4th of July pillows

I had a few blocks left over from my English paper piecing quilt. I have had them sitting on my table for a few weeks. Every time I see them I think about ways that I can use them. I have seen many different pieced pillows online when I have goggled English Paper Piecing.

So I decided to attach the blocks to a white background, added borders and sewed them to a back. As I was sewing the front I was realizing what a great quilt it would make with just the front of these pillows sewed together as blocks. I may need to do that with some fabric in the future.

After deciding to do pillows I realized I would need pillow forms. ya, they are not the cheapest things in the world. I got them on sale which was nice. However, that is when I realized that I was going to make sham and be able to change out the pillow covers along with my other seasonal decorations. It is a great use of small pieces of fabric that I don't know what to do with and don't want to store. So here they are. (The small one in the front is just stuffed an permanent.)Here is the back.Hope that you enjoyed!

4th of July Stripes, Stars and Stiples

Well, while I have not posted in a good week or so, it does not mean that I have not been working on finishing projects. When it got to be July and I didn't have anything to put up as decorations I decided that this was the summer to do something about it. I have been collecting 4th of July fabric for almost 5 years now and I have quite the little stash. I was hoping that by working on all these projects i might reduce my stash....and sadly, the small quilts that I have been making require almost no fabric and so my stash still feels about the same size. However, I love love love what I now have.

So, as a side note, I know that none of my projects really match together, but I really like that. I really like that everyone of them is varying shades, hues and colors. They all tie together because of their theme, but I don't have too many of the same thing.

All of these projects, except the first one, I made from scratch with no pattern to follow. Certainly they are not hard to figure out and you will see that on the last two, but they were fun regardless. I decided that I would post pictures in order of my work and a final picture of their resting place. Unfortuately I can't show you the whole picture because my favorite picture of George Washington kneeling down next to a horse praying, fell off the ledge the other day and I still need to replace the frame. Russ felt really bad when he knocked it over, but it happens. It was an accident.

So, here is the count down. I think I will start with my most recent and go to my very first, which I have posted before.

1. The table runner. I cut my fabric in 13in wide sections and then cut them at various points to make varying sized strips. As I was cutting the strips I had my calculator out and just added up the widths until I got to 59inches, the length of my piano table runners. I sewed them together, added a few white stars for a cute applique, quilted it and bound it. Yep, super easy and only a couple hours of work. Here are a couple pictures to show the finished product and finished resting place.2. This is my 4th of July coin quilt. I simply decided on a size for each one of my coins (6 inches by 4 inches) and sewed them together. Then I measured the length of the rows, cut white stripes equal widths to go between the rows and on the top and bottom. I love the bright reds and blues in this quilt. I looked at a lot of finished coin quilts online before I decided that I was just going to quilt it with stiples in the colored sections and leave the rest just plain. It took me a long time to decide whether I wanted to do a border quilting in the white, but I decided against it. I guess I can always go add that later if I want and redo the binding. Maybe next year...hm.3. Here are the rest in their final resting spot. I have my quilting ladder that Russ made me in the corner behind his recliner so Madalynn can't play with it. We live in a basement right now where they left the edge of the concrete foundation as a ledge in the rooms. It is great. I don't have to hang any of my picture up and can move them wherever I want to in the room. So, it is a great place to place my little quilts. Behind the picture is my flag, below it is my connecting threads kit wall hanging I made a couple years ago. Then I had to place my most intricate on on the top of the ladder...it was only fitting. And then below my coins quilt, you can see my levi quilt. I had it sitting on the couch arm, but Madalynn started throwing it all over and I decided to leave it on the ladder this year and teach her not to play with it next year.So, there we are for this year. I have to admit I have one more project to add to the bunch before I put it all away in August, but it is not a quilt. I still had some blocks left from the English paper piecing project and I am going to sew them together and make a small pillow with them. I think that will be a great addition to my other decorations and the most common use of English paper piecing I have seen out there.

Hope that you enjoyed. Wait until my next post. I can't believe how my current purple quilt is turning out. Ah....

Stars and levi's and the sensation of being done

So each time I have moved in the last year I have determined that I would finish those UFO's that I created at the last home or the previous homes. Last August I made this quilt and posted picture of the unfinished top. I made it on a weekend away at my in-laws cabin. I used used-levi's, some plaid fabric I had in a bag and white fabric for the applique stars.
For a pattern..hm.. I just sort of made it up as I went along. I had the fabric, I created an idea and went with it. I am sure that I got some inspiration somewhere for the appliqued stars and put it in the recesses of my brain. It took me forever to finish this quilt because of those stars. I kept wanting to get it done, but I was either out of white fabric, didn't want to take the time to find the right star shape, or didn't want to take the time that it takes to stitch on the applique.Well, I sort of cheated, but not really. I didn't want to do a blanket stitch or a zigzag stitch on the edge of the stars. I decided just to do a basic outline in the middle of the star and leave the edges exposed. Raw edge applique is pretty common these days and I really think that it will add character to the quilt as the edges fray.
Now for the biggest part of this quilt...it is the biggest quilt that I have quilted on my own machine. I was terrified!!!! Not only was it big, but levi is incredibly heavy and very hard to handle because of the weight. I broke a few needles, got mad at the thread when the quilt would slip and the thread would brake. But, it got done. It is not the most perfect quilting job by any means, but I think for a first time on such a large project it is pretty decent. I knew that it would take a while because of the size, bulk and heaviness, but it took me almost 5-6 hours to quilt it. It was worth it to save money from having a longarm quilter do it, but it is time consuming.

So, I had to post of picture of me actually quilting it. It is a big moment in my quilting experiences and thus needed to have a picture moment. (I think that Russ thought I was weird when I asked him to take a picture.)
Here is a close up of some of the stars and how I quilted around them.
After starting I realized that I probably would have liked it a little better if the thread color had been a little bit darker. I can't really see too much of the quilting on the front unless I look close, so I took a picture of the back to show you what it looks like. Because of the fluffiness of the fleece the pattern shows up well.For the binding I decided to use some levi fabric. I cut up a pair of my brothers old pants and used the back of the pant legs. I thought that for sure it would not be enough fabric, but wow!!! men's levi's have A LOT of fabric. I probably made enough binding for two of these quilts and I only cut 6 strips out of the pants. (And my brother is not terribly tall either). The biggest problem with sewing on the binding was the thickness of the backing.
I decided that I wanted to have fleece on the back side of this quilt. I thought that after I pull it down as a July decoration in my family room I would put it as a quilt that could be used to watch a movie. So, I wanted something soft and warm. Little did I know that the fleece would be terribly thick to sew a binding onto. Between the weight of the levi and the thickness of the fleece, it was all I could do to keep the quilt in my hands as I worked. My hands were totally cramped up when I was finished sewing on the binding.

Well, hope that you enjoyed.

4th of July excitement--finished

Well not a day too early I finished this quilt. Two 4th of July quilts down and one to go before Mon. It won't happen of course but I will at least finish the other quilt to put up for the month of July. So, if you remember my previous post I had pieces together my tumbling blocks. The whole middle section is done by English paper piecing. I whip stitched it onto the dark blue backing and then added a 3 inch border. Here is the finished product. I love love love it! I think that is the best part of any project is liking it yourself. (Oh and by the way the blue and red socks was completely unplanned in the picture.)Madalynn was posing by the quilt and I had to add a picture.
So here is the backing. I just chose some patriotic fabric I had in my stash. When I went in to show Russ the finished quilt he said nicely that he liked it and then he saw the back. He said wow! and then, "that is really loud fabric. I don't think that it really matches." And then he said, "that is not dress fabric." He was worried that I would make a dress out of the fabric for Madalynn. Of course not I told him. It is loud. I used this fabric for the blocks on the front and it works in small sections. It is fabric like this, that i like, that is truly the reason that I chose to do English paper piecing. Can you imagine much of this print in a full quilt? It really is loud, but I had tons of it in my stash and I think that it makes a great backing fabric.Well, I hope that you enjoyed.

The internal debate

As a crafter I think that often times people start projects and don't finish a project before they move onto other projects. Sometimes I don't finish because I simply loose interest, sometimes I don't have all the supplies to finish and need to get to the store, and sometimes I just don't know exactly how I want to finish it.

The last few weeks while I have had quite a bit of home-time I have found the extra time and energy to finish bunches of projects. I am determined to finish two more before I move onto my new projects and I am simply stuck. I am in one of those stages of not knowing exactly what I want to do with a project. I am working really hard to decide. Remember this quilt?I finally cut out some stars to applique in various places through the quilt, I just can't decide how to place them, because I can't decide whether I want to try and quilt it on my sewing machine or just tie it. I really want to decide this today or tomorrow night because Russ is out of town and if I am going to tie it right now would be the perfect time to set up my frame to tie it. Russ doesn't mind if I set projects up in the house, but he doesn't like them up too long. Since this is my last free week until August I would need to finish it this weekend or not work on it until August.

With the stars, I have not ironed these on so I can move them. If I tie it I will put them in close sections all over. If I quilt it I want to have space to sew a couple stars around the individual stars for some added dimension. Therefore, the stars would not be so close together. Or the last idea that I have for quilting around the stars is to only quilt star shapes around the circumference of a larger area of stars and not around each individual star. I don't know if that makes sense...but it does to me.

What does you think? If I tie it, I will be using dark navy yarn (in fact the same yarn I used on the levi quilt I posted a couple weeks ago.) Should I quilt it? Ah....the decisions. The idea of how to make it came together so much better than the finishing the project, but I MUST finish. This is my goal.

Hope that you enjoyed.

The vote--4th of July quilt

So, Russ rarely has an opinion on my craft projects. When I ask for his opinion he just says that he had none. Well, he does on this project and so I am going to ask my friends and family what they think. I have made the following Rag Flag Quilt. There are only 42 blue squares and so I could not make 50 stars if I wanted. I think that the flag looks fine with every other square having a star. It is a small quilt and I think that it would look too crowded with too many stars, however, Russ thinks that every square needs a star. So here it is with only half of the stars and you can imagine what it would look like with all stars I think. So, what do you think? All stars or half stars.

my work project- 4th of July excitement

This is my work in progress. I have the best morning job ever. I play the piano for ballet classes. However, there can be a lot of down time between pieces that I play. The teacher sometimes spends quite a bit of time making corrections to the dancers or explaining what they would like them to do. So, in Jan this year I started researching hand sewing projects. I can't do anything like crochet or knitting at work because I have to drop my work at a seconds notice to start playing the piece and cross stitch was also out because of the time it takes me to count the stitches and try to recall where I was each time I pick up my work. I got a quilting DVD in the mail as a promo and it had a section on English Paper Piecing. It could not have been more perfect. Something small, that I could pick up and throw away in a small second and still get something done. I cut out the paper pieces on my Cricut machine and got started. I am in love with 4th of July or patriotic fabric and have been looking for a quilt pattern for a few years that I really liked. I liked the tumbling blocks. I meant for the bottoms to all be dark blue and for the red on the top of each block to be bright and pop, but like how it turned out. I like that I can have lots of busy patterns and it looks ok. I am going to finish the top with a 2 inch blue border around this section and a 4 inch bright red border on the very outside. I mostly make small quilts like this that are easy to display on the quilt ladder in my family room and on the wall. My mother suggested that I add some dark blue button on random places on the quilt. I am still debating that. I do really like the idea, but I don't want it to be too busy.

For those that don't know..each fabric was basted to a piece of paper. I then made each of the three part blocks. After the blocks were finished I sewed them all together. Yes it is a lot of hand work, but like I said, I had a lot of down time at work this spring. I started this segment in March and finished this much before school let out 3rd week in April (I did spend an 8 hour drive working on it third week in April, but really most of the work happened before that.)

The tool that I learned I cannot live without on this project is: THREAD WAX!! Oh my goodness. Why did I never learn about this before!!! The thread no longer gets in knots or gets all jumbled up. It is a serious necessity for working with a thread and needle. I bought some at JoAnn's for like $2.50. They sell beeswax. I also finally finally finally learned how to make a knot on the end of my thread very quickly. I would watch my mom do that when I was younger and could never get it. The wax on the thread made it easier for the thread to roll off the tip of my finger and therefore, I was able to finally knot thread with one hand. Ah.....sigh. It was really a great learning project.

Stay tuned. Russ is fixing the broken shelf in madalynn's room and then I am posting the final finished pictures of her room. It only took a year to finish the last couple things, but I am so excited every time that I walk into her room and see the area that I decorated. It makes me soooooo happy.

Mini Wall Quilts

I love cutting and piecing fabric together. I know that most people don't...but there is something really exciting about it to me. I love the different fabrics coming together and how they all turn out in the end. However, making large quilts is expensive...and where do you put a lot of quilts? I decided that I would make a mini-quilt for each one of the months of the year. That way I could make a quilt for each of the seasons and holidays. I could learn how to machine quilt on my own machine with small quilts and I could have something that I can change out on the wall that isn't too large. Well, I have finished the following mini-quilts. I am really excited about it.

This is a mini-quilt from Crazy Old Ladies patterns. It is one of their seasonal skinnies. Very easy and quick to make. Requires a lot less material than the pattern calls for.
The following is my wall hanging for spring. I got this as a kit from Connecting Threads. I like a lot of their fabrics and their kits. I bought tons of their thread to work on each of my projects and I really like it. Their thread is wonderful.
This is also a kit from Connecting Threads. I have been looking for a 4th of July wall hanging. I really like this one, but I eventually want to make one with bright reds and blues.
This is a pattern from a couple years ago. Sandy Gervais who creates fabric lines for moda fabrics created this line. I love almost all of her fabrics. They just speak to me. I love this Halloween wall hanging. I found the following link to the pattern...it was made from a line called Pumpkins Gone Wild...and I think that the pattern was called Crazy Jack.
This is my Christmas wall hanging...it will match the Christmas quilt and I am going to get quilted for this Christmas. I am really excited that I am finally going to finish it. I still need to take pictures and post the Christmas quilt I made for my mom last year.
Many posts ago, I took pictures of the progress of this welcome sign. It is now finished. It took a very long time to stitch around all the applique on the entire thing. I used threads that would match the edges and make them all blend in. I used a blanket stitch around each part and I think that it turned out well.
This is not the best picture of the stitching. However, it does show the work that I put into it. I really like how it turned out.
I am working on the following projects that I started at the cabin last week. This first one my mom really liked when we went to the Quilting Store at Gardner Village. I don't particularly care for bow-tie patterns, but I really like how this one turned out. I really think that the top turned out really well. Now I just need to put the back on, the final stitching on the top and the backing and binding.
This is the new quilt that I am making to put in our living room for using while watching TV and movies. I still want to applique a few white stars onto it. I am going to tie this quilt. I think that it is going to turn out nice.
Russ made me the following quilt ladder last summer to put my quilts on as I made them. In the next couple weeks I am going to have my first quilt on there, my fall quilt. I am really excited. I just finished the backing and am going to take it to a long-arm quilter this week.
This is the decorative edge that he put on it. I love it
Well, there is the progress that I made before I made my daughter's quilt for her crib. I am very proud to say that I finished all of these and that they are no longer just tops. Check back soon as I am going to finish my next project in the next couple days.

New Patterns

Well, so much for not spending anything. I got my connecting threads catalog out of the mail yesterday. I have been wanting to make some wall hangings for every month and season, and well, they had one for spring and the fourth of july. Those are two that I have been looking for something cute. I also needed to order some 505. This is great stuff. I learned about it from one of my piano students. It is a spray that helps baste your layers together when you are quilting on your own machine. I am sooooo excited to try it.

Here is what I am going to make for the spring.

And here is what I am going to make for the Fourth of July. It is sooooooo cute. So, I also finished a couple projects that I have posted in the past. I am going to take some pictures and hopefully when I get home from work tonight i will be able to post them. One of them in the pink and brown box front that I made back in Dec. for a Christmas present. I am going to sew on the buttons today while I am working. And then a couple new baby blankets for my etsy shop. I am so excited. Hope that you enjoy!

4th of July table runner

Oh this is so cute. I am going to have to make this will all the fourth of july fabric that I have been collecting. I found it on fabric.com.