Quilting Update

Quilting Update

April 27, 2017 by · Leave a Comment

Hello again quilting friends!!

So my blog posts have been come few and far between.  Well I guess I never anticipated what adding a little one to our family would really mean.  You see these movies of parents doing it all, work, kids, hanging out with their friends in the evenings.  Well that is all fiction, perhaps it works for some people, but in my little family, there is not TONS of time; after school, getting dinner ready, playing, bath time, stories, bedtime…then after all that I am exhausted and in bed by 9pm.  The glamorous life I lead…don’t be jealous!

 

This has led to diminished quilting time.  I’m still doing quilting things, buying fabric, kits, etc.  But I just don’t have as much to show for it as I normally would.  I am currently working on a Craftsy kit called “The Family Album Quilt Kit”.  I have everything cut out and all everything pieced.  Now I am working on getting the rows put together.  I seem to have become slightly obsessed with star quits, and I love how this one is one great big star.

 

I should mention that while I’m not cranking out a quilt every month or so, I’m still getting several done a year, so even though I have cut back on what’s getting accomplished, I’m still quilting and enjoying the process.

 

I bid farewell to my very first Bernina machine Bernice.  She went to live with my neighbor.  I had to sell her and her cabinet to make room for a new addition.  My friend Cindi called me with a wonderful deal on an Innova Longarm, and I could not turn it down.  So, I went ahead and took it.  I won’t have it for several months but I think sometime in September she should be comfy and cozy in my quilting room.  Which will bring on an entirely NEW set of fun and challenges.

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My Quilt of Many Colors

My Quilt of Many Colors

July 30, 2016 by · Leave a Comment

quiltofmanycolors3Hello again!

It’s been awhile I know.  It’s not you, it’s me.  I under estimated how much time a 5 year old would cut into my once limitless free time.  I’m not complaining though, this has been a wonderful and crazy journey, and I absolutely love and adore my family.  But with additions come subtractions, and in my first year as a parent my quilting became somewhat of a subtraction.

Before we adopted I was a “retreat” quilter.  I would get up at 7 in the morning on a Saturday, start cutting things out, binge on Hulu and Netflix while piecing my top together.  I would stop around 10 at night , then get up and do it all over again on Sunday.  By the end of the weekend I would have a quilt top.  Times they have a’changed.  I now have a few options available to me.  I have Hayden get some toys and come done to play in the quilt room while watching his favorite shows, or I wait until he goes to bed.  I put in a hour or 2 a day, and the quilt top that took me 2 days or so, now take about 2 weeks, and that’s okay.

dolly

Take for instance that I FINALLY finished my “Postcard from Sweden.”  I started it, too far back to remember, but it’s finally finished!  I’m calling it my “Quilt of Many Colors” in honor of Dolly Parton.  I was able to go see her, and now my son loves to listen to “Coat of Many Colors” and “Applejack” and sings both in the car.  As I type this I have also finished another quilt, but that is a story for another day.

Filed Under: General
Starting my Postcard from Sweden Quilt

Starting my Postcard from Sweden Quilt

January 16, 2016 by · 1 Comment

postcardSo I finally had time to start on my “Postcards from Sweden” quilt from Jeli Quilts.  It’s a really fun, colorful quilt, you can find the pattern on Craftsy and I believe they also have kits available.  It’s hard to find all of the Kona solids in one spot, so I was able to get mine by buying at my local quilt shop, but I also had to order online at Missouri Star Quilt Company to get a complete list of the fabrics needed.  This also marked the first time of using my AccuQuilt Go! I’ve had it for years, but never really used it as I didn’t want to invest in buying specific dies for specific shapes.  However I did buy the half square triangle die for this project which made cutting the triangles SUPER quick!

IMG_3282One of the biggest priorities to this quilt is LABELING!  There are TONS of colors and some of them are just a shade that is SLIGHTLY off from one another.  So I purchased printable return address labels and printed them out to keep my colors organized, believe me, it’s worth it!!  With 36 colors floating around it’s nice to have them each labeled, also ADD the corresponding number to the label.  I thought of this after it was too late, so I just added them to the label with a Sharpie.  But having the name and number of the fabric will be a life saver.

FullSizeRenderWhile you’re only making half square triangles and pinwheel blocks.  The time consuming part of this is matching up the colors according to the diagram and getting them all sewn together.  I purchased large paper plates, and set each set on a paper plate to be sewn, then just stacked the paper plates.  It make is REALLY easy to sew together and know what pair you have.  (Thanks Pepper Cory for that tip!)  So I am about a quarter of the way done.  Hopefully before the weekend is over I will be about half way there.

HAPPY QUILTING!

Filed Under: General, Patterns