Project Quilting Challenge last one for 2017

I wanted to make a baby quilt this season for a challenge and this was the perfect TIME to make my SNUGGLE TIME baby quilt.  This one measures 40"X48", rather large for a baby quilt but great for two people on the couch to snuggle.

I started by choosing how I wanted to lay out my colors - white, gray, green, and yellow, then I cut out 3 1/2" strips of fabric so I could cut out squares, laid them out in a pleasing pattern, and stitched them together.  I put 9 on the short side and 11 on the longer side.

I saw a quilt with the moon and stars on it and wanted to make mine similar to that so I cut out yellow stars and a moon out of a brighter yellow fabric than in the quilt.  I sewed the star pieces together, cut an opening in the back and turned them inside out so I did not have raw edges on a quilt that would be washed often.  I turned over the edges on the moon (since I did not have enough scrap left of the yellow to sew onto the backside) and added a piece of cotton batting to the back side so you couldn't see the fabric squares through the moon.   I added a white fabric border around the quilt top.

I saw some quilts recently with stitching on both sides of the seam line, so instead of stitching in the ditch, I tried that method.  I will probably not do that again since you have to stitch twice as many rows to get the quilt sewed together that way.  Who did this first anyways?  I'd like to ask them "what were you thinking" and "why didn't you tell everybody else what a pain in the butt this was".  I say again, I will probably not be doing that method again.


Plus my tension must have been off on my top thread because I had to rip out 5 rows of stitching since the backside had tufts of thread hanging off it.  I knew there was something off a few rows into the stitching but I thought nothing of it until my thread jammed and I had to look at the back.  My bad, next time I will know to check often, and if something is looking strange to stop and check it out.  The funny thing is I watched alot of videos lately to get some tips and that same problem was one of the tips - oops guess he was right.

I was going to put on a binding, but I also saw a video lately about using the backing fabric to fold over to make a self binding quilt, so I did that.  Little tricky with the stitching so it didn't pucker but I kept on my walking foot to make it easier.  Finished with a decorative stitch to make it look pretty.

I tried to get my grandson to cuddle up on the couch with it so I had a real cute picture to send into the Challenge but he wasn't cooperating.  He did, however, hide behind it with my husband and I snapped a picture of him peeking around it.  Thanks for looking at my crazy quilting page.

TTFN

Elephant Never Forgets

This quilt was made by my sister Carol. I asked her to join in Project Quilting final Quilting Challenge and she did. Since an elephant never forgets (time is forever) this was the perfect time to make this quilt.  She has been wanting to make this particular quilt for her house for a while and I am so glad this challenge motivated her to make one.

She started her elephant by sketching out the basic design she wanted and cut out her strips of fabric.  She kept with a black/white color scheme to go with her new house that we painted grey walls.

After my sister sewed the pieces together she trimmed the elephant and appliqued it onto the background fabric, added a couple borders and stitched together with her batting.

Small 15"X15" wall art quilt made by my sister Carol Sprouse

Quilting Challenge week 5-Well Dressed Man

For this weeks challenge I was at a loss of what to make. I was watching everybody's posts on the Facebook page but I had no inspiration.  I thought about doing a military one but women (such as myself  USAF 79-83) are also serving so I didn't want to leave them out. Same with other professions that wear a uniform so I was completely without inspiration. I was very sad indeed.

Then I hurt my back bad enough that I stayed home from work for two days this week so I could take muscle relaxers. While scrolling through the "on demand" shows I came across some episodes of Dr Who, and my favorite new Dr is Matt Smith who wears bow ties (since bow ties are cool) and I found my inspiration.

So... bad back and all, I really couldn't do ANYTHING so I waited until Saturday when it started feeling better. I had some scrap blocks left over from a rag quilt I did for my bed so I took a couple triangles and sewed them to two of the blocks and stitched all four together to make one large block. 

Then since I was working with some scraps, I decided to use up some other scraps of my insulbright and cotton batting, so I layed them out onto the back side of my quilt block and smoothed them out. 

I didn't take a picture but I had some leftover birthday party fabric that I laid on top of the batting and pinned the whole sandwich together.  I free motioned quilted the entire piece together using a heart like pattern all over starting from the center corner of each block. 

After quilting I added a wide black binding and finished it off with a decorative stitch on the entire binding edge. And now I have my 18" square Red Bow Tie Hot Pad. 

Quilting Challenge week 4

I love my French Press coffee carafe.  I love the ease of using it, I love the way it tastes, I love how small the pot is and how portable it is...I just love it!!!!  Now I am making a insulated cozy to keep my coffee warm before I get to it.

I've been wanting to make one of these for myself for a while and this challenge has inspired me to make one this week.  I knew I wouldn't have much time to work making a larger quilt this week but I knew I had time to make this one.

First I measured my press from the bottom of the pot the the bottom of the handle and added 1", then I measured all the way around the pot and added 1"- note* if you do one add 2" long way since mine came out a little shorter than I needed to add velcro.  I cut out two pieces for my background - one sky blue for the outside and one lime green polkadot for the inside - this can be reversible if you wanted to have the other color out.

Then I wanted to make a sunrise with some cheery yellow scraps so I cut wedges out of about 12 pieces and stitched them together.  After ironing them I folded down the raw edge on the outside of the half circle 1/4" so I could applique it down onto my outside fabric.  I added a half round piece of cotton batting behind the sun piece to puff it out a little bit.

To applique it i laid it onto the blue fabric and put a decorative stitch around the rounded edge to make it look like the surface of the sun - well I thought it does.  Then I sewed both pieces together and after I turned it inside out, slid a piece of insulbrite between the top and bottom layers.  I put velcro on each side so I could close it around my carafe.  This is where I made it just a little too small and the velcro had to stick out the sides of my cozy.

After it was all together, I quilted it with some wavy stitches in bright yellow thread across my seams on the sun and through the middle areas and all the way to the edge of the blue sky fabric.  The yellow kinda ties all the pieces together.

Voila, my French Press has a cozy.  I used it this morning and my coffee was still a little warm after an hour in the pot.

TTFN

Challenge Quilt week 3 - Patterns

Yippee, I finished my entry before the 11th hour this week. Im calling my quilt this week "Another Brick on my Wall" reference to Pink Floyd.  First off, my inspiration, the family room fireplace wall.

I went with a white on white style in fabrics.  I added hearts as the appliqué since it is near Valentines Day.

Picking fabrics and sewing my bricks together.

Now I had to decide on the appliqué and I was going to do a vine in the bricks but went with hearts kinda in a vine like pattern. 

Now I just have to wait for the batting to get delivered so I can finish the runner by the deadline. 

TTFN

2/2/17 Picked up the batting last night and made my quilt sandwich. Sewed around all my hearts and vines and I was going to keep going around and around but that took so long to manipulate it around in my machine that I just decided to stitch in the ditch to make the bricks stand out. Now if they have awards to strait stitching... I would have won them all. I just stitched up to my outline  stitching and I think it looks fabulous!!!

It is complete and ready to enter. Hope you vote for mine, I wanna win a prize!  Thank you Quilting Challenge!

Scrap quilting

While searching the internet for new quilting ideas, I came across a new quilting challenge for a scrap quilt. And it just so happens that I started sewing one this month. Last night I took a photo of all the blocks laid out on my living room floor to send my mom and sister the pic to see how the liked it.

After the picture I took the blocks into my sewing room and started to sew them together. 

Worked on it a little more this week and got the scrap border put on three sides. I'm not putting the border at the top.  Can't wait to get my batting delivered this week so I can finish it!

TTFN

My Challenge Quilt entry for the Carolina Lily

It is a hot pad table runner that 

is 14"x50"

I used cotton fabrics to make three Carolina Lily blocks, added some more fabric to the ends so it would match up to the size I wanted for the runner, then aged two plain blocks of fabric for length. I then appliquéd the stem into the top fabric. After all my layers were sandwiched together, I pinned it all together and began stitching a random quilting pattern all around. Very happy how it turned out with the yellow binding. It doesn't show, but there is a real pretty Daisy fabric on the other side.