New Project - Eli's Quilt

Back when I had only 3 grandchildren, I started a tradition of not only making each new grandchild a baby quilt, but once they moved out of the crib into a bed, they got a big boy or big girl quilt.  I now have 10 grandchildren and an 11th one due to arrive in June - and yes, I am behind.  I need to get two big boy quilts made, not to mention the baby quilt for #11.  We don't know the gender of the new baby yet, but gotta get ready :). 

I also make each of my children a wedding quilt when they marry, and yes, my daughter and son-in-law have been married 3 years now, and they are still waiting on their wedding quilt.  So that is my resolution for 2017.....get caught up!  My daughter chose a Bali Wedding Star quilt for her wedding quilt. Hmmm...could she have picked anything any harder?  She does not want it in batiks either, so we have to go shopping for fabric.  I promised her we would do that in January.

I have started a quilt for Eli and having fun doing it.



This is the block I have selected for his quilt.  It was part of the Aurifil BOM for 2016, and I played with using a black and white background with color strips.  I thought this a great block for a very energetic boy.

 

Each block will have a different color strip with the black and white background - all bright happy colors.  Using 7 different colors, and each color has 2 or 3 different fabrics. 

Each block has a black and white pinwheel in the center.  Quilt will be 5 x 6, or 30 blocks total. That means I need 120 HST triangles.  I have them made, and am squaring them up now.

My organization.  All the strips are cut and sorted into individual trays, labeled with size and letter identifier used in the pattern.  My friends will tell you I am an organization freak when I am putting a quilt together.  I just love having everything laid out like this.
 

Aurifil BOM 2016

I have participated in the 2016 Aurifil Block of the Month sponsored on Pat Sloan's blog.  Seems like each block required a little different skill in making the block and that made it fun to do.  I chose to go with batiks and I do love bright colors!   I am thinking that I might try a quilt as you go method in assembling this quilt.  I just purchased a book, "Quilt It As You Go" from Annie's Quilting and am anxious to try it out.

All 12 of my blocks, not necessarily in the right order.

Block 12 - Something gone terribly wrong!  This is what happens when you sew C to A instead of sewing it to B like you are supposed to.  You would think I would have seen this error BEFORE I sewed the entire block together!

 

Block 12 as "re-sewn"

 





Star of Justice Quilt

Star of Justice

 

Shown above is a quilt wall hanging I have been working on this week, which I simply entitled The Star of Justice.  The block is an original design of mine that I included in my book An English Paper Pieced Sampler. I enlarged the block for this wall hanging using 2" diamond foundations.

I would like to share this pattern with anyone that would like to have it.  You can download a .pdf file by clicking on the following link: Star of Justice .  You are free to use it for your own personal use or to share with others, I just ask that you do not reproduce the pattern to sale or to use in any profit making activity. 

I have been so saddened by all the tragic events going on in our country.   So my little attempt to remind us that we are one nation under God, and that I believe the vast majority of us believe in liberty and justice for all people in this great country we live in.  I hope you like it, will download the file and give it a try.

Thanks for stopping by, and may God bless America.

Aurifil BOM #3

My version of the Improv Star, designed by Christa Watson, for the Aurifil BOM being hosted by Pat Sloan. Christa chose a "crazy quilt" look for her center, but I liked a more structured look.

 

 

 

I delivered this quilt yesterday to a sweet baby boy who became apart of our church family in December. Hope he enjoys the bright colors and flappy caterpillar heads.

 

Thanks for stopping by,

Teresa

 

 

 

 

Posted with Blogsy

Fold and Stitch Wreath

I had to give this pattern a try after seeing it so much on facebook. It's a fun one to do, but I did have trouble when stitching the squares together, which involved stitching through two layers of the foam used in the squares and 4 layers of fabric. My machine kept skipping stitches. I tried different weights of thread, machine quilting needles and a titanium regular needle....nothing seemed to work. So I just sewed the seam twice in an attempt to fill in the skips. Has anyone else made these and run into a similar problem?

 

 

Posted with Blogsy

What's wrong with this picture?

Blue caterpillar.....

Red caterpillar

 

Green caterpillar

Yellow caterpillar

If you think it's the green and yellow you would be right! Time to start unsewing. In addition, I don't like the outer border, so all that has to come off. I will cut it down and use for binding.

Time to put on a movie and start ripping .

Thanks for stopping by,

Teresa

 

Posted with Blogsy

Hand quilting on spools

Rounding the first corner on my hand quilting project. This is a spools quilts that I English Paper Pieced quite some time ago, and just now getting it quilted. The top is quilted in the Baptist Fan pattern. The borders are needle turn applique. This is a slow process, but also a very relaxing one.

Thanks for stopping by,

Teresa

 

Posted with Blogsy

Lake Life - Aurifil Block of the Month February 2016

 

February block was a challenge, but a lot of fun.  I tried out the Quilt in a Day 6 1/2" square up ruler when making the HST and it worked like a charm.  I also tried the technique for making HST where you start with two squares and end  up with 8 HST. Don't you just love making a block where you can learn new techniques!

Swirl Away - Auriful Block of the Month; January 2016

I am participating in the Aurifil BOM Designer challenge.  This is block 1 for January and the designer is Heather Valentine of the Sewing Loft.  The design is to be blue and white, but I decided to use my stash of batiks and make a colorful block.  The white print is not a batik, but seemed to go well with batiks, so I used it.

Thanks for stopping by,
Teresa

An English paper Pieced Sampler

Excitement abounds, received the books in the mail today! If you would like an autographed copy, shoot me an email and I will send you the information.

Thank you to my long time friend and quilting buddy, Darlene Beltman, for sharing in the writing of this book. Also thank you to Brenda Reeves, Donna Thurmond Abbott and Donna Sawyer for all you did to make it happen. A special thank you to Fred Justice and Brian Beltman, our husbands, encouragers and supporters to whom we dedicate the book.

Posted with Blogsy

Adeline's Quilt

I finished a quilt for my granddaughter, Adeline, who is due February 25. My church had a shower for my daughter, Ellen, today and I wanted to give it to her then. I also made a crib ruffle to go with it, but that is on the crib now and I did not get a picture.

I embroidered the quilt label, which includes bluebirds. My Momma always told me that bluebirds bring happiness, and I know they always make me feel happy when I see them at the bird feeders.

I hope Adeline will enjoy many years cuddling under this quilt. It is a little bigger than most baby quilts at 56" square.

 

Thanks for stopping by,

Teresa

 

Posted with Blogsy

Adeline's Quilt

It's a New Year, and I have new granddaughter due to arrive next month. I have been working on her baby quilt for a few weeks now, and have 4 of the 9 blocks completed.

I drew this design in EQ7. This block is in the McCalls Quilting January February 2016 issue, and is made into a table runner called Sunday Sunrise, designed by AnneMarie Chany.

I have not seen this block design before, so could be original to AnneMarie or a traditional block. The table runner in the magazine is pretty and one I might have to make after I finish this quilt.

 

 

 

 

 

This is what I have completed so far, and it has been a fun one to work with. The blocks measure 16" square and the finished "baby quilt" will be 56" square. I know a little big, but I really loved the block so decided to go with it.

Wishing you all a Happy New Year,

Thanks for stopping by,

Teresa

 

 

Posted with Blogsy

An English Paper Pieced Sampler

So exciting, just saw where a book I co-authored with Darlene Beltman, is now available for pre-
orders both on Amazon and AQS. The publication date is set for February 2016, but so exciting to see in on the web now. 

(Image taken from Amazon.com website)

 

 

The book has 12 blocks, including traditional blocks , a couple blocks shown in old newspapers and one original block I designed called The Star of Justice  (middle block shown above).  Templates for printing your own paper pieces and coloring pages for design purposes are included in the book.

 

 

If you would like to see more information on the book; check out Amazon at: http://www.amazon.com/English-Paper-Pieced-Sampler-Darlene-Beltman/dp/1604603976/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1450662227&sr=8-1&keywords=An+English+Paper+Pieced+Sampler

 

or the American Quilter's Society:  (Members of AQS will receive a discount)

https://shop.americanquilter.com/an-english-paper-pieced-sampler.html

 

 

Thanks for stopping by,

Teresa





 

 

Patchwork of the Crosses Update

Completed row 5 of 8 yesterday and tried my best to get a good picture outside. Did not help that the wind started blowing just as I started setting up for the picture....I even tried taping it to the wall. So use your imagination to see a nice flat quilt. I am seeing so many beautiful quilts on facebook, makes me want to do a second quilt:)

I counted up how many more little red connecting squares I need to complete the final three rows and borders...392!!!!!

So, I cut out the squares and will get them all attached to the papers before I start on row 6. I feel like I have made a million of these little squares already!

It's funny how you see things in pictures that you don't notice when looking at the quilt. I don't like the way the corners look like they have a red W and think I need to fix that somehow.

Some options below....not sure I like any of them. Maybe need to replace the brown piece in the corner with a red one. Oh well, I have time to figure this out.

Today I plan to do some fun sewing, making new Christmas Stockings with this pretty fabric I found at Hobby Lobby. In the past I have had a stocking for each of my children and grandchildren, but we are up to 18 stockings counting little Adeline who is due in February. Hmmmm.. That's a lot of stockings to stuff. So this year I will have one stocking for each of my children to share with their families. That takes 18 stockings down to 5. And since the tradition is changing, I want new stockings too.

Hope you have a good day and some fun sewing I store for your day too. Thanks for stopping by,

Teresa

 

Posted with Blogsy

Variety is the spice of life, right?

I have so many pans on the fire, I need more fires......or less pans! I usually have several projects underway at any given time, but seems like lately I have a multitude of things going at once. At least if I get tired of one, I can move to another.

This is one project nearing completion. In my sewing room I have a shelf that holds 15 tubs of fabric similar to this one. They were somewhat organized by color or theme, until I started looking for a specific fabric and then they became an overflowing mess, like you see here. I saw a note on facebook where someone has shown how to wrap small pieces of fabric around cardboard....and I just had to give this a try. So with my patient husband's help, I began cutting boxes like cereal boxes into 4x5 inch squares and wrapping any fabric less than 1/2 yard onto the cards. This takes a lot of boxes, and we even got cardboard at SAMs that is used to separate pallets of boxes.

The end result is a much neater box which is easier to find fabrics. I finished all the boxes on my shelves, but still have to tackle the containers of solids hiding in my closet.

This was also a good opportunity to purge fabrics, that are now set aside for the "playpen" at the guild's next quilt show.

I used a cardboard guide that measured 5x8 inches to fold those fabrics that were between 1/2 to 2 yards. Anything more than two yards went into drawers, that will also need to be organized. So as you see..this is an ongoing project.

In my hoop, is my spools quilt that I made during the Klosje craze that swept the blogs a couple years ago. I am quilting the top with the baptist fan pattern and have 5 rows done (except for the last block on row 5). There are 8 rows in the top so I am getting excited about getting close to the end of the Baptist Fan part of the quilting. I am still a little undecided about how to quilt the border, but I do have an idea in mind....just have to get the fans completed first.

I love starting my day with several cups of coffee and some relaxing hand quilting. I try to quilt at least an hour each morning....the joys of retirement.

 

 

A new project coming up is a quilt for my next grandchild, Adeline Grace. She is due to arrive in February so I need to get going on this one. I designed this quilt in EQ as my daughter, the expectant momma, liked the star and this color combination.

I see a trip to Mary Jo's in my near future! We already checked our only alternatives here in town - Hobby Lobby ands Hancocks. So much for getting fabric with a coupon.

Progress continues on the Patchwork of the Crosses quilt. All the blocks are made, and now just assembling them into rows and adding the border as I go. I have rows 1 thru 4 together and have started row 5. This quilt is a favorite to work on, especially with my good friends Darlene and Brenda. We keep each other on track.

 

With the fabric left over from the PotC quilt, I have started a pineapple quilt. This quilt will be a companion quilt to the PotC quilt and will be a gift to my son-in-law, Adam.

I need 99 blocks to complete the quilt, and so far I have 35 made. These are machine paper pieced blocks, a process I thoroughly enjoy. My grandkids have fun tearing out the papers :)

And just for fun I have been playing with Prairie Points, which will be a future demo project. These are fun to do and a great way to use up some of those fabrics I have been organizing.

Believe it or not, there are a few other pans in my fire, but I will save them for another day.

So what have you been cooking up?

Teresa

Posted with Blogsy