I’ve been sewin’–just not quiltin’

What have you been up to?

I’ve been stitchin’ – just not quiltin’!  Here are a couple of things I’ve made lately.  I’ve made my granddaughters a couple of dresses out of vintage sheets and I have my miniature quilt about done for our quilt guild for the June auction. 

Take a look and let me know what you think!

… and finally, my miniature quilt.  Her name is “Myrtle in a Mason Jar.”  I’m finishing her head now.  Myrtle sits in a quart canning jar and I put some vintage spools in it to carry the theme.  The beads are from my mother’s necklace; she bought it in 1952.    Myrtle is holding a miniature quilt. 

I wish you could see the richness of the fabrics, but the sun has bleached them out in the pictures – a photographer, I am not!

Do you like Myrtle???  I hope she will be bid on, but if not, I wanna keep her for myself!

Robbie Marie

2 NEWLY FINISHED

Just finished another quilt and realized I hadn't posted a picture of my last one I finished. I love the floral on the lavender one. It was one of those fabrics that you just hate to cut! lol I tried not to think about it, just get it done. LOL I couldn't find a flower like I wanted for the quilting so I drew my own. I hope you can see it in the picture.

The other is my red/white quilt. I love the color combination so of course I had to make a quilt like that! I had a terrible time with the quilting because my Carpal Tunnel was acting up but I got it finished in spite of it. It truly was a labor of love. *smile* Enjoy!

~Judy

Baby Quilt in the Works

I just finished the top of the quilt I am making for my soon-to-be grandson due the last week in May.

This quilt has been fun to work on, as I love all of the fabrics. I wanted it to be very bright! Did I succeed? I'm so in love with using black and white with bright fabrics!

I designed this in Electric Quilt, using two "wonky" foundation-pieced blocks from the EQ Library. I found the dinosaur shapes online and enlarged them for the applique.

I also plan to make two fitted crib sheets from the bright blue wavy fabric in the quilt and this dotted fabric:

If you ever want to make crib sheets to coordinate with baby quilts you make, here are some easy instructions from "P.S. I Love You Baby Collection" by Lynda Milligan and Nancy Smith:

You will need:

2 yards fabric

4 1/2 yards 1/2" wide single-fold bias tape (optional)

1 yard 1/4" elastic

matching thread

1. Cut a rectangle the entire width of the fabric x 68".

2. Cut out an 8" square from each corner of the rectangle. See illustration below:

3. With right sides together, pin and stitch edge "b" to edge "a" of each corner. Use 1/4" seam.

4. Fold bias tape in half lengthwise and press. Slip folded edge over raw edge of sheet and pin. Machine stitch bias tape using a straight stitch or small zig-zag. Optional hem: To eliminate bias tape, press under 1/4" then 1/4" again to make hem. Stitch.

5. Using 9" length of elastic, pin the center of the elastic to the wrong side of each sheet corner with the edge of the elastic about 1/8" from bias tape or hemmed edge. Machine stitch from this center point along elastic with a zig-zag stitch, stretching elastic as tightly as possible. Start from center and stitch to other end of elastic. Repeat for other end of elastic. Repeat for other corners.

I have made a number of these sheets for my grandkids. They last forever if you use quilt-shop-quality fabrics, and it's so nice not to be limited to the pre-made sheets in the stores.

~Sandy

Amish Miniature Quilt

Finished the top today for my little quilt for the Guild auction.  It looks lighter in the picture, it's actually a dark pink.  Happy Easter everyone!

~ Cathy

So fun giving quilts as gifts!

Just thought I would share this picture of my Grandson Jared, and the quilt I made him.  A fun time was had by all.  In the background is my middle son Justin, and his wife Stephanie.

~ Cathy

Cute quilt, don’t you think so, too??

Saw this on the internet, cute, don’t you think?  Look at the chickens in this One Block Wonder!  Nice job, eh??  I haven’t seen it before!

source

Does anyone recognize it???  (hint – hint!)  YUP!  It belongs to our very own Judy!  She is quite talented, I’m sure you will agree!

Robbie Marie

Quilt Finished!

I pulled this quilt off the frame on Friday.  The fabrics are from Marcus Brothers “Come Quilt With Me” line and have a pretty gray hue.  The back is a high quality flannel sheet (no seams!) and is so soft!  It felt sooo luscious pulling it out of the drier!  I used a curvy pantograph I bought just for this quilt, to go with the straight lines.  I bound the edges in the same cotton as I used on the front.

It’s a cute quilt and will be up in my Etsy shop next week.  (I have more pictures on my blog.)

Robbie Marie

I GUESS I HAVE BEEN BUSIER THAN I THOUGHT!

I just finished the second of these two quilts and wanted to show them. One is the

Apple core pattern. I have never been able to do this pattern for "whatever" reason and I just put my mind to it and did it. Quite the challenge with all the curves but fun nonetheless!

The second is a "stash buster" done in all batiks. I just couldn't bear to get rid of the last little bits of these fabrics so I used them all in a strippy quilt. Great fun but when it came to the quilting... that's a whole different story. I love feathers but I really need "feather Intervention"!!!!

Anybody with some good tips on how to make them? lol Practice, practice, practice!

Please excuse the color differences. My camera isn't co-operating today.

~ Judy

Comin' along

Woohoo! Myah's quilt top is finished except for the final two borders. I'm very happy with it. It will be fun to help decorate her new purple room.

A little inspiration, gals!

Notice the machine, Cathy and Judy???

This photo is from a blog I follow called “Art-Quilt-Works”.  This beautiful quilt belongs to Juanita Yeager.  She is some kind of artist!  Check out her blog, you will be amazed!

Robbie

Magic Squares

Have you all seen this YouTube video from Checker Newsletter for a quilt called Magic Squares by StoryQuilts.com?  It looks easy and fun; I wanted to share it in case you haven’t seen it.  Here are pictures of the quilt and runner:

The video says you only need 3 light fabrics, 3 dark fabrics and 2 borders.  You can’t get much simpler than that!  Check out the video and see what YOU think!  (BTW, Judy probably already has done it, right, girls???)

Keep stitchin’, sisters!  Robbie Marie 

Sold another quilt on Etsy!

It’s hard to see my quilts go, they all feel like part of me somehow.  This particular quilt is going to Hawaii.  The nice lady is also getting my striped pillow.  It is so cute and really looks great with the sheet quilts.

Here is the quilt she is purchased:

I have another quilt to sell on Etsy, but it isn’t up yet.

Robbie Marie

Confederate Generals Quilt

And with 4 days to spare!  This is for my son Justin ~ a history teacher.  It's the Second in a series of Civil War quilts.  The first one was called Union Generals, and the next one is called The General's Wives!  Going to find lots of rose colored Civil War Fabric for that one.

I CAN'T HELP IT!

Hi, my name is Judy and apparently I am addicted to sewing & quilting. The only difference with my addiction is, I don't WANT any help for recovery. I'm pretty happy in my little world of fabrics, rulers, and rotary cutters.

I had a UFO that just sort of jumped out at me the other day and begged to be finished. Being the nice, accommodating person that I am, I said "OK"! Here is the finished quilt.

I Sold a Quilt on Etsy!

Woot, Woot, I sold a quilt!  Yay!!!!!  $108 with postage!  What a surprise when I opened my Gmail last night!

Robbie

TOO MUCH FUN!

Our guild had a scrappy challenge tonight. Lots of talented quilters and some really great quilts. To my surprise, I won 3rd place with my scrappy pinwheels. Yep, too much fun!

TREES UP, LIGHTS ON

I just love this pattern. Kind of modern with an old fashioned feel. I used only my stash so the colors turned out a little brighter than I hoped, and instead of all cream colors, I mixed in whites also. All in all, it turned out pretty cute!

How do YOU start??

I have a quilt in mind and am looking at my stash to see how to proceed.

How do YOU decide on your next project?  Do you gather the fabric you want to use and see how you can manipulate it, or start with a pattern in mind and then go to your stash??

Robbie Marie

Not-so-Frivolous, but SCARY nonetheless!

Hoo-boy, I can't compete with Robbie's posts today, but in the SPIRIT of learning from one another's mistakes, I just have to share this morning's SCARY occurrence.

After I happily chain-pieced many, many, many little-bitty 4-patch blocks and then attached many, many, many little triangles to set those patches on point late last night, I went to bed, humming contentedly. I dreamt about a beautiful, colorful quilt. Little did I suspect what HORROR awaited me when I entered my quiet sewing room this morning.

Placing my new blocks onto my design wall, eagerly anticipating the effect of strings of on-point 4-patches, I suddenly went COLD with DREAD. They WERE NOT ON POINT! S-H-R-E-I-K!!! (which wasn't what I actually said)

So the moral of this SPOOKY tale is: BE very, very careful when making these little buggers.

I will now try to demonstrate this lesson in photos. Since I seem to be challenged in getting my photos where I want them to actually be, I will simply say that one of the photos (who knows where it will end up in this post) shows a correctly constructed on-point 4-patch row of blocks connected with setting triangles. Pretty, huh?

Another photo (somewhere in here) shows a row of 4-patch blocks with the setting triangle sewn onto the WRONG sides of the 4-patches (BAD!). Not nearly the same effect, right? They don't end up on point at all. Huh. They just look like rows of squares. Yet another (random) photo shows these two rows juxtaposed (I love that word).

Trying to maintain a plucky SPIRIT, I gathered my disappointment and my stitch ripper, and thought, oh well, a good excuse to sit by the fire for a while while I disassemble these WRETCHED little blocks.

Before I ripped apart the first one (though, alas, not before taking many photos, editing them, and composing this DISMAL tale of a blog post), I decided to just check one more time to make sure I hadn't misread what I had seen. Well, I'll be a. . . Eureka! When I turned the 4-patches the right way (diamond! Duh!) and then placed the triangles in the right places, VOILA! (See final photo, which is not necessarily the last photo in this post.) I hadn't done it wrong last night after all! But, right now, I sure feel stupid! Not as stupid as I would have felt if I had ripped them all apart this morning and then had done the same thing all over again! Then, I really would have been a ZOMBIE brain!