Southwest Inspiration

Well I have started to finally get a quilt top together for a gentleman at work that has requested a quilt with a Southwest Theme.  I actually started this quite awhile ago and made most of the blocks before I ran out of steam..The motivation for this quilt was a Southwestern Tapestry. The tapestry was on the wall of a home that we rented during a family get together a few years back in Leavenworth, WA.  When my co-worker asked me to make something with the Southwestern feel to it.. I thought of that tapestry instantly. Funny how things get you motivated.  After getting all the blocks together though I got side tracked with some other items with deadlines this past year.  I have to give some credit to the Crazy Mom Quilts, her Finish it Up Friday challenges have put a spark under my bum to get some projects finished...this quilt was put to the top of my list and is on its way to hopefully being finished this week.  :)  Might not get it quilted by Friday, but at least the top finished.    Here is a picture of it on the design wall.

I spent most of the day out in my Sewing Cave.  Haha... with all the rain outside..it was fun to work on something that reminded me of sunshine and warm weather. I have finished putting the center blocks together.. and am going to add a 2 1/2 inch border and a 4 1/2 inch border, this week hopefully after work tomorrow. :)  Question I have is.. Do I add a light border or a dark border.. I am a little torn about which way to go..... Any input is appreciated. 

Till Next Time....

Love Letters BOM

I was sent this fabulous BOM quilt via email... It's being put on by an Online Quilt Shop called Fabric Seeds. Here is the Link to the BOM sign up if you are interested.. Fabric Seeds  .

Wanna make it with us? I have to admit that I am not the biggest fan of BOM's (don't get me wrong they are great)  I usually start them...and never finish them.  So I figure if I post about it online It will keep me motivated to stay on top of this one!  I really LOVE the colors & I think that the triangles will be a very good challenge for me.  I usually stick to squares and more squares, because I worry about my points.  So this will truly be a good test for me!  Will keep ya posted...

Thanks for stopping by... Till Next Time.   

Red & Blue Coins Finished

Happy to announce that my motivation to finish the Train quilt yesterday got me excited to finish another quilt today.  Red & Blue Coins that I posted about in September was basted..quilted..and binding is done!   Here is the finished product....you can find out a bit more about the pattern in my September post...but I have to repeat this is a fun easy and quick quilt to go together. 

 

I decided to step out of my comfort zone a bit and go for it with a Giant Meandering stitch all across the quilt.  Oh my..so much easier than I expected it to be.  My little Kenmore sewing machine was working overtime...but it made it just fine.  I plan on doing a couple more like this again in the future.  This was a fun no-non sense quilt.  This quilt finished up approximately 54 x 68 inches.  I have warm & white for the batting.  The binding is alternating red and blue fabrics that were used in the quilt.  All fabrics used are 100% Cotton and are all quilting fabrics.   I pieced the backing,(to break it up a little).  I do that to all my quilts now.. don't like to just have one fabric anymore..too boring :)  So happy to have another quilt finished!  Going into my 2011 Finished project file!!  Also got a new camera so my pictures are turning out so much better!!  YEAH!!!!

You can find this item in my Etsy Store for sale. 

Till Next Time....

Finish it Up Friday

The Train is heading down the track to the finish Line!! Whoo Hooo!!



Prewash

 I finally basted and quilted the Train quilt that I have been working on the past month.  I am hand binding it tonight as I watch movies with my family... How exciting to finish it up.  I am sure that she will love it and her nephew will have years of fun playing with it and keeping warm :)  To grey outside to take any new pictures, but I have this pix to share... of course this is before I basted and quilted.. Love it when I remember to take a picture of the front and back side x side first :) 

Till next time...







Post wash with a bit of shrinkage.



UPDATE! 10/22/2011... Here it is all done... Binding Done.. Washed and Ready for delivery.  Was a little nervous when I put it in the washing machine..you know how red can be...but I will SWEAR by the SHOUT Colorwash Sheets for the rest of my life!!  Turned out GREAT.   

Classy Quilt Bag

My Sister-in-Law and I went to a favorite quilt store in our area "The Wild Rose Quilt Shop" in Orting, WA here's a link http://www.thewildrosequiltshop.com/...in search of a wonderful ruler she was getting me as a Thank You Gift, called the 90 Degree Double-Strip Creative Grids Ruler. 

 I am excited to try this technic with the book called  Strip-Smart Quilts: 16 Designs from One Easy Technique (That Patchwork Place) (the other part of the gift).  There are some great quilts in this book.  The technic looks very simple, quick and easy.  I have looked through my stash and I  have a (5) 1-yard cut fabric stash that I can make a pretty good size lap/cot quilt with. 

In the Process of finding the ruler, we obviously had to do a little shopping.. (of Course)  and We both fell in love with a bag.  It's called  A Schlepping Bag "A Giant Take It to Class Bag"  the pattern is distributed by Anything But Boring.  I love it and it will be perfect to take with us to classes.  It fits an 18 x 24 mat..and you can make it to fit several different size ruler to keep them all safe.  We both found prequilted fabrics that we liked to make the bag go together a bit easier, but you can obviously make your own quilted fabric if you should so desire.  I look forward to personalizing my bag as soon as I can get a day to make it!  :)   
Here's a picture from the pattern cover.. Pretty COOL isn't it!! Love the idea.  I have an older bag that I made but the mat is side ways..and I always get it caught on something..HAHA.. This one will stay closer to my body and not flop around as much!  Lovin this idea!!

Till Next Time....

 

Contest 2 Scrappy

Just want to say Thank You to all of you for voting in my first contest, I didn't win, but that's okay..I loved all the quilts that were featured and the winner's quilt was BEAUTIFUL!!!   I wasn't going to enter another contest, but I couldn't resist entering when this contest was titled Scrappy .. I knew exactly which quilt I would enter...The quilt I made my Dad in 2008.  It's called Scrappy Trails, for the cowboy that he is.  :)  The quilt is featured in one of my first blog entries "Too much Licorice and way too many Lattes" 

Voting Starts tomorrow, Friday, and runs thru Sunday..at the Quilting Bloggers website. Link is avialable in my right side tool bar.  Weekly Themed contests is the section of site for voting.   You get to vote once per IP address, and when you see the quilts make a note of the Name of your favorite, the ballet boxes will be listed after all the quilts, by quilt name.   I hope you enjoy all the great quilts and please make sure you vote for your favorite.  :)   

I also want to say thank you to everyone for the encouragment for stepping out of my box and entering a contest or two :)   We'll see how it goes.

Till Next Time....

UPDATE.................I didn't win, but that's okay.. there were lots of great looks to enjoy at the website.  THANK YOU to everyone that did vote.  I appreciated you taking the time to do so :)

Lots of Hugs...Christine

Quilted most of day ;)

Today is turning into one of those days that you wish wouldn't come to an end.  :)  Woke up this morning and decided today was the day to get the Train quilt as close to ready to quilt as I can.  I am almost there.  I finished the top...had to do some creative piecing with the border. I managed to not have to piece any border edges together... I hate it when I have to do that.  I am happy with the way the border turned out. I am sure that the three year old, this quilt is for, will love the extra tracks for his trains to travel ;)  I originally made the borders 8 inches, but wasn't happy with the way it looked..I thought that the border was overtaking the quilt...so I trimmed it down to 6.5 and am much happier.  I really like how the blocks creep over into the border.. I plan to bind the quilt with the black that I used in the quilt.  I think it will frame it nicely.

I pieced the back of the quilt together today as well.  I used a panel print that was available and some extra little fun blocks to make the back of the quilt just as pretty as the front. :)

I think for quilting it I am going to stitch in the ditch around all the black fabric and maybe do a bit of stipple stitching around the characters in the main blocks.  I have to admit I am excited to get this finished.  It's always fun to work on a project for someone, but it gets you excited to work on a project for yourself ;)

The day has got too late for me to do the basting...I will work on it later this week.  I hope to get this all finished in the next two weeks, but we'll have to see... I have a busy two weeks ahead with work/school.. but today was a very relaxing and therapeutic day!

Till Next Time....

Fall Transitions

Well I entered my first online contest.  I have entered a quilt that I made from a 9 patch swap.  If you get a chance to vote I'd appreciate it.  Here is the quilt....

This quilt I call Fall Transitions.. I loved so many of the squares that I had to use as many as I could.  it's 46 x 54 and I love all the colors and how it turned out.  I met a great group of ladies doing this swap and have learned tons from them over the years. :)

Voting will open this Friday and runs through Sunday.  To the right of this entry is a box for Quilting Bloggers..if you go to that website on Friday..and scroll down to the Weekly Themed Quilt Contest. There should be a link to take you to the Fall Themed quilts that are in the contest.  Every IP address can vote once.  Please take the time to enjoy all the fun Fall quilts and if my quilt happens to be your favorite..I'd appreciate the vote :) 

Till Next Time....

UPDATE.....Thanks for all the votes.. I didn't win..but it was fun to see all the beautiful quilts. 

Creativity in the new Sewing Cave

I don't know if any of you recall that we are remodeling our house and getting ready to build a new garage come spring of 2012...anyway..Our current garage leaked like crazy until just last week, when I managed to take a very big piece of visqueen (sp)..aka very big and thick Plastic sheeting...over the roof and stapled and nailed wood over it.. to hold it down...the day after we put it up we had 30 mile an hour winds...I totally thought I was going to look out and see this 16 ft x 36 ft piece of plastic flapping in the air, but it held up great and the garage doesn't leak anymore (as of now)... I am hoping it holds thru the winter until we can tear down the garage and build the new one which will be 24 x 36 and hopefully with a loft area that will be my new sewing room area.....Our house is also very small..under 900 sq ft total..There isn't really a place for me to sew without interrupting everything else going on in the house.  I decided to move out to the Garage..haha.  We have a little storage area in the back section of the garage it's a room full of all our overage from the house..Most of it is in totes, but there is a decent space in the middle and since it doesn't leak anymore..I have made a makeshift sewing room area.  Billy thinks I am crazy..but is okay with it..now I don't interrupt the football games as much..hahaha..he gets his uninterrupted TV time and I get my quilting therapy time :)  WIN WIN for both of us.. I hung a design wall up from the rafters..and enjoyed the afternoon sewing and playing in my new craft room..HAHA  Here's my little sewing cave...

Today I was working on a quilt for a friend that wants a quilt made for her 3 year old nephew..He loves Thomas the Train.  I didn't even think they had Thomas fabric by the yard out there, or I would have considered making my nephews quilt out of Thomas fabric..But we did manage to find some at the Fatquartershop online.  She let me have creative control of how it will look...So I did a little online shopping and found fabric and a pattern that I thought would make cute quilt.  The blocks run in a pattern that with a 3 year old's imagination will look like railroad tracks.  I couldn't just use brown for the tracks so I added lots of color blocks to go along with it.  The pattern I found as my inspiration is called Arcadia by Mountainpeek Creations.  I am going to modify the borders a little bit so that the tracks run to the edge :)  But all in all I think that the gal will LOVE it..so will her nephew..

Here is a pic of it on the design wall.  I also found a really cute Thomas Train all over print to go along with this for the border.  Will update pix soon with a close up..when I get closer to being done, but just had to share.  It felt good to get started on this and to have a spot to sew and not feel so bad for all the noise we can make with our machines. :)     Till Next Time....