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.