a new little bag

 I seem to be having trouble getting back to the machine projects I was working on before summer came along.  I started something new again and made a new little bag.  I cut and used charm squares from Howard Marcus's line Friendship. It is just the right size to hold my Bible and a notebook to go to my weekly BSF Bible study.

I quilted it with free motion feathers.  I found it challenging to evenly fill the rectangular shape.  It was a good exercise - I need to practice more!
Maybe this week I can back to those machine projects before they become ufos...  :0)
Happy Quilting!!

split 9 patch

This is another quilt to go to northern India. It's to go to a school set up for children who live at the dump. After seeing a picture of the last quilt I made with it's recipient, I knew I wanted to make another. When I heard they were collecting quilts for the rest of the children I got started.

I had some fabric I wanted to use up. I made some 9 patches - split them and sewed them back together again. It was fun arranging them as there were so many options. It is machine quilted very simply.

I hope this quilt will bring a smile to a child's face and keep them warm on cold nights this winter.

Happy Quilting!!

finished panel 4

I was excited to finish panel #4 of my Susan McCord vine quilt this week and add it to the others. This quilt is slowly growing and so far I haven't lost momentum on it.
It's still difficult to photograph. I like the closer photos because I can see the colors of the leaves. However, when I see the whole thing I can enjoy the wavy lines created by the main stems.

I printed off panel 5 and will start on it soon. I'm working on a Bird of Paradise block for a few days. I really want to complete that project too!

I quilted my Temecula Summer Stars quilt this week. I am terribly out of practice with machine quilting! I did very simple in-the-ditch quilting.

DD#2 sewed herself a skirt to wear for the first day of school :0) I was proud of her! We went shopping yesterday for flannel to make fall/winter pajamas for her, DS and DD#3 and she asked if I would make them for her because she would rather make quilts than sew clothes. LOL! I can relate to that!

Happy Quilting!!

Summer Stars

I got my stars together for the Temecula Quilt Co's Summer Star sew-a-long. They posted their layout yesterday and somehow I had it in my mind that there would be 9 stars. Theirs has only 8 so I made up my own 2"center and made an extra block.

I had trouble deciding on border fabric. This navy is what I went with but I came very close to using this taupe/grey/brown.

I hope I can get it quilted this week. It's only 16" square so it shouldn't take too long :0) What a fun little project for summer.

Happy Quilting!!

confessions

Back in May I bought my very first fat quarter bundle. I fell in love with this California Girl line by Fig Tree and I couldn't resist.
I haven't even opened it yet.
However the door was opened to buy more Fig Tree fabric - oh dear!

I've always admired it but bought little thinking it didn't really go with the rest of my stash. I need to begin making something soon or I'll start feeling guilty about buying so much. At first I was thinking about a Farmer's Wife quilt or some similar 6 inch block sampler. I just can't decide... so

I keep working on my Susan McCord vine quilt. I have only 2 more branches left to do for panel #4 and the fun of sewing on hundreds of little leaves hasn't worn off yet :0) I just love working on this project!

On a personal note - My youngest daughter is starting Kindergarten this fall - next week. She's only 4 1/2 and I thought I'd have her home with me for another year. However, she is SO ready to go - practicing all her numbers and letters and trying so hard to read by herself. She is confident and fun loving and will have a marvelous time. I am so NOT ready for her to go. I've had little ones home with me for over 13 years. I like having little people around - they are such good company. I know I should be embracing this - all the freedom and maybe even more time to sew. But instead, I feel like this wonderful chapter in my life is slipping away...

Thanks for listening :0)

catching up

I've been making some progress with my quilt patis diamond stars. I keep running out of the patis templates so I decided to tackle the edge to get some back into circulation. (I should have ordered more but now it's a bit of a personal challenge to see how far I can go with just the one pack)
I want this quilt to become a regular rectangle shape so I made cardboard templates to fill in the top and turn the corner. (I know I could just make some diamond shaped cardboard templates - I just like how easy it is to pop out the plastic ones) I guess I'll need some half stars to fill in the side. It's been so great to have this take along stitching for at the beach and while camping this summer. It's about 1/4 of the size I want to finish at.

I caught up my Summer Star Sew-along blocks from http://temeculaquiltco.blogspot.ca/ Can the summer really be almost over!?! Here I've put the blocks next to a lamp my Dad made for me out of oak when I was in high school. Any guesses about what it is supposed to be :0)

Happy Quilting!!

I finished my Crowfoot quilt top yesterday. It is inspired by a quilt in Betsy Chutchian's book "Gone to Texas" I thought I'd have finished this weeks ago but... summer is very busy!
I had some trouble with my pieced border. I thought I'd done the math right but when they were sewn up the corners were not going to work. I could have just chopped them off - liberated style -but I wasn't going to be happy with them that way. You can see my solution and I am happy with it.

I had to take pictures outside because it's too large to lay out on the floor in my house without moving heavy furniture. Since it was outside, I thought I'd snap a picture of it with my mostly recovered vegetable garden :0)

Here it is draped over the bed. I wonder how long it will be before it's ready to be slept under? I intend to quilt it by hand. Has anyone thread basted a quilt on a hardwood floor before? I'm worried about scratching it up with the needle. Not that I have a scratch-free floor with 4 kids in the house, but I try not to intentionally scratch it.

So now do I get to start something new?? :0)

Happy Quilting!!