Sunday, April 21, 2013

Texas Teardrops Quilt A Long

See that button over there on the right? The one that says Texas Teardrops?
Well I did it, and am now quilting it.
I thought this was an excellent project to use some of the Kaffe Fassett fabrics I recently acquired.


There's lots of cutting and "pasting" with this project, and I hate waste...


All the blocks are fused



Top is finished!


And now, the quilting


I love this pattern and the fabrics I chose for it. And, it's actually one that I'd like to make again, maybe in Christmas fabrics for an antique ornament look. It'll be awesome!





















Saturday, March 16, 2013

Ponies and Teddies for Babies


I haven’t made a lot of baby quilts. Until recently that is. I just finished a run of three. One for a friend in Virginia to present to her granddaughter, and two for another friend in California, who is a first time grandmother… to twins!


Ponies
 The first one, depicting Grandma’s horses as Thelwell ponies. Butterflies and flowers keep the ponies occupied, while Grandma happily bounces on her pony. I love the abundant manes and tails of these ponies. The looks was achieved by “painting” with thread.






Applique Heath




This “fluffy” gray pony is my favourite I think. I love his expression!





Angelo

A Happy Rider!










The second baby project involves Minkee teddy bears blowing bubbles.


Bubbles and Bears
Bubbles and Bears
I made these quilts as the exact opposite of each other.








                                            

Bears close up




                    Closer look at the bears:




Bear detail


And closer still, with the little bubble wand.






Bubbles detail




The “bubbles”. I got to play with my newest toy, an Olfa circle cutter. I’m loving this cutter! Perfect circles with no effort on my part and no trying to follow the lines of a drawn circle with scissors!








Bears and bubbles quilted detail



The quilting is also “bubbles”










I had a lot of fun designing and making these three quilts, and REALLY enjoyed playing with the circle cutter.  They’ve given me more ideas for baby quilts, which I just might try out even though there isn’t a particular baby in mind for them.

Friday, March 8, 2013

I'm NOT a Good Blogger and other stuff...

Ok, so I'm not good at Blogging. I might have mentioned that in the first one last year ... that would be 3 whole posts ago.
I used to be pretty good at this (a few years ago) when I had my Extreme Mustang Makeover horse to show off and promote. I even used WordPress for my blogging! Well, yes I had help... I created my own blog here on Blogspot and managed it very well. I don't think buttons existed then.
And what the heck is "Link up"??? Wait. I know what it is, sorta. HOW do you link up would be the better question! I just spent the better part of an hour trying to remember how to add a button! Just think of the sewing that could have been accomplished in that time, or how much fabric I could have bought online in that same time! Oh yea, I'm good at buying fabric online, don't have any trouble there, none at all, nope, nope, nope! Sometimes I wish I did...

So, I'm a crappy blogger and I admit it. I wish there was a 12 step program to learn how to navigate all the things you can do in these blogs now. Like Pages! I thought (we all know what thought did right?) I created separate pages to share patterns and tutorials. I typed up a tutorial, copied and pasted and added pictures and Ta Da! It ended up on the main page, not on the Tutorials Page, which doesn't seem to show up anyway across the top there.... Am I that stupid  hopeless now? Next thing you know I'll forget how to use my sewing machine and have to revert to ARGH! English Paper Piecing!!!! I'm not saying that  EPP is a bad thing, I have one on the go, QUEEN size even! And I've only been working on it since.... 2002 but who's counting or keeping track? It has been promised to my middle daughter for her birthday. once she turned 18 I told her I'd have it done by her 40th birthday. She just turned 25 so I still have a bit of time to get that sucker beauty done!

In the meantime, while I try to figure this mess called blogging out and find some more enthusiasm for it I would like to share a few things that I will elaborate more on when I get this blogging figured out.
First and most recently I won an online contest through a blog I follow faithfully. I got her button over there on the left (I think she instructed me how at the time) See that Quilting Gallery button? Click it, there's ALWAYS something interesting going on over there! Ok, I won one of her Show N Tell contests (Scrappy Triangles) a couple of weeks ago with this quilt:
In this picture, it's laid out on the floor just prior to putting it into the frame for hand quilting. I don't know how many different fabrics are used in this one but I do know it's a lot and nothing was purchased specifically for this quilt except the backing (plain cream coloured muslin). The 1/4 square triangle blocks and the little tiny triangles in the star type blocks are all scraps (and I still have a bunch left over!). Even the cream background pieces are scraps!
I won this lovely thread set from Bytowne Threads for my entry

Aren't they just gorgeous? I can't wait to stare at them some more and fondle them. It will take a while before I can bring myself to actually use them. I'm kinda funny that way. I like to look, stare, dream and fondle new things before using them and spoiling that pristine condition that I receive them in.

Next, and not finished with the quilting yet is a quilt I designed (with some math help from another Quilter friend) and made for my sister. This is a pattern that I have already shared on Facebook, and will add here as soon as I get that page thing sorted out!
I call it simply Squares Linked and yet another quilter friend who tested the pattern for me took it and converted it into a pdf format for easy uploading (yea right!) and downloading, once I figure out how to get it on here!

Below: Here's what I started with - colouring on graph paper. Above: the finished top


Then I got really foolish and decided to back it with that fuzzy furry stuff that's worse than Minkee to work with! I wasted a whole can of 505 basting spray trying to get batting to stick to this stuff!

 Now that it's all pin basted within an inch of its life it's easier to work with, and slides across the bed of my machine (and everywhere else). It also hides puckers and other little mistakes. Looks good right? Well, there's puckers in there! You cannot see them, and they can be hard to find also. YAY!
I'm still working on the quilting so one of these days I'll be able to post pictures of it finished.
Here's one done in blues and yellows by Beth Cates and it's lovely!



Next post... Ponies! Fat ones too :-)