Forward Motion

I have moved my blog, yes I know again!  Please join me at mequilting.com for all the new and exciting posts!

It’s Challenge Week!

Today is the start of Amy’s Challenge week.  We are to pick one thing we want to challenge ourselves to finish.  Mine, is my Mini Margaret Purse, It has been sitting at the button stage for a while now, I have decided on a button, now i just have to finish the rest!

I am also hoping to finish my table runner and get a good chunk of another baby blanket done.  But those are not included in the challenge.

If you have a pile of sewing to finish, why not join in on Amy’s Challenge Week, and challenge yourself to finish something!

Finishing First

I am working on the baby blanket today,  I figured that I needed to get it done today, so that it is ready to go.  Above it is pictured half quilted.  This time I am quilting it one way and the crossing it the other way to make squares.

Here I am working on marking the next row to be top stitched.  I am marking it rather then freeform sewing so that my top stitching meat up at the corners of the squares.  Its a bit time consuming to do it this way but it looks really cute!

Here the quilting is all done, you can see some of the lines still, but within a day or so they will disappear, they will also go away when I wash it.  I love disappearing ink markers for sewing, they are awesome for lines that you need to sew but don’t need to show!…lol

Here is the back of the quilt, the little dots are actually a raised surface, its really soft, being Minky fabric.  I think I will use some of the left overs of this to make part of some tag blankets as the texture of this fabric is great!

And finally, here is the completed quilt!  I am so happy with it, the quilt measures 37″ square and will keep baby very cosy!

What A Week

It’s been a hectic week for me, and I haven’t been feeling great, so the time I did get to spend at home I tried to sleep most of it, so I haven’t done a ton of sewing.  I did manage to get half of the table runner quilted, I am pleased with how it is turning out.  I have more projects that I am planning and with Amy’s Challenge week coming up I am going to challenge myself to get a bunch of it done.  While Challenge week is meant for one thing, I hope to finish 3 -4 things, not very big things mind you, I will talk more about what I am challenging myself with once Amy posts the Challenge!

I have also made a couple of key chains, which I will post later as well.  I am thinking at least a couple of them will end up on my etsy shop.  Which is empty at the moment, but soon there will be some listings up.  I would rather get some things made before I post things, easier that way.

Chris and I are planning a trip (hopefully) we are thinking about going to Mt Rushmore, driving there in a couple of days and then slowly making our way home after we spend the better part of a day there.  We hope to drive to the border the first night, and then drive most of the way the next day, camping along the way.  We are so good at setting up and taking down the tent, this comes from when we went to his cousins wedding, we drove further then where we needed to be and then worked our way over there spending only a night or 2 at each place we went.  It was a lot of fun.  And we need a break.  But its not for a few weeks yet.

I have a poll for you!

I am working on my Mini Margaret Bag and I am at the point where I am ready for a button, only I cant decide. So hopefully you can help me out. Here are some photos of my margaret in progress, I have put a strip of the inside fabric over the purse so that you can see it, but my question is Which Button do I choose? (there is a poll at the bottom of this post, thanks in advance for playing)

A.

B.

C.

D.

Here is a view of all the buttons together

And here is the poll!!

Quilt-a-long, Day 4 = One more Strip

I can’t say that I have ever tried log cabin quilting before.  I have knitted a log cabin dishcloth once, and I remember having to add on to each side as I went.  But quilting log cabin requires you to throw out any notion of chaining that you have gotten so fond of…lol…making this log cabin square required a lot of stand up, sit down, stand up, sit down…lol… but I enjoyed it non the less!

Starting in the middle of your log cabin design you work your way counter clockwise as you piece each section to the block, pinning, sewing and pressing in between.  I think it turned out lovely.

Now, HST’s arent my favorite thing in the world, it is making me rethink my up coming pinwheel sampler that I was thinking about doing after this one was complete…lol…but I can do them.  And I found out today that one of my rulers has a diagonal line across it (I know I am blind) and as long as my HST’s are 3.5″ or 4″ I can use this ruler to square them up before sewing them all together.  I was so excited for this!

Here are both of this weeks blocks together…

And finally all of my blocks together…

What are we working on today?

Sunday’s are a great day for me to quilt and get other things done.  And so today I have been working on lots.  I have started cutting, sewing and pressing a dresden plate, this is made with the cheap template I bought to see if I could make a dresden plate…lol… its nice, just a lot shorter then I would have liked, the template is only one size, so you are pretty much stuck with what you get.  So before I finished it, I ordered the Easy Dresden Ruler.  I like making them but would like to be able to create multiple sizes!

I also am working on a Disappearing 9 patch table runner, there is a great and super easy tutorial here to make your own, I have all the blocks sewn together, and it has been sandwiched and pinned and is ready for quilting.

But before I can quilt that, I need to quilt and finish the baby blanket, so I am thinking of quilting the 9 patch as a treat for finishing quilting the baby blanket.  It is a slow process as I am marking a few lines and then top stitching, then more marking, and well you get the idea.  I am using my disappearing ink pen and if i do to many at once the lines start to fade before I get to them!!

So now that leads me to….What are you working on today?  I hope you have been productive in what ever you are doing today!

Sewn Remedy for Back Spasms

I get really bad back spasms sometimes, and I needed something to ease the pain, whether I need hot or cold on it.  So out comes some Amy Butler Fabric, from her Love collection, and a book One Yard Wonders and with a few quick stitches here and there!  A hot/cold pack is born, one that can be tied around my waist so that I can wear it when I am standing or sitting!

I am going to make a matching cold pack to go into it as well, but for now I just made the one.  You should have seen all my staff giving me weird looks as I used about a cup of our rice to fill it up.  If we actually ate at home I would have rice, but since we mostly eat at our restaurant, well you know…lol

Here is the hot pack inside the wrap

Here it is wrapped around my waist

I think I will really enjoy this project!  It was quick to make, only a few hours, and its very functional, I think I can even wear it under my Chef Jacket!!

Quilt-a-long, Day 3 = Lovely blocks!

I am done my blocks for this week!!  They are so nice, I think that these set are my favorite so far.  The techniques we used this time were great!  real time savers!  Thanks Amy for some great blocks!

Here are both blocks from this week together…

And here are all the blocks we have done so far!

Repurposed for New Fabric Storage

So I got this shelf the other day at Walmart,  and I am now using it for fabric storage, specifically fat quarter and a little bit larger sizes.  This way I can see what I have to quilt with at a glance, I still have my Ikea tower full of fabric larger then the sizes that will fit in here, but atleast now most of my quilting fabric that I have at the moment is here.

I love this Billboard…

We have a lot of construction going on right now in our city, seems as though this is the norm for every summer.  Each of the main roads at one point were all under construction so if you wanted to drive to one to skip the construction on another you couldn’t because its under construction too!  Anyways I know this isn’t quilting related, although you could take some design elements from this photo and make it quilting related, I thought I would share it with you before I headed off to bed.

Why I have moved…

Working on my blog constantly, I felt very limited in what I could do.  Like I had to conform to what my blog software was capable of doing.  So I decided to move.  To somewhere that would give me the flexibility to do what I wanted to do.  Don’t get my wrong, iWeb is a great blogging tool if you are just starting out and don’t know much about HTML and CSS etc.  But when you grow out of that, which I did a very long time ago when I used to blog a lot about Stamping and Card Making, you need a change.

One bad thing about importing to wordpress, is my wonderful comments are gone.  But I do thank you all for all the comments that you sent about my quilt-a-long block progress!

I hope you enjoy my new blog as much as I do!

And now back to our regular scheduled quilting progress!!

In Between Loads of Laundry…

I am quilting, A baby blanket for another friend having a boy.  I was able to cut all my fabric and get half of the blocks pinned last night.

This morning, as I am waiting for my buzzer to go for Laundry, I have finished pinning the blocks and am now chaining them together.

I am hoping to get a good chunk of this quilt done today, its super cute, and it will have a Minkie Backing.

I am also thinking about trying some Dresden Plates, I have been admiring Amy’s Dresden and it looks really neat, So I think I will try one.  and make a little mini “quilt” out of one, more like a table centrepiece then anything.  This though is a project for next weekend.

Mini Margaret

I stumbled across this pattern while searching the Oh! Fransson Blog.  Its awesome, and one day I would like to make a regular sized one out of Amy Butler fabric, but out of shear mistake I am making a mini.  You see I like to print out patterns from the internet, as I am sure many of you do, but I like to print them out using the 2 per page setting on my printer and cut them in half and put them in a half size binder.  It saves paper and its not as heavy.  Usually though I print out the cutting portion of the pattern on regular size so that the measurements are proper, but today I hit print without changing those settings, and so by fluke a Mini Margaret was printed!

It will be a perfect size to carry around some small things, but big enough that I am not cramming things in that I would normally carry.  It will be approx. 14” across at the bottom and the bag will be approx. 15” tall, plus handle.

This also works great because I have just a little less then half a meter left of the blue flowered and green polka dotted fabrics left, I was able to cut all my pieces (except pockets, as I want to maybe change the size of the pockets, but wish to get to that point before cutting them out).

So this is where I am right now,  I need to stop off at fabric-land maybe in the next couple of days to pick up more interfacing as I finally used my last pieces this morning on my day-timer cover.

I think I love you…

This fabric is so beautiful!  I think I am in love.  And thanks to Amy’s awesome tutorial, it has now transformed into a cover for my Daytimer!

Here is a photo of the quilting and straps done…

And then here is the outside of my new cover…

And some of the inside!

Good Morning, Sunshine, or lack there of.

The weather channel said sun shine all day, but I woke up to clouds….yuck!  A night of restless sleep and an early morning lead to me finishing my pin cushion!!  I love it!!

It goes along perfectly with my ironing board!

I have lots planned today so I won’t blog for long right now, Hope everyone has a great day!!

Tada! Progress!

As promised to Amy, I am posting my progress for my pin cushion.  I have cut out 12 pin cushion fronts, sewn one front, and found buttons for them.  This is the layout

And here is the first one completed, I have also chain sewn a bunch of squares together so that I can complete the other 11.

This is the front of mine…

I still have to sew on a back, fill the top half with fibrefill, and fill the bottom half with wheat or doll pellets and then sew it up.  I have most of tomorrow off (cross your fingers) so I should get more done.

I have also downloaded and printed a few other patterns that I will cut out tomorrow and maybe get done, more decor and helpful tools for my room.  Some nested quilted boxes, a book cover for my dayplanner/calendar, and a quilted sewing machine cover.  I am excited to get more done for my room!!

Quilt-a-long, Day 2 = Love, pin love!

Our awesome Quilt along host, had recommended some nice pins, more tiny then normal pins, that you would say get a dollar store because they come on a cute wheel, and they are all different bright colors, and nice and straight, and sharp pins.  These pins are lovely to work with, and I dont think that I will ever go back to the old dollar store pins.

And the great thing about them, there are 2 colors, yellow, seen here. and a cool blue that will match my new ironing board and pin cushion!!!

I have the yellow in my black pin cushion, and am saving the blue for when i get my blue pin cushion done!!  And no, the colors are not allowed to co-habitate on the same pin cushion!

And now for my blocks!!

And here are all of my blocks so far!  I love them!!

A New Look…

You may be wondering why I have a photo of my drab ironing board with nothing on it, no sewing, quilting project on the go just the ironing board…

Well, it is because I decided that I needed to recover my ironing board, with something that matches some of my things in my craft room.

So taking inspiration from my favorite pair of sewing scissors, I recovered my ironing board, and here it is…

If you would like to recover yours, but think that it is to much work, here is an awesome tutorial that I made mine from, it is super easy and didn’t take very long at all!!

Now that I have made this, I am going to make myself a matching pin cushion, one bigger then the one I have now, not to much bigger mind you, but I need more matching accessories!   With that I am off to look for some cute patterns for pin cushions!!

Quilt-a-long, Day 1 = Success.

Today was Day 1 of Amy’s Quilt Along!  I was so excited to come home tonight and do some quilting!  I have all my fabrics, been through her tutorials a dozen or so times, and I was ready to cut, and sew…

To bad my sewing machine wasn’t…but with a little fight, which I was going to win, it decided to cooperate and let me finish my blocks!  So here they are!!  I promise you all the reds are the same, its just when i adjust them depending on how much brown is in them they “change” colors.

An additional gift

So I got home this evening from our knitting group that meets each monday at my restaurant, and I decide that its time to finish off this gift, I wanted to make something that would match the baby quilt, so I decided on baby bibs.  After I sewed all the strips together, I created a 20” x 13” block, which I was able to get 2 baby bibs out of.  I backed it with the flannel from the back of the baby quilt.

The pattern for these bibs is located here on Chickpea’s Blog, it is very simple and only took me about 1.5 hours to make 2.  My only suggestion for the pattern is to make the turning opening about 1/2” bigger then it is so you can stick your finger through to turn it.

The transformation is complete.

From fat quarters and a few meters of fabric to this….

The baby quilt is complete and ready to give to Paul and Marilio for their new baby.  Along with a knitted sweater for their 2 year old daughter.  I really hope they love it.

One nice thing about quilting on a wet and rainy day, is you stay warm covered by the quilt as you stitch your binding on.

My favorite coin on the quilt….

And the quilt folded back to reveal the soft flannel backing, and my lovely binding job, which is the best I have ever done!

Frogs, frogs and more frogs

If there were 4 more hours that I could stay up then I may be finished this froggy coin quilt, but alas it is time for bed.  But before I go….

The top stitching is done!!

I just did a plain semi straight stitch 🙂 I am not that good at perfect straight stitch, so its a little wavy.  I also did it diagonally to help with the waviness.  I was going to go the other way as well, but decided against it as I got to the end of the first way, and I like it just the way it is.

Tomorrow, provided I get up at a half decent hour (although if I sleep I am not going to wake up, as I haven’t been sleeping real well) I will work on the binding and get that done.

A time for progress!!

I dropped my mom off this morning at the airport, what a busy couple of weeks it has been, and fun too.  It was great to spend some time with her.

I was able to come home today and get some much needed quilting done.  I have finished the top of the baby boy coin quilt…

I then finished the backing of the quilt and taped it to the floor of my very tiny kitchen…lol

The quilt is almost bigger then my kitchen, that is sad.

After spraying it with adhesive and sandwiching it with quilt batting here is my pinning progress.

And finally my quilt is pinned and ready for top stitching.  Which I am not sure will get done tonight, but I am sure going to try.

The morning after

And with a few changes to the order of the quilt I think I am happy with it.  I was also thinking last night in my restless slumber that I might like to make the quilt a bit wider.  I am just looking at it on the floor now and think i am going to be shrinking it width wise by 1 1/2”, and I think it will make the quilt to skinny for my taste, so I have decided that I will add 1” strips between the block strips vertically, this will add 3” to the width of my quilt once everything is sewn together.  I will post a photo later to show you the sketch of what it will sort of look like with the strips in between, not to scale of course…lol…but anyways, off to work I go!