Some more of my older quilts.

There just hasn't been much time to do any sewing this week so I thought I would post a couple of my old quilts today.

These two quilts I made for my granddaughter Grace.  She is now six and in the first grade.

Angels For Grace

This quilt I call Angels for Grace.  The pattern came from the book Comfort and Joy by Mary Hickey. The book is full of Christmas patterns but I changed all that to make it a baby quilt.  The original patterns has boy angels too, and is done in blues and reds.  The border on mine is one that I added and is not original to the pattern.  This is one of my first applique projects and actually one of my last too.  I had a lot of fun making it but not enough fun to make applique a priority for me.

Bugs in a Snowball

The second baby quilt I made for Grace was all about the fabric.  I found this bug fabric and just had to have it.  The snowball block worked out great for trying to fussy cut the bugs.  I didn't use a pattern for this.  It's just 4 or 4 1/2" snowball blocks and a couple of borders. It just occured to me that both quilts are purple.  (My favorite color.)  It didn't help influence Grace though.  Her favorite color is pink.

Grace Kaye Ann

It wouldn't be a blog post about Grace's quilts without a picture of Grace.

Happy Thursday!

Julie

Alphabet Update

As of this morning I think I'm caught up on the alphabet blocks. As I'm writing this though I think maybe I should have looked at the Temecula Quilt Company site before I made that statement. 

Before I make too many more blocks I'm going to have to do yet more rearranging on my design wall.  I want to keep all of the blocks up so that I can see the placement of fabrics.  So far I haven't duplicated any of the reds and I'm not planning to.  The checkered fabrics will have to have duplicates.  I did however, find the red checkered fabric when I was pulling fabrics out of my stash the other day.  It is a very small piece and might make one more block.

Here's a huge GOOD LUCK to the Kansas City Royals.  I'm not much of a baseball fan but I have enjoyed watching the playoff games.  I'll miss most of the game tonight but that's what high light reels are for.

Happy Tuesday.  

Julie

Cat Quilt

I've got one for the finish column.  The cat quilt is finally done.  This pattern is from Quiltmaker Magazine.  It was published in one of their regular editions in 2012 and then republished in a magazine that has all of the animal quilt designs in it. 

This quilt was started in November of 2012.  It was originally started as a baby quilt for my great-niece Laurel. She was finally given the quilt on Saturday for her second birthday.   I had just finished the binding Saturday morning. That was what I took to work on for our Sit and Sew day.  It was a little strange not lugging my sewing machine with me but as it turned out the binding on this was all I actually finished.  I did get the majority of the binding finished on another quilt too. It just has one or two more feet of binding to be officially done also.  And no - I'm not that fast at binding.  Both quilts had already had the binding started before Saturday. The quilt in the background I can't take credit for. (Wish I could.)  That is a quilt my sister Cathy is working on. What she has done so far is gorgeous. I can't wait to see it finished.

Here is a close up of the meander flowers I put in the border.  Quiltmaker had put in meander cat tracks. Pretty much the same thing with only four "toes" on one side of the center.  Since this was my first try at making that pattern I thought it would be safer to go ahead and make mine flowers instead. I didn't want to have to explain that it was supposed to be cat tracks.  Anyway, the quilting turned out great.  I'm ready to try that flower pattern again on a larger quilt.  I used a variegated orange thread for the body of the cat and a light green for the rest of the quilt.  The thread on the back is white.

Have a great Monday!

Julie

Playing with fabric.

This morning I took a little time to start trying to figure out what colors I want to use on the new Bonnie Hunter mystery.  She is using practically the same colors I used on the last mystery.  So I don't want to use those again.  I never did take a picture of the whole top but here is a link to the last picture I took of my quilt.  It is green, pink, purple and yellow.  The only difference is that she is using blue instead of purple.

So these are what I have laid out so far.

These are a much more traditional grouping of fabric.  And if you biggie size the picture you'll see why I say they are more traditional.  Most of the blues and the pink fabrics are some that I got in my $5.00 bag.  At this point I am planning to use the gray where she is saying that the yellow will be the only constant.  I did finally figure out that when she said it was a constant that she is only using one piece of yellow and not scrappy.  So I'll need to find a large enough piece of gray that I like to use in my top.  She doesn't plan to post the first step until late November so I have a lot of time to pick up the rest of what I want.

It seems that since I am not currently working on anything that really floats my boat I'm spending a lot of time wasting time.  If that makes any sense.

I do have a baby quilt I started two years ago almost finished.  Two more sides of tacking down the binding and it will be in the done pile.  It will be a gift for a two year old now.  So I'll post some pictures after it is officially given away. 

Have a great weekend.

Julie

This and That

Another busy weekend, but I was able to fit in some sewing.

Saturday morning I worked on my alphabet quilts. And then Sunday they posted the letter "K".  I'll save it for next weekend.  I made the broken dishes block for each of them.  But I'm not really sure that I like the ones I made for either.  The purple may be a little too dark. And the blue may not be what I end up with on the red/white quilt.  We'll see.

I needed to "clean up" my sewing wall so I could fit all of the alphabet blocks on there.  And in order to do that I ended up finishing up these blocks I had started a few months ago.  These were for a leader/ender quilt that Bonnie Hunter got me started on but after I made a few of them I realized they weren't what I wanted so I stopped working on them while they were in different stages of blocks.  I finished up nine of the blocks and I have another 15 or so done.  They are now in my orphan block tote and may make it in to a quilt some day.  Just not a quilt of their own as I don't plan to make any more.  I must really want to get a red/white quilt done.  I seem to be making a lot of blocks using those colors.

Another project I had started were the blocks for the Marcus Friends and Companions Sew-A-Long quilt. This block didn't make the cut.  I tried using navy with the other fabrics and it just didn't work.  So I changed that to red.

This is what I have so far.  It still needs a narrow yellow inner border and then a red outer border.  I love, love, love the yellow setting blocks.  I really stewed over that one.  They were using black and I had only started with a fat quarter of that so I ended up with the yellow and I'm glad I did. The yellow, blueish, and gray fabrics came from my $5.00 bag of fabrics I got a couple of weeks ago.  I will have to do some heavy quilting on this.  For some reason (quilter error) it won't lay flat and right now I'm not going to take it apart and make any changes.

Have a quilty day.  It's raining here in Topeka.  A perfect day to be sewing if it weren't for that pesky thing called work.

Julie

Letters "F" and "G"

Yep, that's what I've got to show for a weeks worth of sewing - four letters. 

Love, love, love the checkered fabrics.

Well, I have been making some blocks for a Marcus Fabrics sew-a-long but I haven't taken any pictures.  I have three blocks done and they are revealing the finished quilt tomorrow.  I don't think I'm going to be ready for the setting directions quite yet.

I think what inspired me to start the Marcus sew-a-long was my $5.00 bag of fabric.  That piece of yellow that can be seen in the picture is one of the fabrics I'm using.  There is also a blue just under that yellow piece that I'm using.  It's just too much fun to have new fabric and not play with it.  

My goal this weekend is to find my old sewing machine that is packed away in the garage somewhere.  The last time I saw it the cord wasn't with it.  Who in their right mind would pack a  sewing machine and not put the cord in the same tote????  ME !!!!  I may never find that cord but I do plan to find the machine.  Cords can be replaced.  And maybe, just maybe, my garage will get another hour or two of cleaning while I'm at it. 

Have a great day!

Julie