Simply Color by Moda and Orange Quilt

If you are like me you cannot resist a cute charm pack.  I was going through my stash and found an adorable charm pack - Simply Color by Moda.  I wanted to show off the charms in their entire glory so I just sewed them together in fours and bordered them with an orange batik.  It turned into this cheery easy quilt.  I am pleased, both with the simplicity and the result.  Now I need to quilt it.

Fall Placemats

I created these fall placemats this evening.  I had the striped linen fabric from a grab bag at a local home dec fabric store.  The odd shaped remnant was not enough to cut placemat sized rectangles but was enough for me to cut the horizontal striped squares and vertical striped side pieces.  It actually mad for a nice effect.   I had strips left from the table runner project so I sewed them together and fused iron on adhesive to the back, drew as many pumpkin shapes as would fit on the sheet and cut them out.  I used more of the leaf fabric, again fused and fussy cut.  I laid it out on the rectangles and ironed them on.  Next I sewed my "sandwich", turned it and added topstitching around the perimeter.  I then started some decorative stitches around all of the applique.  At that point I realized that a single large pumpkin and a couple of large leaves would have been much easier to stitch around than all of these small pieces.  And, (yea!) only 4 of these to do.  Well, I got through the first 3 placemats, and just need to stitch around the applique on the 4th.  Maybe I will finish it tomorrow, or since we are a family of 3, why do we even need 4 placemats! 

Kaffe Fassett Quilt Top Done!

I finally settled on an arrangement for my Kaffe Fassett Jelly Roll triangles that I made. I had a burst of energy today and arranged, pinned, and sewed my strip sets. I was still undecided about my background fabric so I visited a local quilt shop that is open on Sunday's. Two lovely ladies who worked there advised me on my background color. We settled on this lovely Kaffe Fassett purple print - we all agreed that something that "read" solid was needed, and I loved the coolness of the shade of purple. Once home, I cut the background triangles ande finished the quilt top. Quite frankly, to me it is a masterpiece! Here it is. Tah Dah!

This is the quilt top in progress.

Kaffe Fassett Quilt Back Done!

I love, love, love the quilt back of my Kaffe Fassett Quilt.  The large purple field broken by the left-over triangles from the front make a powerful burst of color.  I plan to fire-up my pieced together "long arm" machine (after a few trial runs) to quilt this quilt.  Of course I could chicken out at any time and stitch in the ditch.  You may ask, "what long arm"?  Well, it's a quilt frame I purchased off ebay, with an ebay sewing machine with a bit wider throat than my embroidery machine.  I have had it about a year but have not fully figured it out.  Yes I have quilted a few lap/baby quilts, but not as beautifully as I had hoped.  I plan to attend a free arm class at the International Quilt Featival to up my skills.  It may be after the Quilt Festival that I quilt this piece.  It's all good!

Quilt Guild of Greater Houston Charity Quilt Day

Today was a great day! I brought my machine to a local church and participated in the QGGH Charity Quilt Day. Folks bring sewing machines, and a potluck dish. Some folks sewed quilt tops, others quilted, and others added binding. We all worked on different projects. I was able to complete three quilt tops and one quilt back in the 6 hour session. Quilt pieces were pre-cut and placed in ziplock bags with instructions. I just had to grab a bag and sew. These quilts go to a number of Houston charities - helping our homeless, children removed from homes and awaiting court appearances, and visitors to Houston who are going through treatment at MD Anderson, or awaiting a transplant at one of the other hospitals. These tend to be lap quilts meant to give comfort to those who receive them. The event was great fun - I like to chat while sewing. What a great group of women! Here are pictures of my completed works. One of the women was able to quilt my first quilt top that day, so I have a picture of the quilted quilt.

Modern Quilt - a little fix here and there

Well, my modern quilt had a few areas where the stitching went a bit askew - I used the 4-way sewing stitch on my machine, and kept forgetting to hit the reverse button. Anyhoo, I
"un-sewed" a few of the more obvious places and re-sewed them. Now I am happy!

Quilt in Progress

I am in the process of creating a quilt. I sewed together sets of 4 strips from a jelly roll and cut those joined strip sets into equilateral triangles. I had planned to create a prism pattern I had seen on the internet, but once arranged, the pattern was lost with the Kaffe Fasset print. Here is arrangement one.

Here are arrangements 2 and 3:

My daughter prefers #3. I like 1 and 3. I attended the Conroe Quilt Guild show this week and asked an opinion of one of the ladies there. She liked 1 and 3 as well, but preferred 1. I think I will go that direction. In looking at the pictures, I decided that I did not like the orange and black fabric at all, felt the longer blue and brown polka-dotted fabric was a bit distracting, and the black longer fabric seemed out of place. So, since I had two strips left, I removed these (with the exception of 2 of the black strips - I ran out of fabric). I will re-sew these soon, re-lay out the pattern, and decide if I am ready to move forward. More later!

Houston Modern Quilt Guild Swap Freebies - Small Quilt

My pal, Grace and I had the pleasure of attending our first meeting of the Greater Houston Modern Quilt Guild. What a great group of women. They are very talented and so warm and welcoming - like a cozy quilt! After the business portion of the meeting they held show and tell. One gal made a pair of pillow shams - with the Hugs Before Kisses quilt pattern. The next gal shared her quilt and low and behold, it was the same pattern - and together it was a gift for a member who got married last week. How sweet is that? Anyway, I was intrigued and inspired by the many show and tell quilts. They closed out their meeting with a garage sale/swap. This being our first meeting, Grace and I had nothing to give. A few of the gals allowed us to take a few items - I took some binding, a few fabric pieces, and 3- 2 1/2" strips. I had much guilt taking without giving, but was assured by the donor that it was ok. Well, that guilt led me to make sure that I made something with my freebies. I immediately came home, found a coordinating fabric for the strips, and made a small quilt - a good size for a tiny baby or a pet. Here is a picture of it. This inspired me to have some sort of swap that included 3-4 strips, a couple of fat quarters and instructions to "create!" It would be fun to see the variety of items people came up with. Hmmmm...

Table Runner of Valor

Yea! I finished my Table Runner of Valor. And I am please with how it turned out. I do not have anything red, white, and blue to set out on patriotic holidays. I may keep it. I may make it a gift. I need to bond with the finished product before I determine it's fate.

Table Runner of Valor

I am in the process of making this table runner using a standard quilt block. As usual, I winged it on creating it. This time, big mistake. I ended up cutting the longer sides of the blue/white triangles on the bias - I need to listen to the wisdom of Fons and Porter. The quilt square is a bit wonky because the fabric is stretching. Instead of re-doing it, I am moving forward. It is still a work in progress. I will post the final product when I finish!

Baby Quilt

I am a Fons and Porter addict. I watch their Love of Quilting show every Saturday morning. Recently they featured a baby quilt similar to this one. I am not one to follow directions, rather I like to see something I like and try to re-create it by winging it. This method is not always successful, but this time, I think it did. I like the way the colors show up against the white background. I also liked how easy the colorful strips were to make - I had a Moda charm pack and cut each charm in half to create this. I sewed the pieces to a paper foundation. F and P created a scalloped edge around this quilt, and made creating and sewing a scalloped border look easy to sew. It was much easier for them than it was for me. I even re-watched the episode as I labored through the process. I worked diligently over a few days creating the well spaced scallops around the quilt. I slowly added the bias binding around the scallops. Once the first part of sewing the bias tape on was done, I did not like how messy it looked. I ended up ripping off the bias tape, cutting the scallops off, and binding it nice and rectangular. Much better. I did create the bias tape from 1/2 a yard of fabric. I followed the instructions on youtube. It was very easy! I plan to make my own bias type from now on. I show a picture of the back of the quilt as well. I planned to add little bits of color to the back. Serendipitously I did not have enough white fabric, so it was a happy accident. I am pleased with how well this quilt turned out.

Fall Pumpkin Table Runner

I saw something similar to this on the web and thought I would re-create it. I appliqued the pumpkins on after piecing the blocks. I had a fat quarter of a leaf print fabric that I fussy cut to mimic the shape of pumpkin leaves. I quilted the lines on the pumpkin once the applique was sewn on. Although it turned out pretty cute, I definitely should have used a pattern rather than winging it. It took much time. I am glad this project is done.

Pillow Cases for Camp

My daughter went away to camp and I made pillowcase for her roommates. They loved them!

Bibs Bibs Bibs and Burp Cloths

I have had a couple of friends have babies and decided to create a few bibs. And burp cloths. I had a machine embroidery pattern for a bow tie and just love how the bow tie worked out. It was in homage to Doctor Who - my daughter's favorite daughter.