Sewing Marathon

Last weekend I spent 12 hours sewing at my local quilt shop.  I feel that I accomplished my goals which were to finish the last of the hearts for Heart Crazies and to get the top for a jelly roll quilt done.
I finished 18 hearts, which have 15 seams per block, and took about 4 hours per set of nine blocks, with breaks to eat and chat.  

I also finished the top including the inner border for the jelly roll quilt and the outer borders are cut and ready to be added.

Moda Twirl Jelly Roll Quilt.  I used the black and white polka dots for the inner border and the black background with butterflies for the outer border.

All in all it was a very productive weekend, even given the time that I had to do the frog to unsew a few times on the one spot where the seams had to meet perfectly on the Heart Crazies top.

I am using the Buggy Barn Heart Crazies pattern.

Next up is to trim up all the blocks for the Heart Crazies and then figure out the layout so I can begin putting the blocks into rows.

Sad Loss

Karen Combs, a quilt teacher, had her rental car broken into in Texas and her teaching suitcase stolen.  It contained quilts from her Patchwork Illusions class and her teaching supplies.  Please read her post at Karen Comb's Blog. 
I have included a couple of the pictures from her blog, to see more please go to her blog, via the above link.

Please pass the word and if you live in Texas, especially the New Braunfels area keep an eye out for her beautiful quilts which are posted on her blog.  If you see one you can contact her at this email.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day

In honor of Saint Patrick's Day and National Quilting Day  here is an pieced shamrock for you all to enjoy.

Please for give the wrinkles, due to tearing apart my sewing room I cannot get to the iron at the moment.

The UFQ's and Other Things Hiding in my Sewing Room

Today I started going through my Unfinished Quilts or UFQs, though I should call them Unfinished Projects as I have a few that are not quilts. I also went through my kits, and Projects in Grocery Sacks or PIGS waiting to be started. I am listing thing under each category here to document them and to hold myself accountable.

This list is not necessarily complete as there may well be more hiding in my sewing room that I have not accounted for as yet, or that are in other places so I need to find them before adding them to the list, so this will be updated once I locate the others. To help you understand my abbreviations I have included a list of those also.

Abbreviations: 

• HA - Hand Appliqué 
• PP - Paper Pieced 
• MA - Machine Appliqué 
• HQ - Hand Quilting 
• MQ - Machine Quilting 

 UFQ's 

• Mouse Pad -HA 
• Hoffman Fabric Swap have sashing and border fabric
• Solstice Sizzler - PP 
• Celestial Wonders - PP 
• Kuspuk Kate and Parka Pete - MA 
• 15 Minute Swap Blocks 
• Heritage Sampler - HA 
• Bryce's Bunny 
• Homer Spit - MA 
• Hawaiian Quilt - HA 
• 50 States Block Swap x 2 
• Red, White/Cream, Blue Swap - moved to topville
• Table Runner 
• Clay's Stars - progress made, almost a top
• Hand Pieced Stars Blue and Yellow Friendship Stars 
• Cherry Quilt - HA 
• Space Attic Window's  moved to topville
• Butterfly Purse 
• Bryce's Lizard Quilt moved to topville
• Space Sea Purse - HQ 
• Daisy Days - HA 
• Needle Turn Flowers Appliqué - HA 
• Bargello from the Dark-side sent it out the door
  
• Chicken from the Dark-side 1 - HA 
• Chicken from the Dark-side 2 - HA Prep
• Amish Doll Dress 
• Black Bear and Dress 
• Trellis Garden - need to find the pattern to finish 
• Left-over Log Cabin Strips - what to do with?
• Happiness Key 
• The Apple Quilt
• Skier 
• Saturday Sampler moved to topville
• Snowboarder - HQ 
• Friendship Stars -progress made, blocks completed.
• Burgundy and Green Swap -progress made, blocks sashed. 

 BOM - Block of the Month 

• 1997 - 12 blocks not started 
• 1998 - Traditions, two sets, not started 
• 2000 - Visions in Blue 12 blocks, not started
• 1999 - 3 blocks not started (table runner?)
• Unknown year - 10 blocks, not started
• Anniversary Waltz - 12 blocks, seven completed. 
• Chicken Blocks #3 and #4 

PIGS - Projects in Grocery Sacks

•  Baby Quilt - Twirl Fabric quilted and bound
  
• Mauve Quilt 
• Eagle Quilt 
• Wedding Ring Quilt 
• Knitting Bag 
• Hot Cocoa Table Runner 
• Frog Shower Curtain - PP 
• Chili Pepper Quilt 
• Pink Ribbon Pillow Cases 
• Train Quilt 
• Alaskan Fabric Quilt

  KITS 

• Forget-Me Nots 
• Perky Posies 
• Aurora x 2 
• Star Flake -small quilt 
• Angel of Joy Wall Hanging - need to find pattern 
• Liberty Stars 
• Flip Flop Bee Bop 
• Peaceful Enchantment 
• Christmas Carol 
• Vest 
• BQ x 2 
• Amazing 
• Fab Four 
• Snowmen Will Melt Your Heart 
• Snow Flakes x 2 
• Kuspuk By the Yard Shop Hop

Recycled Jeans

Have you thought about recycling things in your quilting. Bonnie Hunter does a lot with cotton shirts, and The QuiltShow.com with Alex Anderson and Ricky Tims posted that they love to recycle.  This inspired me to post about my use of recycled materials.  I love jeans and have used them for a few projects. I have four boxes of jeans and pieces of cut of jeans all from my two boys, my husband and myself. 

The first denim project I made was a quilt.

 The second was a denim purse made from a pair of my youngest son's jeans. I took a machine embroidery class and this was what I used to play on the machine with. Someday I will have one of those in my machine collection.

 The third was my denim jacket lined with fleece.  It is nice and warm and heavy.

I also made myself a skirt and still have several ideas floating around in my head on what else I can do with all the jeans I have collected.  We shall see what I come up with next.

Christmas Block Swap

I got the nicest delivery in my mailbox today. It was my swap blocks from my wonderful friends at QuiltMashUp.

They are lovely and I am looking forward to figuring out what fabric to use for sashing and bordering.

Samelia's Mum: Vintage Modern {Giveaway}

Samelia's Mum: Vintage Modern {Giveaway}: If you’re anything like me, you’ll have loved all of the fabric ranges released by Bonnie & Camille. Well, their new range is out and it is really pretty. I want to add it to my fabric collection and you can enter to win a charm pack.

Stolen Quilts Alert!

 Patsy Thompson had quilts were stolen from her locked car in Corbin, KY. They also stole her embroidery machine, which can be replaced, but the quilts cannot. If you know anything about these quilts please share the information with Patsy.

 

 Her post regarding the theft with pictures of some of the quilts stolen can be found at here. 

It is scary to think of someone breaking into your car and stealing things from you. It is worse that it was her quilts which are works of love and come from the heart.   Please if you know anything let Patsy know.  Even if she can only recover one quilt, it would be wonderful as it is devastating to have something like this happen. Please spread the word!

So I went through a ton of fabric that was in the closet on the shelving unit in there.  A lot of the pieces were small fat quarters or half yards.  I found a ton of muslin, that I did not know I had, some old costumes from when the boys skated in ice shows, and more fabric.  Some of the fabric is rayon or sateen.  The rayon I am not sure what I bought it for as the colors were very different, not something I would wear.  The sateen I bought back when I was making costumes so I know why I have it.
After going through and separating the different fabric types I started on the other side of the closet.  I found pillow forms, more fleece, some books, including a couple on embroidery stitches, a few magazines, and a quilt from 1995 that was half hand quilted in the big stitch style.

I know it is from 1995 as I made three of them and two were donated to tornado victims in Clarksville, Tennessee that year.  They were originally intended as a gift, but I felt they could be better used in Tennessee at the time. The pattern is called slice and dice and is one where you stack up eight different squares of fabric and slice seven times then shift the fabrics around so each block has the eight different fabrics showing.  You can draw your lines on a square of freezer paper and then cut or just cut.  Depending on the size of your fabric squares your block size will vary once they are sewn into squares and squared up.  It is a fun quilt to make and I enjoyed making them, but I really thought that I had sent this one to someone or donated it a long time ago.  Guess this is another UFQ to add to my list.  I don't think it will take long to finish as it looks to be a little more than half done and is a lap size quilt.

Fall Mystery Quilt

Last fall I posted this picture when I was selecting fabrics for this class.

Then after the class met I posted this picture of the of panel two that I finished in class.

I have worked on this quilt slowly since then.  Doing a little bit here and a little bit there, including lots of cutting as there were many more pieces to cut as you went along.  I found part of this quilt to be very confusing to do without a flannel board to lay it out on. I also had to buy more of my light dark fabric as I miss cut an entire section because I miss read the directions. I bought all they had of the fabric when I ran over to get it and more of the dark dark also, just to be safe. I had already bought extra of the light dark and light light because I really like them. 
Last weekend at our sewing marathon I finished panels one and three and started on panel four. Yesterday at my first Friday sewing group I finished panel four and got the top put together.
(Panels are dark section, light section, dark section, light section.)

Now the only thing left is to decide if I want to add borders or leave it as is before sending it off to be quilted, or may be attempting to quilt it myself, by hand or machine.
I have lots of fabric left over to add borders, piece the back, or do another project. I was thinking of maybe doing a wall hanging with some leaves like those in the quilt.
I also just now realized that I put in one piece backwards, so now I have to decide it take it apart and fix it or leave it alone.  I think I will take a quote from Scarlet O'Hara in Gone With the Wind " I can't think about that right now. If I do, I'll go crazy. I'll think about that tomorrow." http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0031381/quotes