Super Sewing Week

This has been such a productive week! Monday night I finished quilting the star quilt and finished the hand work on the binding and hanging sleeve. It just needs to be washed and blocked now.
Last week I made this Ballerina baby quilt by Jaybird Quilts as a sample for the store. It turned out really cute and other than having the "wrong" ruler, I was able to cut it out and sew it up in a few evenings. I had a 60* ruler, but it was smaller than the size recommended. I only have 4 60* rulers and I know one would have worked better, but I used the smaller one and made it work.

Tuesday night I paper pieced these bright Dancing Star quilt blocks for Jodi for our friendship block swap. It's been a while since I did paper piecing, but I love the percision of it.

This week I also pieced Ahhhh #22, Diamond Engagement

Last night I pieced blocks for Emilee for the Friendship block swap. They turned out okay, but I'm trying to bond with the Bernina 730 and I struggled a bit. So I made her an extra just in cases. I think she'll find room in her quilt for the messed up one if it works. I'm almost caught up, just have Jenn's to make now. I have them all cut out and ready to piece. If we stay home tonight, I might get them done.

Swoon Along 2013

Thanks to Andee at The Modern Diary, I found Sarah from Fairy Face Designs who is hosting a Swoon Quilt Along. Since I didn't get in until the very end of the last one, I decided I need to participate in order to get this quilt top done. I pulled up the blocks I made:
My first one in March 2012, I decided I didn't like it. the pink was too much.

The 2nd one made at a Swoon Along party with friends in June 2012. Gaila who hosted the party is already done with her quilt.

In October 2012, when I didn't have a designated quilting space, I cut up kits for the remaining 6 blocks, which are still not sewn!

I did make the orange and aqua ones in October 2012, but that is the last time I worked on it. I pulled them out to take to retreat, but never started. In the mean time I have made a large scrappy Swoon top.


It's time to get back at these blocks. I'm going to challenge myself to make one every 2 weeks. Hopefully I'll get back in the groove and get them done. What's holding me back? I'm making the HST's using the Lazy Flying Geese Ruler and it takes a little thinking on my part.Once I get going, it's much easier to make the FG that way, but I do have to concentrate a bit. I'm going to shoot for Oct. having all the blocks made and ready to put together at Fall retreat. That's my goal and I'm sticking to it! I might have to get my co-conspirator in quilting Emilee to join me as we started this together.

Productive Sewing Week

This week has been extremely productive. I've finished so many projects and it feels great to be getting stuff marked off my to do list.
Saturday night the kids went down early after a busy day, so I got lots of time to sew. I made this beach bag for our camping/swimming trip we are taking in July. It's a free pattern from our Club Sew group.

I lined it with vinyl, but since it is clear with the flip flops, I put a dotted lining with it. This worked out really well and using the walking foot, I didn't even baste. It went together so fast!

I had this lefover vinyl, so a bag for swim suits with a zipper. It's about 10"x14"
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Then I had black thread on the machine, so I put on the borders of my star quilt. I had it appliqued to the background already.

I started these little mini sewing bags since the black was on the machine and got them almost done Sat. night. I just had to zig zag and cut the corners on Sunday and they were done! They turned out super cute and with no pattern, just leftover fabric scraps, they turned out pretty good. I plan to put my sewing stuff in mine since my other one is over flowing.

Sunday night I went in the crawl space (where my not used real often quilting supplies are) and found the 1 piece of black batting I own. I knew it was craft size and would work great for this quilt. I spray basted it and quilted around the star Sunday night. I needed some inspiration on how to quilt it, so I left it until Monday night after the kids went to bed. I used the Bernina 730 with a walking foot and quilted around the star background with 1/2" marks. The dark star points are echo quilted at 1/4". and the dark point is a circle around.

A close up of the background and star quilting.

The center star quilting is echoed.

The border is quilted at 1" I'm thinking I may go and add in 1/2" increments to it. What would you do? The quilt is about 22"x24". The border is 3". I have the binding and hanging sleeve sewn on and am working on the hand sewing. I plan to have this done on Sat. to show at "The Party" aka our shop preview party.

Since I'm almost done with the star quilt, I really need another paper piecing project to work on, since I only have 4 others to work on right now. Note the sarcasm.... I went and bought fabric to do an EPP quilt along. It uses a background and three different colors families. I chose the background and blue, green, & purple to go with it. I can't wait to start this quilt along with my friends. Time to finish up a few other projects so I can start on it.

Family Day with the Harty's

We had to help dad and Ann with a few projects around their new place, so we took the opportunity to do a little prairie dog removal.

Mikaela and Mathew spent some time with Grandma Ann

Mikaela was saying bye, bye and I caught her moving her hands. It was so cute.



Uncle Eddie showed up and Mathew sure enjoyed him.

Cooper and Mathew were busy playing, but Mathew wasn't so sure about the mufflers.

The hat looks so cute with his little boots.

Grandpa Hugh with Mathew & Mikaela

Grandpa with Cooper, Mathew, & Mikaela, the other grandkids hadn't arrived yet. Cooper is my little brother Ed's son and he is 5 1/2 weeks older than Mathew.

Since it was Father's Day I made sure to take one with Mathew & Mikaela with daddy.

Cooper loved sitting on top of the tractor tire.

Girls Sewing Night

Friday night I got together with some good girl friends to sew. We sewed up a storm and I feel like I was really productive. I started with this Chevron quilt made with a Max and Whiskers layer cake. It's for a class I am teaching in August. I was going to baste it and then hope to quilt it. I didn't have quite enough backing fabric, so I went and got more. Then I layered it with an 80/20 batting and basted it. I quilted it with a medium gray Aurifil on top and a light gray Aurifil on the bottom. I used mom's Bernina 730 to quilt it, as that is the machine I had that night. It worked really well and I was able to get it completely quilted. It's so weird to quilt a large quilt on a home machine after using my frame for so long. I needed the sample done by June 29th, so I just had to make myself do it. I'm happy it's quilted and hope to get the binding on yet this week.

After I finished quilting, I didn't have the binding fabric with me, so I finished up this block for a friendship block exchange I am doing with my sewing friends and the girls from the hospital. Since Tammy was giving me such grief about how hard my block is, I made a challenging one for her as well. I had all but about 4 seams done and just had to finish them up. I turne out well for a block with that many seams.

I also made her this memory block. She gave us 3 fat 1/4's each and these are the 2 - 12" blocks I came up with using the fabric.


It was lots of fun sewing together and I really enjoyed getting so much done. I felt so extremely productive and now I feel like I can get the Chevron quilt finished before the preview party.

Mathew & Mikaela

The kids do such cute stuff. We were getting ready for breakfast on Sun. morning at our family reunion and she put her sunglasses on upside down over her hat. She was really styling!

Mathew is such a morning person. Yesterday he was wide awake. He's 27 weeks old now.

Such a good baby and always full of smiles.

Chevron & Other Quilting

This week has been awesome so far. I've felt more productive in the last few days than in the last month. I finished up making these wine glass shades for my wine glasses. I have them on a metal stand and they are the perfect way to make them look pretty.

I also started on my hexi tablerunner. It's growing nicely, but getting almost too big to carry with me back and forth. I started with the first three rows and then it will grow from there.

This is the chevron baby quilt I made with 5" scrap squares and background fabric. I love how it turned out. Tuesday night I loaded it on the frame and quilted it. I even got the binding on and used up some scraps in the process. I finished just as storm blew in and I had to unplug my machine.

A close up of the quilting. I did really random zigs and zags and squares and other assorted geometric shapes. I really just did a free for all type quilting. I have never done this before and it was different, but that is what I wanted with this quilt. It's a sample for a class I'll be teaching in August. I used an aqua Aurifil on both the top and bottom and thermore for batting.

Another close up of the quilting.


I also made a list of quilt stuff I need to get done. I have 8 blocks for a friendship block exchange to make, so I pulled all the patterns, made a shopping list, and have them all ready to go. I plan to cut them out at lunch today and get started sewing tonight. I also made a list of bags I want to make and I think I can work on those this weekend. I made a "To Be Quilted" list as well in case I get a marathon quilting session in, I'll be ready. My last list was of quilts I have made in the last year that can be entered in the fair. I have at least 11 I still have that can be put in the fair. I think I'll start gathering them in one spot so I don't forget any.

June Quilting

So far June has been a very busy month and I haven't gotten a chance to do a whole lot of sewing. I have been working on my star quilt and had 4 spools of aurifil thread in my travel sewing bag. I took it to a work party in a bigger bag and had a bottle for Mathew in the bag. His bottle leaked and spilled all over my sewing bag. So needless to say I had breast milk all over my thread, English paper pieced star, and all my sewing supplies. Most of it washed up and I let the thread dry. So far it doesn't seem to have any issues. I wasn't sure whether to rinse it and risk getting too much moisture in it or just let it dry natural and see how the milk stained. I don't think it ruined it. In the picture the bottom half is wet from the milk.

I did take the time last Saturday to make this bag for myself. The pocket actually matches much better than in the picture. I love how big and supportive this bag is and I might just have to make another for the kids.

I've been working on this star quilt for more than a month and finally got it appliqued down this week. I was working on it at a family reunion this weekend and someone used it for their bloody Mary coaster. I was livid, but after having breast milk on it, I'm not sure much else could hurt it. It's going to have a long story to tell when it is done. I now need to add the borders and quilt it.