Americana Sampler

 I have finished my Americana Sampler quilt.  I did have Martee Patton to long arm quilt it for me and she did a beautiful job.  The following are some pictures of the finished quilt.  This quilt is designed by Fons and Porter.

Happy Independence Day!

Beginning Hollis's Big Girl Quilt

 I am having so much fun working on a quilt for my granddaughter - hoping to have it done by Christmas.  It is her Big Girl quilt (she will be 5 next month) that I make after they are out of the crib and sleeping in a big girl bed.  This is my layout design, but the flower designs and Sun Bonnet Sue are from EQ.  The Butterfly blocks are from a book called Granny Quilt Decor by Darlene Zimmerman.

Below is a picture of the center. Once I baste the applique in place, I am securing it with a small blanket stitch using 50wt thread. I do not have the SBS blanket stitched yet. The SBS is 14 inches high and the buttefly blocks are 11 1/4" square.  I will also embroider SBS some flowers  in her hand.

There will be 8 flower blocks surrounding the center, using two different flower patterns.

This is the first four blocks of the first pattern.

I am still working on the next flower pattern, doing the blanket stitch applique:

Nine-patches, measuring 3 3/4" will be the background through the quilt with solid white blocks between the nine-patches.  Thinking I might hand quilt hearts and flower on every other solid block.  Going to do big stitch quilting with a pretty soft variegated perle cotton.  So much fun! 

Two Finishes - woohoo

I have recently finished two long term projects - my Grandmother's Flower Garden and the Temperature quilt.  Thought I would share some pictures.

Before the quilt pictures, I must show another BIG finish.  My grandaughter graduated from High School!

close of EPP and hand quilting

Side borders

Border at top of quilt

Top corner

Quilt EPP Pieced, hand applique on border and hand quilted.  I think its my favorite quilt.

Temperature Quilt, quilted by Martee Patton.   She chose the pattern which I think is perfect - waves indicating highs and lows.

SCANFIL

 Recently I was approached about doing a couple small hand quilting samples by a Scanfil representative.   I enjoy doing things like this so was happy to try it out, especially since I am always on the lookout for new thread to try when hand quilting.  I think this thread has been around awhile, at least I did find it on a few sites when I did a google search, but it is definitely new to me.

 I received 100% Organic cotton fabric, bamboo batting and a very nice assortment of 30wt and 50wt Scanfil threads.  Instructions to do a pattern using the 30 wt thread and the 50 wt thread, just to compare how quilting looked different using the different threads.  I so enjoyed this project and do love the thread.  I also used the 50 wt thread in my sewing machine to sew on the binding as well as hand hemming the panel.  That also worked great.

Americana Sampler as of May 9

Being somewhat limited in what I am "allowed to do" under Doctor's orders while my elbow heals, I set aside hand quilting and hand work to do some machine sewing.  I am not sure it made that much difference, but he did say to ease off on the handwork.   I thoroughly enjoyed my weekend though working on the Americana Sampler, and actually made some good progress.  Yesterday the stitches came out and I am free now to drive and do handwork - but I see the doc again on Monday, and want to finish a hand quilting project before then just incase he puts me under restrictions again. :)

Here are the Americana Sampler blocks I completed Friday through today:

I had already completed the posy, but had to do the rail fence strip to finish it up.  I actually made 16 rail fence blocks, the other 14 will show up somewhere else on the quilt.

Had fun with this Bear Paw block.  I found this fabric in my patriotic stash and the squares were just the right side for me to feature different scenes from the fabric.   This morning though I noticed I had placed some of the HST's wrong and had to do some re-sewing :(   

Well this is all applique - guess I disobeyed doctor's orders in making this one, but I had to have it to complete the row I was working on.  I tried to keep my left arm still while I did it, and just held the fabric with the left hand and did all the applique with the right.

This is the quilt layout I have finished to date.  there will be one more side row and two bottom rows.  Shown are the blocks completed for the next row to be added.

This Grandmother's Fan block instructions kind of surprised me.  This is a Fons and Porter very old pattern and the instructions said to machine piece the fan and then applique it to a back ground square, and then applique the "handle".  I did it with curved paper piecing and not sure why Fons and Porter did it with applique

This is Jacob's Ladder - a fun block to make.

Hollis's Big Girl Quilt - Beginning steps

 A friend recently asked me if I still blogged as she had not seen a post in a good while.  Well, I do, just have been neglecting it.  So thought I would share the beginning steps of a quilt for my Granddaughter Hollis.  Her birthday is October 18 and I do hope to have this quilt ready to give to her.  I am thinking of hand quilting, but that will determine on when I get the top done.  If I do, it will be big stitch and will only be around 65" square, so I might be able to get it done.

Hollis loves flowers and butterflies, so that is my theme. My inspiration for the quilt comes from two books: Granny Quilt Decor by Darlene Zimmerman and Rose Sampler Supreme by Rosemary Makhan.

This book had several quilts that I liked and pulled different ideas from.  The butterfly arrangement around a center block and the use of 9-patches for the background blocks.

Then I pulled 9 flowers from this Rose Sampler Supreme book to use on the quilt instead of the Southern Belles in the quilt above. 

This is my layout, I drew in EQ8.  I made the applique blocks grey just to show how they fell in the quilt, but the background will be white, just like that used in the 9-Patches.

Next step was fabrics to use.  I had already started selecting some fabrics, but needed some solids and few more to complete the selection.  That is done now and I do like the way the fabric all seem to be friendly with each other.

I am going to hand applique the butterflies and flower blocks, but since Hollis will only be 5 when she receives the quilt, I want to make sure it is up to the use/laundry challenge it will receive.  I am blanket stitching applique following a technique my mom taught me.  Basically you baste the applique in place with 50wt thread matching the fabric.

Then you blanket stitch over the basting stitches, leaving them in place to strengthen the applique. Momma always used embroidery floss for the blanket stitch, but I am using white hand quilting thread

as I feel this will hold up better with wear and tear.  I also plan to quilt it with white thread.

Doing small stitches so they are not that noticable, but found I did more even stitches if I put a sticker on my thumb marking how far apart the stitches should be.   I have completed two of the four butterflies in the quilt, and am satisfied with how they look.

The butterflies will all have the same fabric pattern for the wings, just different colors. 

That is where I am this morning, having fun making the butterflies.

Thanks for stopping by. 

 I noticed two people have quit following me, that is kind of sad.  I have tried and tried to figure out why I cannot respond to comments on my blog.  I used to get an email when I received a comment and I simply responded to that email, but they just quit coming.  I have checked my profile many times, and I have it marked to send me email comments and my email is correct - just not working.  I have tried to contact blogger, and they do not respond to my questions.

Delaford - by Katrina Hadjimichael

 As if I do not have anything to work on, I have started a new project, designed by Katrina Hadjimichael called Delaford.  When I first saw this quilt on her website, I knew it was destined to be in my projects, but had to wait until she offered if for sale to the public.  She does the workshops for new patterns and does not release them until at least a year of workshops - so I patiently waited.  Oh how I would love to attend one of her workshops - but they are all in Australia or England.

I had been collecting fabric for awhile now in anticipation of starting the project.  I love the Bohemian fabric I found at SewEndipitous and have added some batiks to it to complete my palette todate.  I have started working on the border beside the flowers, mainly because I wanted an EPP project to take places, and had none in process (well I do have that pi quilt, but I keep forgetting about it.)  

This is my fabric palette to date, I am sure I will probably add more.

So here is the border as shown in the picture above:

And the one using my fabrics:

My background color not showing up so great, but it is a pale yellow - the color of butter.  I am using white in the blocks and the white will show up other places on the quilt as well.  These are not sewn to the border fabric yet, and will be spaced correctly.  I am excited to have begun working on the quilt :)

I am also progressing on my second Dear Jane Quilt - making this one as a teaching quilt for a class I am currently conducting.  I have completed all 169 blocks (made between mid-October thru mid-February) which was a feat for me, considering my first DJ took me three years to get to that point.  I am now working on the triangles and 26 of the 52 completed. I completed the last two after I took this picture.  This is the top and bottom borders.

Also trying to keep progress moving along on my Americana Sampler quilt and completed these blocks since my last club meeting on February 8:

.....and one last picture of my progress on my guild's block of the month.  A quilt called Lasting Legacies and I am doing mine from my stash of batiks.  There are the March blocks: