Re(a)d all over ..

Red Scrappy swap blocks are done .. For the last block I decided to do the Squares and Diamonds from Quilt Mags Stash Blocks – both blocks turned out VERY well and I’m quite pleased with them. I still have to put frames around the cornucopia block and the disappearing 9 patch, but those blocks are staying here .. I’m not sure if I’m going to red or white framing .. we’ll just have to see. I just have to package them as per swap instructions and mail them off .. I can’t wait to see what I’ll get back from this .. I’m soooo excited .. a new nap quilt for me 😀 😀 😀

I’m still researching my repo quilt .. i’ve found a listing and some pictures of actual blocks from that time frame and the blocks that i’ve seen so far are all in Around the Block which is GREAT! Now I just have to decide on the size .. Altho, I think that’s going to be decided more on amount of each fabric that I have and actual block count. With a king size bed as my canvas, I’m sure I can have some fun .. but I’m thinking maybe 10″ .. we’ll just have to see.

I’ve let my kitty quilt sit for a few days and I will be working on the fillers for that in the next day or two.

Kyle has a pretty busy schedule for basketball .. he made the school team and has a game tomorrow / today?? (monday) and is in a tournament on tuesday. So i might not get as much quilty time, but i’m going to enjoy watching him play!

Want to know when I post? Subscribe to updates.

Cornucopia – Horn Of Plenty (Trouble!!!)

Why is it that I have MORE scraps now than I did when I did the “scrappy red swap”???

This block and it’s twin were … ‘interesting’ to say the least … for some silly reason after I cut it, I couldn’t figure out for the life of me the best way to put it together .. quiltmags, stash buster blocks don’t give directions as they’ve already published them in previous issues of the magazine .. So here I am looking at all these million pieces and it’s just not clicking – I wrote to my lists and waited and looked at them again .. time passes .. and it clicks – LeMoyne Star!! NOW I can start (and of course after I figure it out, all these suggestions come in LOL)

These pieces gave me a devil of a time getting right; and even then, they aren’t right – I had the same space on both blocks near the top – a good 1/2″ .. one of them is unlikely to be squared even with framing .. I’ve not lost my confidence with the inset seams – i’m more puzzled than anything .. my cutting was good, and my seams were spot on 1/4″ .. it could be the 1/4″ isn’t exact on both pieces?? I have no definite clue why it didn’t work out. I’m beginning to seriously think that inset seams need to be handpieced 😉 And I’ve thought this every time I’ve done them. I’m a wee bit discouraged as I really wanted to use these in the swap, but I just can’t .. not these .. I’ll frame them for my scrappy quilt – well one at least .. I think that I’ll frame the other and send it along as an orphan block for charity quilts.

I ended up with 2 extra blocks for the scrapbuster block .. I read in the instructions that you will have extras – it didn’t penetrate – so here I have 4 blocks instead of 2 LOL .. I couldn’t just NOT make them .. heh .. maybe another charity block LOL .. i’ll just have to see ..I do want to make one more block as I wanted to have all different blocks for the swap ..

I’ve been researching my next quilt project .. reg and I need a quilt for our bed .. and he likes the reproduction fabrics that i have from the civil war era and later in the same century. There’s a discussion going on about Dear Jane / Dear Hannah quilts and there are a LOT of people doing them .. well – heh .. i’m more of an individualist .. so what I’m going to do is, more research for one, but make our bed quilt in the style of blocks from that era with those fabrics .. it won’t be a true reproduction – if I can’t find the exact block, i’ll use one close to it .. I’ll try for the same style, but we’ll have to see how it goes .. i’m thinking maybe a sampler, altho, I’ve not really seen to many of those, they all seem to made with one block or medallion style. But it won’t be a true repo. Hmmm .. block size??? i’ve seen a few where the size is from 8″ – 10″ … heh .. I need to do more research 😀

Want to know when I post? Subscribe to updates.

2 4 Kristin

As I talked about in a previous post, my friend Kristin, had asked to buy an earwarmer from me, but I refused, instead I offered to make one for her .. I sent her a few links and she opted for these earwarmers by Tara and wanted black and red to match her coat. I was going to look for variegated black and red yarn, but I do have a bit of both colours it in my stash – so I opted to use my stash instead.

What Kristin didn’t know was that I was planning on making two for her as neither of us could decide what would be the dominate colour and she mentioned that she had concerns about matching the red (I think it was red?!?).  Kristin bailed on me by saying “You decide.” LOL .. so I rather fixed her .. She got one of each.

What I really like about this pattern is that it’s tapered near the neck and isn’t to thick around the rest of it .. Tara does have 2 versions of this pattern and I did version 1 for both of these.

I did both of these in one nite basically – they took a whole 80 stitches cast on and 18 rows .. oh and the best part – CHUNKY yarn!!  With the shaping you know I didn’t knit end to end – altho I think I missed something in the shaping of the dominate red one?!?

Tara, thank you for posting this pattern – Kristin I hope these fit the bill and keep you warm enough

hugs!

I rec’d an email from Kristin when she got these:

Thanks for including both – you’re so cute! 🙂 And I have to tell you that the red matches almost perfectly! How did you do that? 😉

Perfect!! Nice to know they match .. Enjoy Kristin and I hope they keep you warm!!

A sort of ‘eh’ day …

Today was ‘eh’ day. I spent most of the day doing list mail as I didn’t do it the day before. One grea thingis that the fabric to trade all has a new home now .. Judi will be using it for her charity quilts! I get to increase my 1800 repro stash 🙂 This is going to be GREAT!!

I did cut out blocks for the scrappy red swap, but after looking at them I want to be a wee bit more rested before I sew them up. There is a LOT of inset seams, and I don’t want to be doing to much frogging on these. I’m using the Cornucopia block from Quilt Mags Stash Blocks page. They have some gorgeous blocks here in various sizes.

I’ll sew those up tomorrow and then cut out some more blocks. I checked to see if the blanket i was going to use for batting for kyle’s quilt is big enough and it’s not. I have some warm and natural batting, but the way he treats quilts, I’m not sure I want to put really good batting in it. I’ll have to see what I can dig up. since there’s no football this weekend, not sure when i’ll be doing the binding on reg’s quilt. I have to get used to the fact that it’s not going to be on anymore .. there is tennis .. oh wait.. that’s over now .. **sigh**

Want to know when I post? Subscribe to updates.

The Brat Prince Strikes Again

Welp – Pix did it again .. he always manages to know when I can’t easily chase him to create mischief.

I didn’t get as far last nite as I wanted to with Reg’s quilt, just ran out of steam. When I woke up with a headache today, I knew it wasn’t going to be a high quilt volume day for me today. heh .. i’ve not even read my list mail yet .. At any rate, I wanted to quickly attach the binding to the quilt and then watch a movie with reg .. well i realized that i hadn’t even prepared the strips yet .. i’m like .. oh blech .. i do not want to do that right now .. so I worked on some hand quilting for a little while and watched the movie anyways.

Later I started to feel a wee bit better and decided to tackle the binding of reg’s quilt. Got the strips sewn together, pressed and had just situated myself with the quilt on my lap and all set to get and the binding trailing off to my right on the floor – Good thing that I had already stitched a bit of the binding to the quilt .. from out of nowhere, this blasted blonde bombshell strikes out at my binding and starts to take off with it .. Thank God he just ran under the dresser and NOT out of the room .. I’m like “PIXEL!! you BRAT .. let that go you bad cat!” .. trying to speak in such a way he would listen, but not wake the whole bloody house up .. wishful thinking .. i woke up the dog and shadow decided to come and see what all the ruckus was about .. so I’m trying to get the dog out of here who’s wagging her tail thinking this is all great fun (!), rescue my binding from under a dresser held hostage by a very tenacious 10lb cat, and shoo off Shadow who is trying to get under the dresser with Pix all while being buried under 20lbs of quilt that is still attached to the sewing machine .. Blasted Cat! I did manage to recover my binding and got it on with minimal harassment by he natives. Only had to chase it about 2 more times **bloodycat!!**

It’s all trimmed and ready and waiting for me to do the binding now. Shouldn’t take to long .. but not going to do it tonite, I still have my headache and I just want to curl up with my book then fall asleep

I left this picture larger, so you should be able to click on it to see more detail with the quilting that I did .. altho you aren’t likely to see the sport motifs :S

Want to know when I post? Subscribe to updates.

Reg’s Quilt is almost done!

Well Reg’s quilt is almost totally quilted. I’ve done almost all of the top; criss-crossed through the squares, 3 lines per section; and put in football, baseball and basketball equipment quilt motifs in the ‘blank’ spaces. Here’s a shot of the back of the quilt, I ruffled it a bit so you could get more of an idea of with the shadows for the overall quilting patterns.

I’m not sure if you remember but when I did the logos for this quilt, I had an inspiration that made doing them a whole lot easier. I created outlines of the images, converted it to black and white then printed it on paper. I used my sullivan’s to tack the paper onto the quilt for stability while zigzagging (for the logos, not the motifs) and that gave me the idea for EASY quilt marking without marking my quilt! Again I created the outlines, printed it out, and tacked it on .. then I freemotioned and put the motifs in the blank spaces.

It went VERY quickly, no shifting of my pattern and since i just did a light mist, no residual stickiness. Worked like a charm.

For the borders, i’m thinking of diamonds .. but that’s not what they are called, it will be a rectangle with a triangle on top and bottom of rectangle. Then I put the binding on and voila! time to hand sew it on, wash it and reg can have his quilt 😀

I decided to try my 15-91 for the quilting – the feed dogs seem to want to sleep on the odd occassion and the quilt stopped moving (!), but I was ready for it after a few times and it went well .. Freemotion quilting on this machine is a DREAM .. not once did my thread break!! It was great!! Since i didn’t have a cover plate for the feed dogs nor can I lower them, I used a mccain pizza box to cover the dogs .. worked like a charm!!

This gives me all the confidence I need for the freemotioning that I am thinking about for my kitty quilt .. I’ll be getting back to that one soon .. but first swap blocks, and kyle’s quilt :S .. poor kid, his isn’t even basted yet!

Want to know when I post? Subscribe to updates.