Saturday, March 31, 2012

Another Finish

I've got the binding finished on the little Origins HST quilt this morning. Its just in time for the Finish Along.



It's small and has no home yet but it's nice to have little quilts on hand for quick gifts.

I only stippled in the solid brown, the other fabrics are all Basic Gray's Origins line. So I call it Have A Nice Day.

Branching Out Just A Little

I'm packing up the long arm soon so trying to get a few quilts to the binding stages. I had the backs of two already loaded with quilting plans for one already. I used a little bit of the fabric as a jumping off point once i figured out how to use an old scrapbook stencil to make a pretty good circle. Of course after that I lost my nerve and filled the rest of the diamonds with swirls. Swirls are my go to design.




I did a little bit of quilting in the little green diamonds and then unloaded it from the frame, I'll do the stitch in the ditch and the borders on my little machine one of these days.




This was one of my quilts for the Finish Along but it will have to be bumped to the 2nd quarter.

Saturday, March 24, 2012

Local Shop

I came across a neat little shop in the next neighborhood over.



It's called home ec. studio, www.homeecstudio.com

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Halloween in March

If we can have Christmas in July, there's no reason not to have Halloween in March. This little wall hanging was made by Annette and she trusted me to quilt it up for her. After a few months of nervousness and thinking about how I could wreck it, i loaded it up on the frame, but black thread in the bobbin and got out every shade of brown/cream I had. Trust me, that's a lot of cream.



And here is the "finished" top. I totally wimped out on the borders since i wasn't sure how to fill them. There's some pebbling, echoing, stippling, straight lines, stitch in the ditch, loops, swirls, writing, cobwebs and outlining. A total stretch for me and she loved it!

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Weekend of Binding

This was officially the weekend of staying up late for binding quilts. I finished the edges of three quilts.
Here's the edging of the latest. I had to buy the fabric at guild today since I don't have a lot of dusty rose.


I went with machine binding to test it out again. It worked out fine but I think I still prefer hand stitching my quilts. I did figure out the corners pretty decently though. I do like a sharp corner.



And just so y'all don't think I've turned over a new leaf, here's a project I started this weekend. I also fixed the block with the misplaced corners.



Saturday, March 17, 2012

Coastal Bricks Complete!

I stayed up too late but the binding is done! Washer tomorrow and then off to her new home.
Cell phone pics below-







A little late for Finish It Up Friday but that just means that I'm ahead for next week, right?

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Progress, Progress and More Progress

I made a lot of progress on projects this weekend. I finiahed a top, quilted three projects and loaded another on the frame. Be warned, phone pictures galore below.

First up, my completed top from a precut pack of squares of Wrenly. Or as I might name it, ChirpFest 2012.





I quilted sea weed on the second Going Coastal, I know I should branch out on the designs but when it works, it works. I pieced three pieces of flannel for the back of this one. The binding is ready for some hand stitching now.



The second bit of quilting was super custom and I can't show it for a little bit more.

And can I just say, hot damn, stippling is FAST. This is the flannel backing on one of those quilt tops. You know, the tops that find you because a friend of a family member hears you are quilting. It's been in a box for a few years and I decided it needed to move along. Of course it helped that I found the flannel for $2.50 a yard recently. And it might be a good one to try machine binding again.



If we hadn't been under constant threat of attack by the cats living in the house, I might have stippled this one to death as well.




According to my handy Excel spreadsheet, I am 56% done on this year's quilts. Nevermind that I haven't finished much.

Thursday, March 8, 2012

Cut it Up

My main machine is at the spa, the Brother is super tense and the serger needs threading so what to do but a little cutting.

Here's a stack of 6.5 inch flannel squares from receiving blanket scraps. Not sure how I'll put them together though.



And finally trimmed up the little HSTs left over from my Grand Bazaar quilt. They could make this.


Or these





Sunday, March 4, 2012

Underwater Polaroid

Underwater Polaroid by shanleytulip
Underwater Polaroid, a photo by shanleytulip on Flickr.

I had a not so pleasant end of the day Friday so when I got home finally, I flipped through my new quilt block book. I didn't follow the directions but made this block. I will likely cut it smaller and add on bigger photo corners. Those were just the scraps on the top of the bin.

In more pleasant news, the recipient of the turtle quilt saw it yesterday and sent some nice gushy texts about it. My sister is hand sewing the binding now. I should be done in no time. And that wasn't a bit of Tom Sawyering on my part. Binding stitching is a popular sport in my family.