November update

Well, it's been a while since I've made my last post so I thought it was time for an update.  These are the blocks I made for the October block lotto.  I posted them just one day before the deadline.  I originally started working on a Sunbonnet Sue block, and I packed it up to work on in the car on our trip down to Nashville but it never made it into the car and I couldn't find it at home so I made these blocks as a last minute entry.

 I'm glad I did because I finally won!  I now am the happy owner of 49 different 8" sampler blocks which I plan to turn into a quilt for the guest bed in the basement once I finish a few other projects.

These are my block lotto entries for November.  It's not exactly my style, but it would still be nice to win again.

There is no block lotto for December.  The coordinator is in the middle of changing jobs and recovering from some severe allergy problems so she called a break for the month.   I won't mind taking a month off since I have 3 other quilts in the plans for this month.

If I can find the time to take pictures, I will upload some photos of the crib quilt I finished for DH's nephew due around Christmas and of the progress I have made on our bed quilt.  

I've been avoiding the bed quilt because I couldn't figure out how to trim up the blocks so that they would make a nice, non-poofy star center.  I finally decided to bite the bullet and sew the eight sections into pairs and then trim the pairs to a 90 degree angle since triming the 8 sections to a symetrical 45 degree angle was too hard to figure out.  Now all 8 sections are sewn together, but I have to figure out how to eliminate some wavy edges on the star before I add the background fabric.

I've also got the pieces cut for two more crib quilts but haven't started sewing them yet.

May diversions

I got tired of working on the queen sized quilt I’m making and so I decided to stop and work on a fast little, project. I had picked up 2 yards of a fabric on the clearance rack of Joann’s. It was this “running eighths” print – eight different, yet coordinating prints side by side running the length of the bolt. Each print was a little over 5 inches wide, which made it ideal for cutting up into 5” squares. I’ve been waiting for a good project to make with this fabric ever since I picked it up. Looking back through some quilting magazines from last year I found a pattern that would be quick and easy to sew, but still look a little different from the four patch baby quilt I made last month.

Here is the top – I plan to bind the quilt in the same fabric as the sashing and make the binding the same width as the sashing.

I’m trying to make this quilt entirely from my stash (except the batting since I don’t keep that on hand) so I decided to use 3 one yard cuts of Stonehenge fabric that I bought online, but didn’t like once I saw it in person. While it’s not anything I like well enough to put in a quilt top (especially 3 yards worth!) I think it works well as a backing.

You might think that 3 fabrics from the same line might all be the same width, but evidently, that is not the case. Hence, I had to add the strip of blocks along the side to make the backing wide enough. I hope that I can be careful enough when basting the quilt to make sure the backing stays squared up in relation to the top.

April happenings

So I've finally had a chance to quilt the baby quilt I started a few months ago. Unfortunately, that chance came because I was under orders to take it easy this weekend after a miscarriage this past Friday. I originally planned to donate this quilt to charity, but now I think I will hold onto it as a reminder of the little one we lost.

This is an Advent Calendar that I started right before Christmas. It was a nice little hand quilting project to take on road trips.  It still needs a rod pocket and I also plan to print little Jesse Tree symbols to go in the pockets.  Each day of December, we can take a symbol out, read the Bible story connected to it, and hang it on a Jesse Tree.

And finally, here are some blocks I made to go into a sampler quilt our sewing circle is putting together.   I always like to try someting new, and with only two blocks to make, I don't mind spending some extra time on a complicated pattern.

It's finished!

My first ever, bed sized quilt is finally complete!  It only took a year from start to finish.

Leo really seems to like all the dragonflies, I couldn't keep him off the quilt!

Each dragonfly was paper pieced in 4 parts and then sewn together.  I really had to raid Mom and Grandma's stashes because I didn't want to use any fabric more than once in the entire quilt.

This was my first foray into the world of free-motion machine quilting.  I tried to stich-in-the-ditch around all the dragonflies but I found that my arms and hands really don't have enough control with the free motion foot on the machine so my quilting is rather poor.   I really like the backing fabric I found.  I was at the store to buy some plain muslin for the back when I found this lightweight denim with the embroidered bugs on it.  I really think it complements the quilt much better than a plain backing.

So, lessons learned from my first bed sized/machine quilted quilt:

1. It helps to buy all the fabric for the top at the same time - I spent several days/weeks trying to find a fabric for the border that would help to tie the whole top together.
2. Don't try to use embroidery thread in a standard sewing machine - That cost me $80 to fix my machine.
3. A frame might make machine quilting much easier - I bought a small one that I can't wait to tryout on my next small project.
4. I really prefer the look of hand quilting over machine quilting. 

All in all, I had a really fun time watching this quilt come together.  The last couple steps of a project are always the most exciting because you get to really see the light at the end of the tunnel and can envision the finished product.

I've got plans for another crib sized quilt to be started soon.  Or at least I thought I did.  I saw a new block today that may convince me to change the pattern I was going to use.