Progress

 

I have been working on a couple of projects.  First is the hexagons for the baby quilt.  They are 4" x 4.5" hexagons so I can piece them on the sewing machine.  Definately fiddly and time consuming - but so much faster than hand piecing!

 

 

Piecing the hexagons together.

 

 

Pressing all of those seam allowances - not fun.

 

 

 

 

I got a backing all pieced for the x plus quilt.  As you can see I ended up putting together some scraps used on the front, filled in with some Lilly belle from Bari J (I love this fabric), and finished it out with some solid gray fabric between the pieced areas.

 

Then I got it all layered last week when Kelly was here to help.  I always spray baste when I am going to machine quilt.  It is soooo much faster than pin basting.  I think we had this all together in about 20 min.

 

Quilt all together and ready to quilt.

 

I started quilting along the straight seams of the pluses with my walking foot, 1/4" from the seam.

 

 

This is how it looked after quilting all of the straight lines of the pluses.

 

 

Then I decided to free motion quilt a swirl design in the diagonals of the x's.  It is fairly time consuming, so I have about 6 blocks done so far. 

 

Hopefully I can get more of the free motion done this week :>)

 

Looking forward to May, and hopefully some nice weather.  April here in Indiana was a cold, gray, rainy month, much more so than usual.  In fact, we had 8.59" of rain this April and the most rain ever recorded in the month of April was in 1893 - 8.60" of rain.  So we were 1 tenth off from the record wettest April.  Well, I'm happy to leave this wet month and get to some warmer weather!  Of course once the weather gets nicer I won't want to be inside working on quilts. :>)

 

Hope you have a great week, thanks for stopping by.

 

 

 

 

Really Random Rainy Thursday

It' been a really rainy, stormy day all day here.  So thought I would get a blogpost written and link up to http://aroundtheblockdesigns.blogspot.com/

Really Random Thursday.

 

 

 

This is our Granddaughter Cora tentatively trying out her new scooter.  Papaw is helping her keep balance...  she got the hang of it and thought it was pretty fun on our flat driveway.  She has on the cutest dress and pants  - the pants have a large ruffle around the bottom that is completely covering her shoes.

I have been making more maternity outfits for Kelly.  This is a dress that I made from a length of rayon challis from JoAnns for the skirt and a purchased tank (from Penny's) for the top.  We had seen a similar dress in the Anthropology catalog for over $200.00.  Our version less than $20.00!!

 

 

I gathered the rayon onto the knit top allowing a bit of a curve in front to go over her baby tummy.  I then added elastic along the seam to keep it snug to her body, but yet allow for her to get in and out of it.  You can see my X Plus quilt in the background.  I have the top and backing all pieced and am ready to baste it for quilting.  I like to spray baste, so I am waiting till Kelly can come help me as it is so much easier with 2 people.

 

I live in Indiana and last week was the Vera Bradley outlet sale in Fort Wayne.  Is is about 2 hours from where I live so a friend and I did a day long road trip to the sale.  We had so much fun.  Started early went to a quilt shop in Roanoke IN on the way to Fort Wayne.  Unfortunately I forgot to take some pics, but they had a great selection of fabrics.  Then we went to lunch and then on to the sale.  We were pleasantly surprised that we didn't have to wait in line - usually there is a wait to get in.   This is a pic of the sale above, - we are talking about a football field sized coliseum with 15 rows of tables the entire length of the floor stacked up with Vera Bradley - tote bags, purses, wallets, duffles, bookbags, lunchbags, cosmetic bags, wristlets, blankets, notepads..... yes, anything and everything Vera Bradley they have at 50 - 70% off. 

 

 

We shopped for 3 hours or so, I got a weekender bag to replace an old one I have been using for 5 years and loved.  Also got a purse for me and a purse for a friend and a backpack for my youngest daughter's upcoming birthday.  They give you large pink garbage bags as you enter the sale to haul around what you want to buy.  Most people grab inventory they are interested in and put it in their bag and then eventually go through the bag and eliminate what they don't want.  As you can imagine with thousands of (mostly) women what a madhouse it is.  Anyway, I ended up with very sore arms and shoulders from hauling my bag of goodies around the show.  Could hardly pick up anything the next day :>) 

 

 

 

After the VB outlet sale my friend mentioned she knew of this amazing chocolate shop, DeBrands, that was right on our way out of town.  So we stopped and had the most amazing turtle sundae I think I have ever had!!

 

This is a peek at the beginnings of a baby quilt for Kelly and Doug's baby.  No we don't know if it's a girl or not so I am making a girl and a boy quilt and will keep whichever isn't needed for a gift for a future baby.   Originally this was going to be squares but then I got the "great" idea to cut out hexagons.  These were cut on my Accuquilt Go cutter so it's not too labor intensive.  And they are 4" x 5" so they are large enough I can piece them on the machine.

 

 

 Thanks for stopping by, hope you enjoyed my radomness!

Fun with X Plus

Just an update on the X plus quilt.  I have been working on it for the last few weeks and really having fun with it.  This is one of the blocks - love the pearl bracelet print. 

Here is a pic of 9 blocks pieced.  As you can see having fun playing with LOTS of fabrics.  Started out using scraps from this quilt below.

 

 

But after just a few blocks I was raiding my stash and coming up with lots more fabrics. 

And here it is almost all 36 blocks.  I was debating on what size to make the quilt.  The block finishes at 10" and this was at 6 blocks by 6 blocks.  But I ended up deciding to add 6 more blocks to make the quilt rectangular so it should end up around 60" x 70".  I love all the fun prints and color of this quilt. 

I was going to try to get the blocks pieced tonight, but not sure that will happen.  Lots of storms, which makes it difficult for me to get to studio which is in an outbuilding. 

 

So check back hopefully I can get it together and ready to quilt by next week. 

 

Linking up with WIP wednesday with http://www.freshlypieced.com/2013/04/wip-wednesday.html

Stashing and Scrapping

Aren't these fabrics so cute?  Pearl Bracelet from Lizzy House, ordered from Sew Mama Sew.  I love these and decided to add to my stash - thinking of course of possible use in a baby quilt.  From the top are Essex yarn dyed in Flax, Crosshatch from Architextures in peach,  pearl bracelet in Persimmon, Watermelon, Peach, Ice skate, Glacier, Citron and Verbena. 

 We have had yet another snow storm - hit on Palm Sunday, and snowed a little all day Monday too,  8" of heavy wet snow.  So tired of the cold and snow and ready for Spring.  I'm thinking the Easter Bunny may need his Snowshoes :>)

Since my studio is in an outbuilding rather than in my house, this meant I had to once again dig out the snow boots and heavy coat to get over to sew. 

 

 

I had been blog surfing the other day and ran across this X Plus quilt.  It was big back in 2011, but somehow I missed it then. Badskirt Amy had a tutorial to make it,   I fell in love with the design and decided to try piecing a few blocks - Ha!  It is addictive.  And you think you are going to use up scraps , but uh, no, not so much. 

I started out doing pretty well with using scraps but then started cutting pieces to go with scraps... but I LOVE how the design is so interesting with the grid and the X's.

I have 12 blocks pieced now and am loving all the fun scrappiness (sorry for the bad photo).  Hope to get more done today. 

Thanks for stopping by, stop back to check on the progress of the X Plus.

Ethan's Quilt

I finished this quilt in a rush right before Christmas and realized that I need to post pictures of Ethan's I Spy quilt.  I had made a small baby quilt for Ethan when he was born.  But now he is 4 and has been sleeping in a big boy bed so he needed a bigger quilt. 

This quilt began with lots of super cute fabrics.  All kinds of fun "boy" things included.  Ethan's room is blue, so the fabrics focused on blues with lots of red and yellows and a few greens added.

This is a close-up showing the quilting.  I used a walking foot and straight line quilting 1/4" on either side of the ditch between the squares.  I have enjoyed reading the http://www.redpepperquilts.com/  blog for a long time.  Rita, of Red Pepper Quilts does a lot of quilts with squares and uses this quilting technique with stitching on either side of the seam lines and I really like the look of it.   So I decided to use this technique on Ethan's quilt.  It also kept it so the fabrics/prints are the most important thing, rather than the quilting being too busy.

Ethan's baby quilt had minky on the back, and he loved it.  So it was a no brainer that the I Spy quilt have minky on the back.  I was a bit concerned because the minky is so slippery, and can get wrinkles in it.  The quilt is 62" x 74".  So it was very large too.  I ended up pinning the minky to the carpet with straight pins, nice and smooth.  I then sprayed it with the June Tailor basting spray (from Joanns) carefully layed the batting on the back smoothing it out, and then spray basting the batting and laying the pieced top on it and smoothed it all out.  It was completely stuck together - no pins whatsoever!  I quilted the entire quilt on my Juki and the quilt stayed together throughout the entire quilting process - and there were no wrinkles or puckers on the back. 

 I was on a tight timeline to get the quilt done before the grandkids were coming for Christmas.  I had worked hard to get all the cleaning and grocery shopping done before some bad weather hit, so that I could work on the quilting during the storm (2 days before our family Christmas).  The storm hit, ice, snow and high winds, and I got to my studio, got bobbins all wound, everything set up and ready and started stitching, and quilted for 15 min. or so when all of a sudden the machine stopped - the electricity had gone out!  I was so upset and frustrated.  Just had to wait till power came back on.  It did finally come back on a few hours later,  and I got right back to the quilting and got it all done in time before the grandkids got here :>)

Ethan, loved the quilt, and even brings it with him when he comes to Grammy's house.  It's really fun to look at all of the fabrics, some of Ethan's favorite super heros, construction vehicles, bugs and animals... 

Thanks for stopping by, hope you enjoyed seeing Ethan's quilt.  I have been finishing a lot of quilts in the past few months (It's been a long winter), so I plan to show more quilts in the upcoming weeks.  So please stop back.

Oh Baby

 

 

I can't believe how long it's been since my last post.  Been busy around here with our latest project.  My middle daughter (the one that got married last Oct.) is now pregnant!  We are all so excited!  They just had the 20 week ultrasound, and as you can see the baby is pretty cute :>)

Kelly is finally getting a bit of a baby tummy and was having a terrible time finding pants to fit.  So we did some remodeling of some old jeans she had.  I got some 2 -way stretch knit at Joanns and made a stretch panel, I cut off the old waistband, sewed the zipper shut and then sewed the stretch panel onto the top of the jeans.  They fit her perfectly and she is so excited because they are comfortable.

While I was at Joanns I found some shirting that was cute so I decided to make a maternity shirt for her.

This is how it turned out (I don't have the buttons on yet though).  I think it is so cute.  Unfortunately you can't get the full effect since my dress form doesn't have a baby bump :>)

This is the back of the shirt, I added darts.  Kelly thought a little shape to the back might help downplay her hips.  Kelly's husband Doug told her the other day he thought she was getting her "birthing hips".  Of course she is telling us this story and we are all looking at Doug, amazed Doug is still able to walk.  So now she is trying to hide the "birthing hips", just had to laugh at that one.

Detail of the pintucks on the front, they kind of blend in with the stripe in the fabric.  Overall, I am very happy with how the shirt came out.

 

 

 

BTW, have you seen these cute Denyse Schmidt fabrics at Joann's?  I ran across them at our Joann's the other day and had to get some for my stash.  I just love the dots on dots.  Wish they came in red though.

 

 

 

And just in case you thought I wasn't doing any quilting here is a sneak peek at what I've  been working on. 

 

 

 

And for those of you in the midwest, you will understand, this is what our driveway looked like one week ago.  Luckily it melted fairly quickly (within a few days), but it has been COLD all this week and was snowing a bit when I was out earlier.  I am so sick of winter and ready for spring. 

 

 

 

This is what my poor little daffodils look like.  I don't think they are going to make it to blooming by Easter.  So sad. 

 

I am linking up to Cindy at Live a Colorful Life, random thursday posts.  I have to say I am pretty jealous of those pics she has of the beautiful flowers.

 

Thanks for stopping by, hope you enjoy my random thoughts.

Sylvia

The Wedding Shrug

 

When my daughter got engaged in June, and as we were planning the wedding we were having one of the hottest summers on record. She picked out her "dream" dress with lace, and a beautiful strapless sweetheart neckline.   But the date of the wedding was October 20, I kept thinking that her beautiful strapless dress might be  a problem when the weather cooled down in October.  So I began researching and trying to find a pattern for a shrug that would have a beautiful lace design, and not cover up her beautiful dress.

I ended up putting together a pattern for stockings (Vogue magazine Spring/summer 2009) with a stockinette knit back, and then added a knitted lace edging at the sleeve and along the bottom of the back.  The yarn I used was Blue Skies Alpaca and Silk that I got at my LYS.  I was guessing that the color would work with the color of the dress (Ivory), as the dress didn't come in until late September.  Luckily, the color was perfect.  I also added pearl beads randomly throughout the knitted shrug to tie it in with her dress and the overall styling for the wedding.

 

It took a couple of restarts to get the sizing of the lace and sleeves right.  I was trying to make the shrug as a surprise for Kelly which meant I couldn't try it on her.  So it was mostly knitted by looking at some of her sweaters and crossing my fingers :>).  I ended up giving it to her 3 weeks or so before the wedding and did have to do some alterations to sleeve length, but otherwise it fit really well.  Whew!

 

 

Considering the temperatures ended up barely reaching 50 degrees that day, I think she was so glad to have the shrug.  And as you can see in the pictures it added some warmth for her arms and shoulders without covering up any of her dress.

 

 

 

And can I just say Kelly and Doug are so cute together.  The wedding ceremony was outdoors in a beautiful meadow surrounded by trees, and the reception was in a barn on the same property.  The wedding day was amazing.  And I have to thank the amazing photographers.  The first 3 pictures are by my friend Rissa, the rest of the photos are by Toni Price Photography.  Toni and Rissa did an amazing job.

 

And yes, we had quilts draped on some of the chairs in case guests were cold. 

 

Thanks for stopping by, Sylvia

 

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