Throw Back Thursday Churn Dash Baby Quilt

According to the date stamp on this photograph, it was taken in October 2015.  My best recollection is that these were 12" blocks so the quilt was 3' x 4'.  I really like dotted fabric and gingham fabric, especially together.   I think the backing was flannel.  The binding was  a multi coloured striped fabric  I don't remember this pantograph, but will have to look it up as I really like the texture it created.

This quilt was donated to our Guild to be a Comfort Quilt.  I still have some of all these fabrics so some day there will be another quilt.

"Black and White Plus Another Colour" Challenge Wall Hanging

This wall hanging was made quite a few years ago for a Guild challenge.  The challenge was to use black and white fabric with one additional colour.  I chose yellow and fussy cut a yellow bird out of fabric after several failed attemps at making my own bird shape.

The flowers were also fussy cut from a black and white print and fused to black fabric and then just tacked to the wall hanging to give them dimension.

I gave the cat a yellow eye which I think emphasizes the action of the cat looking at the bird and making you wonder what happens next.

The bird flew away of course!  

I got the idea from an award winning quilt by Judy Coates Perez called "Moon Garden" which you can see here.    My wall hanging was made quite quickly and minimally quilted so did not entail great workmanship on my part.  I like it though!

I Spy Jar Quilt

This is based on an I Spy Jar Quilt Tutorial by Jenny from the Missouri Star Quilt Company.  Making the pint and quart jars themselves will be exactly as she explains it.  The difference is instead of using 2.5" sashing between the jars, we will be bordering each jar with 1.5" sashing.

Each Pint Jar I Spy Block requires:

Bright Novelty Fabric for Jar
- one 5" x 5" square

Grey Fabric for Lid
- one 1.5" x 3" rectangle

Black Background Fabric
(can all be cut from one WOF 1.5" strip)
- six 1.5" x 1.5" squares
- two 1.5" x 6" strips for sides
- two 1.5" x 7" strips for top and bottom

Each Quart Jar I Spy Block requires:

Bright Novelty Fabric for Jar
- one 5" x 10" rectangle

Grey Fabric for Lid
- one 1.5" x 3" rectangle

Black Background Fabric
(can all be cut from one WOF 1.5" strip)
- six 1.5" x 1.5" squares
- two 1.5" x 11" strips for sides
- two 1.5" x 7" strips  for top and bottom





1.  Using four 1.5" x 1.5" background squares, snowball each corner of the novelty print jar.

2.  Sew the two remaining 1.5" x 1.5" background squares to each end of the grey jar lid strip.

3.  Sew the jar lid strip to the top of the jar.

4.  Sew the side background strips (6" for the pint jar and 11" for the quart jar) to each side of the jar.

5.  Sew the top and bottom 7" background strips to the top and bottom of the jar.

Easy Peasy!




Here are a a few pint ones made as well.

These are so fun and easy to make.  If I had more novelty print fabric I would already have a quilt worth of these I Spy Jars made!

Odds and Ends of Sewing

I started Bonnie Hunter's Leader & Ender Challenge "Rail Fence" in the summer of 2017 and progressed on it for awhile.  I never really liked it and stopped working on it at some point. 

I find it a little hard to work on a leader ender project as I tend to work on whatever I am making at the time in that same fashion so rarely need to add something extra under my needle so as to not waste thread.

I decided to at least finish what I had already cut and have now sewn all the coloured strips into sets of four.  I have decided I can make a quilt which will be 8 blocks by 10 blocks which will be 48" x 60" which is a nice sized crib quilt.  I will donate it.  Black and white and colours are supposed to be good for babies to look at, as long as they don't have a seizure in the process.

In this picture I have 47 blocks completed so I just have to make the black and white checker board strips for 33 more blocks.  My camera even had a hard time focusing on this quilt which is also what I don't like about it.  It is just so busy!

Here is a close up of one block which randomly came out kind of interesting.  To me it looks like the sky at sunset over a beach from the perspective of standing out in the water and looking toward the beach.  It must be a beach on the west coast.  Well, maybe that interpretation is even stretching my imagination just a bit.

I have also been trying to decide on an additional border for Bonnie Hunter's Quiltville Mystery "Good Fortune" Quilt using up the extra red and white four patches.  I figured out if I used the four patches on point, I have nearly enough to finish borders on two sides of the quilt.  I'm not thrilled with the little sample border I made but here are the four possible ways to attach the border ranked from most liked to least liked.

1.  Border with peach side facing in and points of both borders offset.

2.  Border with peach side facing in and points of both borders in line.

3.  Border with blue side facing in and points of both borders offset.

4.  Border with blue side facing in and points of both borders in line.

What do you think?  Or should I go back to the drawing board.  Another possibility is to just add a row of the red and white four patches joined in a strip like a checker board.

I had also used up all the hexagon papers I had (I only had a sample pack of 25) and each flower needs 7 so that didn't get me very far.  I used my AccuQuilt Go cutter and a new die to make more 1" templates from last year's calendar cover and also a vacation advertisement booklet that were both thicker paper.  They turned out well but not very pretty.

I have also been binge reading Amanda Jean's "Crazy Mom Quilts" blog from the beginning in 2006.  She just retired from blogging at the end of 2018 and had been one of my favourite quilt blogs to read.  When I "discovered" her blog, I had just carried on reading in the present as she was quite prolific and blogged several times a week.  I have been missing her so had the bright idea to go back and read the ones I hadn't seen before.  You can find her here:  http://crazymomquilts.blogspot.com/  I'm currently up to September 2009 and I haven't come to where I started reading yet.  I'll be disappointed when I do.

My guild meeting is this Thursday so I better finalize the program details.

Finished Tree of Life Cushion Cover and Progress on Cat Applique Sewing Machine Cover

Yesterday was a snow day so I was able to skype sew with my sewing buddy Marilyn during the work week.  I worked on fusing the applique cat which will become the front of my sewing machine cover.

Here he is with just a few quilting lines drawn on him in white chalk, but it brings him to life.  I can already tell he is mischievious and is going to cause some mayhem in the sewing room.  Whenever I can't find anything, I'll be able to blame it on him!

Today I quilted and bound the Tree of Life Cushion Cover.  Here's what the quilting looked like from the back.  I did some orange peel quilting in the branches of the trees.  I think they look like leaves.

Here's the envelope back and binding.

And here's the front.

I will have to get another cushion form so I can use it and take another picture with it stuffed.

Spools Mid-Arm Quilting Machine Cover Finished

Yesterday I quilted and bound my Spools Sewing Machine Cover.   Here it is after trimming off the excess batting and backing.

Here is a close up of one of the blocks.  It's supposed to look like the thread from the spool is unravelling and all tangled up.

I had to cut a slit in the cover to accommodate the thread stand and bind around it.  I chose a nice multi-coloured striped fabric.

Here's what it looks like on the machine from the front.

And here's the back where you can see the thread stand sticks through.

I did make a boo boo with some of my quilting.  Since I was changing thread for each of the twelve blocks, I chose to change the thread quickly by cutting the finished thread spool off and tying the new thread spool on and then pulling the thread through the machine until the new colour thread appeared.  This worked  great the first few times and saved me from having to re-thread the machine from scratch each time.  However, during the middle row, the knot where the two threads were tied together must have popped the thread out of the tension disk and with the top thread loose it was pulled to the back  by the bobbin thread tension and made some "eye lashes" on the back.  I discovered this and fixed it for the last row.  If this were a bed quilt, I would rip the stitching out and fix it.  Since the only thing that will "see" the back of this quilt is my machine, I chose to leave it as is as it looks fine from the front.  If it bothers me, I can fix it later.  In the meantime, I'm calling this a finish!

Touch Base Tuesday

On Saturday thirteen members of our guild met at a local quilt shop and worked from 9 am til 4 pm on making comfort quilts.  We  had a great time and half a dozen tops at least were worked on.  I'm looking forward to seeing them all finished.  

On Sunday while skyping with my quilt buddy Marilyn, I did some tidying in my sewing room and put the spools quilt I made back in October on the frame and figured out what threads I am going to use to quilt it.  I love the rainbow of threads laid out on the quilt top.  You can also see the colourful rubber floor mats I have in front of my frame to make standing easier on me.  I am going to quilt each individual spool bock with the colour of thread that is on that spool.  My quilt was based on a "Time to Sew" quilt tutorial by Jenny Doan from the Missouri Star Quilt Company  and is going to become a sewing machine cover for the machine on my frame. 

Since I was working on making one sewing machine cover, I decided I may as well also work on making a second sewing machine cover.  After all, I wouldn't want my machines to get jealous of one another.  I cut out the backing or lining fabric for a sewing machine cover for the heavy duty sewing machine I piece with.  I have been planning for awhile now to use selvages to make the sides and top of this cover so I got out my bin of selvages and starting cutting out interesting pieces.  They were jammed in and overflowing from the bin so after I cut them I had to iron them before I could sew with them.

On Monday, I started sewing the strips to the lining fabric.  I had cut mine quite narrow, most of them are only .75" wide so not much of the fabric pattern shows as I overlap them and sew as close to the finished edge of the selvage as I can.  I drew some lines in pencil on the base fabric to help me keep the strips straight.

At first I was going to include a layer of  batting but the selvages and the lining fabric turned out nice and sturdy without the batting and I also wouldn't have been able to see the lines if I had included batting.  I have a pattern which has three different cats sitting, laying or playing on stacks of fabric.  I'm going to make the orange cat laying on a bolt of fabric as the front of my sewing machine cover.  The pattern is shown here with my finished strip of selvages.  If you read the selvages there are two with "Kitty" and "Katz" in them which makes me happy.

 

The selvages really went together quite quickly and I cut way more than I needed and I think the bin actually looks fuller than before I used some so I need to think of another project to use some more up!  I know I want to try crocheting a rug with some of them, but maybe a sewing room apron made with selvages or at least accented with selvage pockets would be nice.

Last night while I was watching TV, I basted enough hexagons to make two flowers.  I sewed one together at breakfast in the bright sunlight.  

Time to get into the sewing room!  Which machine cover shall I work on first?  The spools or the cat?

Friday Finishes (3) and Starts (2)

Yesterday I finished the Heart Lattice cushion cover.  It turned out fine for something I made off the top of my head.  I quilted it on the diagonal down the centre of each lattice but it didn't seem like enough so I quilted it again on each side of the diagonal lattices which made this nice pattern on the backing fabric.  I was using up some old polished cotton since it will never be seen.

I bound it with the same fabric as the  background.  Here's the finished front.

And here's a picture of it in a chair from the front and also a shot of the envelope back. 

It was a really dull day so the pictures are kind of dull too unfortunately.

Here's the Bug Comfort quilt all quilted and bound with turquoise leaf fabric and all washed and shrunk up nice and snugly. 

The Bug Mug Rug turned out pretty cut too.

And here are the flannel backs.

Here's a close up of the quilting on the quilt.  I quilted loops all over it like the bugs and butterflies crawling and flying everywhere.  And look, the butterflies on the backing flannel have loopy trails too.

I was happy that I was able to capture "Live Life Green" and the frog on the back of the Bug Mug Rug.

And just because it's so yummy, here's another shot of the texture in the quilt.

Since I was on a roll, I sewed some more bits and pieces of left over flannel together so I have a backing ready for the next quilt.

And speaking of next quilts.....  Today I kept seeing Tree of Life blocks as I was reading my favourite blogs and my friend Marilyn is making a Tree of Life Quilt, so I decided I need a Tree of Life block too.

It finished at 23".  I think I will trim it down to 20" and make another cushion cover.

Dear Jane Quilt, C8, C9, C10, C11 & D11

I made C8 last Thursday at my Dear Jane Group meeting.  I used Susan Gatewood's instructions to paper piece the centre of the block.

C8 close up.

I also made C10 at my Dear Jane Group by making four over sized half square triangles and trimming them down to size and simply piecing this block.  I purposely switched the background fabric and the main fabric as I felt the block would have been too dark otherwise.

C10 close up.

On Monday I made two more Dear Jane Blocks and started a third.  I made C9 by glue basting the applique shapes over freezer paper forms and machine sewing them in place.  Applique is not my strong suit.

C9 close up.  Sorry for the shadow on the corner.

I made C11 with my Drunkard's block templates making them a little oversize and trimming them down.  I sewed them without pinning thanks to all my practise with curved piecing making a Metro Rings/Double Wedding Ring quilt.

C11 close up.

I finished D11 on Tuesday and because of all the weird and wonderful shapes and angles on this one I chose to use Susan Gatewood's paper piecing templates.

D11 close up.

Here are all the blocks I have made so far.  You can see my Bonnie Hunter Good Fortune quilt behind it on my design wall.  I didn't realise the focus went fuzzy on the right hand side, but you can still see the colours.  Clearly applique and photography are both not my strong suits.

I am still really enjoying making each and every new Dear Jane Block.  It's like starting a new quilt each time.