I Made a Pillow

Do you ever have one of those moments where you just have to stop what you're doing and stitch something up?  That happened to me last weekend when I saw Amanda Jean's (crazy mom quilts) couch full of pillows.  There was nothing for it - I had to make one.

Because there were other things on my to do list that day, I looked through the huge container of orphan blocks that my Grandmother gives me and picked out 8 that matched - four for each side of the pillow.

I'm very pleased with my little pillow.  I may need to make another.

I'm linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts

Flamingos

This quilt was a definite squirrel.  I was given a bunch of solid cotton poly blends so I took a minute or two from what were top secret pieces at the time and played.  Two tops were made that I then put away for a more appropriate quilting time.

This quilt is about 40 inches wide by 46 deep.

The quilting was also an experiment.  I practised for weeks on all available paper surfaces until I was less scared and plunged in.  My inspiration was a pattern by Threaded Quilting:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7lhVpsnBr8

It was also probably my first time quilting in a thread that was absolutely going to show.

Note to self:  Learn quilt blocking.  The quilting made it all warpy so I had to cut a bit off the last line to put it back into square.

Flamingos ended up in the "quilts for missions" category because after it was done, there was an opportunity for it to go to a little girl locally as part of a Christmas campaign through the Salvation Army.

The Eighties Called

Size:  46 x 54

Reason:  This is a quilt that I pieced together from blocks borrowed from MCC back in 2014.  I couldn't understand the layout of the blocks the original piecer was intending so many were ripped apart and resewn so that I could create something that made sense to me.

The lighter blue and the pink sashings were included with the project when it was first donated.

Fabric:  My MIL gave me a gorgeous cream sheet a while ago.  It was perfect for the back of this quilt. The leftover bits made the back fun.  The binding was bought for another project but ended up not working.  I'm pleased that it fits in so well here.

Thoughts:  I'm glad this is done.  I'm not a fan of pink and blue.  It's time to give the eighties back its colour scheme.  Other have told me they really like it so clearly it's not as bad as I think it is.

Mostly I quilted this from the back.  I wanted to mark the lines.  They showed better on the cream.  I put on my big girl panties and used a dark coloured thread that *gasp* shows.  Mistakes show up must faster when using contrasting thread.

Back to MCC it goes.  I'm not sure but this might be the last UFO that I borrowed from MCC.  I should ask for more.

Cabin in the Woods

Date:  January - September 2015

Pattern:  www.craftsy.com  Inspired Modern Quilts

Reason:  Part of a class in modern quilting

Thoughts:  I can't say that I love this quilt.  I've done better improve.  I do like the floating blocks, though and need to play with this concept.  I enjoyed the FMQ.  I also played with straight line quilting with a walking foot. 

Lessons Learned:   It's okay to not be thrilled with the outcome if you learned something along the way.

Baby Hexis

Date:  April 2015

Size:  30 x 42

Pattern:  n/a

Best Buys / Special Fabrics:  The hexis were a gift from a friend.  The grey was a gift from a sister.

Lessons Learned:  Don't assume gifted pre-cuts are the same size (I do this often.)

Thoughts:  This is my first finish of the year (beside ten potholders).  I have MANY tops waiting to be quilted.

I love the simplicity of this quilt - it took a weekend to make because I laid the hexis on top of a quilt sandwich and quilted them in place.  The edges will fray beautifully in the wash.  I really want to do this again with different shaped fabrics - squares and/or rectangles.

It is quite likely LBCQ will be doing a show at the library again this fall.  I'll save this for the show.

Leah Day's Building Blocks

Date: January 1 - October 26, 2014

Size:  48 x 56

Pattern: Building Blocks by Leah Day

Reason:  I love that I can FMQ on my domestic machine and although stippling is wonderful, I wanted to learn new techniques.

Fabric / Best Buys:  Almost entirely scraps.  I only dipped into my stash for the yellow and blue and white.

Thoughts:  This was a really interesting class and learning process.  Even though I've FMQed many quilts before I could feel myself getting more comfortable as the class went on.

I used a 2" binding strip instead of 2½".  It made a nice thin binding.

Lessons Learned:

1)  My sewing machine does not like to FMQ with poly as the top thread (it breaks lots).  Poly in the bobbin works just fine.

2)  Pencil washes off of white fabric

3)  I don't like premarking quilting patterns, but it really helps with accuracy so suck it up.

4)  Don't undo your work just because it's not perfect.  The triumph is in the learning and growing.

5)  If doing different colour ways front and back try to have ONE colour in common to make choosing a binding colour easier.  Just sayin.

A Blessing for Ruth

Date:  July / August 2014

Pattern:  From my head:

Block A:
~  Make crazy quilt blocks and cut them to 6.5".
~  Sew 2.5" strips of white to the crazy blocks
~  Sew 2.5" strips of a colour that matches the crazy block to the white
~  Square block to 10.5"

Block B:
~  Make crazy quilt blocks and cut them to 8.5"
~ Sew 2.5" strips of white around the crazy block
~ Square block to 10.5"

Size:  37 x 47

Reason:  A new baby in our church

Fabric / Best Buys:  All the fabric used was scraps and gifts except for the borders - I took those from my stash.  The binding was a pre-ironed binding given to me by my Aunt.

Thoughts:  I love this pattern  I used it for the first time here.  I've been wanting to use it again ever since.

Lessons Learned:  I finally got up the courage to stitch text into the quilting.  It went really well and fit perfectly  (Numbers 6:24-26)  I'm so excited that it worked.  I'll do it again on my next baby quilt.  It worked really well to run through the motions in my head that my hands needed to make word by word.  It kept me from getting overwhelmed and allowed me to keep calm and not rush.  Winner!

PCC 5 of 6

Date:  January 2014

Reason:  My goal is to make 6 baby quilts for the Pregnancy Care Centre in January.

Fabrics:  Grandma has given me a lot of blocks.  More than 200.  Here are six of them.

Thoughts:  This is my favourite of the six.

8/12: String Quilt

Date:  May 2013

Reason:  I have so many scraps and strips both from my own quilting and from what my aunt and grandma have given to me.

After doing Craftsy.com's BOM 2012, I realized that a string quilt was the perfect way to use up my mountain of fabric pieces.

Thoughts:  All I know about free Motion quilting is from Leah Day - see link on side bar.

This quilt will be auctioned of at the MCC relief sale in Coaldale next month and is eighth in my series of 12 quilts for mission organizations this year.  Four to go!!

Pink Delight II

Date:  April 2013

Reason:  I bought a jelly roll at Walmart that easily made two baby quilts.  This one is slightly larger that her sister because I added the pink plaid border.

Thoughts:  A friend bought this for her daughter.

Pink Delight I

Date:  January 2013

Reason:  When I found the fabric for purple, I also fell in love with this roll set.  One roll is going to make me two baby quilts.  Here's the first.

Thoughts:  This quilt top and her sister top have been hanging out in a box waiting for me to find the right chocolate for the border.  I'm glad to be able to get one of the two off my extensive to-do list.

I've got a little ripple going on here but I don't think I was tugging too much on the binding too much.  However, I did quilt the border separately so I'm wondering if that made the difference.  I'll quilt to the edge on the next one and see if that changes anything.

Update: January 2014  This quilt was given to a baby named Emily.

Flamingoes and Kittens and Chicks, Oh My!

Date:  Feb 2012

Reason:  I love eye spy type fabrics and wanted to experiment.

Fabrics:  Nearly all my eye spy fabrics were given to me.

Thoughts:  I was just finishing this up when my sister's third baby arrived, so this went to her.

Emmalee's Fight

Two years ago, the daughter of one of my favourite people got sick.  Leukemia.  A nightmare of epic proportions followed.  What would you do if your three year old said "please stop the pokeys, I'll be a good girl."?

Just this month, two years later, this family got the blissful news that, six months early, her treatments are ending.  There are not enough words for the joy.

A friend of mine gave me the triangles - extras from one of her projects.   The back (yellow) was left over from another project.

Lessons:  Be careful of thread count.  All flannel is not created equal.  Loose weaves can be a lot of trouble.

Thoughts:  This was made in the Quilt as you Go method.  It's such a fast way to make a quilt!

It is my understanding that this the quilt went with them to cancer care.

Pink Baby

Date:  June 2012

Size:  30 x 30

Reason:  I took some pretty pinks from the blocks my grandma gave me because I knew they would make a cute baby quilt.

Fabrics:  Scraps from my stash, my grandma's blocks and a baby blanket of my daughter's.

Lessons:  My machine quilting is getting better!  Although I'm not doing Leah Day's tutorials per se, most of my quilting information comes from her blog:  http://freemotionquilting.blogspot.com.  She has oodles of videos.  My opinion of machine quilting went from "pshh, not happening" when I saw her first video to "I could try it once" to "wheeeeee" after my first quilt.

On the half square triangle centre, I did a loopy style of stippling to hopefully emulate the flight of the butterflies that are appliqued in the centre.

Thoughts:  I still need to learn what I am doing wrong or how to fix my wavy edges.  Is it a quilting issue?  Am I a bad measurer?  Do I need to square my quilts better?  Probably it's all of the above.

I used a baby blanket we no longer needed.  I kept the 'satin' binding from the blanket to use on the quilt.

I traded this to a co-worker for some NuCerity.

Dolly Blanket

Date:  January 2007

Size:  12 x 18

Inspiration:  My daughter's "bee bees" needed a quilt.

Special Fabrics:  I used a sleeper that was falling apart.

Thoughts:  I did it in a screaming hurry and wasn't really worried about perfection.