Valentine Hearts Mug Rugs

I purchased a PDF pattern from Etsy for these cute little mug rugs. I couldn't wait to get started on them the moment I printed out the instructions. Pink is one of my favorite colors so I loved playing with the fabrics.

These were so very easy and fun. I didn't do anything fancy to the hearts or letters, they're just raw-edge appliqué.  

Last year I made many table toppers. So many that I got tired of binding them. This is one of three that I had left to bind. It's rewarding to call another unfinished object completed. 

Speaking of UFOs...

My tiny town quilt is on the longarm. I can't decide how to quilt it so it might be sitting here for a while.

Flea Market Flowers Sew Along

I started the Flea Market Flowers quilt along back in spring but I didn't get very far. I was interrupted by the need to make a wedding quilt. Once I completed that I was spent on quilting for a while. I hate to make excuses so I knew I had to finish this one and my goal was to get it done before the end of the year.

This quilt pattern is free on Lori Holt's blog. Each week we were to make a Dresden block. It's nice that I can go back to each week's instructions and work the project all the way through even though the quilt along is done.

                             

There were so many flower petals to make. In fact, I counted them. There were 480 Dresden flower petals in all and there were also 68 leaves. 

Even though I did not make the end of year deadline, I did have the quilt top completed by New Year's Eve. That in itself was quite an accomplishment considering my recent appendectomy. But again, no excuses!  These poor lonely quilt blocks have been hanging on my design board all summer long. Not to mention all of fall too.

I finally loaded the quilt on my longarmer on January 3rd. 

I used a pantograph called Citrine for the quilting design.

I sewed the rick rack and the binding on during the week. And I finished the quilt label yesterday. 

Yay! All done...

A Summer Bazaar and Some Projects in the Works

I rented a space at a Summer Bazaar this past weekend. This is the only photo I took of my space. I was lucky enough to be so extremely busy that there was no time to sit back and take a photo while I was 'open for business'. What a great day it was!

The weather was perfect, the bazaar was very busy. I met many wonderful people and some friends stopped by to visit. Thankfully, I have a very supportive husband who helped me set everything up. It sure helps that he has a big truck to haul all my stuff. I don't know what I would do without him.

So that explains why I haven't had much to blog about - I've been spending lots of time making baby blankets, burp cloths, and rice/boo-boo bags to sell. They are my most popular items. 

I've had these blocks on my design wall for over a month. I took them down temporarily while I made the wedding quilt, but they're back up now to remind me to finish the project. Ha!

I'm also working on a quilt called Flea Market Flowers by Lori Holt. 

I've learned a lot about applique from making these blocks. The first block I made I ended up ripping the whole thing apart to re-do it because I just didn't like how it puckered when I sewed the flower onto the block. That's where I learned about Terial Magic. It is a fantastic product that when you spray it on your fabric and press it, the fabric feels like a piece of thick paper. 

I pressed all the pieces with Terial Magic on them and re-stitched everything to the background and it lays perfectly flat. It is amazing.

I have 4 blocks done so far. They are fun to make however, I must admit that after a while I get tired of sewing dresdens. There are so many pieces. I think this one will take me quite a while to do. 

I have two t-shirt quilts to make and I took an order for a lap quilt while I was at the bazaar. It's going to be a busy sewing summer. 

Coffee Tea Towel

I finally figured out what to do with the first embroidery piece I made with my new machine - a tea towel! I washed up some blank tea towels last week and today I cut some 2 and a half inch squares of coffee themed coordinating prints. I sewed the squares together and stitched them onto the towel 3 and a half inches up from the bottom of the towel. I cut the embroidery piece down to fit in the center and used a sating stitch to attach it to the towel. I do like how it turned out.

Dresden Neighborhood Wallhanging

Here is my Dresden Neighborhood wallhanging. The original pattern has the 'neighborhood' in a circle. But if you take some of the dresdens and turn them upside down you get them in a straight line instead of the  circle.

I used Moda Grunge in a blue and green to make the background look like sky on top and grass on the bottom. I also made sure my houses were stitched down in a rainbow effect.

I used many of the stitches on my sewing machine to stitch around the houses and roofs as well as to sew on the windows and doors. It was so much fun.

I can't wait to hang it in my sewing room. I also made sure to put a rod pocket on the back in case I enter it in quilt shows.

What's on the design board?

The answer to the question "what's on the design board?" is nothing. Yup, there's nothing there right now. I am working on a quilt called Read to Me that requires lots and lots of appliqued letters.
Here are the letters I made (so far)...

They've been ironed onto black Moda solid fabric with heat 'n bond lite. I think cutting them out will be a bit of a challenge, especially the insides of the letters. I am happy that I have the 'book' blocks completed. The sashing between rows will have the words.

This quilt in progress is supposed to be a teacher appreciation gift for my granddaughter's teacher. Teacher Appreciation Week happens in April and although school is now online and there will be no TA week celebrations, I am still making this quilt. Besides, while in quarantine, what else do I have to do? Ha!

I will tell you what else I have to do - I am going to start a quilt called Butterfly Patch. I fell in love with the pattern and the fabrics on the pattern cover so I am going to try an recreate is exactly as it is.

I work part-time in a quilt shop and even though the shop is closed due to the pandemic, I still go in once a week and cut fabric kits. Their online ordering has blown up and the shop owner can't keep up with the orders. Isn't the quilting community wonderful? Anyway, while I was there yesterday, the news media showed up to do a segment on all the good works the quilt shop does. The Racine Police Department was in need of apron-like covers to wear over their uniforms and the quilt shop put out a call to the community to make them from Tyvek. The community responded and made hundreds of the aprons within 48 hours of Jim making the request. Amazing.

My Small World Quilt

Here is my finished My Small World! After 1 year and 2 months, it is complete. My daughter, Bailee bought me the pattern last year for my birthday and I started working on it immediately. I got hung up with each section that required hand applique. I don't know why. I can do it, I guess I just didn't want to hand stitch anything. But for a quilt like this one, it had to be done that way, the right way. So I muddled through making hexies by hand, Dresden plated by hand, and a some curved pieces. I learned a few tricks along the way and I have to admin, every time I finished a hand appliqued part, I wondered why I put it off. It was all so very enjoyable. I did cheat a little; I paper-pieced a few blocks which was not how the pattern was intended but I wanted to see if it made any difference in how some of the blocks turned out. I didn't. So I machine pieced most of the quilt just like the pattern said to. After lots of thought I quilted this with a pantograph called Breath of the Gods. It looks like the wind is blowing across my little world.

So now I'm on to my current crafty project - hanging deer antlers. My husband is a hunter and he had one of his deer preserved in a way called European-style. I don't understand why they call it that, it looks rather southwestern to me. Anyway, I dug out some pallet boards I've been saving and made a panel to mount the deer antlers on. Now that it's ready to be hung, I have to decide where. I think that part might take me a little while since we aren't quite done with putting things back after our new floors were installed. I guess I will leave it on the floor until I figure out where it should go.

My Small World Home Stretch

I've been very sporadic when it comes to working on this quilt. I am happy that I've finished all the sections of this quilt except one. Of course for me, it's the hardest one. It's the one that requires tons of hand applique and English paper piecing. I don't know much about EPP but I am ready to get this finished so I will figure it out very soon.

I hand appliqued the rainbow and the dresden pieces and stitched them to their background today. In the pattern these two pieces are supposed to be hills on a countryside but in my version, I wanted a sunshine and a rainbow.

The last two appliqued pieces are hexies and an arch made up of small triangles. I really have the desire to get this done I just wish I had more free time. 

Butterfly Quilt

This is my daughter's butterfly applique quilt. It's one of her stack of finished quilt tops that she brought over last month. In fact, she had another smaller baby quilt version of this quilt that I finished for her.

I free-motion quilted this one and put the binding on it for her. I like this one better than the baby quilt, I think its the borders that make the difference.

She sure does nice work.

Row Houses Quilt - Completed

I finished my Row Houses Quilt today. I used a variety of modern fabric scraps to make the houses for this quilt.

I used shades of gray and beige to make the "skies" for the backgrounds. This quilt is entirely appliqued. The houses are stitched together in rows then the rows are appliqued to the background.

It was great fun to choose the different backgrounds as well as the scraps for the houses.

For the quilting, I chose to try something new. I bought a stencil at the last quilt show I attended and used that as a guide for free-motion quilting. The stencil I bought has swirls on it and I wanted to use it to represent wind blowing over the houses. It was great fun to try this new technique. It felt a little more artsy than what I am used to doing.

I definitely need more practice, but I figure that I have to start somewhere. I can't get better at this unless I get practice so I will call this my first practice quilt using stencils.

I used some of the leftover fabrics to piece the back together. I like the continuity of using some of the same fabrics to make the back, but the truth is that I didn't have enough of the fabric I chose to make the back and it was a good way to not have to buy more fabric.

I took photos of the quilt on a blustery day. It was an unusual 70 degrees out but a little windy so my granddaughter enjoyed helping me keep the edges of the quilt down while I took pictures. She's just 4 years old and absolutely loves helping out. It was such a delight spending time with her outside while we took photographs.

The pattern for this quilt came from the book, Quilts for Scrap Lovers by Judy Gauthier. The neat thing about this book is that I know Judy. She is a wonderful woman who owns a quilt shop in Wisconsin. I got to know her when she started a modern quilt club near my neighborhood. It's a fun group of ladies and I enjoy our meetings together. Judy has moved on from the club due to her many other commitments, but I still get to see her at quilt shows and of course at her shop. I think I should get her to autograph my copy of her book!

Row Houses Quilt - WIP

This is my row houses quilt. It is a work in progress. I started it during the summer and since I really took most of the summer off, I'm just getting back to it. It was an unusual quilt top to make for me. The rows of houses are done with applique which is not a technique that I enjoy. Or at least I thought I would not enjoy.

As it turns out, this was a lot of fun to make. Each row is stitched on using a variety of fancy stitches from my machine. I got to experiment with different stitches. Since my machine is very new to me, I haven't used any of them before!

Now I am going to experiment with the quilting process by using a stencil to free motion "wind" in the sky sections of the quilt. That is, as soon as I finish putting the back together. Now that I am getting back in gear when it comes to my sewing, I hope to be finishing this up within the next few weeks. Yay!

I must comment on the weather. It is the end of October and the grass is very green and all the flowers and shrubs are still greener than ever. What a wonderful fall it has been. We are constantly in the high 60's and it will be near 70 next week. The hammock gets tons of use. Amazing.

Batik Wall Hanging

Connie, the owner of Coins & Quilts put together a wall hanging kit for her shop. The kit uses a pattern called Autumn Leaves by Thimble 'N Thread and is made up of batik fabrics. I made a sample wall hanging from the kit for her to hang at the shop.

I used Madiera thread to do some stitching around the appliqued leaves and just a little straight-line quilting around the blocks, like the pattern designer suggested. I was pleasantly surprised how the sample turned out, especially since I'm not usually a fan of batiks. 

Little Monsters Quilt - Completed

I finished my little monsters quilt today. It's been difficult to find time to sew lately because my husband had rotator cuff surgery yesterday. Not that his surgery is a huge burden on me, however, he did commit to completing my granddaughter's loft bed he's making before the surgery date arrived. That meant I was going to be putting the finishing coats of urethane on the bed frame since I'm home all day.

The project would have been completed in plenty of time but the weather was not cooperating. We needed some days where the temps were over 50 (according to the back of the urethane can) and that's been rare in the past month. I was happy to help out. But it did take away from time at my sewing machine.

So now that the bed is done, I am happy to be back in my sewing room and out of the workshop. After all the applique on this little quilt, I chose to just machine quilt around each block and keep it simple. I found some really cute fabric for the back and chose to use a stripe for the binding. This project allowed me the opportunity to map out each block myself and determine all the block sizes on my own.

Things are much easier with a pattern but this sure was an economical way to get the job done.

Architextures Quilt - WIP

I decided to put an applique of the state of Wisconsin on the back of my son's quilt. 

He actually called one of my quilts "a little piece of home" so it seems appropriate to put this on the back of the new quilt I am making for him. 

I had no idea how difficult this was going to be!  The first struggle had more to do with my lack of ambition.  I really wanted to make cut out each county in the state from a different color of fabric and piece them all together.  That was until I realized how many counties there are in this state.  There are 72 just in case you were wondering. Considering I have made quilts where the first instruction was cut 360 squares...this should not be all that difficult however, each one being a custom shape was somewhat overwhelming to me. 

A friend (thank you, Midge) suggested I use the Wisconsin Tourism map that breaks it down into sections.  So we now have the Northwest, Northeast, Central, Southeast, Southwest, South Central and East Central designations.  This worked well and for more than me being a little lazy.  These shapes would fit on my leftover solid charm squares.  How perfect is that!

The next obstacle was working with Heat N Bond.  Do I trace the map inverted or not?  I can never remember.  And what do I do about the Apostle Islands and Washington Island? Washington Island might be big enough to cut out a dot but the Apostle Islands are pretty small.  I might have to draw them in with fabric ink.  So now I am ready to fuse them to the fabric and stitch around all the shapes.  But before I do that I have to decide whether or not to cut out Lake Winnebago or draw that on as well.  Maybe I should stitch some highways too...

This is going to be fun.