Everyone does their part

I made a couple of dog beds to donate to a local shelter. I used a thick curtain my mom made for me when I was in college (thanks mom). I stuffed them with the scraps of batting from all the quilts over the years.


Matilda helps with quality assurance.



So far the double stitching is holding up just fine. 10 minutes down.

Tote

I used the Pleated Tote pattern to make a quick(ish) bag for a weekend trip.


I had plenty of Grand Bazaar left so I used 4 prints from the line. Hopefully the light interior and key hook will help me find things inside.


My linings always end up bigger than the outside. I may be trying to create a Mary Poppins bag.

Next Up: Binding

Well maybe not quite next, I do get distracted easy. I've got a friend's quilt on the frame and a bag partially cut out. Plus many other quilts in various stages. But for this project, the next bit is binding.
My brilliant friend recommended the black and white binding. As soon as she texted, I knew it was perfect.





I didn't have enough of my first choice.



But maybe I just thought it was perfect because my neighborhood has gone crazy with Halloween decorations. Totally overboard. Not as bad as the house that has put up Christmas lights already though. These are newly up and not the all orange strands of lights. Rainbow icicle Christmas lights. Blinking.

In the Groove.

I'm back up and running on my long arm.



Quilting on my own stuff that's been sitting for awhile.


I was reminded what I liked about quilting in the first place. Bright colors, fast stitches and knowing that someone is going to enjoy snuggling under it in the future.

I finished up a small quilt this weekend too.

Back Soon

Maybe probably.





For now it's Mimi Night Night.

Claimed

Whoever gets this quilt will have to take my dog too. She loves it. Will wake up from a nap if there is the slightest possibility that she can lay on even a corner of it.



I need to finish the quilting on it. That's my new thing, bind a quilt while trying to decide how to finish the quilting.

I also put borders on a quilt that is a group project. It's ready to go off for quilting now. No pictures until it's gifted though.

My sewing space is the cleanest it's ever been. So yes, I did have a houseguest for the weekend.

San Diego Quilt Show 2013

At one of the SDMQG meetings, we had a couple of visitors from the San Diego Quilt Show come by to talk about the show. They were encouraging the group to submit a few quilts for display. I volunteered to organize it for the guild. It was a huge pain to do with paper entry forms, last minute entries, printing of pictures at Costco just before they closed, etc. At any rate we had more than 20 quilts from the guild submitted.

It was neat to see the quilts hanging from the entrance at the Convention Center.

Here is ChirpFest 2012 and Istanbul Tiles.



Rainbow Explosion.


Sea Improv Baby.



It was a much smaller show than the last time I went ages ago. Which worked out because I didn't have a lot of time to visit before heading up to Ventura to see my brother's family for a few days.

Gooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaal

And yes, I was just discussing soccer cleats with a kid but this is mostly to memorialize the fact that I am crazy.  And I did meet the deadline for the quilt show.  Even though I decided to get up early today (not the crazy part, I usually get up early) and go add some quilting to on of the San Diego Quilt Show quilts.

 

 My big machine, Pippi, has been a little jerky lately so I didn't want to risk deformed tulips so for most of these, I took one stitch at a time. Good thing I love orange tulips, right? I also had to cut part of the sleeve in half to move it out of the way of the mad last minute quilting. Which necessitated some last minute ugly repair. Good thing those sleeves are coming off as soon as the show is over.

And now, I need to restore order to my sewing room.  At least a little bit.

Deadlines

Last week I only did sewing for the guild.












By the end, I wished I had just done straight lines. Then wonky crosses for a new charity quilt. When they asked for volunteers for this one, I am afraid I ducked.




This week it is only sewing for the quilt show. Some quilting but also some basting on of sleeves for hanging.




Really rough running stitches in easy to take off colors.
Someday, maybe Sept, it's just going to be sewing for fun.

No Reason

I've been cutting, cutting and cutting some more.



It is clearly time for a new blade. I certainly haven't run out of scraps.

I am cutting them into 5, 3 and 2.5 inch squares. No reason, no plan, it just seems to work out.

Crashers

I've invented* something new.  AKA, I thought of something that cracked me up so I ran with it.  I will try to explain but it will not crack you up.  Probably.

Our guild is on the second round of a local bee.  It kicked off this month with a new member, Alison, who chose some nice blocks that intrigued me.  Also I was cutting 2 1/2 inch squares from my scraps and procrastinating anyway.

My invention stems from the fact that I'm not in the bee.  But I wanted to try the block anyway.  So I became a Bee Crasher.  It's just like a Wedding Crasher but with less cake.  Basically I made a block for her.  Then another one because it was cute.

I surprised her with them on Sunday and I hope she was happy to get blocks that she wasn't expecting.  

I may try it more often but I said the same thing about wedding crashing too and that hasn't panned out yet.  I did crash a wedding once, it was a small beautiful beach wedding on Kauai.  The reception was at an old plantation where all the guests were staying too.  The bride's family came over from Japan to celebrate and were excellent drinkers.  Everyone was friendly and delighted to meet an actual wedding crasher.  The next day I went zip lining which led eventually to me jumping off a mountain.  I imagine that these two little blocks will lead to great things as well.  

*Patent pending.  Unless my lawyer says I can't patent this due to the law.  Or if Kelley notices that she basically did the same thing for me but nicely and with a great picture included.  Thanks Macy!  I heart Apple and her cold dead eyes.

Determined

1, a photo by shanleytulip on Flickr.

She will squish herself almost anywhere to lay on a quilt in progress.

Parson Grey

Another finish for the month. This one is labeled, washed and gifted up toward (if not to) it's new home. I wanted to use a big block for these prints and also to make it up quick. The guy it is for broke both his ankles this year.



It ended up about 63 x 88 which was quite handy since I was arguing with someone about how big a 64 x 84 quilt might be. Nevermind that I was stitching the binding on this quilt during the argument. Quilt math is hard. Always buy 6 yards to back a quilt. Even a baby quilt.



The backing is a wonderful gray flannel that I got on sale at Beverly's. they rarely carry manly flannel so I was happy to find it.



Nerd alert! Gotta love a QR Code. :)



I quilted really organic shapes in each of the three shapes in the disappearing nine patch. Seed pods for the rectangles, crosses for the little squares and ripples for the big squares.

This quilt made possible through the generous support of Jim's garage.

Fair trade?

My mom made me this -



And I made her this -


It was years ago. They both lay around a lot but hers doesn't whine. I think she's missing out.


Oh and mine is not allowed on the furniture. I'm mean like that.

Three in a Row

So technically, I finished binding a quilt every day this weekend.


This will be quickly labeled and washed tomorrow. Full post someday. Probably before 2015 but I'm not promising anything.

Double Finish

Full posts soon but I'm easing back into blogging.



I finished sewing down the binding of both of these already this weekend. My diabolical plan to leave just a few inches left on the binding makes me seem fast.

Sea Improv Baby

I used the leftover bits from my niece, Lightning's, quilt to do a little improv quilt. It is small, 37 x 37 but I like it. The tan solid was at the top of my scrap basket and I had enough to run with it.



I had a Riley Blake flannel that worked quite well with the colors on the front.


I quilted this one with some straight lines in a few different directions using my basically free Janome. Actually, I ended up a little ahead on that one. It's a nice machine that I got at QuiltCon in February. Not that I needed a new machine but they had such a good deal on the machines used in the classes that I ended up bringing a couple home and finding people interested in them. So after a few nail biting weeks, I basically made back the money that I spent on them. It's nice when a diabolical plan works out.

I entered this quilt in the San Diego Quilt show. Not because it's anything special but just to give people a little taste of other options in the world of quilting. Sure you can do detailed floral appliqué but you can also do a million more things.

2013 Finish-A-Long Round 2

I'm ready for another go at the Finish-A-Long so am putting my goals together and linking up with She Can Quilt and a bunch of other quilters with big plans.

Rather than repost photos of everything that is rolling over from last quarter, I'll link back to the first quarter post.

1. Red and Aqua Greek Crosses - I completed most of the quilting but need to finish then bind and gift. I may change up the recipient now though.

2. Grand Bazaar Square Dance - top and backing are ready to go. This one is for me. Please look away from my list last January, this was on it. Keep looking away.

3. Origins Original - quilting is done now. I need to pick out binding still.

4. Argyle from Turkey - the top is one piece so it's done, I sorted out the backing so can quilt it like crazy.

5. Rainbow Strips - top stage as well. I haven't decided on backing yet and only partially decided on the quilting. No movement at all. But I know where it is. Fancy, right?

6. N's Great Aunt's Dresden - binding in process.

And next up are the new contenders for this round -

7. Amy Butler baby quilt - just binding left on this one. Photo from our March guild meeting.

8. Rainbow Explosion - partially completed top at this point but these are just some of the charms I added to the swap charms.




9. Terrain Half Square Triangles - top done, backing ready to be pieced.





10. Madrona Road Challenge - I 'finished' the top for the challenge but as I was going to start quilting it I realized that it really did want to be bigger.

11. SD Bee Starbursts - I have all the blocks from my bee but need to make a few more for the top.


12. Fruit Slices - still designing the top but backing is ready to go at least. This is just a piece since it will likely change up again.




It's good to start with big dreams, right? And ignore the fact that we are already two weeks through the first quarter.  And not mention the backing, quilting and binding I'm working on for a friend.   Yep, it's all totally and completely reasonable.

Jungle Links Quilt

Gifted on Friday and the baby isn't even 3 months old. That's practically on time, right?



I quilted different designs in each color link. Then straight lines through the gray light dots.



The green dots are a flannel that I had in my stash.



This quilt made possible through the generous support of Jim's garage.

Hometown Stars

I've finished this finally. I started it at the end of 2011 using a tutorial from Moda Bakeshop. It took me awhile to figure out a quilting plan since the fabrics were so busy. This has been in the works for one of my mentors for awhile. I backed it with a yellow flannel that just happened to match really well.



I really like how it turned out,









I used two labels on this one. One embroidered with recipient, date and my name. One a QR code that goes to this blog. I probably should have started this paragraph with "Nerd Alert".



This quilt made possible through the generous support of Jim's garage.

SD Bee Blocks

I have been sewing here and there. Tomorrow I will be delivering Angela's bee blocks. She picked the x and y block which was fun and I think the quilt will be wonderful all together.





I have done so many add a corner blocks lately that I automatically created the HSTs.

For the Tasmanian Bushfire Relief

I finished up the quilt for Jess at The Elven Garden and it will be on the way shortly.
It's a small quilt which washed up to about 39 x 42 inches. I started it on the 11th so it was pretty quick.




Umm, sorry about all the elephant butts. I guess I should have fussy cut those.




I did a simple basket weave kind of quilting. Actually, we did the quilting. My machine is living a few blocks away right now. Her hosts came out when I started up the quilting and took a turn on the machine. See how perfectly, the top dark gray square turned out? They are naturals.




I embroidered the label although didn't have a lot to say. Stay tuned for a bit of dorkiness to add to future quilts.




It's flannel backed, of course. No piecing required and it happened to go really well.




As a bit of added trivia, I used Jess's block tutorial for the woven chevron quilt last year. The turquoise fabric I used in that quilt was perfect for the binding on this one.

This quilt made possible through the generous support of Jim's garage.