Quilt top done

Finished this colorful quilt top today. 

 (Pattern name - Hometown Parade, designer Avis Shirer, in AllPeopleQuilt.com, June 2008 issue.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Also started working on Yo-Yo's for another quilt I plan to make.  I decided that I want to use white for the background.  This will be a hand project for the most part - a good project for taking on my vacation this year.

When I go on vacation I always take three or four books, a few hand sewing projects, some counted cross-stitch and at least one knitting project.  Now ask me how much I get done!  I'm ALWAYS optimistic.

What's going on here.......

Yesterday I posted pictures of checkerboard houses and log cabin blocks.  The idea and instructions came from a June 2008 magazine article by designer Avis Shirer of Joined At The Hip.  I cut it out of the magazine so I'm not sure what magazine except that the name in the lower corner is "allpeoplequilt.com".


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I saw this magazine cover and fell in low with the quilt - made with hundreds of Yo-Yos.  

The Yo-Yo's can be easily made using Clover's Yo-Yo maker.

I have an overflowing container of 5 inch scrappy squares that are perfect for Yo-Yo's.  

This is a great take-along project and a project to pick up at odd times when I have a few minutes.  I can make a Yo-Yo in less than five minutes - and that's at my slow leisurely pace!

Checkerboard houses

Today I finished cutting strips for some log cabin blocks.

Sewing the blocks together didn't take as long as I thought they would.

And here are the checkerboard houses I made previously.

Here are the blocks up on my design board.

The pattern is from a magazine.  I am upstairs and the magazine is downstairs, so I will have to give the credit tomorrow to the designer and the magazine.  There is a pieced border yet to be made.  Stay tuned.

Charity quilts

Our Guild has many charity projects including making these simple large-strip comfort quilts for hospice patients.  One of the gals in my Bee group received some donated fabric so she washed it and cut it all into kits for making comfort quilts.  I made the above two and finished up the bindings tonight.


Life has been busy in my little world and my crafting/sewing has mostly been put on the back burner.  I noticed that I have not posted anything since March 9th.  What I haven't posted is my machine quilting practice pieces, my Artist's Trading Card creations, some house blocks I made for a quilt-in-progress, several rows of knitting, and the writing I did for a newly formed Writing Club.  (I have not been sitting around twiddling my thumbs.)

Nine-Patch finished.....

All done - this nine-patch with flowers quilt - made for a cousin on the occasion of her milestone birthday.  I will be sewing on the label tonight so that I can ship it out tomorrow.

Detail.

The back.

Pillow case to match.

Another quilt finished in 2011.  This makes my 5th finish for 2011.  If I can keep up this average for the rest of the year I will be one very happy quilter.

Another finish

Another finish - and it is still January!!!!!  

This quilt idea came from a Sharon Craig book, Layer 'em Up #3, to which I added sashing.  My friend Moe did the quilting.

Here is the backing.

This is a very small quilt and could be used as a table topper.  It is going on my give-away pile.  

Progress on the nine-patch

All the blocks, sashing and  rows are sewn together.

Here is a close-up of the applique block.

Next I will add two borders - one small red border and one larger blue border.

Today I am grateful for -
1.  Good friends
2.  An excellent lunch with included French Fries coated with Truffle Oil. 
3.  The wonderful colors of Fall.

On my design wall.......

On my design wall is a simple nine-patch with sashing and cornerstones - and I added two applique blocks to give more visual interest.

I still have more sashing to cut - and of course the whole thing needs to be sewn together and have some colorful borders added.  It is definitely a work in progress.  The picture is not good, so in case you cannot tell, the blocks are dark blues and creamy white.

'Tis the Halloween season.......

Is it too early for the Halloween decorations?  Fall is my favorite time of the year and it always seems too short so I thought I would get out the Halloween quilts early and enjoy them a little longer.

These two quilts were made by my friend Melanie.

And this quilt is one I made years ago.

My quilting friends know that I moan and groan about my inability to do machine quilting and yet I look at this old quilt - that I quilted on my machine - and am amazed at how decent my quilting looks.  When did I get so fearful and self deprecating?

Here is a close-up of the spider web I put in the corner.

Not the best spider-web in the world, but acceptable I think. 

 (The spider is plastic.)

Quilting Practice

First thing this morning I made the binding for the black and white quilt.

Then I got out my new gadget - a Supreme Slider - and the new Magic Bobbin Washers - and set-up my machine to do some practice on machine quilting.

The stippling is getting better and the meandering circles aren't bad, but everything else is pretty sloppy.  It is easier with the slider, but I am just not steady enough, nor can I think fast enough to move in the right direction.  I tried following a drawn pattern and it was a disaster.  Not all of us have the same talents and I guess I just don't have the talent of machine quilting.  For now I'll stick to straight-line quilting.

In my inventory of unfinished projects are these blocks.  They are all kind of dark and put together make a rather dull looking quilt.  I decided that maybe sashing would help.  After trying out many many colors of sashing, I finally decided to try white.  I have seen many blogs from young quilters doing "Modern" quilts and they use a lot of white.  I cut some white fabric sashing strips to try it out and I think I like it.

In fact, the white sashing brightens it up so much it makes it like a new project and therefore will give me the incentive to finish it up!

Start and Finish

Although there are oodles of unfinished projects in my Quilt Studio, I was not in the mood today to work on any of them. So I pulled out my book of Quilt Ideas - articles that I have torn out of magazines.

I picked out this cute Allpeoplequilt.com pattern of houses and log cabins. In my bedroom is a Grandma Moses picture of a checkerboard house, so I am making my houses in three different checkerboard fabrics. I got two houses/blocks put together and then I was ready to go back to something that needed finishing.

I put the borders on my black and white quilt -

and made a four-patch backing.

Welcome Sign

Finished this Welcome sign a while back and just remembered to hang it up on my porch. My other sign was faded from being outside several years. This one looks all fresh and bright.Now I need to get busy and make one for Christmas.

Labor Day labor......

My quilting labor today was concentrated on binding. It is a big quilt so there is a lot of binding to sew down.

On the table beside my sewing chair is this new little pin cushion made by my friend Brenda. Her stitching is always wonderful and I feel lucky to have many gifts in my home stitched by her.

Table Runner finished

The table runner I made the other day is now all quilted and bound.

(Pattern - Little Charmers IV by Heather Mulder Peterson

for Anka's Treasures)

Although the deep colors are good for Fall, it came out darker than I had wanted, so to make it sparkle a little I added some crystals.

The reverse side is a nice yellow with red flowers which I could use in the Spring.