I went over to my aunt’s house last night after work and we had the evening to ourselves so we decided to work on one of the many project kits we have purchased at quilt shows over the years together. This one is all Japanese fabrics and it’s a very simple, small and elegant quilt that we both loved. We pulled out the kit to discover it was actually paper piecing which was pretty new, at least for me. It took a while to figure out and get the first block done but after that we were on a roll and we got 3/4 of the blocks finished last night. Probably one more evening like that and we’ll have the top all put together.
12 blocks paper pieced
And we’re finally past the halfway point this week – getting towards the weekend! Lots of house work planned and family to visit and come visit – can’t wait!
No house progress this weekend as we were back in NY visiting family however we did get a date for insulation – this coming friday! Which means I’m going to have some busy evenings getting this ready (need to move things out of the way, need to get all the nails out of the wall, need to make sure wiring is out of the way and need to run one last switch).
It’s very exciting and I do hope it does not get delayed!
On the quilting front, I got mom’s quilt all quilted and gave it to her this weekend, I did not do the binding because after talking to her she said she could do that part. I have some curtains to make for my sister up next, then some shades and a valance. It’s good practice for my own house which isn’t quite ready for shades/curtains but I do plan to make them eventually!
I’ve post dated this so it posts after Mom has gotten her quilt so it’s a bit of a surprise, she knows I’m quilting it but doesn’t know I plan to have it done by the weekend I see her so I can give this to her. So pretend this is a Friday morning post.
Thursday night I finished up quilting the last 3 blocks on Mom’s quilt and then quickly quilted the inner border with just a wandering loopy design. I’m actually not sure what to quilt in the outer border, maybe a loopy design with some snowflakes mixed in if I’m feeling adventurous. Maybe the word snowflake and winter mixed in as well.
So here’s the quilt so far:
Blocks and inner border quilted!A close up of the blocks/border quilting
I’m hoping tonight (Friday night) I can finish up the border, and sew on the binding. Then during the drive Saturday I will whip stitch the binding down so it’s ready for her!
I’m not great at machine quilting but I’ve definitely gotten better than my first few tries! And only having to do 9 of these snow flake patterns is very doable. I’ll do some swirly/snowy type continuous pattern in the border when I’m done with the main blocks. This is a stencil that I’m tracing using a washable pencil.
Quilt for mom
It takes a bit of turning the quilt to make this single pattern, luckily the quilt is wall size, not bed size so I just start with the “hardest” side of each snow flake (with the most fabric folded) and move it around to the easier sides as I go along. I figure I can do a block a night next week and get this done by next weekend!
I’ve gotten a few nights now of working on crafts! It sure has been a while. Wednesday night over at Uncle Mark and Aunt Mo’s I worked on my cross stitch project while Aunt Mo quilted. Then last night I started quilting Mom’s quilt for her. I’m using my own machine and it’s not going too badly at all. I got 1 of the 9 blocks quilted 🙂
I’ll probably do a bit more quilting tonight but this weekend we’re headed down to my sister’s in CT to help paint a spare room they’ve been refinishing. I plan to hit Joann’s down there and get some new fabric too! I am definitely in a quilting/sewing mood!
And the snow is still coming down. We cleaned up the first 6 inches that hit this morning but it hasn’t stopped coming down yet. I’ll probably have to do another round of shoveling myself before Ryan gets home 🙂
October is a month of sewing! I have to finish up Emily’s birthday quilt before this weekend when we see her and then I have to get 3 halloween costumes done for my cousins as well as maybe one for myself this year?!
So Tuesday night I squared up the quilt and made the binding. Last night I attached the binding (still have to do all the hand sewing).
Binding attached ... ready to finish up!
Then I started on costumes, opting to start with Chloe’s costume first. Chloe is going to be a Black Cat which is the simplest of all the costumes (hence the reason I’m starting it first) – it’s all one fabric plus some embellishments. I don’t have an actual pattern so I am just winging it. I started with a pair of pants – going with the pirate pattern I’ve used for 2 costumes already as a base. Since pirate pants are short I had to adjust them but I got the basic line from the pattern. I whipped up the pants in an hour. Next up is the top and some ears and a tale!
Black cat pants all done
I will probably do Georgia’s costume next – a Gypsie – which has a pattern so should be easy and she picked some really fun fabrics and embellishments. Then I’ll do the princess dress for Maia, again, following a pattern and it’s lots of pink fabrics!
Wow – 3 nights on aunt mo’s machine and the quilting on Emily’s quilt is completed! That’s crazy! I still have to make the binding and attach it which I will start this weekend and I think I’ll have the quilt done by the time I see Emily on the 18th.
Quilting finishedClose up of some of the quilting
The quilting is a mix of designs, I just quilted what I felt like in each block or section and then went around the border with swirls that had hearts and flowers in them. I may fix up one corner where the batting was too small, I got some bunching of the fabric, I have to see how bad it is, I can take out the quilting in that corner and fix it if it’s really bad but it was too late last night to worry about it 🙂
I finally had a night where I could work on Emily’s quilt and get the top finished up! I got the border on last night, then used a spray baster to put it together. We’ll see how the spray baster works out for such a large quilt but it will make it easier to machine quilt if that’s the route I go.
I’m going to try machine quilting it but if that doesn’t work out i can always hand quilt it and make it her Christmas gift instead of bday gift. I’m not even positive I can finish it for her birthday even if I machine quilt it. I’ve never done one this large before!
Anyway – here’s apicutre of the quilt just after i “basted” it!
Emily's quilt
The back of the quilt is 2 panels of fabric, one red and one yellow.
It doesn’t look much different at this point but it definitely is! Last night I finished piecing all 56 blocks together so it’s a single quilt top now!
All pieced together
Now i just need to cut and add borders, quilt it and bind it – yea “JUST” – oh boy! But I love the colors in this quilt and this pattern really went together quickly. It took maybe 2 hours or so to get all the blocks together, spread out over 2 nights.
I’m a little worried about the quilting part of this, it’s such a large quilt – never done one this large – it’s going to be hard to quilt!
It has been a very long time but yesterday I spent most of the day just doing things for myself. This included reading a LOT and quilting!
Before lunch I got most of the cutting done for Emily’s quilt and had started piecing the blocks. The cutting was hurting my back though so I quit for a few hours and read. Around dinner time I had an unexpected guest – my friend Sarah came up! So we got dinner and chatted together and then spent the evening in my sewing room and I got the blocks all ready to be sewn together.
After Sarah left I sewed all 60 blocks together! Then I laid them out to come up with a pleasing layout. Since it was midnight I decided not to try sewing them together but they are ready to be put together! Of course then I was up until 3am reading and woke up this morning at 9 to spend 2 more hours reading (finishing my book).
Today Ryan comes home after a weekend away and we can just about start our real vacation working on the house. I’m going to get started on some projects now and save quilting until later.
And after days of fiddling with my eye-fi card it is FINALLY uploading pictures to my computer automatically again! So here’s a picture of the 56 blocks of Emily’s quilt all laid out in what will probably be the final layout!
Emily's Quilt - blocks all done
This quilt makes me so happy – I just love playing with bright colored fabrics, now I want one like this for myself (maybe minus Dora) 🙂 In total i’d say it took 6 hours to get to this point so far. Next I piece the blocks together and then I need to shop for a border fabric!
This is the largest quilt I’ve made to date – it will be a twin size when completed. Then I need to figure out how to quilt it!
