The Motherload

Ya know I have been truly blessed this year!!!!!

I have secured enough quilt orders to make it a great Christmas for my family. I feel so completely blessed that I can do WHAT I LOVE SO MUCH for a LIVING!!! Of course I'm also thankful for my hardworking husband who pays the "real" bills. I am so thankful for him that he goes to work each week and allows me to quilt all day!!

So I am totally booked for the holiday season. I cannot commit to anymore projects until about mid-January. I have actually had to turn a few people away this year, so next year please contact me EARLY if you would like a quilt made before Christmas ;c)

I want to be able to devote enough of my time an energy to each individual project without feeling stressed or pressed for time. I want everyone to walk away with something spectacular.

I ordered the fabric for all my upcoming projects right before Thanksgiving. I think since it was ordered around a holiday it took a little longer to ship. While waiting on this fabric shipment I UFO'd all my current projects and have been anxiously awaiting their arrival! ;c)

But today my first fabric shipment came and I'm very excited to get started.

Look at all the pretty fabrics!!!

Just yesterday I had a friend ask me to make some curtains. This was great because #1) I've never made curtains before and have always wanted to try. #2) I owed her a birthday gift, and #3) It filled up my day before my motherload shipment of fabric arrived!!

She wanted a lighthouse theme and I happened to have some fabric with lighthouses in it already in my stash!

So now I'm going to work on a quilt, and I also have a quilted tote to work on. Next week I'll be working on 4 matching quilts with a blue/white "ford" theme. I'm excited. . but I'm going to be VERY busy in the upcoming weeks!

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!

Black Friday!!!

I have never in my life participated in the mad rush of Black Friday Shopping. I do most of my Christmas shopping ONLINE (LIKE NORMAL PEOPLE) hahahahaha.

BUT, a few years ago I stopped into a Jo-Ann's on the weekend after Thanksgiving. My life was forever changed. I realized I could stock up on all of my necessary items for my quilting for the whole year in one weekend. Most everything is on sale for at LEAST 50% off. Then, the store offers an additional 25% off sale items coupon from 6am - Noon. That = dirt cheap quilting supplies!!!

I will be at the Dunbar Joanns tomorrow, and the Barboursville Joanns on Saturday. I have a VERY long list and will also be using a buggy ( a rare thing for me.)

So. . . if you haven't signed up for email coupons I know you can sign up online and also via text. If you sign up via text they will send you their most recent coupons via text immediately. You just show the cashier your phone and will get the savings.

I hope everyone had a fabulous Thanksgiving. . I sure did!!

Where will you be shopping tomorrow?

;c)

Finished Minky/Fleece Quilts!

Freshly Washed and Dried Minky Quilts!!!!

For these quilts I PIECED MINKY. . yes it's true! It can be done!!! You can see more details about these quilts in my last few posts. ;c)

Quilt #1

Quilt #2

The backs are both the same. . A plain white fleece backing was used for both of them.

Mitered Self-Binding with Fleece

I finished my quilts for a friend. I talked about the piecing of these quilts in THIS POST.

Now I'm going to discuss how I finished these quilts.

When I had completed the quilting, I started pondering how to bind the quilt. I decided that I did not want to use a regular quilting cotton for the binding on an all-fleece quilt. I ALSO did not want to have those bulky seams from fleece in the binding.

I decided to use the backing and do a self-binding.

I found a way to do this that worked out quite well. Here's how it was done:

Cut off all the excess backing except for 1" all around.







When you get to the corners, you want to cut 1" chunk out of each of the corners.

When I did this myself, I didn't pin it, but I'm pinning it now, to show you each step.

First, Fold in the corners like this:


Then fold the sides down a 1/2" (in half) making them level with the quilt's raw edge.

Then fold down the folded edge again over the quilt.

Take a needle and thread and hand-stitch this corner together.

Once the edges are sewn, I buried the threads inside the quilt.

I did all the corners first and pinned those down, and then

I folded the rest of the edges down just the same.


I'll post a pic of the finished quilts in a bit! ;c)

My Quilt-y Xmas Wishlist!

http://www.ConnectingThreads.com/cfCart/viewWishlist.cfm?wishlistid=895A994C-98BA-742E-2E67FA5D40356EC5&media=WLBL

If you go to Connecting Threads, and make a WISH LIST, then share it on Facebook, on your blog, and to a friend via email, you will be entered to win $50 of goodies from Connecting Threads!

Minky is the Devil!!!

Okay, so maybe I'm exaggerating a little bit but it sure feels like Minky is out to get me!! LOL

For the last couple weeks I have been working with Minky. There is no point in trying to clean it up because the mess just keeps making babies and accumulating all over the place!!!

So my friend has commissioned me to make her two quilts that utilized her grandmothers old house robes. There are 3 robes that are made out of a print fleece. She and I mapped out a design and I graphed it out and we ordered complimentary fabrics to go with it.

I'll admit that before I started these fleece projects I've never felt quality fleece before. It's definitely that fabric that just says "KEEP TOUCHING ME" LOL. But it is a BITCH to sew! So some of the fabrics ordered were Minky, and I'm telling you it is EVERYWHERE!!!

Since fleece is stretchy, I decided to use Freezer Paper to keep its shape while I worked. I cut out the pieces of freezer paper based on my graph (1block=1inch) then ironed it to the back of the fabric. I then cut out 1/2" seam allowance around the fabrics with my rotary cutter.






Now, as you can see. . . as you cut out the MINKY, it leaves this residue in the grooves of my cutting mat!! This stuff is VERY DIFFICULT to get out - but what I found did the best was just taking a scrap piece of cotton fabric and rubbing it off.

This WAD of fluff is just the stuff I pulled out of the cutting mat from JUST the CREAM minky. . LOL

I sewed them all together. . . the freezer paper really helped. I did have a bit of trouble squeezing the seam allowances through the machine. ..AND it's almost impossible to match the seams perfectly ;c) But since I"m a brilliant genius. . We are going to FINISH these quilts and they are going to be amazing. I'll keep ya posted!


Click HERE to see finished quilt!

J Rachel Besnard's November Referral Contest ~ NEW!

My dear friend Jonua Besnard is having another contest. The most referrals wins . . . . "A jewelry set, a cute recycled tote bag (with my logo), and a bag or box of gourmet treats from Paris! You won't be sorry you participated in this one."

So head on over to Jonua's Blog BUMBLEBEEBEAD for all the details!!