Monday, January 30, 2012

UFOs

It seems that many quilters have things stuck away they call UFOs, otherwise known as unfinished objects. Piecing is fun, but the next step of putting the backing, filling and top together and quilting and binding it is a challenge, and often is a roadblock deciding which a method to use to do this.

This one is unfinished because I've just have not had time to finish it. I call this one "WILD THING". I never thought it would turn out this bright! I said, I didn't know if you could sleep in the same room with it, because it might glow in the dark! The batik collection was called Tonga Treats, Lollipops. Whew, it's BRIGHT! But I do like it.


This one is unfinished because it has a ripply border. I need to rip it off and try again. If it doesn't lay flat, it is a challenge to quilt it. Some time!


My hangup with finishing my quilts has been how to do the quilting. So many quilts that are exquisitely quilted take months to complete, I don't want to spend that kind of time on them. So, I've taken to either "stitching in the ditch" technique, "stitching across the ditch" by using a decorative stitch on the lines where the pieces are joined, or a simple bar tack at strategic places. They have all worked out. I tried "stippling", which is a technique of free motion quilting. My lovely quilting machine was very picky and stubborn on this and wouldn't cooperate with me on doing it with the thread I was using. So I gave up and need to explore using different thread and see if that makes the picky machine happier.

Hope I can finish these at some time this year.

More quilts

The month of December was very busy in the sewing room! I costumed the play "A Christmas Carol" and made these quilts. Busy, busy, busy!

I made this one for our director of "A Christmas Carol". I had the entire cast and crew sign the backing, embroidered the title and date of the play on the back, and gave it to her for a remembrance of the play, which she adapted, wrote, directed and designed the set. She is also one of my dearest friends. We hope our love for her keeps her warm, as well as her lap quilt.
My other dear theatre friend got this quilt. She loves the color blue, and she decided to make it a wall hanging instead of a place for her doggie to shed on. I think the batiks in this were so pretty!
My 6 year old granddaughter loves peace signs. I've been trying to get a quilt made for her for over 2 years, so this finally came together for her. She gave her seal of approval on it--this is one picky little diva! Glad she liked it!
I couldn't wait to try this pattern. It was from a tutorial from Missouri Star Quilt Company called Double Slice Layer Cake. Layer cakes are fabric collections that are precut into 10" squares. You slice the squares into offset pieces, sew them together randomly, and then cut them in half, and sew them together again randomly. I made this one for my guest bedroom for my son and his wife.

It has been fun trying different quilt patterns and different fabrics. Luckily, the fabric store nearest to me has had some fabulous bargains on fabrics. I sort of overbought on Christmas fabrics, so I'll get a head start on next year. It is so much fun to piece these beautiful fabrics to create the different designs.

Monthly quilts

I've made baby quilts in the past, but never regular bed size quilts. These are my first attempts at making them for my bed.
October started it, I swore I would never make a Halloween quilt. However, I saw this sample in my local fabric store and fell in love with it. They had some handwritten directions, I took them home and purchased the fabric and had the quilt top finished by 10:30 that night! Wow, I was excited! The pattern is called "lightning", and it is all half square triangles. Very easy to sew and put together. I call this "The Wicked Witch's Bed"!
So after Halloween, why not Thanksgiving? Again used the lightning pattern.
I diverted from my favorite overnight "lightning" quilt top for this one. This pattern came from a book called "24 Hour Baby Quilts". Since this is bigger than a baby quilt, it took longer than 24 hours to make, plus about 4 trips to the fabric store to make it big enough for my daybed. However, I did make one red and green lightning quilt for Christmas, plus this one, plus one more. Lots of Christmas Quilts around my house this year! I'll post the pictures of the other two when I find the pics.
Snowflakes for January, I purchased these fabrics in November, and it's a good thing I did, because in January, there were no more snowflakes to be had anywhere! I am making another one right now from the leftovers for a friend who loved this one.
Still using half-square triangles, but in a different arrangement. I used a book called "Big Block Quilts". It has simple patterns using half-square triangles, fence rails and 4 patch blocks--you choose the size. One pattern was this big heart. The book has about 150 different patterns using these simple blocks. The small hearts came from a tutorial on a website, which I've learned so much from.

This is a wonderful website, Missouri Star Quilt Company in Hamilton MO. They have wonderful deals on fabric, great tutorials and they have become like family to me. When I have a question to ask or a sample to share, I send it their way. Great company! The heart pattern came from inspiration from one of their tutorials plus a design in the Big Block Quilt book.

As you can see, Al the cat loves this quilt, he was up on it in about 2 minutes after I made up the bed! He has embellished all of the quilts with some lovely blonde cat fur!

On to March, rainbow theme, then I have to think up more stuff--because my goal is to make a theme quilt for every month of this year. Think I can do it? I'm going to give it the old college try!

Back to blogging

Well, I'm still sewing, this time I'm into making quilts. I've made 6 queen size quilts, 3 twins and 4 lap quilts since October. Can you say "obsessed" when reading this? I'm trying to post pictures, will do soon. Hope to keep at this with more regularly than last year!