Sunday, October 06, 2013

Blue and Silver Christmas Round Robin

I'm keeping up my momentum and working away at my rather impressive pile of UFO's. Today I finished this one, it's a round robin quilt I started with a group of friends years ago.  I've been dragging it out and working on it in bits, but finally have it finished!  It's got a nice array of quilting on it - and I am quite pleased with myself. 
If you have never participated in a round robin, I would highly recommend it!  For this one there were only four of us and we were all making Christmas quilts.  We didn't have any rules for the different rounds, just do what you like.  Each of us had an ideal finished size as the only guideline.  I did the beginning feathered star on mine.  My colors were blue, white, silver, with just a bit of red.  I added the last border after a lot of searching for the right fabric.  It's a pretty piece with a village scene and trees.  I had to cut all my borders just right so everything would be right side up - I don't often make quilts with an up and down so it was a bit tricky!  I did feather quilting on the star.  You really can't see it at all in the blue because of the matching thread, but the white shows up pretty well.  It's not perfect, but it was good practice!


 
All the borders are really special!  The first border looks like prairie points, but all those triangles are appliqued!  I just quilted that border stitch in the ditch.  The next border has the same dark blue as the triangles in my star.  I had a hard time finding thread to go with the red, but eventually settled on a shiny Sulky rayon thread.  Then I didn't know how to quilt the blue squares.  I thought I would try some free from snowflakes in silver thread.  Worked great!  They actually look more like bows on packages, but I like it.
The white border with squares was fun (and challenging) to quilt.  I was going for a "frost" kind of inspiration.  I was really pleased with the results!
The final border is just done with swirls because it doesn't really show.  The binding worked out nicely.  It was a blue batik with swirls of white dots.  I think they look kind of like snow!  Isn't the fabric pretty?
Excuse my darkish pictures.  I didn't finish until after 6 and I lost the good light!  But I did want to get pictures.  I'll try for some better ones later this week.  I was just excited to get this done and wanted to post it!

I've got several custom orders to work on next week, but do have one more quilt that is basted and partly quilted to finish up.  Yay for productive weekends!

Saturday, October 05, 2013

Winter Solstice Quilt Finished

Despite a night of little sleep (poor DH was not feeling so well!) I got myself together this afternoon and finished quilting up my shop sample of Winter Solstice.  I'm pretty happy with it - I was trying out some different quilting designs, so there was a bit of a learning curve and some ripping out.  In the end it came out and I will be using it in my Beginner Free Motion Quilting class to show some things you can do with basic meandering, loops and spirals.
 I suspect that it was a mistake to quilt the background first.  I had a few issues with extra fullness in some spots and I think I might have avoided that by quilting the other sections first.
Love doing those loop the loops to fill the triangles - I only got mixed up in the direction I was going one time :)
 Not the best example of my free form feathering, but overall they look really good!  They don't have to be perfect because they are all unique and handmade!
And a peek at the back.  I love the look of all the different quilting designs on the back.  This is going to be awesome when it gets washed, I just love all the crinkly goodness of a washed quilt, do you?  The next quilt up for finishing is my Christmas round robin that will go on my futon this year for the holidays!  I got out the burgundy thread and even did a few stitches while dinner was cooking.  I am really ready to cross this one off my list, and  I'm getting through the list pretty fast. Then it'll be time to start a new one.  List, that is.  There are plenty of quilt tops, and UFO's around here for several!


Friday, October 04, 2013

A little quilting...

I got to do a little quilting today...I got all the white background done.  Tomorrow I'll work on the colors!  It will be a fun Christmas quilt when it's finished.  This is another project from Angles With Ease.  Sorry for the pathetic photo.  It looked a lot better on my phone :/

 I think my husband is catching that bug that's been dragging me down all week, so it'll be a good day to take it easy and do some stitching :)  I feel bad that he doesn't feel well, though.  Should have kept my germs to myself!

Thursday, October 03, 2013

Running Around

Ha - in more ways than one today was a running day.  Thursday mornings my husband and I go out and get some exercise by doing about a half hour of running and walking at the high school track.  We run on the field because it's easier on our bodies.  I guess we're getting old enough to be worried about those sorts of things....but it's good exercise and we enjoy doing it together.

After that it was home for breakfast, a shower and I was running off to the quilt shop to help finish getting ready for a big sale that is starting tomorrow.  I got to help a customer choose fabric for the quilt she is making using the block of the month I am doing for the shop.  I was very pleased that she had made a block from the current months pattern and said she could follow my instructions to make her first paper pieced block!  Woohoo!  I was really stressing over whether a beginner could follow them well enough to actually understand how to do paper foundation piecing, so I was thrilled that she did it.

Home for lunch, relaxed and did some reading this afternoon.  Fixed dinner and then ran off again!  To a quilt guild meeting.  So fun!  We had four different demos going at once and we all rotated around to the different ones.  One was a cute appliqued pumpkin nametag.  Another was a microwavable bowl holder (which could also serve as an ice cream bowl cozy).  I made a cute little finger pincushion at a different one, and the last was for two color binding.  Since I got there late I ended up at a table by myself, but was joined by a new member.  The funny thing is we both have long hair and were wearing it in similar styles - we were asked several times if we were sisters :)  So I have a new quilting sister now!  I volunteered to make three blocks for our raffle quilt for 2014, so that will be fun.

This is the quilt I brought for Show and Tell -
I made this as one of my Project Quilting challenges this year.  The challenge was to make a quilt with a square in a square block.  I added to the challenge by making it all from stash.  Even the back - 
Oops - sorry it's sideways!  Anyway - I love the way the back came out!  If I had more time I would have made it even bigger and combined the back with the front, but I needed to finish it by the deadline.  I do think I will add more quilting to it, though.  

After all the RUNNING around today....I'm ready for bed!  Time for some rest so I can do some sewing tomorrow.

Wednesday, October 02, 2013

Fall is In the Air

After a beautiful summer we are definitely full on into fall.  Cold, rainy weather has taken over, I keep telling myself there are definitely some lovely Autumn days coming, at least I hope!  We had some good storms come through over the weekend and lost some shingles off our roof - not a good sign for the coming winter, for sure.

I kept busy in September and finished several quilts.  I had three quilts in my quilt guild's show - no ribbons this year.  It makes me really want to work on some projects like my Crazy Jane and get them finished!
 I quilted this top that was made as a shop sample last year.  Love the fabrics in this.  I ended up deciding to do a simple meander on this, but it could have been really pretty with a nice custom quilting.  Not a lot would have shown since the fabrics are pretty busy, though.
 I got this bed runner back from the quilt shop as well.  I had to re quilt some of it because I had some tension issues.  I'm much happier with it now!
Love the way this one came out!  I quilted this with an allover swirl design.  Another quilt with busy fabrics - seems like simple quilting just works out best for these.  I have another finish to show, but need to take some better pictures.  Hopefully I can keep it up next month.  I would love to make a big dent in my overly full drawers and turn some UFO's into Quilts!!!