Quilt Blocks & Cross Stitch

March was a busy month with family visiting and Chloe’s birthday. I will share more of her celebration when I get the photos together. Right now I would like to share all my Work in Progress and a finish. This quilt block is for my quilting bee. This is the March block requested. It is a four square block consisting of two square in square blocks and two 9 patch. She wanted solids for the square in square and scrappy for the rest. I love how this turned out and can’t wait to see all her blocks put together. This is a great quilt to use up all that stash.

 

This was the February block for the Bee. Colors requested were green and blue. The block type is a modified bento box. I think her color choices are very calming and the blocks should all look good together.

 

Still working on that baby quilt for my nephew. Maybe it will be done by the time he graduates high school. I think I am stalling because I plan to do a strip of applique letters for his name across the top and have not taken the time to print out some letters and pick my font. They are planning to move with in the next 2 months so that buys me some time to finish and send after they have moved.

 

I finished my Woodland Sampler. Woot Woot! I changed up the colors on the house in December, now it feels more like a house I would live in. I love the last block indicating the year and the little birds are so sweet. I think I am going to try and frame this myself. My Mother-in-law framed some art work last year and she has given me hope that I could possibly frame my stitching and it look half way decent. I think I will go to Hobby Lobby when I have some time to hang out back in the frame section and see if I can figure something out.

 

After finishing my Woodland Sampler I pulled out my Mirabilia “Under the Friendship Tree”. This one is slow and steady The rose border along the top is lovely but I can not wait to get to those little girl dresses. Right now this is my only cross stitch in progress. I like to have 2 going so I can switch back and forth according to my mood. I have decided on my next pattern to start and will be kitting it up soon.

 

Here is a little something I have been working on to hang up in Chloe’s playroom. It is a handful of yo-yo’s I sewed onto a piece of fabric spelling out I Love You. I just need to sew on a border and make a backing. Well that is my update for March. I am looking forward to April and hopefully some warmer weather. Take Care.

Quilt Show 2014

I snuck away last Friday to check out the Cobblestone Quilters Guild Quilt Show. This quilt above was the one on the flyer advertising the quilt show and is why I decided to go and check it out. This quilt is titled A Quilters view of Charleston. This landscape quilt was made by Lynn Gettelfinger. It was amazing to see in person.

 

This was my favorite quilt. It is the one I could see throwing on my bed and dragging around the house cuddling up with. It looked so cozy and pretty with all of the pretty plaid fabric. This one is titled “Hours of Waiting” Made by Enid Edgeworth. Here are some photos for a closer look.

 

I need to make a bear paw quilt. This one took the quilter from 2008 to 2013 and she mostly stitched it by hand in Hospital waiting rooms. Love it, very inspiring. Here are some more quilts that caught my eye as I walked around aisles and aisles of hanging quilts.

“Stars by Magic” made by Freida Kinard

 

“Stars Over Fort Sumter” made by Mary Patterson

 

“Decade Plus” made by Nancy Coleman

 

“Quilt of Many Scraps” made by Linda Knutson

 

“Clowns for Oscar” made by Katherine Abrams

 

“Redwork in Brown” made by Ginnie Lebosse

 

“Mandy’s Surprise” made by Janica Felsher

 

“The Pink Tree” made by Keri Davidson

 

“Rocky in the Garden” made by Kathy Aparicio

 

“Mostly Charleston Calico” made by Christine Taylor

 

“Paradise Island” made by Brenda Rakowski

 

“Organized Chaos” made by Libby Law

 

“Celebrate” made by Susan Clark

 

“Le Jardin” made by Kathryn Masuga

 

“Spooky Boo” made by Mary Pease

This last one I was taking a picture of and then someone else wanted to take a photo and told her friend to stand in front of it. I jokingly said put your finger out and point at it so it looks like you made it. Then the lady said I did make it. We laughed. I told her she did a great job and should be proud. Then I forgot to take a picture of Mary in front of her quilt. After getting my fill of seeing all the wonderful quilts I then started exploring all the venders and picked up some quilty loot.

 

On the far left is a fabric panel it has 6 pictures total: Flamingo, crab, dolphin, 2 turtles and a pelican. I love fabric panels. On the top is a bundle of precut wool squares and a half yard of flannel plaid. Also a cute fall table topper or wall hanging pattern “Crows & Pumpkins”. Bottom center one yard fabric of the big flower print. In the center is a Spell it with fabric pattern book showing how to piece out the alphabet by Moda. The rest are fat quarters most of them $1 a piece. Lovely hall of goodies. I could have went crazy but I was trying to hold back. Overall so glad I was able to go and experience the quilt show. I will keep a look out for more crafty things to attend that might be driving distance.

 

English Paper Piecing

I have been working on my 6 point star quilt blocks using the English Paper Piecing method. Slow and steady as she goes. I am trying to decide if once I get a handful more blocks completed if I should start sewing them together as I go along. I love how this is looking so far. I am going to link up with the In Hand EPP Link party.

 

Remember these babies. I was a kid in the 80’s and spent a lot of time with my girlfriends  in a pair of these and went to more roller rink birthday parties than I can remember.

 

Chloe turns 5 in March and one of the things she has asked for her birthday is a pair of roller skates. She had never worn skates before. So I decided its time to bring her to the world of roller skating and found a rink in our town. Today was the second time we went and she is doing great. She falls a lot but laughs thru it and gets right back up.

 

Refueling with some nachos. I was surprised at how busy this place is.  Then after thinking about it this is a great activity to bring the kids. It cost less than going to the movies and you can stay as long as you like. It is great exercise by getting the kids and your self off the couch or your computer chair. I think this will be a regular fun activity for us to share together until she gets to old and doesn’t want her dorky  Mom embarrassing her when she is hanging with her friends. Too bad, I am going to be the Mom that is there and sure enough if they start blaring the YMCA song I will be out on the floor skating around doing the arm motions.

 

In Hand EPP Link Party

WIP Wednesday

I have several works in progress or shall I say a few I am actually working on at the moment. I decided to take a reality check this year on my long list of incomplete quilts. I printed out a photo list of all my wips listed by oldest to newest and hung it up on my cork board. This quilt is my oldest wip. It is the first quilt I ever made. I made this quilt top in 2003 after I lost my beloved cat “Pusskins”. It was kind of my therapy at the time. I had no pattern all I had was a few books on quilting and I also watched a few shows on PBS. One of the shows was on applique and that is how I got the idea to use a cat and heart motif and applique them onto some of the blocks. My cat Pusskins was a black cat so naturally I wanted the cats to be black. All of the fabric in the top I found at JoAnn fabrics. I just kind of made it up as I went along. I set up my quilt station in my kitchen on the little table in the corner. This is when I discovered the rotary cutter and mat. Little by little I pieced this thing together. Then when I got to actually making it into a quilt is where my troubles began. I bought a big thing of acrylic high loft batting. I also was not confident in my quilting so I bought clear acrylic thread. When I made my sandwich I just laid it out on the bed and pinned it all together, not knowing I should have secured the backing on a surface before putting the batting then top down to pin. I did my quilting by stitching in the ditch around the square blocks. What a nightmare. It was a total mess. It was so thick from the batting and the thread was awful. I ended up rolling it up and putting it in the closet for the next 10 years, always thinking I would fix it. Now I know a little bit more about quilting. So fast forward to 2014 and me finally deciding to clear out all those old wips. Last week when we were all kind of iced in from the big winter storm of the south, I pulled out this quilt and began to hand pick out all the quilting and separated the top from the batting and backing. It took me three days and it is ready now for some proper cotton batting. I am going to switch up the backing fabric a little too. I am so excited that this quilt is on the mend. It looks like Cosmo is already staking claim to the quilt once I finish it.

 

Still working on my nephews quilt made using the economy blocks. I plan to make another strip of bricks for in between the last two rows using a few of the fabrics from the top row of blocks. I am using a light tan as my neutral for around the blocks and outside border. I am thinking of appliqueing my nephews name onto the top border. His 1st birthday is tomorrow so I should deserve a few spankings for being so slow on this one. I blame my design board. Every time I make a block or complete another stage of the quilt and put it on the design board, I sit and stare at it. Seriously long moments just staring at the board and thinking about how I might put it all together. I love how this is turning out.

 

Here is the progress on my Woodland Sampler cross stitch. I just have the last month left. I ran out of the brown floss that is used to outline each block. I ordered some and just received an email that the floss has shipped. My goal is to get this one done by the end of the month. My fingers are itching to start a new cross stitch pattern.

 

Here is the biggest Work in Progress in the house. Koda is 9 months old and is as big as a horse, or at least it feels he is that big. He is lucky he is so adorable. He is all puppy and bad dog rolled into one, lets just say he is a work in progress.

Linking up

Wip Wednesday at Freshly Pieced  

Stitching Sundays with Chrissie Crafts

Vintage Schnibbles Hat Trick

I completed the top of my Schnibbles “Hat Trick” pattern. Just in time for the vintage schnibbles parade at the beginning of next month at Sherri’s blog A Quilting Life or at Sinta’s blog Pink Pincushion.

Here is the fabric I started with. I did not end up using the little pink hearts print.

I realize that I could have done this a lot easier if I had cut fabric into strips and made the 9 patch blocks. At the time I was wanting to enjoy the process of cutting up the little squares and sewing them together.

It took a long time to get those mini 9 patch blocks sewn up. Here is the color combos I came up with.

I decided to put the blocks with the brown in the center of each 5 block combo. I wanted to balance it a little and planned to use the brown fabric for my inside border.

For the outside border I sewed together 2 1/2 inch wide strips by 5 inches long. Then I cut this in half for both my top and bottom outside border.

It turned out light bright and perfect for a Spring/Summer table topper. I still need to go thru my stash and see what I will put on the back and also choose a binding fabric. Overall I am happy with how it turned out and am anxious to see what fabric choices others have made in the group. I wonder what Vintage Schnibble pattern will be chosen for May. Tootles.

My Quilt WIPs for 2013

This is the first quilt I ever made. I made this quilt top back in 2003 when I had lost my beloved black cat Pusskins. I had sewn my whole life clothing and stuff for around the house and had always wanted to make quilts but did not have a clue where to start. Back then there was not as much available on the internet as there is now. This quilt I just made up as I went along. I found 2 wooden blocks at a craft store one of a cat and the other of a heart. I used them for my applique part. I went down to Jo Anns fabric and picked out a handful of fabrics I liked and thought would go together. Then piece by piece I made up some blocks and figured out an overall design for the quilt. Some of the things I did with this quilt I have no idea how I could have done them with the skill set I had at the time. Making the quilt was great therapy and helped me thru my grief of loosing my cat. The part I had real troubles with was sandwiching the quilt and doing the quilting. I used real crappy polyester batting and chose a clear nylon thread. After outlining all the blocks I was not happy with how it was going so I folded it up and stuck it in the closet. Ok so last year we moved and I found the quilt while cleaning out my stuff. Now I know so much more about making quilts and I know exactly how to fix this thing. So this quilt is on my wips list for 2013. First I need to pick out all the quilting, OMG! Then I can get some proper cotton batting and go from there.

This is my Pinwheels in the park quilt. I love this quilt top it is so cheery and lovely with the Japanese Lecien Flower Sugar Fabric. I finished this top in 2011 and sandwiched it all up and had it in a roll in the closet. Now I need to un pin it iron it and get this baby sandwiched quilted and bond. This is a great quilt for the summer so putting this one on my list of Quilt wips for 2013.

This is my Christmas table topper I did using a variation of a 9 patch block. I love it. Unfortunately I finished the top right after Christmas of 2011 and lost my holiday mojo to get it quilted up. So this I am putting on the list to finish up so I can use it this holiday year.

These are my Half Square Triangle Blocks from the Block of the month last year. I stalled out after 7 blocks due to moving and what not. So I have 5 blocks to complete and get this puppy in the completed pile. I am using all reproduction 30’s prints, love it.

Last year was my first Quilting Bee. My month was October and I chose this block pattern and wanted everyone to do the same block with their choice of red and white fabric. I have 12 of these blocks and I need to get them all out and ironed. I have already chosen some fabric for sashing and am still drawing up a design for my quilt. I want to get this one done this year and share photos with my lovely Bee members that all helped in making this quilt.

It is impossible for me not to start some new quilt projects due to all the wonderful quilts and fabric I see daily in all the blogs I follow. I am seriously late to the party on this one. I have been wanting to make a granny square quilt every since seeing them pop up everywhere on flickr. Jolene from Blue Elephant Stitches updated her free pattern found at the Moda Bake Shop to be made using a jellyroll I was excited to finally start mine. I had a jelly roll of California Girl in my stash and was able to find a little yardage in the same line for the border fabric and the binding. I will be using Kona Cotton in white for my background. All ready to start cutting into that beautiful fabric.

Last but not least Sinta of Pink Pincushion and Sherri of A Quilting Life  are starting back up with their Another Year of Schnibbles along. Once a month they pick a schnibbles pattern for all of us to make and then at the beginning of the next month they have a parade of quilts on their blog to showcase everyone’s quilts. I put a button on my side bar if you are interested in the details. This month the pattern is Hat Trick. It comes out to a table topper size of 26″ by 32″. The pattern is made up using charm squares, so if you have a bunch of charm packs in your stash these patterns are great for them. My goal is to use only fabric I have in my stash and this is what I pulled out to use.

Well that is what my Quilt WIP list looks like for 2013 or at least the ones I have at highest priority this year.

My Quilting Bee 2012

In 2012 I joined a Quilting Bee. We were 12 members and each of us got a month where the others would each send us a quilt block of our choosing from the quilt book Modern Blocks by Susanne Woods. Here are the blocks I made in 2012. I still have 2 more blocks to make for the bee that will end in February. The red and white block that is in the first photo was the block I chose for my month in October. I have a whole pile of the red and white blocks in all kinds of red and white fabric sent to me by my bee members. I plan to stitch them up into a quilt this year.

Baby Girl Quilt

I made this baby girl quilt for a dear friend of mine. She had her baby girl this year. I made the quilt using pink and cream colored fabric. I put a yellow fabric with little lambs on the back and used a yellow fabric for the binding. The quilt is 5 squares by 7 squares. Real simple design and lots of fun to make.