A Quilt in a Day?!

I started and finished a quilt in one day, actually in less than 10 hours and that's started and finished a single quilt!  The fabric arrived in the mail around 1PM and I was throwing it in the washing machine around 10:30PM.  Now its just a baby quilt, measures about 33 X 40, but still, I'm pretty impressed with myself.

I cut all of the fabric and arranged the layout of the rows.

I chain pieced the rows and then added the sashing.

Pieced the backing and basted it all together.  Then, for the very first time, stippled the whole thing!  I love stippling, but haven't had the guts to try it out on a quilt so I just decided to dive in and do it.  I am so glad I did.  I think I did pretty good for my first time!




Sorry for the shadows, I was in a bit of a hurry and didn't even notice!

And voila!  A baby quilt for my nephew for Christmas!

This is one of Amy's quilt patterns over at Oh, Fransson!, it's this one.  Super easy and came together in a flash! ;)  Made from 38 charm squares and 5/8 of a yard of fabric for the sashing!

Thanks for stopping by!

Finally! Some Wedding Stars

So I finally felt like sewing yesterday!  Yay!  It's about time.  I'm gonna be pretty busy since we leave for Tennessee two weeks from today and I need to have this quilt done for the wedding gift.  Why oh why do I procrastinate so much?!  I always pay for it in the end...

So anyway, I'm making this quilt for my brother-in-law and future sister-in-law.  I knew I wanted to make them a quilt, but didn't know where to start knowing they are more traditional.  I decided I wanted to make them a large throw sized quilt for them to snuggle under on the couch together.  Their living room is decorated in an Americana theme so there were my colors and I wanted to keep with the theme by doing some kind of star pattern.  That's when I remembered seeing this Chubby Starts QAL over at Tracyjay Quilts.  Perfect!

I got all of this piecing done yesterday.  I've had everything cut since the middle of August and had six blocks done for the past month.  I finished three more blocks yesterday as well. 

Those chain pieces finish at an inch!   They are really hard to piece accurately, but oh well.  I like the way it is turning out and I know they will love it.  I'm calling it Wedding Stars! 

I need to get busy so back to sewing!

Sweat and Swoon

The weather has been beautiful, sunny with high 70's to low 80's and nights in the low 60's to high 50's!  So not August weather and I am very grateful. So with it being to nice out we have been busy outside. 

We have these evergreen bushes along the front and one side of the house with river rocks all around them and then just an empty bed of rocks along the opposite side of the house.  Ever since we bought the house four years ago I have wanted to get rid of it all and this week we finally decided to do it.  I'm excited that it is getting done, but I am SO tired!  The bushes in front of the house were small and were really quite easy to dig out, but the bushes on the side of the house were much bigger and much more difficult to deal with.  And the rocks...a LOT of shoveling!  So I've been pretty busy.

However, I did manage to get two Swoon blocks done!  Oh how I love this pattern!

So four down and 12 to go.  I only have enough fabric to make 4 more so I will need to do some shopping here soon.

Now I'm off to bed to sleep like a baby!

Martha's Quilt and a Birthday!

Martha's Quilt

32" x 38"

It's finished, my 3rd quilt finished in a month!  I went from none to three in no time.

The label turned out great thanks to Cindy and Ruth!  I embroidered the lettering on, then took the finished piece and sewed it right sides together with another piece of fabric and sewed around the edges.  I turned and pressed it and then ladder stitched it on the back through the batting.  Then went back and embroidered a line of chain stitches a quarter of an inch from the edge also down through the batting.

I did straight line quilting just off to one side of the seams.  I love how it mimics the diamond pattern. 

To be honest, I wanted to make an argyle quilt.  After seeing this pillow and then this quilt I have been in love with the idea, but when I got to the point of stitching the lines through the diamonds I chickened out.  I was worried my lines wouldn't be straight and it would look like crap.  So I just skipped it.  I am still very happy with the results!

It's all rolled up and tied with a bow just waiting to be delivered.  I can't wait!  I think the label makes it so much more special...is that just me?



The cat thinks that it is his new pillow.  He had his head on it until I walked over to take this picture...

On another note, today is my baby's birthday!  No, not my son.  My first baby, my boxer, Oliver.

I made this collage this morning with photos I already had on my laptop.  He was only 2 and 3 in these photos.  So I set out to take a current one of him.

I have to admit I teared up a bit when I uploaded this photo.  When I look at him I still see my 2yr old baby with out a single grey hair!  But anyway he's 8 today!  So I will be baking up a special birthday batch of dog treats today.  He will love them!

Happy Birthday Oliver!!

I need your opinion...

OK, first off, look at those freckles! 

Before this summer he didn't have a single one on his face, even last summer.  It's crazy!  He's just so stinkin' cute and then add those freckles...I just melt!

Alright ladies, I need your opinions, but be warned, I may do exactly the opposite of what you say (one of my many bad habits).

I've been working on this quilt for the past week for my newest niece, Martha.  I'm about halfway done with the quilting and I can't decide on which fabric to use for the binding.

So I have this brown with white polka dots and this white with pink polka dots.  I prefer the brown, but it's the same fabric I used for the back.  I realise the back is the back and the front is what you are really looking at, but I don't want it to be too boring.

I really like the look of the brown, I think it frames it well.

I like the pink and white, but I don't think it frames it as well and since it isn't used anywhere else in the quilt I don't think it blends as well.  I also don't really think the pinks go together.  I do really like it from the back, though.

I guess my hang up is the brown on brown for the back...

What do you all think?

Rainbow Charm Quilt

After finishing Katie's Quilt I am feeling very motivated to sew.  It's like I'm free to do whatever I want and that is making me want to work on current projects!  It's awesome.  I'm almost finished with my Rainbow Charm Quilt top.  It may not be as fast as some other ladies in this community whip out quilts, but I am pretty darn happy that in the past couple of weeks I have made a huge dent in the quilt.

Making the pinwheels was quite time consuming, there are a lot of seems to press.  Sew, press, sew, press...but once I got started it was hard to stop! 

Not the best photos...you can really tell they were taken at different times of day!

I'm am very happy with my progress and only have two more rows to sew together, then attach and then add a couple of borders and the top will be finished!  I have to wait 'til Friday when some fabric I purchased should arrive to do the boarders.

Like my makeshift design wall?!  I pinned my batting to the curtains!

In this photo only the first 4 rows are done, but since then I have completed all but the bottom right 2 rows.

I love the big pinwheel.  Originally I added it to make the layout work since I need 59 pinwheel blocks and only had 56.  I could have made 3 smaller blocks, but I thought one big one would be fun!  So now I had one extra block and I decided to leave out a red one since the red ones seem to stand out more to me.

When I started this quilt it was going to me mine.  After spending all of that time on Katie's quilt I wanted one that I could keep and admire and show off.  Well, I started to feel bad that I would have something to give Katie and not her sister, Kayce (even though I'm sure she figured it would be awhile before I had anything for her since it took me so long to finish Katie's).  So after going back and forth with myself I have decided to give this quilt to Kayce....so I will now be calling it Kayce's Quilt.

I was so excited to give Katie her quilt, but now I am waiting till this one is finished so I can give them to the girls at the same time.  So I have a week and a half, but plan on finishing this one up this weekend since it is killing me to wait to give Katie hers!!!

Well... I'm off the finish up the last 2 rows and square it up so it is all ready for boarders when the fabric arrives!

Little Sewing Going On...

There hasn't been a whole lot of sewing going on around her lately, but I finished a couple more blocks from my Wonky Rainbow Starflower quilt.

I pieced all of the triangles for three more blocks, but they are all still attached to the sewing machine waiting to have their seams pressed.

I've also worked a bit on my EPP Star quilt, but haven't made too much progress.

Christine

EPP Progress

I just started piecing the stars together by adding the background pieces.  I just love it when a project starts to come together and is no longer a bunch of pieces!

Christine

English Paper Piecing: Star Quilt

My first thought on English Paper Piecing (EPP):  "These ladies are crazy!  Why would you want to hand piece when you could just use a sewing machine!" 

But then I kept seeing all of the beautiful WIP and finished quilts and I started falling for them.  After reading this post I started considering the task and then one day when I was browsing through 60° Diamond EPP Quilt-Along Filckr Pool and came across a link for a photo of this quilt.  It was love at first site!  I am partial to yellow and stars so maybe that was the reason for the immediate infatuation, but non the less, I love the this quilt! 

At that point I know I had to at least try it, so I did.

It was much easier than I thought it would be and came together quite quickly.  I was hooked!  So I continued on...

And this is my progress so far...

EPP Star Quilt started- May 25th, 2011.

Estimated finish- ??? (hopefully before I die...)

Christine