side of this one. I spent 2 hours taking that stitching out and then another 2 hours quilting the entire thing.



The back has 2 different fabrics.


Tonight I did some quilting on this Oriental quilt. She only wanted parts of it quilted and so that's what I did. The sky, the volcano, the trees and the grass. I really like the sky and the grass. The other parts, so-so.

Stashbusting 2011 - #28

Fabric Added this week - 8 yards
Fabric Added Year to Date - 76.125 yards

Fabric Used this week - 19.75 yards
Fabric Used Year to Date - 142.75 yards

YEAR TO DATE STASH USED: 66.625 yards

I purchased backing and border fabrics this week for Gentry's sports quilt, but used it all up this weekend.

Pineapple blocks

The start if my pineapple quilt. All 4 of us started pineapple quilts. Janet and u pieced our using strips. Carol hand pieced hers thing foundation, and Darle pieced her on the machine using foundation.

Pillowcases

The appliqué is done.

A couple pillowcases, one to go with the quilt and one for a QOV.

First project almost finished!

My first project was finished last night. I still need to appliqué a "G" on it for Gentry.

My work here is finished!

I finished Lois' jungle quilt and that means that I can pack my bags and head over to Threads of Time in Danville, IL for a little R&P (rest and piecing) with some friends. Well, after I get off work, that is.



Anyway, back to this quilt that Lois made. She wasn't fond of it when she brought it to me. I chose Lime Tree panto because it reminds me of the trees and vines in a forest. The thread is PermaCore Mother Goose and the batting is Hobbs 80/20.






A few days ago I quilted this Quilt of Valor for a local soldier who was injured and is coming home.

Linda's Wedding Quilt #1

I finished this quilt that Linda made yesterday. She gave me 2 quilts that will be given to her granddaughter, one for the bridal shower and one as a wedding gift. I'm not sure which is which, but I wanted to make both of them special.

This is all freehand and I worked on it for 3 days, not the entire part of each day, but quite a while.




A close-up while in progress.

This is more the true color. The sun outside really changed the colors.

Design Wall Monday

The next Scrap Squad project has benn started. This one is going to be gold and black and I'm excited to get started on it. My gold fabrics are cut and ready to be stitched.

Stashbusting 2011 - #27

Fabric Added this week - 0 yards
Fabric Added Year to Date - 68.125 yards

Fabric Used this week - 4.5 yards
Fabric Used Year to Date - 123 yards

YEAR TO DATE STASH USED: 54.875 yards

I used the rest of the background fabric I purchased a couple weeks ago for the crib skirt....now to work on using some of the stuff I bought before that!