Texas Memories Embroidered Quilt

Went to an embroidery retreat the latter part of November.  The store where I teach hosted it.  Huge success!  Plans are in the making to do this every year, maybe more than once.  The owner of the store digitized the designs for us and made a quilt using Texas themed fabrics.  Nice quilt, but not my cup of tea.  His has the embroidery on point with red and blue triangles making the block.  Sashing and borders are the Texas Wildflowers fabric, and it was a large quilt.  Mine is smaller, about 53" square.

I saw his designs as he was working on them and when I found this Texas panel by Moda I knew exactly what I wanted to do with this quilt. 

Texas Panel

Here's a couple of close up shots of the embroidery.  There are 12 different designs, based on old farm equipment and Texas wildflowers.

And here's the quilt top!

Texas Memories Embroidered Quilt

The backing and binding will be the same fabric as the corner squares.  Now I just need to figure out how to quilt this!!!

Keep on Stitchin'!!

Frame Rulers!

My goal at the Houston Quilt Show was to purchase rulers to use on my frame.  I love the look of ruler work on quilts.  So I bought rulers!!  Now I'm broke.....again!

Ruler Purchases

Now I need to learn to use them!  Hopefully December will see me loading quilts on the frame again.

Keep on Stitchin'!!

Mystery Quilt from QCA

And one more top finished!!!  This is the one from Quilter's Club of America, Mystery Quilt #9.  There will be no border on this quilt.

Mystery Quilt #9

I have to say, I thought I would NEVER get done putting those half square triangles together!  There were 500 some odd of those boogers!!!!!

Keep on Stitchin'!!

Christmas Star Strip Quilt

Here's another project that got left behind.  I worked on this one last week, too.  I only have one more border to do and it will be ready for quilting.  I will do a pieced border using 5" sampler squares.  Just a plain border using the squares.

Christmas quilt

Keep on Stitchin'!!

Chicken Placemats

I started working on these ages ago!  Finally got them finished while visiting a friend in the Houston area over the last week or so.  We went to the Houston Quilt Show, as usual, and as usual, I spent more money than I intended to.  Oh well.....  We got a lot of sewing done, too!!
You may remember that I made a center piece in a class I took at my local quilt shop.  These chicken placemats are the rest of the table setting.  I will display these on my round breakfast table during the summer, I think.

Summer Chicken Placemats

Chicken Placemat

Free Motioned a wing

Hard to see, but I free motioned a wing in the center of the placemat to help hold things in place.  This is the back of the placemat. I drew the placemats myself, so there is no pattern available.

Keep on Stitchin'!!

Carol Doak's Scrap Scramble - October

Just finished up the blocks for the October trees.  There were 8 of these to make.

Oct Scrap Scramble

I'm still using the same 12 fabrics plus 2 cream colored backgrounds.  I think this quilt will end up looking very nice and somewhat scrappy....which is fine by me!

Keep on Stitchin'!!

Craftsy2013 BOM - October

Well, these are the last blocks for this quilt.  We were to do a bunch of HSTs and some Flying Geese to fill in a few areas.  The original quilt has an outer border of HSTs.  Mine won't as I didn't care for that look on this quilt.

Craftsy2013 BOM-Oct

Hey!  I used my Deb Tucker's Wing Clipper on these flying geese.  WooHoo...finally used it!!  Works great!

Hopefully, you'll see a shot of the top put together soon.  Probably not this month.  I'm off to the Houston Quilt Show later this month and staying with my friend a couple weeks.  Won't be taking this top to work on at her house.  I'll need my quiet time to think about how to put this one together and fill in gaps.

Keep on Stitchin'!!

Block Base Sew Along - Finished!!

WooHoo!  Another quilt quilted!   Oh, I'm having such fun with Bailey15!  Every other block is tilted a bit and no blocks touch the border for a floating look. 

Twist of Batik

This little quilt measures about 48" x 60".
 

Feather quilting on the frame

 

Feather Circle in each block

 

Ribbon border done on the frame

The label, of course!

 

I had to wash out the color in some of the pictures so you can see the quilting. So hard to work with black!! Hope you like 'em!

 

Keep on Stitchin'!

BlockBase Sew Along - Almost done!

Not much more to go.  I'm quilting the blocks, the last thing to quilt on this one.  Here's a couple of pictures.

Ribbon Border

 I wanted to do the border in arches...but, alas, my arches were horrid...so I did a bit of frog stitching!  So I decided to repeat the ribbon quilting that is surrounding the feathers on the black center area.  I went sorta crazy with this, but I like it!

Feather Circle in blocks

Each of the blocks will have a circle of feathers using the same lime green as is in the border ribbon.

Bailey15 performed very well with this quilt.  Only giving me problems with the last few blocks.  I don't think it much cares for King Tut.  And I had a heck of a time trying to keep the black bobbin thread from showing on top.  Lots of fuzz to clean out of Bailey15.  I stopped a couple times during the quilting process to clean and give a drink of oil.  It is once again sounding pretty rough, so will need to do a thorough cleaning before I load the next quilt.

Next picture will be the finished quilt!!!

Keep on Stitchin'!

Quilting the BlockBase Sew Along Quilt

I've been quilting some Saturday and Sunday and am surprised at how fast this is going!  I've ditched stitched around the colored blocks and in the borders.  Next I did some feather stitching and a bit of ribbon scrolls around the colored blocks.  Since this picture was taken, I've done a simple back and forth on the black/white inner border.

BlockBaseSewAlong-Feathers

I have rolled this quilt numerous times. Good thing it's a small quilt!!  First using black Marathon poly 60wt thread in needle and bobbin to stitch in the ditch.  Then a roll using black 50wt cotton quilting thread from Connecting Threads in the needle to do the feathers and ribbon. Then twice using 40 wt poly black/white variegated in the inner border.  Next will be another roll or two to do the outer border.  I'm drawing in the design first, then will quilt using lime green quilting thread from Superior - King Tut Lime Stone.  By then I hope inspiration has struck for inside each colored block.  I think I want to use the same lime green, but what to quilt...I have no clue yet!

Keep on Stitchin'!

Ready, Set, GO!

I have another quilt loaded on the frame and ready to quilt.  I plan to do some custom quilting on this one.  It's not a large quilt, so I can play a bit.  I want to do some feathers in the background and a bit of play with color on the border.  I'll try to remember to post a picture every now and then of my progress.

Color Play

Keep on Stitchin'!!

Another Carol Doak BOM!

Carol has started another BOM on her Yahoo group.  This one is not a mystery quilt.  She has given us the layout of the quilt, but not what each month's blocks will look like.  The layout is one of those uneven, different sized blocks. 
Rather than give us yardage amounts, she has declared this quilt a scrappy one.  EEEEEKK!!!  I don't do scrappy quilts, but how can I not do this BOM???  Hmmmm???  So I start looking through my stash trying to pick out fabrics for the first block and immediately get overwhelmed and confused.  I NEED to match, I NEED to coordinate..I can't do this!!! 
Light Bulb Moment!!!!  I remembered that I had 12 one yard pieces of fabric that I had purchased with the intent of making 2 1/2" strips for a jelly roll quilt.  Perfect!  These 12 sorta coordinate and will still give me the scrappy look.  WooHoo!  I can do a coordinated scrappy quilt!  Also found a couple of cream colored backgrounds that I can use.

Scrap Scramble - September

So here's the first of the Scrap Scramble BOM and 6 of the 12 fabrics that I will use.  Come join in on the fun.  September is the first block.  Click on the Carol Doak Paper Piecing link on the right.

Keep on Stitchin'!

Craftsy 2013 BOM - September block finished

Handwork...YUK!!!  These flower appliques were pulled around a card stock shape to get smooth edges.  The pulling part was first hand basted around each shape.  I sat in my easy chair one night and basted each shape.  Next day I pulled and pressed and then machine appliqued the pieces.  I didn't realize how spoiled I was to machine embroidery applique!!  The manual process on the machine now seems so slow and cumbersome....

Craftsy 2013 Sept

I think the block is rather cute!!

Keep on Stitchin'!!

Flannel Quilt is Finished!

Quilting is completely done and the binding is on.  I had to use the backing fabric for the binding since I had none left from the top fabrics.  Not my first choice, but I still like it.  Thanks, Bailey15 for a pleasant Getting-To-Know-You-Experience!!

Blue and White Flannel

Keep on Stitchin'!!

Bailey15 Workout

The Bailey15 and I are getting to know each other.  I loaded a flannel quilt and decided to free motion paisleys and use a piano key border.  The stitch in the ditch that I did in the borders, I used a ruler, but everything else is me guiding the machine with no stitch regulator.  I probably should have used a ruler for the piano keys, but I need to learn to guide the machine straight.  I chalk marked the lines.  I'm pleased with the paisley work other than I still need to get used to the feel of the Bailey so I can get more consistent stitches.  I haven't yet found the right speed for me, but I'm getting there.  We will eventually become good buddies, I'm sure.

Almost done.  Need to turn for the other two borders.

Front showing paisley

 I used a blue/white variegated thread on top - Superior's Fantastico.

Back showing paisley

The back is also flannel, white with tiny blue dots.  I used white 60wt poly thread from Marathon in the bobbin.

Keep on Stitchin'!!

Completed tops!!

I went to a retreat over the last weekend and actually got quite a bit accomplished.  I'm so pleased with myself!! LOL  If you remember, at my first retreat, I got hardly anything done.  This year I put together 2 tops from last year's BOM overload, as well as nearly half complete of the Christmas Quilt that I didn't get done at last year's retreat.  So..........

BlockBase Sew Along 2012

I wanted the blocks to float on the black, so no points touch the seams and I tilted every other block.  Blocks are all batiks on solid black background as is the outer boarder.  The inner border is a black with white swirls batik.

Funky Chicken!!

Funky Chickens from fatcatpatterns.com  still makes me smile! I used different colors in the cornerstones, solid black sashing and inner border and a black confetti for the outer border.

Funky Chicken border fabric

I had to wash out the colors a bit in the picture to get the colors to show on the border fabric.  It's really a pretty fabric with all the bright colored confetti.

Christmas Quilt about half complete

I got the upper left diagonal portion sewn together.  The lower right diagonal is just laid out on the floor and there are pins keeping pieces together.  I have also turned under the inset triangles (they are full blocks to be trimmed down) and there are no corner pieces sewn on yet.  And of course, no borders yet.

All in all a very successful retreat.  Can hardly wait until next year!  Until then, I have plenty of tops to keep the Bailey15 busy.

Keep on Stitchin'!!

I Have A New Quilting Machine!!

I finally did it.  I bought a Bailey 15 inch quilting machine.  http://www.baileyssewingcenter.com/
Here's the progression from the box!

What's in the box???

 Made in America!!!!

Just pulled from the box

That baby was packaged really good!

Bolted to particle wood!

Handles

Feet and instructional cd

Lotsa parts in there!!

And it's on the frame!!

I had to put the handles and some other things onto the machine, but it was pretty easy.  There really were no instructions for this part...just some pictures.  This gives me a few more inches to work with than the 9" Juki offered.  I put the Bailey15 on my Start Right Frame and it works very well.  Hopefully, down the road I can get a better frame with a carriage that will better suit the Bailey15. 

The Bailey is nothing fancy, but is a solid workhorse and affordable!  Now all I need to do is rack a quilt and get to practicing!!

Keep on Stitchin'!!

BlockBase Sew Along - All blocks are done!

Molasses flows faster than I paper piece! I finally got all 12 blocks done.

BlockBase Sew Along blocks

I'll use black as the background and see if I can't float these 8.5 inch blocks.  I'm taking this project to retreat later this month.

Keep on Stitchin'!!

Craftsy BOM August 2013

Got this block done in a hurry!  It was a truly easy block.

Craftsy Aug 2013

We will use this block for next month's lesson appliquing flowers onto the basket.  The handle has been glued down, but not yet sewn.  It was suggested to wait until next month.  The picture I took was a bit crooked.  The basket is actually straight in the block! LOL

Keep on Stitchin'!!

BlockBase Sew Along - Progress!

I have made a little progress on this project.  I'm working on block 9 with 3 more to go!  I just might get it finished one day!

Progress

I've decided I want to use black as the background.  I've played around in EQ7 and have a layout that I like.  Maybe I can get this top put together at this year's retreat...or maybe not.  haha

Keep on Stitchin'!!

Craftsy July BOM

Almost forgot about doing this block!  Happened to run across the instructions as I was clearing away some stuff on the cutting table.
I always have problems with angles and numbers.  I must have rotated and turned that blasted ruler 4 times for each of those 60 degree cuts.  By the time I got to the last few cuts, I thought I had it down pat..except that I was cutting the diamonds on the left side of the ruler...and I'm right handed.  So a bit of body twisting to get that cut.  That counts as exercise, right???

Craftsy July 2013

 My block came out larger than it is supposed to be, but I'd lose my points if I trim it down.  I'll just make adjustments when putting the top together.  I can see now that I'm going to have lots of 'fun' putting this top together...a little fudging here...a little fudging there.........

Keep on Stitchin'!!

Finished!

Finally!  Poor quilt got interrupted so many times and I was almost finished and got interrupted again.  But we are both happy now.

Every Which Way But Loose

Close up of the label

Some of the quilting

I used a pantograph for the center area, then free motion on the borders.  It measures 65"x77".  With the small throat of the Juki, I ran out of room on the last run.  Well I could have squeezed it in, but since I needed to turn it anyway, why risk having to rip?  So this quilt was turned 3 times on the frame in order for me to complete the borders.  So wish I had a larger throated machine...one day soon, I think!

Keep on Stitchin'!!

Fairies in the Forest

The special project is finished and I'm now waiting on an address to ship to.  As some of you may have guessed, this is a quilt for Hatched in Africa using the Fairies in the Forest embroidery collection.  It will join the other items in their traveling trunk show.  It measures about 40 inches.
 

Keep on Stitchin'!!