Quilt #109

My 8 year old granddaughter has suddenly become enamored with pandas! All pandas all the time. After finishing La Luna Lobo, I discovered that there was a panda puzzle pattern. I decided that Emily needed it. Figured I had to get it done quickly - never know when she might move on to something else! I finished it today. I only quilted in the panda and the small pink border so I hope it holds up for her. I'm going to give it to her tomorrow since I will be taking her sister to soccer practice.

I found the perfect fabric on line for the back!

 

I machine sewed the binding and I'm not wild about it, but it is done! And Emily is going to love it!

 

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Quilt #108

Marie and I took an animal puzzle class at Quilt Country a few weeks ago. She is doing a polar bear and I opted for the wolf. The pattern is called La Luna Lobo. I was able to place all the pieces of the wolf while I was in class, but then it just sat around unfinished while I finished the monkey quilt for Helen and worked on the rainbow birch trees for Megan. Marie needed some help getting restarted on her polar bear so she came over one afternoon and we got all the pieces placed on the bear. I decided that I would really like to actually finish my wolf. Well, today I did so! Yesterday, I finished the border and today I quilted it and put the binding on. After the fiasco with the tension on the monkey quilt, I spent about an hour playing with the tension. Had it perfect and then decided that I waned to use blue thread instead of yellow and that threw the tension off again! However, I think I managed to get it - at least it is leaps and bounds better than the monkey quilt!

 

Marie and I are going to Quilt Country tomorrow because they are having a sale, so I'm going to take it to show our teacher who happens to own the quilt shop.

 

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Two quilt tops

I'm going to give each grandchild a quilt for Christmas. The two hardest are now complete tops. Of course it is the actual quilting that slows me down - my least favorite part of quilting!

This quilt is for Megan. It is from a pattern from Amanda Jean Nyberg called Birch Trees. I read her blog, Crazy Mom Quilts. I changed her pattern by making the squares smaller - 9 1/2" instead of 15". I also made all my squares different shades of blue and all my "trees" rainbow.

 

 

The quilt I made for Emily was completely an original design. One day when Marie and I were in Fabric Fanatics, I saw a quilt on the wall that just said to me " this is Emily"! It was a black and white zebra print with lots of colorful squares scattered across it. They did not have a pattern, so I just bought the zebra fabric and designed the colorful squares on my own! Hard to find 9 1/2" squares so a lot of trial and error was involved! The picture leaves a lot to be desired - hopefully when it is completely finished I will get better pictures.

 

I also finished the last nap mat I will have to make as my youngest grandson starts preschool nextTuesday! Just happened upon some Cars 3 material and that was that!

 

I sent off to get published in book form the first part of this blog - this will be the first entry in a second book if there is one!

 

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Quilt # 107

Helen is keeping me busy with baby quilts. She needed another one for one of her boss's daughter. Plan A just didn't work out - I couldn't find appropriate forest animal fabric. It was all either really ugly or hunting. I was going to aeanattic window quilt if I could find the fabric. So - plan B... I looked through lots of books and found a couple and let Helen choose. I had done the monkeys in blue for Matthew 4 or 5 years ago - saw it today at Jenny's. It sure looks different in green.

The first picture is just the quilt top. The second is the recipient at her shower. The quitwent togetherreally well but the quilting was AWFUL! Looks okay from the front but my tension was way off and the back of the quilt is a mess! Really embarrassing to give it away.

 

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Quilt 106

The "Mommy & Me" elephant quilt is finished and just in time. Helen needs to take it to the baby shower on Wednesday. It really turned out cuter than I thought it would - black and white and gold? for a baby quilt?? Still not wild about my ability to quilt. The stippling did okay - maybe I should just stick to that! I used yellow thread which really looks gold to follow the color scheme.

 

Helen always wants the quilts personalized with names or initials, so I put the baby's initials on the back of this quilt on balloons to match the front.

 

So another quilt for Helen finished. Another one about to get started dur next month! She keeps me busy!

 

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Quilt top finished - but not a quilt yet

I've been working on a baby quilt for my neighbor, Helen, to give to one of her work friends. She keeps me busy with baby quilts - I've made 6 or 7 of them for her to give to friends. But, since I like to quilt and my children are running out of storage room, it is a good thing.

I really wasn't sure about this quilt. The mother wanted white, black and gold as the colors. Didn't sound very baby to me. I was really thinking it was ugly ... but now that it is all put together it has grown on me. There is supposed to be giant black rickrack on the narrow top and bottom border - that may or may not happen. I really like the pop of color the balloons add. And I was pleased with the result of the stitched strings.

Now I just have to figure out the back and get it quilted - my least favorite part of quilting! But I have a July deadline on this one so it will get done!

 

 

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Summer Table Runner

I really have been sewing - I promise. Lots of works in progress. I love the piecing. Not so much the quilting. Hopefully, as summer comes and makes those of us in Texas hibernate, I will get busy doing the quilting! I have a 4th of July quilt half quilted - guess I need to get busy finishing that one!

But since Memorial Day is upon us...I did finish the happy summer table runner for my daughter.

 

 

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Pillow cases and placemats

In a week I will be going on a Disney Cruise again with my daughter and her family. We went last Spring Break also and it was great. This year it is the Star Wars at sea cruise. So this years the kiddos get Star Wars pillow cases. Last year they got Mickey.

Then...after making the Valentine placemats at my daughter's request, I decided that she would like Easter placemats too. It is really hard to find Easter material. I like how these turned out BUT the material is not the best quality - hope they hold up for a few years. The first pic was my first choice for the narrow border - yuk!

So I went back to the store to try again. Much happier with my second choice!

 

 

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Birthday Table Runner

My daughter's birthday is on Valentine's Day. I had been eyeing a Birthday Pillow kit and when it was on sale because one of our favorite quilt shops is closing, I decided to go ahead and make it. Not into bench pillows though so I made it as a table runner or wall hanging - however she decides to use it! And since - in her household she is mommy, that is the name I hung on the "clothesline". I made enough letters that she can use it for all the birthdays!

I also made her a set of Valentine placemats. She asked for them a week or so ago saying the plastic ones she had for the kiddos were actually more trouble to keep clean than the cloth ones she could throw in the washer! I love making this type of placemat - they are really easy. Need to find some Easter material now.

 

I also made Valentine pillow cases for 3 of the 4 kiddos - Andrew does not have a pillow yet. But I have no pictures of those.

 

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Quilt 105

This quilt has been a finished quilt top for a few years - really can't remember when I took this class at the Quilt Asylum but I know it was a long time ago! Marie took the class with me and her top never got finished. I am so glad to have this finally in the finished pile. Still not very wild about my ability to quilt well but I just need to keep going - I assume I will get better with practice. At this point I am down to 3 finished tops that need quilting. My plan is to finish them up before starting any more projects! We'll see!

 

This is Judy Niemeyer's Deset Sky pattern. At the time I was amazed that I could make something like this but paper piecing really is pretty easy. Picking out the paper is a pain though!

 

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Quilt #104

I finished the quilt I'm giving to my son for Christmas. This will be his 3rd quilt - all lap size. He's my cold person so he uses them well! I enjoyed making this quilt - half square triangles are amazing. Love the way this turned out. The only difficult part was keeping it laid out so that I could sew the rows together correctly. The colored stripes are all from scraps. I quilted it by quilting two parallel lines on each side of the black stripes with black thread.

 

Marie and I went to Houston for the Quilt Festival which we didn't get to go to because of a wreck we were in the night before. I had to stop quickly because the car in front of me stopped quickly but the car behind me did not stop at all. We were fine but my car wasn't. Anyhow, my car is all fixed and back at home where it belongs which is a good thing! While we were there we went to a quilt shop in Old Town Spring and while we were wandering a classroom we happened upon some rings to use with a sit down midarm sewing machine like my Sweet Sixteen. I could tell they were something that I would love. So that night at Marie's I ordered them on line. And I was right. They make live much easier for me. They grip the fabric and have knobs to hold on to - much easier than just holding the fabric! I do have to stop and move the ring but I really think I was stopping with the same frequency just guiding the fabric with my hands. They just make moving the fabric under the needle much easier? Love them!

 

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Quilt #103

This year I decided to make a Christmas quilt for me. Marie and I were at the quilt shop and saw jelly rolls of Christmas fabric that we liked. I had never made a jelly roll race quilt so I decided that is what I would do. Now I can say I have done one and will never have to do another! Did not enjoy the process at all and I'm really not that fond of the finished product! But I have a Christmas quilt! I didn't realize that you needed to make the first strip shorter so most of my connections happen close to either side - maybe I would have liked it better if I had done it correctly! But I still wouldn't like the process. For the back I used some poinsettia fabric from the same line as the jelly roll. I quilted it with red thread in a big wobbly stipple. Still not very good at this quilting part!

 

 

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Andrew's stocking and Turkey placemat

Since my daughter and son-in-law decided that they needed a fourth child I had to get busy and make a stocking and a Thanksgiving turkey placemat since the other 3 kiddos already had them. So..here they are!

 

Glad to have them finished. I'm going to make 2 more turkey placemats because the othe 3 are all the same and this one is a little different. That way no one will be odd man out! Also need to make Santa placemats since the other 3 have those also

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Quilt #102

Helen needed another quilt for her boss's daughter - the older daughter this time having her first child - a boy. Baseball was the theme. Having made a quilt for Matthew (#44) that was a baseball attic window quilt, that is what I decided to go with. The baseball fabric I used for that quilt is no longer available, so I started hunting on line! Found some teddy bears playing baseball that would be perfect. And since this child's name is Theodore, whom they will call Teddy, it turned out to be better than perfect!

Since I put initials on the back of his cousins' quilts, I had to do the same thing with this one.

I'm still not good at my free motion quilting on my Sweet 16, guess I don't practice enough! Hopefully I will get better sometime!

 

 

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Quilt #101

This quilt is also for Helen's great-nephew, Leo. Courtney and Samantha, Helen's nieces, are coming up here at the end of the month with their sons, Everett and Leo, so I had to finish the quilt that I am making for Leo. Quilt 100 is the quilt I made for Helen to give to Leo when he was born. Quilts 90 and 93 are the quilts I made for Everett.

I tried something new in the quilting and I'm proud of the result. I really haven't practiced much on my Sweet Sixteen, so doing the loops in the orange border was definitely a step in the right direction.

Not sure I like the back - would be great for a Denver Broncos fan - but it is done.

 

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