Snowflakes

For the holidays last year I gave each of our mothers some embroidered snowflakes. This year I thought I would make a few more. They would look nice hanging from a window or Christmas tree.

Polka Dot Patch

Here is my most recent finish. It is out of flannel so it is snuggly soft and warm. The pattern is a disappearing 9 patch pattern. Each time I make a quilt I get attached to to and want to keep it. But I have realized that I must give them away otherwise I will become the "crazy quilt lady" with quilts stacked up all over the place. So this one went to some friends for the soon to arrive baby girl. I think this backing is fun with all the ladybugs. It is not super girly but lots of fun.

Whoopsy Daisy, I'm all done

I finished another one. I am very happy with the way these colors turned out. Not colors I might have originally chosen but they ended well. This is the biggest quilt so far that I have stippled (about twin size). Definitely a challenge to push and pull all that bulky fabric around. Hopefully with more practice it will get easier. Even with this one done that means there are still 3-4 other quilts in some form of progress- one to quilt, one being piece, two partly cut.

A new quilt

This quilt is very similar to the pink and purple one I made a month or two ago except that the centers are off-center. It is made out of soft, snuggly flannel. It does not have a name (neither does the pink one yet.

Tangerine Sorbet

Here it is. The end result of tangerine sorbet. I really like the colors and the way the stacked coins pattern turned out. And it shows my improvement is stippling. This is the same fabric for Woopsy Daisy--I am in the process of quilting that one.

A peek at tangerine

I have finished a couple more quilts but I have been waiting for nice weather to take the pictures outside in natural light. Unfortunately nature has not been very cooperative--rainy, grey days. So here is a close up picture of one of them. You can see my stippling. Not to bad, fairly even stitches. The more I practice, the better I get. If the weather doesn't clear up soon, I may just take some pictures inside for now and better ones later.

Latest project

One of the quilts I have been working on is finally finished. It is a scrap quilt and I just started laying out the pieces and this is what I came up with. Kind of random with no real order to it but fun.
Caleb is not really a fan of the back of this quilt. He doesn't think it matches. I kind of agree. I pulled a couple colors from the front and came up with this bright back. I took these pictures after I got home from work so the lighting isn't great but I wanted to show something. You also can't see the quilting very well. I tried something new. I will try and post better pictures later on.

I am debating between two names for this quilt
1. Scrippy Surprise (scrippy comes from scrappy and strip and surprise because the back is so different)
2. Remember when
Any thoughts?

Sadie's help

This is what a spool of thread should look like.


I have been sewing on the binding of several quilts and had my spool of thread sitting on the arm of the couch. When we got home from church today Sadie had decided to help me out and this is the spool I found.


She loves to chew on spools of thread. I have no idea why. I would think that the sharp plastic edges would be a turn off but nope. You would also think I would have learned by now to keep thread out of reach. But no, occasionally she still gets one.

Working away

Over the past couple years I have made several quilt tops but never got them finished by quilting them. So lately I have made it my goal to get them done. So here is one more in the works. Basted and now it is about 1/3 quilted. Once this one is done that will leave me with about 3 more to quilt. I keep telling myself I must finish them before I start any new projects but it is so tempting to start something new. So far I have restrained myself but I doubt it will last.

Thread Galore

Caleb is starting a new job which means I will be loosing my employee discount at Joanns. Plus yesterday the thread was buy one get on free. So, I went a little crazy buying thread. I stocked up on many, many different threads for my embroidery machine and also for quilting. This picture is just the tiniest sampling of my new stock. It was Caleb's idea to get it all and now I should be set for years to come. It is all so pretty sitting there waiting to be used.

"WIP"sy Daisy

This is my most recent project. I am not one for applique but thought I would give it a try again with these daisies. It is machine applique (not patience for doing it by hand). These are different colors than I have ever used but I think they turned out nicely. The top is now completely sewn together and is about a twin size. Now it will join the other tops I have in line waiting for me to get them quilted.

Untitled Flannel

I have been wanting to try a quilt out of flannel. Flannel is so soft and snuggly. When there was a sale I got some. I saw this quilt idea on a blog and have no idea what the pattern is. I just figured out a pattern based on the blog picture. I like the alternating dark an light blocks. This is also the first quilt that I stippled/meander quilted myself. It is far from perfect but from a distance I think it looks pretty good. With some more practice I will get it down I am sure. It can be a challenge to wrangle all of that fabric around under the arm of the sewing machine. Once again this quilt is nameless. My inspiration for quilting stops when it comes to creative names.

Labels

This afternoon I labeled several of the quilts I have prepared so that I can get busy and finish them. I like to embroider my labels: name, date, and who it is for if appropriate. Previously I embroidered the label on the front, in one of the quilt squares. But for these I have decided to try labeling on the back. Not sure if this will be a permanent change but we will see.

I love my embroidery machine. It goes through phases on how much I use it but I have had fun using it on several different projects.

Dog Quilt

I started this quilt when Caleb's parents were here visiting in March. Caleb and Dale worked on remodeling our bathroom and Judy and I each started quilt blocks. She used Easter fabric to make wall hangings. I found a bunch of different cute dog related fabrics. I used the 2kwikquilters Illusions pattern and it made for very quick cutting and sewing of the pieces. Then came the slow part. I had the quilt top done for a long time and finally tried my hand at quilting it. It is only the second one I have done myself (much easier than the queen size Tiffany one). I used my walking foot and did random zigzags across it. For the month or so it has gradually had the binding added and is finally completed. I think it turned out quite fun.


(As a side note, I am not very creative with quilt names-many thanks to Amy on previous ideas. "Dog quilt" is kind of a dumb name so if anyone has a better idea of a name for this quilt, let me know.)
Note: This quilt has been renamed to Puppy Love. Thank you Amy

Ella Phant

Recently I decided to try my hand at making a "softie." I found this pattern in a book of quick projects and thought it was cute. I made it out of flannel and learned some things to do differently the next time. I made the flower from a tutorial I found online. I think she turned out well. Sadie and Sylvester certainly want to "play" with it.

Silk Painting Mountains

At the Jeppsen Family Reunion a week ago I had the opportunity to learn something new. There was a craft cabin and one of the things you could learn was silk painting. I chose a pattern that represented the mountain vacation that we were on. Wash the silk, stretch it, wait to dry. Then came the most challenging part--tracing the design with the resist. It was difficult to determine the right amount of pressure to use on the bottle to get just the right amount out (not too thin or thick of a line). So as you look at my outlines you can definitely tell that it is my first time. Once the resist dried was the most fun part--painting, mixing all the colors and making it look just so. Putting salt on the wet paint absorbed some of the pigment giving it an interesting textured look (in the sky part). I am very pleased with the way it turned out. It seems like a fun skill, something that you could do to create your own special fabrics because the same techniques work on any fabric not just silk.

Pink Lemonade

A couple months ago I found a bunch of fun pink, orange, yellow, and green fabric on sale. I couldn't resist and had to get it for some future project. It is so bright and cheery. Lately I have been picking a lot of bright fabrics. I am not yet sure what pattern to use it on but there is probably enough to make a couple quilts with it.

WIP-Creole Puzzle

I started this quilt over a year ago-purchased the fabric and cut out the pieces. Then it sat forgotten in a box until I was recently reorganizing all my sewing/crafting things. Now it has been sewn into a quilt top and work is progressing on doing a pieced back with the leftovers and some scraps from other projects.

Trying to Decide

When I started this blog I was planning on only posting pictures of finished projects. But by doing that I will only be posting things once or twice a month because some projects take a while for me to complete. So I thought I could also post some pictures in the process of completing projects but I am not sure. Any thoughts?

A few new posts

Today I posted a couple new projects so scroll down to see them all.

Caleb's Quilt (aka Betty's Delight)

A while ago I pieced this quilt for Caleb. He was tired of me making quilts and giving them to other people. So I made this one to his specifications-black and white, big enough to wrap up in completely in the winter. We call it Caleb's quilt but the actual pattern is called Betty's Delight. After piecing it, the quilt top sat in the closet for at least a year. Finally I took it in to get it quilted. It turned out to be a huge quilt but just exactly what Caleb wanted.

Garden Maze

This is one more quilt that I finally finished. I really like the fabrics in the different blues and white. The blocks are laid out so the rings look intertwined.

Buttercup Purse

On one of my days off this week Hannah and I tried a project. We went to the fabric store and picked out some stuff to make purses. I think they turned out very cute.

Tiffany quilt

I just finished a quilt I have been working on for Rachel and Dean's wedding gift. I really happy the way it turned out. It was my first attempt at using my machine to quilt myself. For such a big quilt it was quite a challenge to have all the fabric pulling and scrunched up under the arm. It is also the first quilt where I put a different strip across the backing to mix things up. I think I will do that more often. Thanks Amy for coming up with the title for the quilt(based on the blue in the quilt). I will have to start naming them all.