Red and White Scrap Quilt

Just finished this Red and White Flying Geese and String block quilt!
The red fabrics are all swaps from QuiltvilleSwap.  In the quiltville swap yahoo group we swap strips and sometimes, pieced blocks.  For this particular swap, it was around the time Bonnie was giving instructions for her "Orca Bay" mystery quilt.  So we decided to swap a set amount of string blocks, and also 4" strips!   I have SO MAnY leftover even after making this whole quilt!!!
I just love it.  I'm going to hopefully be able to hang this at my Mom's house, because she has red and black accents in her house.  And also I stole all of my quilts back when i moved into my own house ;c)

This is what I started with.   I had  the finished red scrappy string blocks that were 5.5" unfinished.   And I used the Fons and Porter Flying Geese ruler to cut triangles from the remaining red strips and white fabric to use as the sashing.  

I only had 2" and 1.5" red strips remaining, and I didn't want to cut into my red yardage, so I decided to cut the 1.5" strips into squares and make 4-patches for the cornerstones.   I used the 4 patches and white in alternating cornerstones.  

After I finished the quilt top, I felt like it neededddddd. . . SOMETHING. . .
So  went round and round with it and decided to add a wide red border and do scalloped edges.   I really wanted to soften up the sharp edges and I think the curvs does the trick perfectly!

I stitched together the 2" strips in 5.5" sections, and as luck would have it. . . I had exactly FOUR string blocks remaining. . so I used those 4 blocks in the 4 corners of my borders!   (love when things work out so perfectly like that!) 

I couldn't decide whether to use black or white binding. . . so I went to facebook for suggestions ;c)

Here we are before binding and after.  

For the back I used the remaining 5.5" strips of 2" sections sewn together, and put them in between two 4" white bands.  

The red that I used for this quilt's backing, is what was leftover from a T-shirt quilt.  So I didn't have quite enough for the whole back of the quilt. But that's okay because this forced me to make a cute pieced backing!  

I just used a plate from the kitchen to do the scallops, and I attached the binding totally by machine.  

Love the way this turned out and love the photos in the snow ;c)

Brady's Baby Clothing Quilt & Sammy's Baby Quilt

I can make your own custom baby clothes quilt-
**See my facebook page for ordering and pricing information**

Two finished for the last few weeks.  I wanted to share them both with you guys here.
First, I finally got the opportunity to make a quilt out of baby clothes!  There was a mixture of knits, wovens, and fleece.   AND, since the clothes were so small, it was especially difficult to capture the WHOLE shirt logo without cutting into the arm seams.   BUT, we did it, and I think it turned out awesome!

 That's MOM (Beth) on the left, with her son Brady. . and that's me on the right.  We're in Jacqueline's back yard.. .she is Brady's grandmother (Beth's Mom.)  Her back yard is perfect for photos!!

Here's a photo of the back of the quilt, I used leftover woven fabric from Brady's little dress shirts, on the back.  Strip pieced them, and then added them in between two layers of Xtra wide quilt fabric!

And I just wanted to share with you my graph for this quilt.  As I've said before, every SINGLE quilt, for me, starts with a graph.  Graphing out my quilts is especially important for T-shirt quilts. I measure each block, then write in a brief (and I mean REALLLLY brief) description of each shirt inside the block.   Since we were doing BABY shirts, these blocks were especially SMALL. . making it especially CHALLENGING!   I thought this graph was really funny, and I'm glad noone else has to decipher it but me! LOL


My next quilt was a quilt for our church choir director Jack.  He recently had a baby boy and named him Sammy.   He told me to make whatever quilt I wanted, but gave me these specs:   Colors- blue and brown, Theme: Traditional.   When he told me this, I immediately thought:  SCRAPPY!!!   So, I went to the trusted QUILTVILLE site to look for a fun pattern to use for scraps.   I have always been drawn to her PLAYING WITH JACKS pattern, and so it was.

 I pulled out my 2.5" strips of Browns, Neutrals, and Blues.

 Here are all of my "jacks on six" or "double x" blocks finished and pressed!  They don't look like much now do they?  haha

 Here is the completed center top

 Top complete with borders!

 I REALLLLLY had fun quilting this quilt!!  I just love quilting patchwork !   And surprisingly, I don't get to do it very often!

 I stippled in all the neutral areas so that the "Xs" would POP!  Then I went in and did a one-line outline quilt all around the rest of the patches.

 I fused Sammy's initials onto the back of the quilt.   I did this after I made the sandwich, and just quilted over them!

 I tried something different with the feathers this time around - I quilted my feathers, and then did an echo stitch back down to the starting point.  I really REALLY like the way it looks, and plus, it's easier!  YOu don't have to either make a stop, and then reposition, OR follow your feather vein all the way back down!

 I really like this photo of the quilt - it shows off the quilting AND the back.

 Thank you hubby for helping me photograph (it's like pulling teeth God-love him!)

 We got a little bit of sunshine on the quilt, showing off the feathers!

Anne M Smith Mystery Quilt Done - Civil War Strip Swap

Finally got this quilt finished! The center of this quilt was a mystery pattern by Ann M Smith from fabricaholicsanonymous yahoo group. This was a booger to get together. The corner triangles, I now know, are NOT my cup of tea. ;c) You have to be very precise with your cutting and piecing. And although I consider myself very precise, I might have tried to take a few shortcuts with this quilt that did NOT work out in my favor ;c)

Now, ALL of the fabric used for the center of this quilt is from 2.5" swaps from quiltvilleswap yahoo group. The background fabrics were from a light neutral swap and the colored fabrics were from a Civil War reproduction swap. I LOVED having all the yummy fabrics and variety for this quilt! Thank you so much swappers!!!!!

I think I chose the 2nd to largest size option, and the strips I had on hand were perfect for this size quilt.

I also had some beautiful burgundy fabric leftover from another quilt and used that for the borders. The backing was an Xtra wide brown fabric I purchased from Joanns during their after-Thanksgiving sale.

I quilted the center of this quilt all using my new Juki longarm machine. The tension is allll out of whack on the back of it, but luckily, I used matching color thread. For the borders I used my old trusty Janome machine and the tension was spot on. It allowed me to get a wee bit more fancy with the quilting so I did a undulating feather design. (i think thats what that is called.)

So this last few days I have been sick as a dog. . . but somehow I pushed through and finished this quilt. So any mistakes I made were on my OWN quilt, not a customers LOL

Photo of me working on the feathers - here I have HALF a feather done.

Top view

Next I'm working on a beach-themed Mother's Day Quilt. It will be similar to the Pink and Grey Baby quilt but made using aqua and sand colors.

NYE Mystery Quilt Top w/o Borders

This quilt. . was very difficult for me! I think it was just something about the construction method that was not like my usual piecing methods. You can see it was difficult for me because many of the seams don't match up perfectly LOL

Oh well, it's like that song by Cathy Miller. . "you can quilt that out." ;c) Hopefully some intricate machine quilting will bring it to life!

I'm thiinking about doing a few different borders for this. I was thinking about doing a thin-line of blue, and then a wider outer border of brown or burgundy. I have paid projects coming up though, so I'll have to quilt this at a later date.

This quilt was made using all 2.5" strips from a Quiltville Swap. I swapped Neutrals, and Civil War strips. What I noticed alot of is this:

and this:

In the first photo you can see that some of the strips were 1/8" wider or 1/8" smaller than 2.5" As you know this can add up over time. . I trimmed the ones down, and still used the too-small ones.

In the 2nd photo you can see how crooked some of them were cut. This is what I would like to talk about. If you lay out your folded fabric (folded once) on your cutting mat, I really don't know how this problem can happen. You line up your folded edge on the "1" line, and use a clear 6" x 24" ruler to cut. If you cut from the right edge of your fabric, you will have several inches of ruler holding down your fabric in place as you cut.

I believe you need at least an 18" x 24" self-healing cutting mat to effectively cut strips!

I know that some of my friends use a smaller mat, and have to fold the fabric MORE than once. Of course if you are going to have more than one fold in your fabric it would make it THAT much more likely to have curves/lumps in your strips.

And here's the thing, these swapped strips are HALF width-of-fabric. Therefore, you shouldn't have any lumps at all. What you could do if you're swapping half WOF strips is this: FIRST cut your fabric in half at the folded edge. Press smooth WITH STARCH. Then you can fold THAT piece of fabric. This will allow you to JUST be dealing with ONE fold in which you can line up on the "1" marking and cut with a wide acrylic ruler.

I know there are several other reasons why there could be these large curves or lumps in long strips. Sometimes people tend to "iron" their fabric instead of "pressing" it.

My biggest suggestion there is STARCH STARCH STARCH!!!

Press your fabric by lightly pressing down, starting at the folded edge, and then going up the middle of the fabric. Then out toward the edges. If you're using starch, you will see where yo'uve previously pressed.

I know alot of fabric companies now don't pay as much attention to grainline, but if the original cut of fabric isn't cut along the grain line, that could cause stretching and problems too.

This is why, when I get a new cut of fabric, I will unfold it and press it as a whole piece. . then RE-fold it for cutting on the mat.

Sorry for that small rant. Swapping fabrics is a great way to build stash and not spend a "whole" lot of money.

To sum up: Every quilter/fabric swapper SHOULD have a large enough self-healing cutting mat and 6" wide acrylic ruler. If you don't have a large mat, cut at the folded edge first and THEN fold one half at a time to cut your strips.

PRESS your fabrics, don't iron.

STARCH IS YOUR FRIEND!!!

Ann M Smith New Years Eve Mystery Fabric Strips

I have been at this all day. One would think I would have already started sewing on this already. Or at least pressing or cutting into the fabric!!! Nope, because I believe this is my favorite part! Sorting, organizing and generally playing in my fabric. ;c)

This mystery calls for 3 fabrics and a background.

Fabric #1) (Medium) =Medium Civil War Prints from a swap

Fabric #2) (Pop?) = Dark Civil War Prints from a swap

Fabric #3) (Medium) = Medium Civil War Prints from a swap

Background - Neutrals from a swap.

This quilt is going to be totally, and deliciously, scrappy!

The first thing I had to do was dump out all of my swapped strips onto the table.

Here you have the neutrals on the left, and all the yummy civil war prints on the right.

These are all swaps from quiltville!

The next thing I did was organized the prints into Darkest, Medium, and lightest piles.

Here are the CW prints . . I didn't get a photo of the neutrals. . but those were separated too.

After I seperated them, I grouped them by mystery CLUE.

I had the PERFECT amount of CW strips for a LAP-sized quilt. I wanted to use just the dark and medium neutrals for this quilt and save the lightest ones for Orca Bay.

This worked out pretty perfectly too. I'm going to need to cut about 4 more 2.5" strips from my stash of neutrals. . but I think it is worth it to save all the pretty Xtra LIGHT neutrals for another mystery.

Here are my leftover Xtra light neutrals ;c)

It's midnight now so I'm headed to bed and will start pressing and cutting for this quilt in the morning. Anyone else doing Ann Smith's NYE mystery?

My First Quilt

Bonnie Hunter of Quiltville is hosting a Show-And Tell with theme "My First Quilt." FUN!

This is my very first quilt I ever made. Before I started quilting, I was only a dyer. I started dyeing tee-shirts and then moved to old cotton sheets and then to cotton yardage. I had ALL this fabric leftover from dyeing which prompted me to try my hand at quilting.

It was ALL over from there!!!

The center of this quilt was made with 4 different shades of fuchsia tie-dyed fabric in a rail fence pattern. There is a small tan border around that, then, i cut squares from different shades of blue tie-dyed fabric and use that for the outer border. I think I quilted this extremely minimally. Maybe just a sparse in-the-ditch.

My room was messy when I took this photo. If I had known the significance of my FIRST EVER QUILT PHOTO back then, I probably would have tried a little harder to take a nice photo!!

That's my baby boy Louie the Dachshund on the bed. He is such a hamdog! ;c)

So head on over to QUILTVILLE and join in the show-and-tell!! I'm sure there will be some fun photos to come!

Double Delight UFO progress etc.,

As I mentioned before, I have two "big" projects coming. Both of them are memory quilts (quilts that will utilize inkjet printing on fabric.) I have finished all my current-running projects and didn't want to start anything new or "big" because I knew these two quilts would require my FULL attention and were going to be started very soon.

So as I'm here, twittling my thumbs in a way. I can't start anything new, so I've sorta been FORCED to dig into my UFO pile. . .which everyone knows is a GOOD thing. I knew I would dig these things out ONE day. . and the day has come!!!

UFO #1: String Quilt.

Remember the string blocks we swapped on quiltvilleswap yahoo group? I paired these, with my (now ufo'd) RRCB neutral string blocks and stitched these into an odd top. I say this is odd because there are many more neutral blocks than colored ones. I don't have a photo of this just yet, but will have very soon and will share it ASAP.

UFO #2: Double Delight.

I pulled this baby out today, and this is what I saw.

I was constructing this quilt using the QAYG method (as usual) and since it was on-point it was very INTERESTING to put together... Here you can see that all my blocks were put together in rows, and the sashing already added. All I had to do was put the rows together and the center would be done.

I don't know why I UFOd this in the first place. Yes, I just used UFO as a verb. I was SO CLOSE. So close in fact, that I finished the whole "center" of the quilt in just a couple hours!!

Here's a few more photos of the finished "center" section of the quilt:

Tomorrow, I will wake up, get my coffee, turn on the latest episode of "WEEDS" that I'm watching on netflix, and start on the borders. I had a pile of new fabric in the same bag, so I'm assuming that's what I had already chosen for the borders. Hey, works for me! One less thing I have to think about.

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Last week, I finished another batch of hand-dyes that I was hoping I could use for Sindy of FatCatPatterns.com's BOM "Fiesta"

I made a Flickr Slideshow of all the gradated fabrics and you can view them here.

I only used 4 colors, and did 2, 12-step gradations.

Brown -> Red -> Ecru

Brown -> Blue -> Ecru

I used procion mx dyes by jacquard and the actual colors are called "Carmine red" and "MEdium Blue" just in case you were wondering.

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One more thing!!!

I'm SUPER excited about the upcoming quiltvilleswap yahoo group CIVIL WAR swap!!!

FatQuarterShop had a sale of the eXACT fabrics I was eyeballing at the eXACT time I was wanting them!!!! So I bought a yard of each so I could have about a 1/2 yard of "leftovers" for me ;c) The other 1/2 yard I cut up into 2.5" by half WOF strips to swap. I took some photos of them just because I think they're so awesome. . . .

Look at all the squishies!!!!!!!