Sunday Sewing

I spent most of the day sewing.  The weather was overcast, no rain, but it was a perfect day to sew.  While my husband worked on this car outside, I sewed in inside.  Very relaxing day.

 

I started a new quilt called "Comfort" from Collections for a Cause by Howard Marcus.  It comes in a kit, so all the hard work of matching fabrics is already done for you.  It is sewn with precuts, strips and squares, so there's not a whole lot of cutting involved.  It's mainly 9 patches and squares, using reproduction fabrics.  I hope to have this one up on the design wall soon once I get all the 9 patches together.  Needed something that went together quickly.  Normally, I like very complex designs, or lot's of pieces.  Those types of quilts tend to take more time to finish, and I wanted something that took less time and was simple, but results that are beautiful.  I think this fits the bill.

 

I got the backing finished for the "Road Less Traveled" and rolled up on my Janome quilting machine.  It's not a long arm quilt machine, but it does what I need it to.  The machine has a stitch regulator, so that makes it easy to use.  I don't have a very wide throat space on my machine, but it gets the job done.  If you look real close you might be able to make out the quilting.  It's going fairly quickly.  Maybe I'll get if finished by the weekend.

 

Haven't made much progress on Spring Bouquet.  I'll show a picture of my first block later.  I still have to piece the backing for "Civil War Homefront".   It will go on the quilting machine after the "Road Less Traveled" is completed.  

Until next time!

Making Progress

Well I've made a lot of progress since my last post.  I've completed the two tops I was working on.  I still need to quilt them.  A friend of mine, a very wise lady, says "A quilt is not complete until it's quilted".  She's right.

 

 

Here's my Civil War Homefront quilt top.  I went to my guilds quilt retreat they have every year and put all the blocks together.  I was able to finish it while at the retreat.  Now I need to decide on a quilt pattern.  I'm thinking feathers, but I can't do them free hand, so I'll have to find a stencil of some kind.  Those blocks are calling for feathers.

 

 



Here's my Road Less Traveled.  I was going to add a pieced border, but I wasn't satisfied with the results.  So I went with just a 3.5 inch border strip.  It looks nice with just the plain border.  A meandering quilt pattern would work for this one.  What do you think?

I've started the Spring Bouquet applique quilt.  I don't have a picture for it.  I'll add a picture for my first block later.  I also started a quilt called Comfort from the Collection for a Cause from Howard Marcus.  Its a nine patch quilt using reproduction prints from the 1800's. 

I worked on the Comfort quilt this weekend while my husband and I were camping.  We quilters use any space necessary when wanting to sew or quilt.  I put my ironing pad on my counter over the sink covers in the camper.  It was just the right height and I had plenty of room to iron.  Such fun!

That's all for now.

It's Friday

It's Friday!  I had a very stressful week at work, so I didn't get a whole lot of sewing done.  Normally when I stressed, I will sew some and it relaxes me.  But I when I got home everyday, I just didn't have the energy to do much, the thought of sewing made me feel even more tired.  I plan on changing that this weekend. 

I plan to continue to work on the Road Less Traveled and get the border on it this weekend.  I'll be glad when I have the top to this one completed.  I'm ready to get it on my quilting machine.  I also hope to get the Civil War Homefront blocks up on the design wall and get it laid out how I want it.  So a busy weekend.  I'll post pictures later, hopefully I'll make a lot of progress.

I think I'm going to start a UFO list on my blog, and place the dates I finish each project on it.  I've only listed so far the three projects that I'm currently working on, but I'm like most quilters, and have several more still waiting in the wings that have been started but not finished.  So I've got plenty I can work on, and plenty I want to start. 

Rainy Sunday!

Rainy Sunday's or rainy days in general, make perfect days to sew.  I've spent a good part of the day working on the Civil War Homefront quilt.  I've completed about 20 blocks, 10 of them this weekend and have 5 left to make before I can start assembling the quilt.  The quilt calls for 25 of these blocks.  I'm excited.  It will go quickly from here.  I'm hoping to finish up the last 5 blocks and start putting them up on the design wall soon.
 

 

 

I still have the Road Less Traveled on the design wall.  I decided to put a pieced border on it first before I can move the Civil War quilt to the wall.  I'm like all quilters, not just happy with one project at a time.  I try to be diligent and at least try and get the blocks pieced together before I move on to the next project.  Not always able to do that, but I at least try.

 

My next project is a Spring Bouquet BOM quilt.  It's an applique quilt.  All the flowers are precut for you with the wonder under already ironed on.  You just have to position the pieces according to the pattern, and then iron to the background fabric.  You can embellish the blocks anyway you might want.  I'm excited to get this one started.  I've been wanting a project that I can do hand work on while I watch TV sometimes.

 

 

Well I need to get busy with laundry and wash the dishes.  You know, the boring stuff, then it's back to sewing, the fun stuff. 

 

Talk again soon!

Let's try this again!

I haven't been very diligent in keeping up with my blog.  I've let other things get in the way.  Stress from work and from just living.  I'm going to try to do better, and at least make one post a week, if not daily. 

I actually have several projects in the works, as most quilters do.  Here are the three main projects I'm working on right now.

I have 10 blocks completed for my Civil War Homefront quilt, out of 25 blocks that I need.  These are simple blocks, with squares and HST(Half Square Triangles) units.  Each block will be set on point.  The hardest part of this one is going to be the outer setting triangles.  It is a stripe print and lining up the stripes for each triangle is going to be tricky.  I hope it works out correctly.  I still have 15 blocks to go before I get to that step.  We will see how it goes.

I've completed the quilt top for the Road Less Traveled by A Quilter's Dream.  I have to put a border on this one, then it will be ready to be quilted.  This one was fun to make and I loved the colors.  I used fabrics from the Piccadilly Lane fabric collection from Henry Glass.  Gives this pattern a very modern feel.  I like it.

 

I found these lovely "Grandmothers Flower Garden" blocks on Ebay a few years ago.  All blocks were hand pieced and there was a good sized section of these blocks that were already pieced together.  There were about a 100 or so flower blocks, where the flowers were completed but not pieced together.  Each petal is only about an inch across.  I decided to finish the top keeping the integrity of the original maker, by hand stitching them all together.  I know nothing about the original maker, only that they were purchased from an estate sale.  I'm guessing the prints are all from the 30's and 40's and most likely were pieces taken from dresses and shirts and could also possibly be from feed sack prints. There were even little connecting pieces of muslin included, so there's no added fabric that could possibly hurt the value of these flowers.  I've got all the rows together, I just have to now piece the rows to each other.  Once this is done I will hand quilt the top.  This one has been slow going.  I had the blocks for about a year before I started piecing them together and I work on them when I'm really stressed and need something to zone out with. 

 

That's all for today.  Thanks for stopping by.