Full Steam Ahead!

My friend Joy is a quilter (no blog) and she creates beautiful quilts! Her colors are blues and purples. Another love of hers is Kaffe Fassett and batiks! We were together for a charity flea market (you may remember that I made repurposed jeans items) and she had made some mug rugs and other small things. BUT she also brought her scrap bin and baggies for people to fill a bag. 

I looked through her bin for blue and white fabrics for my scrappy little houses quilt (here and here). I will give an update on the neighborhood soon!  While rummaging through I found a string of 30 HST. I thought for sure that she accidentally put them in there but when I attempted to give them to her, she shrugged me off and said that they were left overs.  So I rescued them and made them into this little Mini KF quilt! 

I arrange them into pinwheel and square in a square blocks. The remaining 6 HST are on the back.

I used some batiks from my stash that were left over from the quilt I made after we went to Hawaii. Simple straight line quilting with a FMQ braid in the borders. Yay! Another finish even though it is a small one!

My son-in-law's sister is expecting a baby in October and my daughter asked me to make her a quilt. She said that she is really into Harry Potter 

(which I know very little about) and started to text me some ideas. 

This is the one that was her favorite.

So using letters from Lori Holt's book Spelling Bee,

I pieced together this quilt.

I used the 6 1/2" blocks to make the quilt bigger. Although I don't know the context and meaning of this quote, taken by itself, I think it makes a cute saying for a baby quilt. I kept it light and colorful using scraps from my stash. The background is Kona Ash. 

In keeping with the theme, I pieced the back but it is a secret I can't reveal yet. 

It is now waiting to be sandwiched and quilted!

But this one comes first and this happened today!

Sandwiched and pin basted! 

We leave for vacay in a few days. Not sure if I'll be back here until I get back in a couple of weeks 

(except to maybe reveal the graduation T-shirt quilt as the party is this weekend.) 

Hope you are enjoying your summer!

Linking to Can I Get a Whoop Whoop @ Confessions of a Fabric Addict and Midweek Makers @quiltfabrication

Project Quilting #6 Time is Up

The final challenge for Project Quilting Season 8 is Time is Up. The challenge is anything related to time. I found that to be so broad that it was difficult narrowing it down. Do I go with the standard clock or calendar? 

What about seasons...spring time?  

Then there are all the sayings or idioms related to time.

Have a whale of a good time, Once Upon a Time, time out, most wonderful time of the year, running out of time, time flies, time is money...

Then there is time management and Time magazine. 

You get the idea...we use time for many things. I knew I couldn't ponder this too long as this is a short week for me as we are leaving to visit our daughters tomorrow. 

I decided to go with Tea Time. A mini quilt that I could use. I got started and while I was paper piecing my mind kept going...maybe I should do a play on these words...tee time...

No! I didn't have TIME to play. So here it is: Tea Time

This mini finishes at about 14" square. The tea pot and tea cup are paper pieced  using this pattern and I FMQ around the pot and cup as well as the background. I FMQ straight lines to represent the table. I used a doily under the tea pot.

This is the final challenge! Voting next week. It has been fun!

Linking up to Project Quilting @ Persimon Dreams.

What's Up?

A couple of posts back, I showed you the split snowball quilt that I am working on and the mini that I started with all those tiny cutoffs. Since then, I added a border on the sides and sandwiched and hand quilted it. 

It is hard to see the quilting besides in the border but it is also quilted in the brown triangles. 

It fits perfectly in my table top stand.

You can see the quilting a little better from the back.

The backing is a cute print used for the border on the large snowball quilt.

Adorable?

 I love the little dancing cups on the borders.

I'm calling this one Mornin' Sunshine mini.

My knitting group is also working on a charity project. It is called Little Hats, Big Hearts and is with the organization Mended Little Hearts of Chicago partnered with the American Heart Association. All babies born in February 2015 at participating hospitals will receive a knitted/crocheted red hat to raise awareness for congenital heart defects. 

Here are 2 that I have made so far! They are quick and easy to knit. 

So that's what I've been up to...what about you?

Where Does the Time Go?

It has been a while since I have last posted. Life just doesn't seem to want to slow down. I have been spending some time in my sewing room which is always good! I have been putting off making the next baby quilt but will have to start on it sooner than later. I do have a bit of time yet.

So what have I been doing in my sewing room, you ask? Well, I have challenged myself into 1) sewing projects that I have purchased a bit ago and have been waiting on the back burner, and 2) using fabrics from my stash (much of which has been donated to me) and create. 

First, using a piece of fabric from my stash, I cut out as many 4" squares as I could (the pattern of flowers were in squares, so I cut them apart.)

After rearranging them on my design wall, I sewed them all back together. Then using this technique, I added the lattice on top. Thanks to Pat over at Life in the Scrapatch for the tutorial. 

The border is Kona Cotton Candy Blue, the binding and lattice is Kona Cotton White. The backing is a piece from my stash!

I also added a sleeve for hanging. 

The quilt finishes at 33.5" x 36"

I straight line quilted it along the lattice and in the border and FMQ a rose motif in the flowers.

A nice finish!

For the other part of my challenge, I dug out the fabrics that I purchased for a quilt that I saw in this magazine back in Feb/Mar 2011.

I fell in love with this retro feel fabric line called Early Bird by Cosmo Cricket. I went about purchasing some of the line and adding in other fabrics that I had that I felt coordinated nicely. 

I started on the split snowball blocks...80 blocks in total.

With every snowball block, you get 4 sets of 2 tiny triangles. I told myself that I wasn't going to save them this time. 

(I have several bunches of triangle cutoffs, ready to be sewn)

...But I couldn't help myself...

...they were just so cute...

SO...

I took some time off from the split snowball quilt to play with these...

Each HST is just 3/4" small. 

A mini flying geese...

Both the mini and the split snowball are ready to by sandwiched and quilted!

So that's what I've been up to, how about you?

A couple of finishes...

...another mini quilt finish. 

I have been having fun creating some mini quilts thanks to Jennifer over at Ellison Lane Quilts.  Although my quilt did not win in her recent challenge, I feel that I have won as I have been challenged to try some 'new to me' techniques. Minis are a great way to 'give it a try'.  

This quilt's challenge was combining red, yellow and white together. Madame Samm sent out a request for quilts using these 3 colors. Unfortunately, this isn't a color combination that I often see so I dug through my stash and this is all I found. The red fabric has roses with some being yellow and the yellow fabric has little tiny pinpoint dots in red. I took out my graph paper and using the chunky chevron idea that Amy Gibson showed on Craftsy in February, 

I designed this mini.

This is the first time that I tried a chevron. The tutorial on Craftsy by Amy Gibson is great. I made it a little different, extending the chevrons, but used her technique for the chunky chevron block. 

I also big stitched quilted the mini using Finca Perle 8 in Cranberry.  

I love the results!

I also finished my 3rd personnel stash challenge quilt.  I had finished the flimsy back in January but a few other projects were waiting for some attention so it took its turn in line. I finally managed to sandwich the quilt in February and set out to get it quilted. 

During this time, we got some sad news that our daughter's good friend, Jenny, was diagnosed with breast cancer. So as I quilted, many prayers were said for Jenny and she was kept in my thoughts.

I will be taking this quilt down to Austin, TX in a little over a week for Jenny when I visit my DD2 & SIL. I am very excited!

Jenny's surgery was today and the results are successful! 

The cancer had not spread! Praise God!

Until next time...