Thanksgiving Decorations

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! We had a total of 9 people for dinner and we cooked some very good food! My husband smokes all of the meat in his smokers. We started brining our turkey a couple of years ago - it's the best thing we've done and will never cook another bird without brining!

I didn't take any pictures that day (what was I thinking???!), so I thought I'd share the quilts that I used to decorate our house.

Fall leaves - pattern using pineapple blocks with leaf and acorn applique:

(I have a 2nd top like this in work- pineapple blocks are foundation pieced...just need to do the applique but thinking I may leave them off as it's thick with the foundation.) Most of the fabrics came from MN, I think...

This was draped over the old Singer Sewing machine cabinet.

Next Pumpkins Gone Wild:

This was super easy to make...a Pumpkins Gone Wild jelly roll, the Cozy Quilt Strip Tube Ruler and free directions to make the Daniela block. My LAQ quilted with pumpkins!!! Detail of quilting:

See the pumpkins in the brown border? They are soooooo cute!

We had to put two tables together to seat everyone. Beforehand, I had the tables separate and had runners and decorations on each. One table had this runner from last year:

It's really a Sunflower block/kit from Fat Quarters Quilt shop. I think it's from the 2010 San Diego run, but it may be a year or two earlier...I really should have written on this when I finished it! I stitched it in the ditch to finish. I love the colors - they are more fall-like so I used it as a runner.

This is a border print runner. I previously showed the pattern, etc on my blog. This fabric I bought while in MN during the summer and made a ton of runners. Here's the one I kept for me:

These are so easy. Get the pattern and the 60 degree ruler. You can make one in a couple of hours! I love the ruler and have used it with other patterns so it's worth the investment.

That's all from here! My machine actually broke last Monday and I can pick it up tomorrow. I'll get back on the Christmas gift sewing quick before the tree goes up...my daugher won't let that happen until December. Did you know December starts later this week???! YIKES!!!

Happy Holidays!!

Oh my! Been away too long...

Honest, I didn't mean to be away for so long... and I don't have much to show for my time away. Well, ok, there is a lot in this post, but a lot of them are just shares of old finishes...

I did have a couple of finishes...and I have one more not posted. I'll have to get some photos taken during the next weekend. I typically put a collage of all of my finished quilts in my Christmas letter and have to get that done next weekend, so I know I'll have more photos...

For now, here's what I've been working on ...
Red/White/Blue Bowties

This quilt was inspired by a trip to a friend's family cabin for the 4th of July this past summer. The cabin is a dark red and all of the furnishing are red, white, and blue. So I made this quilt. It was quilted with fireworks:

So cool! the pattern was something my LAQ does freehand. When I gave it to my friend in October, I unrolled it and she said "this will look great at the cabin! She totally got what I was thinking!!!

I also made a pennent - well, actually two since I messed up. Here's one stretched across my staircase (bad photo):

This side says "4th of July" and on the other side it says "America" - again, inspired by the cabin and will love it's new home. This is the bigger of the two. I made the letters...and then the pennents and the pennents were too small. So, I redid them bigger...and then redid letters smaller. My friend got two!!!

The next quilt was the first Bowtie quilt I made. It started with some leftover blocks of my mom's...

These bowties are bigger than the one I made most recently. Those were 2.5 inch blocks... Here's a close up of the quilting on this one:

It was a different LAQ that I stopped using several years ago. I like the LAQ I use now - she's an artist and everything comes back so much better than I envision!

Since I was digging through quilts for the Bowtie AND it was October (yep, way behind), I took pictures of the quilts I was taking into work to decorate for Halloween.

This one was made by my friend Mary:

She is the "Scrap Queen" and all of her quilts are wonderful!

This one is a sample of applique. I forget what magazine it was from, but I like her! Photo is sideways..dang it!

The fabric was leftover from this quilt:

OK, also sideways...darn! I think I did this one at the same time with a former coworker and friend... It was lots of applique which I'm not really fond of doing! But I do like this quilt!! I have another similar one for winter...I'll show that when I put it up - which will be after Thanksgiving!

This one was super easy! It's made with a Jelly Roll (Pumpkins Gone Wild - or something like that) and the ruler and pattern from Cozy Quilts...I think the block is the Daniela block...

My LAQ did loops and pumpkins for the quilting design.

Aren't they cute? I love this quilt and it always gets many compliments! It's bright and cheerful!!

My friend Mary gave me all of her black and white scraps as she had made a couple of things with them and was sick of them. I'm playing with them and the dresden ruler. Here's one dresden

I think it looks cool on my lime green cutting mat... maybe I'll do them with some bright colors for the backgrounds and centers.. I have more cutout and they are super easy to get to this point.

I recovered my loveseat but still had the same pillows. So, I took some fabric scraps and batting scraps and turned one of the pillows into this:

I'm thinking of doing the other one in green and red for Christmas...the batting was given to me and is high loft. I had a quilt made from it, but it was very difficult for the LAQ to use, so I'm using it as "stuffing" instead...

Lastly, I've been making these cute "Folded Fabric Bags" this weekend. I'm going to use them for the packaging for Christmas presents for the work group. Here's the one made from the kit purchased at the SD Quilt Show:

I put my ruler inside to show the size of the bag. Cute, huh? I'm making bags just a touch smaller than these and then some 1/2 the size...

That's all I got for today... Hopefully, the next post will happen a lot sooner...but most likely after Thanksgiving. We are putting on a FEAST this year. I can't wait!! My husband smokes the turkey and ham...and they are delicious!! I do everything else (thank you Costco for making delicious sides!!).

More projects in work

Continuing on from my previous post... Here's more of what I've been working on...

Here's the bowtie quilt top. I noticed after I took the picture that my paper "1" was still pinned to the top... I typically put a little paper number pinned to the first block of each row when laying out the top and sewing it. At this point, it doesn't matter which corner is first to anyone...except me. I've taken it off after these pictures...

 Here's a closer shot of the top. All of these blocks are scraps that I cut into 2.5 inch squares. I have TONS of squares now so expect to see more quilts with that size blocks...

 I'm working on the back which of course is taking twice as long to get together - sheesh!!

Now, here's a project thats been in work for a long, long time... I took tons of scraps and pieced them into 8 inch squares. I had bought a bolt of muslin that I just didn't like the quality. I've been using it as foundation and that's what I pieced the blocks on. I hated the blocks and was not going to piece them into a quilt. Then I decided that I could cut them into shapes and I decided I'm make a heart. So here's those pieced blocks, cut into a heart shape (using a freezer paper template and pinking shears) on black and white 10 inch blocks.

 Cute, huh? Here's a closer shot of the inside blocks.

 The blocks are stitched with white thread just sewn on the insite. Not sure yet what I'm going to do - if that's it or something else. Plus I'm trying to figure out if I need more or a border and what that would be. A friend gave me a bunch of black and white prints which may become a border of some sort. I love this quilt so far...I think it'll be a table topper size for February...

I have so many scraps and after the bow ties and the hearts, I had a ton of long lengths of black and blue. I started on the next blocks...I have 12 of them so far and think I'll stop this combination at 16...and no, I haven't decided what is coming next yet...

 I also had a ton of 2.5 squares of Chargers fabric. I'm thinking of recovering a smaller pillow for football season. Here's the start of the charger blocks for the pillow case...

Think I have enough stuff in work?  It has been really fun using my stash!!!

Updates to lots of projects

We had a *fun* 24 hours. We're in San Diego CA - north county and our power along with 6 million other people - was out from 3:30 until 11:00pm yesterday. We lost a box of refrigerated food - but nothing from the freezer. We only spent an additional 5-10 minutes on the commute home. Overall, we had a pleasant experience if you could call it pleasant...

Now onto the quilts...

This order will be weird... it's the way they came off the directory I had loaded...and I'm being lazy today and not changing the order. First up, this is a hexagon table topper made from the leftover 60 degree blocks I had. Cute, huh?

Next are a bunch of runners I made with border fabric. An earlier post has the pattern and the beginning of the purple runner. I saw the fall fabric runner at a quilt shop in northern MN and loved it as did my cousin. I made a few and two of them will be going back to MN. I made two purple runners and one of them goes back to my sister that originally bought the fabric for a quilt. You can also see the little hexie topper in this picture... See the lanterns on the side? They are candle lanterns and we lit them last night and ate dinner outside and then sat outside in the dark with them lit - the cast beautiful light!

 

Next is the finished "white" quilt. It reminds me of the big plastic beads we had as kids that you could make into necklages, bracelets, etc. The quilting is beautiful.

 

Here's a close up of the quilting. Yep, those are feather wreaths in the big white squares. The LAQ did them without asking and they are just what the quilt needed. I actually washed this one (don't normally) as I poked too many holes in my finders binding it and had blood spots on the binding and back. Now it's nice and clean and pretty!

 

Here's the back...using up my scrap stash for backings - love it by why does it take so long to piece???

 

Here's a close up of the back - love the quilting here too!

 

 Here's the beginning of blocks for a red/white/blue bowtie quilt. I kept the pairs connected and here's the process for ironing them which I thought was very cool... So here, two blocks are still connected with sewing and I've offset them for ironing. (color is a little off on these as it was at night...)

 Ironing while closed to set the seam.

 Flipping open the blocks in one direction and leaving the other direction...

 Half of the blocks pressed...

 Now pressing the other half of the blocks open...

 All pressed open. You see how they are going to be sewed together and I don't have to take time and match up the pairs.

 See? All ready to take back to sew together. The tricky part was figuring out when to cut the center seam connecting them. I did it two different ways and didn't like either.

I forgot to take pictures of the blocks after this point, but believe me, they were much easier to sew together. I also forgot to take pictures of the top, so I'll get that done and do another post...

Projects this weekend

I'm working on some bowtie blocks. I need to pull out the "original" bow tie quilt I did years ago...and now I'm working on another one but with a little different style of construction AND a smaller size block. I don't have pictures yet...maybe at the end of the weekend.

I just got this quilt back from the quilter:

She did an amazing job - as usual. I'll get a picture posted after I add the binding. She did some beautiful feathered wreaths in the white blocks. I can't wait to get the binding on - it should be fun!
Tomorrow a friend is coming over and we're having sewing day. I love having time with friends to sew together. We'll have a great time and I'll get LOTS done!

3 tops at the quilter

I almost forgot about these... After vacation, I also spent time making backings for three quits. Tell me this tho...how come I can make a top in a day but a back takes 5 times longer???!! Goes to show how fast you can get something done when you like what you're doing... Anyway, here's the three tops previously posted that are now with the talented Wendy Knight for quilting.

Black/white/red: This is a top that I made up. I had used a black and white check fabric for something and I had these strips leftover with what I thought was a cool design...

I love the black and white quilts with a pop of color, so I added some red to this one.

Park Avenue Happy Quilter QAL: This was an online quilt along that I saw the quilt tops online and loved how they turned out. So I printed the pattern and used some Park Avenue charm packs I had AND I then bought some yardage. Here's the results

OK, the picture only shows quarter of the results...but still. I'm waiting until it comes back and then I'm going to buy more yardage for the binding. Yep, I made the mistake of using up all of the scraps for the backing and now I have maybe a 5 inch square left of two fabrics. Sigh, I have to buy more fabrics...darn!!

White & scrappy: I have to find out if I made this one up or saw it somewhere...I just don't remember as I pieced it so long ago:

Again, it's made of pre-cut 2.5 inch squares. I loved it and didn't feel like it needed a border to finish it. I love quilts with white backgrounds. I think they look so fresh!

Now, I'm caught up!! Well, at least online.

Lots of projects

Wow, it's been over a month since my last post. It's been a busy month! I had a couple of projects to finish before vacation. Then went on a nearly two week vacation with my family. I came back to home/work and a very busy schedule. I bought a ton of cute kits on vacation...and had some commitments to get done before doing "fun" sewing. I did get a quilt back from the quilter and bound during the first week back. Then I made a baby quilt (baby shower is tomorrow) in about 2 weeks start to finish. Then I sewed two runners and a quilt top. Let's get to some pictures of all of my projects...

I call this "4-patch". It's really called Knickerbocker Glory from the book Jelly Roll Inspirations by Pam and Nicky Lintott:

and yep, I made so many blocks, I have enough to make another quilt. I just have to decide what the outer fabric will be and get that ironed and cut... I love these series of books. I've made a couple of quilts from this book and have a couple more of their books to work from...

Baby quilt: this is based on a bedding group the proud, happy grandmother showed me. I have a set of applique/embroidery zoo animals from Embroidery Library that are really, really cute and I've used them a ton. This time, I only used the one animal:

Monkeys!! The back of this one was made making a "disappearing 9-patch" block. It was super easy! I think I did the back in about 3 hours total... It's worth a photo also:

I like to bind baby quilts with the satin blanket binding. It's harder to get on the quilt, but I love the finished look and feel. My kids loved satin borders on their blankets when they were young.

This runner was made from a fabric kit I picked up in MN during vacation. The pattern is from the book Sizzlin' Sixties by Heather Mulder Peterson/Anka's Treasures:

I loved everything about this! The kit is 2010 MN quilt run fabric kitted by The Quilt Parlour Quilt Shop in Jenkins, MN. I pre-paid for a couple of yards of material from this year's run at the same time as the run starts this Friday...almost a month after we were there...

I also bought the border fabric for this runner. I have the pattern (previous post - Easy Striped Table Runner from The Quilt Company). My cousin liked the fabric so I'm making a runner for his table as a thank you for hosting us. Here's the runner so far (top only):

I did buy enough of this to make myself one too. I love this pattern! It's very easy. I love this fabric too! It's even better in person!

Lastly, I made this quilt top:

It's the same quilt as one that I made and donated to a friend's silent auction to benefit her daughter's high school choir. I loved this quilt. The pattern is Tropical Dreams and was in the February 2011 issue of American Patchwork & Quilting (one of my favorite magazines). I've been making 2.5 inch squares out of scraps and this quilt was made just with those scraps...plus the black marble background. I still have TONS of squares so I'm still looking for more patterns. The cool thing is ...since I had the squares pre-cut, this quilt was started Sunday afternoon and I finished it tonight (Monday)...and I only did an hours worth of work today!! I did stop at the 2.5 inch border as I like how that finishes this version off vs the additional border in the pattern. At this size, I can use it on my round table at work...

Now back to sewing. So much to do, so little time...

1 more top and a finish - 14 years later

I hadn't posted in awhile and wanted to get something online. I must be pretty tired as I wrote this...and put  myself to sleep. Maybe next post will be more exciting. For now, here's what I've done lately.

I saw this quilt on a blog and I loved the layout. The directions were posted and were very easy. My fabric is a charm pack and yardage of "Park Avenue" by Moda (love this fabric!). The beige is a Moda Marble (my favorite to use instead of solids!). The top went together very quickly ... and I plan on using my leftover yardage for the backing.

Here's the 14 year finish... This was a quilt top inherited from my mom when she passed away. My goal this year is to get at least 2 quilt tops made into finished quilts this year. I have 6 quilt tops left... So, this is the first quilt for this year, the 2nd total from mom's unfinished projects. (An earlier posting will have the first quilt - Tree of Life.)

Wendy Knight, long-arm quilter goddess, made the feathered wreaths in between the tulips in vases.  This quilt still needs to be laundered as there are spots on it - hope they come out!

And yep, it needs a name... I'll work on that this summer so I can get the back labeled too...