FMQ Friday - A great finish and other fun stuff

It's been a busy week here at the family homestead.  Our son and his lady friend were going to make an appearance with their two fur babies (very large dogs) so we needed to pick up and dog proof our home.  To say Buffy and Sassy were not happy is an understatement.  But the deal was he'd come to visit if he could bring his friend and the dogs.  Since we haven't seen him since July - the joys of having adult children - we agreed. It's interesting how the dogs are attracted to me, and are at my side every time I'm in the same room.  I'm a CAT person!

On the quilting front, I was able to find the fabric I wanted for the Quilt of Valor I'm working on for a client.  I love how the flag fabric sets off the blocks.  Now to make the time to piece the rows together and get the border on!   Because of all the white in the top, I decided to pre-wash the border fabric.  Good thing, because it took 3 washings with color catches to get the red to stop running!

I'm really excited to get  this finished and given.  I'm hoping they'll have many hours (years) of snuggling under the quilt.

 

 

My little quickie project this week is a fabric box.  We've been talking about them a lot at the Missouri Star Quilters Forum.  They are so quick and easy to make!  Check out the Tutorial from Seaside Stitches.  Tina Craig shows us how to make them.  I have plans for many boxes in the future for gifts and giveaways. 

This test box was made from a 10" piece of striped fabric with a great green piece from a layer cake. 





But by far, my favorite and best finish yet is the Big Brother quilt I made to go with the Baby quilt I told you about a couple of weeks ago.  I found the Tutorial at Wedding Dress Blue called Brotherly Love.

 

There are  many half square Triangles in this quilt!  I scaled it down to use 4" and 2" finished Half Square Triangles.  Buffy was right here to give her seal of approval.

Quilting it was a bit of a trial with all the seams and intersections.  My thread broke a lot!  But its done and on its way to a special little boy with his baby brother's quilt tagging along.

I'm linking up with Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict
 

and Leah Day's Free Motion Quilting Project.

 

Until Next Time ~ Happy Quilting!

Something of a Quandry

I'm working on Bella's Beauties this week.  I want to have it finished in time to send it to her birthday later this month.  I may not make it, and that's ok, there's always Christmas.

I started with an idea and a pattern.  The idea was to gather up fabrics of things she likes, pink and purple, music, puzzles, ladybugs, butterflies and all that princess and fairy stuff.  The pattern is Falling Charms from the Missouri Star Quilt company
 I started auditioning background fabric back in May, and had a really hard time deciding.  Did I want the lavender with butterflies and flowers?






Or lavender with Stars



Or Deep purple batik?

 

 Ok, so the deep purple didn't work so well, and I chose the lavender with butterflies and flowers.

I put it together on the design wall and realized I had the pattern wonky - try again.

And the inside of the top is done.  Now I'm looking at borders...

I know the deep purple has to go in,  But do I want the bright pink with flowers, or the marbled light pink?

 

Ick - neither one!  How about a pieced border?  Piano key sounds good and fairly quick and easy... But do I want...



With the background mixed in?

or not?

Here's where I ended up last night - with the piano key gone and 2 3/8" squares - like a Chinese coin.  (ignore the pink, it's left over from the audition process, I haven't put it away yet.)  But still I need it longer - so maybe a 2nd row with the border fabric repeated on both sides?  I'm still trying to decide.   Before Borders it was 44 x 50.  Add first border it's now 47 x 53.  I want to get it up to at least 60" long so that she has room to grow with it.  Did I mention she's going to be 7 this month?  According to my son and her mother she's between 4' and 4'6"...


I'm not sure why this one is such a struggle.  Maybe its because her grandmother was also a quilter who painstakingly made a quilt for her as a baby that was 'put away for good' and she doesn't get to use it.  Maybe because I want her to love and cherish it AND use it! for a good long time.

I am open to suggestions.

Only 168 hours in a week?!?

I don't know where last week went!  I certainly didn't rack up that many billable hours at my 'job'.  So what the heck did I do all week?

I quilted!  I've been like an out-of-control kid in a toy store, wanting to try out everything!  I have so many works in progress it's overwhelming, and I don't know what to work on next.

I was working on quilting a comfort quit for my friend Mary who is battling cancer.  I have an overwhelming need to finish it, but want it to be beautiful and unique. My thought is to give her a place to focus when times are tough, to lose herself in the patterns and movement of the quilting.    The idea was to put a different design in each piece of this Tossed Pinwheel quilt.

Big ideas, right?  Hooo boy - I didn't know what I was getting myself into when I started quilting on this.

I started here 

The pattern is a variation of a Disappearing 9 patch, and I started with 12 9 patches split into 4s - suffice it to say there are a LOT of different blocks here.  The pebbles took a bit of time to fill this 4 1/2 in square.  That was the first indication that this would not be a quick process.  The confused spiral in the 2 x 4 1/2 went fairly quickly, but still took some time.

 

 

 

I filled in a few more squares - the little ones are the easiest... the pearled feather came out ok.

 



 

I like the peppermint candy - to me it looks like a pan of cinnamon rolls.  Then I got the idea to write words of encouragement on this quilt in the 2 x 4 1/2 inch blocks.  Hope, peace, faith, love, trust, healing, prayer.  If you have any others - please leave me a comment - I have LOTS of 2 x 4 1/2 blocks to fill in yet.

And some other designs, knotted spiral, a feather looking thing, one that looks like a ruler, cobblestones, and I don't remember all the others.  Thanks to Leah Day and the Free Motion Quilting Project for all the great filler patterns!  I'm linking up to her FMQ Friday linky party.

Now that I've started this every block thing, I need to continue that way.  Oh My that's a lot of hours at the machine! I finally had to put this away because I had some other things to work on too - and the cats kept eating my Pinmoors right off the quilt! 

So I pulled out a project that needs to be done in a couple of weeks for my almost-granddaughter's birthday.

 

Bella's Beauties is made in the Falling charm pattern from Missouri Star Quilt Company.  I still have to put borders on it then get it ready for quilting.  I'm thinking a narrow dark purple batik then either a piano key border from left over pieces or a scrappy 4 patch and another 2 1/2" of the purple butterflies with a hot pink binding. But we'll see when the spirit moves me again.

 



 

 

100 Hugs a day for Connor, who was born last month, is finished and needs to be quilted.  Plus, Connor has an older brother Christopher who hasn't had a quilt from me yet - so his is in the works too.

 



The Grinch won't Steal This Christmas - a Quilt for Kids kit project that needs to be finished this month.  I also want to send along something else, but not sure if it is going to happen this month.

So when Leah Day posted FMQ Friday - More Time to Quilt Needed! I feel her pain.  I want to spend all my time quilting, but know that if I don't work - as a freelancer - I don't get paid!  I need to get paid to support the quilting habit. 

Other things on my work in process list:  Big Brother quilt for Christopher (72 4 1/2" half square triangles and 288 2 1/2" half square triangles - OMG! what was I thinking?); Jacob's Ladder for the first grandson of my dear friend Mary Ann; Pop-Pop's Pass-times for my father-in-law for Christmas; Quilt of Valor for a very special young man and his new bride commissioned by his Mom, Irish Chain for mother-in-law for Mother's Day, if I can hold out that long; unspecified quilts for my Mom, Sister, brother-in-law, nephew; a Mystery quilt I started back in July; and dozens upon dozens of ideas running through my head.  Plus quilts for charities like Quilts for Kids and Quilts of Valor.

Balance is a skill I desperately need to practice!  I've been learning and practicing balance, having fun and setting boundaries with my coach Teresa Romain at Access Abundance.  This month I will be taking a one day workshop that you might be interested in (if you're within driving distance of Egan MN) called Unblocked and Thriving.  I believe she has a few seats left at the early bird price that ends this week.  Take a look.  Teresa has helped me in so many ways.  It seems like she has a 'webcam' into my soul and her messages are always what I need at that time.

So back to today I'm going to have some fun quilting - basting the two finished quilts and finishing up Bella's Beauties so it too can be basted.  This week is my busy week at work.  I will weave some quilting in amongst the work.  Until next time - Happy Quilting!


 

FMQ Friday - Practice, Practice, Practice

Friendship Braid Prayer Shawl

This week started out like any other week - a full week of work - with a little quilting thrown in.  As I got started on the week working on the backlog of work from being gone the better part of two weeks, I filled in some time teaching myself a new FMQ skill - feathers.  I really want to use it on my sister's gift. 









I took little bits of time - while waiting on hold, or while puzzling out some great bookkeeping mystery - to sketch out what I was trying to do.

I've never done feathers before and really wanted something special for the large center square on the braided shawl.  When I finally felt like I had the motions down, as time allowed I started to practice on the machine.

Practice #1



Practice #2



Practice #3



Practice #4
 

I figured I was getting pretty good at this - the feathers are almost the same size, the travel stitching is fairly consistent, and I was feeling pretty good about my efforts. Just when I thought - by Jove She's Got it - my machine decided it didn't want to wind bobbins any more! YIKES!  I can't wind bobbins?  What is going on here?  What the heck am I going to do?

I put Sis's present aside for now.  I guess I wasn't ready for this challenge just yet. 

Because I had a number of white bobbins already wound up, I picked up the Christmas stockings I'm making for deploying soldiers as part of a group over at Missouri Star and started quilting on the outside pieces.  Basically doodling around.  Because the stockings are going to be fully lined, I quilted on the top and batting only.



On set is swirls and loops



The other set is outlined and loops

As I was quilting the second set with the outlined stars the machine was jamming and breaking thread.  I used every trick in the book I knew to power through the last half of the last one. 

 My trusty Elna is now at the machine hospital for diagnostics.  I sure hope it can be fixed!

Linking to Leah Day's FMQ Project

On my Deisgn Wall

I'm working on several projects, like most quilters. 

On the wall right now is a variation of the Disappearing Nine Patch with pinwheels called Pinwheel Toss by Clover & Violet. I used a few charm packs (maybe 3?) from Missouri Star Quilt Company by Nancy Halvorsen called Basically Nancy.

Also on my design wall is a special request from my son for one of his former West Point roommates who is due to be deployed soon.  This one is called Fourth of July and the pattern is by Bonnie Hunter.  I used Red and Blue homespun, and neutral star fabrics.  I really like the way this one is coming together.  I will look at it a while, and move the blocks around so it doesn't look too matchy-matchy.



I'm working on free motion quilting a quilt for my Dad. I've used homespun for the bow ties and the pieced border. I'm still learning, and my quilting isn't that consistent yet, but I'm proud of the progress I'm making.  This is a 3D bow tie set in X and O pattern.  Dad's health is declining, and we're far away.  I want to remind him that we are thinking of him, and wrapping him in Hugs and Kisses.

Bow-ties and Hugs and Kisses - On rhe design wall

On the Sewing Machine now

Close up of quilting in progress

And, I just finished the binding on "Tea Party" one I've been working on for a while.  This one is using 1930s reproduction fabrics I've had in my stash for a bunch of years, set in the Broken Dishes pattern.  I watched a tutorial over at Missouri Star Quilt Company.  This one is for a nice lady at a nearby nursing home whose family is far away.  It should fit very nicely on her lap.



"Tea Party" with the Sassy Seal of Approval.