Monday March 31, 2014 "Sampler Quilt"

These quilts were made with a group of quilters from our church.  We would meet once a month and work on various projects.  I was able to teach them and help them over the years.  The above quilt was made as a sample to show them what we would be working the next year, a sampler quilt.  We chose patterns from the web site, Quilters Cache.

This second quilt is one that I made along with them.  The block featured here is one that I just fell in love with.  I made an entire quilt, using this block, for my dear Aunt Marsha.

Friday March 28, 2014 "Oopsie Daisy"

This quilt was made for my youngest granddaughter, Lillian.  Today, we celebrate her 1st birthday!

Here are Lillian's sisters, Isabelle and Abigayle.  The quilt is called, "Oopsie Daisy" and was designed by Darlene Zimmerman.

I backed it with flannel.

Here's our girl when she was about a 6 weeks old.  My, how she's grown this year!

Thursday March 27, 2014 "Elsie and Company"

This quilt is called, "Elsie and Company" from the book Quick Country Quilting by Debbie Mumm.
It is one of the first of my quilts when I started piecing quilts back in the very early 90's.  My sister, Donna, had made this for her home (she lives on a dairy farm) and I loved it!  The unique thing about this quilt for me is that I hand quilted it!  It hangs in my family room.

Tuesday March 25, 2014 Miniature Quilts

This was paper pieced, which isn't my most favorite method of piecing a quilt block, but did enjoy making this little miniature.

Monday March 24, 2014 "Prairie Posies"

I'm piecing blocks today so will share another of my completed quilts with you.  I usually am flitting from one project to another.  Keeps me from getting bored!

This quilt is called "Prairie Posies".  I just fell in love with the whole quilt.  I especially love that it has   dimension to it.  I had a great time making this as it was one of the first quilts I made this fall on my new sewing computer.  I especially enjoyed giving it to my special friend, Janice, for her birthday.  She is soon to be a grandmother of twins so she shared this with her son and daughter-in-law.  Thought it would be big enough to put both babies on!  Yeah!

Sunday March 23, 2014 "Rose and Trellis"

This quilt pattern is found in the book called, Treasures from the 30's, by Nancy Mahoney, and is called "Rose and Trellis".  I have been looking at it thinking I would like to make it for quite a while.  I used fabric from Moda's 30's Playtime by Chloe's Closet.  

The instructions for making this block wanted you to cut out each half of the flower and then sew the two together.  I knew it would be difficult to line them up perfectly so I sewed the fabric pairs together first and then traced and cut out the flowers.  I was really pleased with the way they turned out.

Not always good about getting that quilt label on because I don't like hand work-but trying to do better.

Friday March 21, 2014 "Crazy Eights"

Here are the completed blocks to my new quilt called "Crazy Eights" by Buggy Barn.  I fell in love with this quilt last summer when I saw my cousin, Kelly's completed quilt.  I knew then, that I had to make one for myself.
It was a stretch for me both in the fabrics, homespuns, which I don't normally use, and the piecing technique.  Lots and lots of hours went into the piecing but now ready to put into the top.

Completed top.  A satisfying experience to get this put together.

Finally completed quilt!  I started quilting it on Tuesday and today is Friday.  Lots of other things going on this week so only worked on it for short periods at a time.

Thursday Marcy 20, 2014 "Times Remembered"

Today is another quilting day.  I'm making progress and am  anxious to share a new completed quilt with you.  Meanwhile, this is a special quilt to me.  My sweet mother embroidered these quilt blocks and then gave them to me to make into a quilt.  I was so excited when I found the quilt in the Spring/Summer 2010 issue of Quilt Sampler.  It was just perfect except for the fact that I had to ask Mom to embroider just one more block.  She graciously did and then I was able to put this delightful and memorable quilt together.  The quilt is titled "Times Remembered" and was designed by Sharon Reilly.

Wednesday March 19, 2014

Today will be a quilting day so thought I will share a completed quilt with you.  Several of my quilts have embroidery work on them, all done by my mother.  This one I actually did myself.  It was a very gratifying project.  I absolutely loved making each block as colorful as I could.  I was thrilled with the results.  It is called "Cake Walk".

Tuesday March 18, 2014

     Today is a busy Tuesday with errands and church assignments this afternoon and evening so I will just post a few of the quilts I have made in past years.  Hope you enjoy!

The 1st picture is my daughter opening her quilt that her grandmother embroidered the blocks and I made into a quilt.  Got it completed in time for her wedding where it was beautifully displayed  above her wedding presents.

Quilting runs in the family.  Here's my mother showing me her completed quilt of appliqued butterflies.  Of course, Mom does all her applique work by hand!  Beautiful!

Here's KayLynn at her bridal shower having opened my gift to her.  This quilt is what I like to call, my signature quilt.
I love to make these beautiful log cabin quilts.  The whole process facinates me.  From finding that special piece of fabric, to cutting and storing all my strips, in the sewing of the blocks and making sure they are just right, pinning it so that it is ready to quilt, and then to the quilting process.  I have an entire cupboard in my sewing room dedicated to my log cabin quilts.  I have made one for each of my children except one, and that is in the process waiting for a wedding!

My wonderful husband, still smiling after hanging this quilt for our daughter's wedding reception!

Monday Marcy 17, 2014

Monday, March 17, oh, my, I just realized it's St. Patrick's day...but for me, it is the 4th anniversary of when our missionary, KayLynn, arrived home from Peru!
These are the quilt blocks of my Spinning Spools quilt, completed as much as possible and packed up waiting for additional fabric to come in the mail.  The original quilt is about 60" x 60" and is made up of 36 blocks.  That is not big enough for a queen sized quilt, so I made as many blocks as I had fabric for and have 69 blocks completed.  This morning I laid blocks out and considered how many I would need to make the larger size.  I am going to make a total of 100 blocks.  They go quickly and the fabric is so bright and cheery (fabric line is Nana's Pantry by Connecting Threads) that they don't seem to be much work.  I do like appliqué and am happy with how they are turning out.  I have to add a little lesson here that I learned.
I like to appliqué using the fusible interfacing method.  I needed to buy more so, last Thursday, coupons in hand, I purchased 2 packages, 1 yard each, for about $3.45 per package.  That wasn't nearly enough so, after going out to dinner with Jim on Friday night, we went to the fabric store to purchase more.  I picked up 3 more packages, hoping that would be enough.  I happened to pass by the interfacing by the yard display and saw that that price was $.99 per yard.  I sent Jim to put the packages back while I stood in line to get my purchase cut.  Then I noticed that there was a sale sign saying that it was half price!  Needless to say, I stocked up.  I will have to be more careful and compare prices between yardage and packaged products.

This is what else I have been working on  today.  The quilt top is  just a regular jelly roll quilt that I am making as a surprise for a loved one. It is completed but can't be quilted yet because I am short on the backing fabric and have to wait for my new order to arrive.  While looking at various quilts on Pinterest and Google Images, I decided to add some appliqué to the quilt just to jazz it up.  I couldn't help but think I was doing something my mom would do.  She is always going the extra mile while I'm usually not one to step out of the box very often.  It was a little time consuming, but now that it's all done, I'm very glad I put in the extra time and work.  Thank's Mom, for your example.

These are a couple of new additions to my sewing room...a new Oliso Pro iron and Gingher cutting sheers.
I have been fighting spitting irons for way too long so took the plunge and invested in this new iron.  I LOVE it.  I purchased it on Target.com and took advantage of Steven's employee discount.  I have seen them on sale on the Connecting Threads web site.  This one is perfect for a quilter because it doesn't start cooling off for 30 minutes.  I can sew and then turn around and have a hot iron when I need it and not always be waiting for the iron to warm up.

My new Gingher 7" cutting sheers...where have you been all my life?!!!  Armed with a 50% off coupon, I took advantage of the opportunity to buy these wonderful scissors.  I have had them less than a week, but I have really seen a difference.  Again, I can be a little more like my mother  because these are the scissors I remember her having when I was a young girl at home.

Eventually, when you sew as much as I do, you can wear out a sewing machine! That's what I finally did.  I have sewed on a Brother PQ1500S for 10 years.  I dearly loved that sewing machine and would absolutely recommend it to any one ( very reasonably priced on Amazon).  It was perfect for piecing quilts and for all the machine quilting that I did.  Something that needs to be noted is that it only sews straight stitches.  No decorative stitches of any kind.
When the machine got too tired for me to be satisfied with the quality any more, Jim generously invested in a new sewing computer for me.  This is my new Bernina B 750 Quilters Edition sewing computer.  I have had it since August.  It has been a real learning curve for me to get use to this new machine but we are getting to be better and better friends.  I have experimented with some of the decorative stitches.  I love to be able to go from straight stitches to the blanket stitch for appliqué  with a tap on the screen.  I always had to have a second machine for my decorative stitches but was able to give that to my mother to use now.

Wishing Well

Little table toppers called "Wishing Well".  While staying at my daughter, Charlotte's, and driving kids back and forth to school, I, of course, had to check out the quilt shop in her part of town.  I fell in love with this little table topper.

I loved the size and had a great time quilting this little quilt.  

Having these little projects completed enabled me to have a little something to give away.  One went to a sister I visit teach, one to Charlotte, one to the youth auction for church, and one to KayLynn for Valentine's day.  

Wedding Log Cabin

This is the pinning process of quilting a quilt.  It took almost 2,000 pins and nearly a day to get this king sized quilt  pinned.  It was a wedding present for a dear friend.  I used 5 jelly rolls (pre cut fabric) and because the strips are 2.5" wide, the piecing went quite quickly.

This is the quilting process.  One block at a time and eventually it is done.  On a log cabin quilt, I stitch all the horizontal and vertical rows to "stabilize" the quilt and then go back and quilt each individual block.  I also quilt the outside blocks first.  That isn't necessarily the correct way, but is the way I do it.  When the outside is done, the quilting is almost half finished.  I love to then, put the binding on.  That makes no raw edges and when the quilting is all done, the quilt is complete.

This is the last block to be quilted.

Here it is!  All done and really big!

Given to Carrie at her bridal shower.  Congratulations!!