Sewing the week away

With a new week, also comes a new month and new goals. I worked on finishing up the blocks for Threadology block 6. I still have 5 and just cut out 7 & 8. I hope to keep this one moving forward. 

My friend Linda recommended these pencils for marking, so I picked up a couple of each color. I think these are working pretty well. I used them for marking flying geese for Ann's t-shirt quilt. 

My APQ goal for March is the Wildlife Teen Spirit. I organized it and started sewing on Monday. I got 5 blocks completed. 

I also worked on putting together a mask-making presentation. I am teaching our 4-H kids to make them on Saturday. It was fun putting the demonstration together on my board. 

My first finish of the month is Rock Candy and I finished hand sewing the binding down on Monday night. I used scraps of Handmade by Tula Pink. 

Last night I worked on getting all the blocks done for Teen Spirit in Wildlife fabrics. I'm pleased with how they turned out. I think this will be a quick finish. I'll probably try to lay it out tomorrow. 

 

Last week of January

For Valentine's Day, my friend Linda hosted a sock exchange. It could be any socks and include anything else we wanted to provide. This was my package from Pam in OH. I love the purple and camping socks and those heart pins are so cool. The kids found the candy quickly. 

Mikaela wanted a new minkee blanket and I quilted this minkee with luxe cuddle on the back. My friend Emilee did the binding for me. It turned out wonderful and Mikaela loves it. 

Mathew needed some additional masks, so I made him a few new ones. 

My leader ender project this week has been mini Brick Road blocks for a table runner. I'm using Glamping Gypsies scraps. 

I'm working on a new baby quilt and these are the giraffe heads. 

Our Chiefs are in the Super Bowl, so we're looking forward to watching on Sunday. 

I finished the Hope quilt along top and bought backing, so I hope to quilt it soon. 

My stash report for January:

In this Month: 14.75

Out This Month: 24 yards
____________________________

+9.25 yards of stash used

 

January Sewing

My quilting friend Linda had her daughter-in-law make these beautiful cookies for me. She used the Tula Pink fabric below as the inspiration. 

Monday was a holiday, so I was able to quilt these two table runners. They are Desert Stars by Atkinson Designs

I also quilted this minkee blanket for Mikaela for her birthday. I just quilted it with loops and it quilted up BEAUTIFULLY!! I couldn't have had a better day quilting. 

Here's the table runners as I got them made. They are a custom order for a gal I know from back home. 

I have been working on hexie diamonds to make a quilted table runner. I got these finished and have started on the white hexies. It's going together surprisingly fast. 

I made Mikaela some new, bigger masks with nose pieces. She really likes them. 

 

Blogger Quilt Festival - Group or Bee Quilt

It's time for the Spring Blogger's Quilt Festival over at AmysCreativeSide.com. I love to look back at the past and think about the quilts I have made. One of my favorite quilts I made last year involved a friendship block swap. I had 12 amazing friends make the Lover's Lane block from Quilters Cache during the Summer of 2011. I requested a solid black with three different purple batiks in the blocks. I got quite the variety! When I layed them out at quilt retreat last year, my friends suggested a gradiation of color and it worked great for this quilt.

The outer border is one of my favorite fabrics and I bought the rest of the bolt!
I quilted it with a purple verigated King Tut on the front and a dark purple Bottomline in the bobbin. The backing is the same as the large border. This is a close up of the quilting on my friend Jen Buettner's block.

I used a Thermore batting, so the quilt is very thin and lightweight. I love the drape and how it looks over the back of my chair. I am constantly reminded of the amazing friends I have through quilting. Each of the blocks is signed with the makers name.

WIP Wednesday Week 27 7.4.12

This wasn't a very productive week as I taught Beginning Machine Quilting Wed. & Thurs. nights, then we left after work Friday for my dad's and spent the weekend there. We trudged around my great grandparents homestead and went tubing on the Cheyenne River, where we had to be rescued at 8PM since there was storm and it took us way longer than expected to reach our destination. We still had 5-6 miles left to get where we had planned to be by 6PM. We still had fun, but know now that it was too long to tube. It was 93 when we started in the afternoon. Tuesday night I cleaned out the sewing stuff from the crawl space. I sorted through it and had a huge mess! However, yesterday I got the entire closet gone through and I ended up with 12+ 20 gallon totes & 2 huge boxes of sewing notions/fabrics/kits to get rid of! I can't wait for next Friday night to see how much I can get rid of. After going through it all yesterday on my day off, I cleaned my room back up and loaded my friendship quilt. I was able to get it completely quilted last night! I used a Thermore batting so it's light weight.
I took a close up of Jen's block to show what the quilting looks like. I just did loops in a dark purple.
As I was quilting I kept thinking about the Crown Royal quilt I have to make for my dad. Since I now have a deadline for it, it's going to have to move ahead of Ed's. I decided to do the 5 yard quilt pattern and just enlarge it, but I was trying to come up with something for the big 6.5" blocks. While I was quilting it dawned on me! I went back to my for sale totes and pulled out the perfect piece of gold/purple batik with horses on it. I had 2-3 yards which will be plenty for the center squares and I'll match the other colors to that. I can't wait to get started now and brought the tote to cut out the CR bags at lunch today. I think it will make the CR bags go a lot farther and it will break the quilt up. I do have to do a bit of math, since the CR centers are 4.5" and it calls for a 3.5" center. I think I'll use the same size as the B/W blocks we used at retreat and it will come out in the end. I'm finally excited about doing on of these, hope it lasts through the end!
Finished this week:

Ongoing projects:  (and progress this week on them) 
Swoon - 2 Blocks done
Dilly Dally Baby Girl Quilt
Pink/Brown Friendship Quilts -Handwork on binding
Buggy Barn Pink/Brown Extra Blocks -Binding
Cre8tive Swap w/ Jen - All the HST's are prepped and I just need to spend some time sewing.
Completed tops awaiting quilting:
Blush Quilt 
Pink/Green Jungle Animal Baby Quilt
Confetti Top
Friendship Block Swap Top - DONE!
Twisted Heart
Merry Go Round

No progress:
Mocha Meringue Wonder Blocks- Together, needs 3 borders

Ed's Crown Royal Quilt - Started sashing
This week's stats:
Completed projects -4
New projects -0
Currently in progress -3
Finished this year - 40 , 11 Samples

I'm linking up for WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced!

WIP Wednesday

This has felt like a productive week, even if I haven't spent much time sewing. During my personal time at work I was able to finish the hand sewing on the binding on this 5 Yard quilt for our daycare lady for Christmas. I just have to add a label and it will be ready to gift.

I finished up the notebook cover for my MIL's co-worker. I had the embroidery machine at my house for the week, so I added her name.

I quilted the BQ2 quilt with the Jim Shore angels and have started the hand sewn binding. I'll add the label and have it ready to donate in Dec.

I finished up the Tiny Taylor fabric book for Mikaela.

I embroidered it on the machine as well.

At Groovy Girls I made these HST blocks and have one more of 4 to finish. I'm planning to make some table toppers/wall hangings for friends. Does anyone have  a favorite saying they would embroider on the center relating to friends/quilts? I plan to embroider with the machine the same thing on all four and give them to friends for Christmas.

When I was home last weekend my little Bro Ed wanted his sweatshirt embroidered, so I put his name and company on it.

This week I made the last block for my friendship swap. I got behind and this is an Oct. block. So happy to finally be finished with it.


 I also finished the 36 HST blocks for Jen V. I had a hard time with picking fabric, so finally had friends pick it. I hope they are okay.

Tonight I worked on the final 24" HST block. Now to get them embroidered.



Finished this week:
Linda S. Friendship Block
Jen V. Friendship Block
Cressa's Cowgirl Quilt - DONE!
Numbers Sewing Book - DONE!
Ongoing projects:  (and progress this week on them)
Buggy Barn Pink/Brown Wall Hanging - 2 - Finished 4 of the 4 Blocks - Need to figure out what to embroider on them.
Buggy Barn Pink/Brown Extra Blocks - No progress
Ed's Crown Royal Quilt - 2/3 of the way done on the last set of blocks - No progress
Mocha Meringue Wonder Blocks - still sitting
Jim Shore Quilt - Quilted and binding machine sewn on -  working on hand sewing.
Linda's T-shirt Quilt - started cutting and interfacing 47 t-shirts for King size quilt
Paul's Wolf - 2nd eye, nose and face done - No progress this week.

Completed tops awaiting quilting:
Blush Quilt
No progress:
Pokey Little Puppy Book
Mom's Pink Ribbon Quilt
3 Mug Rugs
This week's stats:
Completed projects -4
New projects -0
Currently in progress - 13
Finished this year - 118 projects + 12 Receiving Blankets & 20 Burp Clothes


I'm linking up for WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced!

Regina aka 1I didn't have to loose a limb!

Looking back this quilt has been a process of love in the making. It all started April 18th when several of us decided that 1I needed a friendship quilt. We kind of discussed it and talked about a plan. I picked out the Buckeye Beauty block, made using scrappy batiks. I recruited a few of the most Cre8tive Quilters I know, Jen B, Jen V, Cindy, Linda, Cathy, Patti, Trish, and Jacque to make blocks and we got started. After all the blocks arrived, I pulled fabric and made my blocks to coordinate on May 21st. I just love to see others interpretation of the requirements. The blocks turned out great!

I put it all together the same night and decided I needed to pick out a border at the shop, since I didn't like any I had on hand. I have a few batik scraps and some yardage, but I figured this quilt needed something to pull it all together.

I picked a fun border and on Memorial Day put the borders on.  I loaded it and started quilting it on June 1st. I just knew I was going to cut it close with my King Tut, so I picked up an extra spool. I ran out with 2 rows left to quilt! Thank goodness I had the new spool. I used a verigated orange/multi King Tut thread 933.

Just the border needed to be quilted still. Turns out the border I picked was one the girls had used in their Suduko quilts at retreat. How ironic is that?

I got it all quilted and put the binding on. I always forget how hard it is to sew through batik binding! I have some sore fingers.

Regina was giving us a bad time at retreat 2 years ago that she was never going to get a friendship quilt, she keep trying to say she needed one. She said what am I going to have to do to get a quilt out of you people? Lose a limb?? She still has all her arms and legs in tack, but has just 1I... Haha

I just love how the quilting looks on it. I used a thermore batting, so not a lot of loft, but very light and cuddly.

The quilt was finished up Monday night and I packaged it up along with 4 yards of fabric she got for making
four quilt tops at retreat, plus a bag for quitting smoking. The quilt is 61"x82" approximately. I just love how it turned out and actually started cutting out another one from my batik scraps. I just love how this one turned out and it gives me a way to use up my scraps.

Here's the label I put on the back of the XOXOXO quilt.

Friendship quilts are probably my favorite quilt to make since the recipient isn't expecting it and yet falls in love with the quilt immediately. Having been on both the giving and receiving end of Friendship quilts, I know how incredibly special they are for the recipient.

See what others have been up to on Fantastic Friday!