The Carpenter's Daughter Who Quilts

Category: Quilty Love

Fresh Sewing Day: May 1st

Hi, It’s the First of May and on the first of the month we review what we accomplished the month before and share our blog posts over at Lily’s Quilts Fresh Sewing Day and Small Blog Meet.

I finished quilting my Old School NFL football jersey print Adding Up Nicely quilt. It is a gift for my 1 year old nephew Casey. I appliqued his name on the back of the quilt.

I dug out of storage one of my oldest flimsies (from 1999), a quilt top for my son. I am working on designing a back for it and will be quilting it in the near future.

I have two quilt tops made from pattern testing for Meadow Mist Designs. A queen size Plus Plus and a twin size Grande Scrappy Tiles.

In the last days of April, I have pulled fabric and cut out all the pieces for three small kid’s quilts. One is a pattern test for Sea Stars for Meadow Mist Designs. The other two are made from patterns I purchased at the end of last year. One is Mod Gears by Don’t Call Me Betsy and the other is WoW-E by Sew Fresh Quilts. You can read more about these quilt projects on my last blog post. All three quilts have a major amount of half square triangles to create.

Last week, I purchased some new fun fabrics, the twenty fat quarters set of Katrina Roccella’s Skopelos fabric line. I am not usually drawn to overly flowerly fabric lines, but this one is quite beautiful and I love all the coordinating prints. The Art Gallery fabrics have such a nice feel to them.

I purchased one new quilt pattern in April. I got Star Crossed by Color Girl Quilts. I purchased Jumping Jacks by Color Girl as well a month or so. I have seen the designer make up versions of her quilts in Skopelos fabric line so that was what sparked my first interest in the fabric. I do have Katrina’s other line of fabric, Indelible to play with yet too.

I also purchased a new clothes pattern. I have not sewn any clothes for my daughter or myself in quite awhile. We have collected some cute new knit fabrics and I found a neat top that does not take a whole lot of fabric. The Spoxxy Top by StitchUponATime.com and it’s sold on Etsy. I purchased a men’s under armor type material shirt on clearance that I am going to upcycle some of the material for the back to go with the jersey knit we have to make this shirt hopefully. I need to rethread my serger as that will make easy work of this pattern and help manage the knits better.

I do have an update on one of the kid’s quilt patterns that I started sewing this week. I got all the half square triangles created for the Mod Gears quilt top. I need to finish pressing and squaring them all up. There is 64 HSTs in this quilt top and I squared up 8 of them so far to do a mockup of the two block versions to show what it is going to look like.

What do you think? Should I put the orange pluses with the gray or with the black gears?

I will be participating in Sew Mama Sew’s May Giveaway Day on May 6th -10th. I am giving away some pretty fabric charm packs and a set of quilt patterns. Be sure to come back then and enter the contest.

I am linking up this post with Lily’s Quilt Fresh Sewing Day, Crazy Mom Quilts, Can I Get a Whoop Whoop? and Prairie Sewn Studios’ Crafting Comment Karma.

Hope everyone has a great weekend.

Happy Sewing,

Shelley

May 1, 2015
The Cowboy Way: Grande Scrappy Tiles Flimsy Finish

Hi, I am excited to share today my finished quilt top made from Grande Scrappy Tiles that I am pattern testing for Meadow Mist Designs. I completed it before midnight, so that still counts as a Friday Finish, right? (Hard to take photos that late, if someone is sleeping in the bed. lol)

This is made with 30 different prints from stripes, plaids to cowboys, horses and boots. I was worried about combining all of them together, but I think they all mesh together nicely. Nice flow of color as well. I like it the pattern so much, that I can see it in possible patriotic prints which I have a ton of or all different plaids as I have a ton of homespuns. Some of the focus prints are upside down or sideways, but that is just the nature of the block. This quilt is just One Block and you flip it this way and that. I would think about cutting certain prints differently, if it was important that they be upright. The pattern uses fat quarters or 1/4 yard cuts. I used both, so it make it just a little more tricky cutting out. But Cheryl has a great chart telling you exactly how many of each block segment you need. So you can cut this top easy from your scraps and stash of fabrics.

This is a twin top on a king size bed. It is 72 inches by 96 inches.

Turned sideways on bed. There are so many of my old favorite fabrics in this quilt. I can not wait to start quilting on it. I am hoping to draw out a plaid type quilting on it. Use the arm extension on the walking foot and painters tape?? I have to figure out what to use on the backing. I still have lots of the same scraps. My daughter wants to save back the black background cowboy face print as we have had that set aside to use as lining in a leather purse we are designing to make.

I love this cowboy print and Mr. PoleCat is in the center of the block. He is my favorite. It makes me think of Doc Holliday.

I also love the cowboy boot print fabric. I had to use this fabric in the quilt. My daughter loves her cowboy boots. She has 7 pairs of Tony Lamas.

It is fitting to get this top completed this week as my daughter starts her internship at the horse farm on Monday.

I will be linking up this finish with Crazy Mom’s Quilts, Can I Get a Whoop Whoop?, TGIFF, Oh Scrap and Prairie Sewn Studios Craft Comment Karma and Scraptastic Tuesday.

Thanks for stopping by.

Happy Sewing,

Shelley

April 25, 2015
Plus Plus Flimsy: Fri. Finish

Hi, It’s Friday and I have a Friday Finish to share. I have finished putting together my queen size Plus Plus top that I pattern tested for Meadow Mist Designs.

I have never been more happy to see all 121 blocks finally come together. I really like how it turned out.

This is a queen size top on a king size bed. It is 99 inches square. It covers the bed from pillows to floor, and almost covers both sides of entire mattress. (One more row of blocks or a 6 inch border strip added to both length sides would finish off the size of top we like on the bed, but this will work nicely as well. )

There just is not enough room in our bedroom to get the whole bed in the photo from this angle. I was standing in the closet, maybe next time will push the clothes aside and go further back and it will finally get the full bed in the photos.

I tried turning the quilt top around the other direction of bed to see if that would work better??

I plan to use the accent plus’ fabric (Amy Butler’s Midwest Modern) as an accent stripe to back of the quilt. I am also looking at quilting it in an allover checkerboard grid which will call for adding the spacer arm to the walking foot.

The Plus Plus quilt pattern is two complete patterns in one. Today, Cheryl is showing her versions on her blog, Meadow Mist Designs. She is today’s stop on RJR Fabrics What Shade are you? blog hop. Cheryl is having an introductory sale on the Plus Plus pattern on her Craftsy and Etsy pattern pages for $6.00 til May 3rd. Be sure to go check out her posts as her two Plus Plus quilts turned out so awesome!

I will be linking up my Friday Finish with Crazy Mom Quilts, Can I Get a Whoop Whoop?, TGIFF and Prairie Sewn Studios’ Crafting Comment Karma.

Thanks for stopping by.

Happy Sewing and Have a great weekend,

Shelley

April 24, 2015
WIP: PlusPlus Half A Flimsy

Hi, I am sharing today how far I have come along on the pattern testing of Plus Plus. All 121 blocks are sewn and pressed. I am half way through assembling the top into rows now. Plus Plus will finally be a quilt top yet this week. Yeah!

This is the bottom half of the quilt top turned lengthwise to show all the blocks pieced so far. Only 66 more blocks need to go into rows…..

This is the right direction and shows how the accent block will lay on top of the bed. It will actually hit the end of the top of the mattress on our king bed. (Still undecided on what bed will wear this quilt, it may visit the full size bed in our guest room.)

These photos show close up of accent block and show where it is placed in the quilt top. Piecing the rows together is going fairly fast since you do not have lots of seams to match up.

Cheryl will be sharing on her blog Meadow Mist Designs her two versions of the Plus Plus pattern this weekend. RJR Fabrics is having a blog hop and her blog is a stop on April 26th.

Thanks for stopping by. I am looking at having this top pieced for a Friday Finish this week and hope to have more progress to show on my cowboy and horses themed Grande Scrappy Tiles quilt top as well.

I will be linking up with WIP Wednesday over at Fresh Pieced and Let’s Bee Social.

Happy Sewing,

Shelley

April 22, 2015
Grande Scrappy Tiles/Plus Plus Testing Updates

Hi, I would like to share my progress on pattern testing Grande Scrappy Tiles and Plus Plus for Meadow Mist Designs.

I got all my fabric pull for Grande Scrappy Tiles all pressed and cut today. I have decided to make the twin size version instead of a queen size. Grande Scrappy Tiles makes 24 inch blocks so you only need 12 for a twin or 16 blocks for a queen size quilt. The blocks can be easily cut from fat quarters or regular 1/4 yards. All my fabrics were from my stash and I had a good mix of fat quarters and 1/4 yd pieces. By having both, it made just a bit more work for me, to try and keep track of how many of which block I was cutting. The pattern has good chart diagrams to work from.

This is a sample block that I have laid out. I ended up adding a couple more prints. A white background horse print same as the black one, a green cross hatched print, an all over cowboy boot print on a green background and a cream with green/blue plaid. I think this took me up to 31 different prints.

Here is a second possible sample block. By having so many prints I am going to have to take extra time to swap them out to get a good overall mix in each block. There is only one style of block to make for this quilt and it just gets turned around in various ways to make the quilt top.

My big pile of fabric is all cut up into the various squares and rectangles. (I may need to add a couple more larger squares of my cowboy focus fabric to the mix.)

I spent a good portion of this week sewing the blocks for my Plus Plus quilt top. I have all 60 of the large pluses made, and am down to adding the last leg or pieced side to the small plus blocks. 50 out of the 60 need their last side.

I purchased a neat tool last night. It is a plastic wall paper seam roller. It is quite helpful in hand pressing or rolling the seams open on quilt blocks. I had looked for one of these rollers when I did my big paper piecing quilt project last year. I know they used to have a wooden roller but this one is plastic. It was only $1.98 at the home improvement store. It was quite helpful with the smaller plus blocks, making for less trips to the ironing board. I will give the blocks a final actual press when they are completed.

I hope to finish up my plus blocks this weekend and start assembling the 121 blocks into their top. I am thinking this quilt might be for our guest bedroom.

Thank you for stopping by. I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend. I will be linking up with Crazy Mom’s Quilts and Prairie Sewn Studios Comment Karma.

Happy Sewing,

Shelley

April 17, 2015
Plus Plus: Tuesday Update

Hi, I thought I would give an update on how I am coming along with my pattern testing for Meadow Mist Designs’ Plus Plus quilt design. I did not get to sew much over the weekend, as we had company visiting. I have finished all the strip piecing and am ready to start chain piecing the rest of my 121 blocks. I have two versions of the accent block made.

Here is version 1 with a lighter, brighter accent plus made from Amy Butler’s Midwest Modern Garden Maze in Mustard.

This is version 2 made with the golden, mustard accent plus made from the same Amy Butler’s Midwest Modern Garden Maze. Which version do you all, like better??

I think I am kind of partial to the lighter one? The pattern calls for 60 of the large pluses, 60 of the small pluses and the one accent block. The Plus Plus pattern will include a scrappy version and a two tone with one accent block version of this quilt. There are separate cutting instructions for the two versions and can be made in three sizes, baby, lap and queen size. The pattern should be released for purchase in the next week or so on Meadow Mist Design’s Etsy and Craftsy pages.

This is what I created with all my strip piecing. I have 6 out of 60 of the large pluses made, and 13 out of 60 of the smaller pluses made. So I have quite a bit of sewing yet before the top is created.

I will be linking up my WIP with Fabric Tuesday, Freshly Pieced’s WIP Wednesday, Let’s Bee Social and other midweek linky parties.

Thank you for stopping by.

Happy Sewing,
Shelley

April 14, 2015
Old School Football Addition Quilt: Friday Finish

Hi, Hope everyone is having a lovely Good Friday holiday. I am happy to have a Friday Quilt Finish to share this week.

I have completed my Old School Football version of Adding Up Nicely by Meadow Mist Designs. I have now made four different versions of Adding Up Nicely, but actually 5 quilts since there was the twin Scooby Doo versions for my grandsons. I think I have throughly tested out this pattern now. 🙂

I really love the pop of orange with the bright blue. So cheery. It’s great to be able to put together a neat quilt with some fabric stash that has spent years waiting for the right project. I did diagonal cross hatch quilting through the orange pluses and used the same orange fabric for binding.

The weather did not cooperate with me today for some nice outdoor photos. The sun has come out but it is too windy. I live on a farm and with it being Spring finally, there is work to get the fields ready to plant. They are hauling manure to the fields and my gates that I have used for photo shoots are wired open and it’s not a pretty picture at the moment. I need to work on finding some way to hang up my quilts here in the house, for when indoor photos have to be taken.

Mr. Casey’s name had been centered in the back of the quilt. I had even matched up the seam of the orange strips with the center of the letter S. Not sure how it got moved, but at least it is still straight across the back. Sometime simple cross hatching quilting is the best way to not distract from the designs of quilt. And it didn’t hurt that I was easing back in to quilting after being off for a couple weeks. I needed a fast finish. Hopefully my nephew and his new son will get many years of use out of this quilt.

I will be linking up my Friday finish with Crazy Mom’s Quilts, Can I Get a Whoop Whoop?, TGIFF and Prairie Sewn Studios Crafting Comment Karma LinkUp.

Hope everyone has a Happy Easter holiday!

Thanks for stopping by and visiting my blog.

Happy Sewing,

Shelley

April 3, 2015
My Fresh Sewing Day for April

Hi, My name is Shelley and I have not quilted or sewed in what is 18 days. Just in case anyone thought I fell off the other side of the earth, I pulled my neck wrong doing my last couple quilting projects and suffered from pain in my shoulder and down my arm into my hand. I guess I pushed it too hard. I only planned to take a couple days off and start back on some projects when I was feeling better, but I discovered I suffered from some burn out or loss of my “sew-jo”. My sewing machine may have taken a rest while I continued to look over fabrics and quilt designs planning new projects.

It is the First of April and time to do a monthly review. I finished quilting my Dr. Seuss scrappy baby quilt. I plan on giving it to our niece and her new baby this Easter weekend, when we get to meet our new nephew for first time. I started a new quilt for another little nephew who just recently turned 1. That quilt was made with Meadow Mist Design’s Adding Up Nicely and used an old school NFL team jerseys fabric that I had in my stash since 1999.

For new sewing I just finished piecing a back for the Old School Team Jersey quilt. I appliqued our nephew’s name on the back.

I really like using Lite Steam-A-Seam 2’s fusible webbing product. It stays flexible and is light weight, and the double sided sticky tape feature that allows you to hand press down your design before iron pressing it to make it permanent is so nice.

Here is a reminder of what the quilt top looks like. I got it basted together today and it is ready to be quilted. I have been bummed out that I could not find back the embroidery stitchery of the Chicago Bears’ version of the Lord’s Prayer that my Mom did for my Chicago Bears’ quilt I made back in 2007. In the last 18 days, I have been through my fabric bins many times and can not locate it back.

Here is something that I did find stashed away in my fabric bins. This is probably one of my oldest quilt flimsies. This is made for our son.

The Fan-tastic Sport Quilts book has a copyright of 1996. I think it was out on the market for a couple years when I purchased it, so I would estimate I made the quilt in 1998. I remember we jointly decided to not applique the various sports balls on the quilt. After I finish quilting my nephew’s quilt, I plan to baste this quilt top and finally get it quilted and presented to our son. He has moved around alot over the recent years and could use his own quilt.

In the upcoming month, I plan to go through my fabric bins start reorganizing all my fabrics and cutting some of my own pre-cuts so I can figure out how to use more of my fabric stash in my future quilt projects.

I am linking up with Lily’s Quilts Fresh Sewing Day, WIP Wednesday and other weekly linky parties.

Thanks for stopping by and hope you will come back to see what new projects I have planned in the works.

Happy Sewing,

Shelley

April 1, 2015
Old School NFL Team Jersey Baby Quilt Flimsy

Hi, I am sharing my Friday quilt top finish for the week. It is a regular size Adding Up Nicely designed by Meadow Mist Designs. This is the lap throw size of 50 by 68 inches.

This quilt will be for my little nephew Casey who turned 1 year old yesterday. I used to make his Dad and my son clothes when they were little. I made quilted baseball jackets, where I quilted up fabric yardage and then cut out the necessary pattern pieces using a fun themed fabric for main part of the jacket and a solid color as the sleeves. When my nephew wore his Cowboys (on horses fabric) jacket I made him, he was almost attacked by a lady at McDonald’s asking where he got the jacket as she had just spent hundreds of dollars decorating her son’s bedroom in the western Cowboy’s theme. My sister inlaw told her that his talented Aunt made it for him and that she was not likely to find another.

The fabric for this quilt is an Old School NFL football jerseys and uniforms themed fabric. My nephew is a big Chicago Bears fan. This fabric has a copyright from 1996 on the selvage. I know it is saved from when I still made my son and nephew clothes. I have pulled this fabric out a few times over the years to maybe use it, but put it back. I thought this was the perfect time now that my nephew has his own son. It’s because of his love of the Chicago Bears I pulled a mottled orange cotton fabric from my stash. The white background is the same fabric from my Uncle Max’s Eagle Landing quilt top I finished a couple weeks ago.

I am still working on what I want to do for the back of the quilt. I have one special touch that will tie a connection to my Mom, who passed away in 2013. Mom helped me with my special Chicago Bears quilt project that I presented to a friend who was a retiring Marine. She machine embroidered a fabric patch that was a kitschy version of the Lord’s Prayer written for the Chicago Bears and their run for the Super Bowl in 2007. She gave me her sample of it and I found it in my stash of fabrics last week. I was pulling fabrics for another quilt idea when I found this Old School NFL fabric. I had the embroidered quilt block but put it back as I did not have a use for it currently. Now a week later, and frantically searching for it for two days I still can not find it. I had wanted to do a crazy attempt to finish this quilt top today, but since I could not find that sample I have decided to take a step back and see if it will show itself. I think it would be a true keepsake to my Nephew to have something his Grandmother made, since she did not meet his son.

What I did find what some actual Chicago Bears licensed fabric left over from Sgt. Walker’s Bears quilt made in 2007. So I traced them on to fusible web and have them ready to iron on my quilt back and machine applique them. To come up with the most fitting back for this special quilt is taking longer than I hoped, but I am sure it will be treasured by my nephew and his son.

I had some nice comments about my photos of my Mr. Bird metal sculpture that my husband made me in my last blog post. For fun, I thought I would share what Mr. Bird looks like without his quilted wings and he has a mate, Mrs. Bird. She is actually taller than Mr. Bird and lives across the drive in a raised flower bed, which is now just full of grass.

(Mr. Bird)

(Mrs. Bird, has longer legs, different feet and a different shovel as her body base.)

I will linking up my flimsy finish with Can I Get a Whoop Whoop Friday?,TGIFF linky party and also And Sew We Craft Together Week 12.

Hope everyone has a great weekend. We are celebrating our 28th wedding anniversary today. I had a good evening with my husband and daughter eating out for supper with my Dad and various aunts and uncles. Dad’s birthday is St. Patrick’s Day so it was a double celebration.

Happy Sewing,

Shelley

March 13, 2015
Scrappy Dr. Seuss : Wed. Finish

Hi, Today I am happy to share my Scrappy Dr. Seuss baby quilt as a Wednesday Finish.

We are having gorgeous weather here in Iowa this week. The sun is shining and almost all the snow is melted. It’s in the 50’s and so nice to not have to weather 4 layers when you go outside.

I quilted my Scrappy Dr. Seuss in a boxy quilt pattern, going around and around while staying inside the pieced blocks. It makes for a really neat texture. I used a variegated thread on top that had yellow, orange, red and blue with green. I used the bright blue as my bobbin thread and it blended in nicely with the back fabrics.

(The wind picked up and caught the one side of quilt so it appears out of square when it is not.)

For a different view of things, I layed the quilt out on our old moss covered picnic table. The sunlight filtering through the trees was quite pretty I thought.

There should be some really wrinkly soft goodness after the quilt is washed and dried. The quilt is still pretty flexible even with the close stitching.

And for a couple silly photos, I decided to have Dr. Seuss meet Mr. Bird, my metal bird lawn sculpture that my Husband created for me from used farm tools.

Mr. Bird looks majestic with his technicolor quilted wings. He could use to have a fresh paint job.

I look forward to giving this quilt to our newest nephew. It was a fun project using up some of my favorite fabric scraps and I learned a new quilting style technique.

I will be linking up my quilt finish with WIP Wednesday, Oh Scrap, Scraptastic Tuesday- March linkup and other midweek linky parties. (My quilt is highlighted on And Sew We Craft Together Week 12. )

Thank you for stopping by and I will be back yet this week with another project that I am working on another nephew who turns 1 tomorrow.

Happy Sewing,
Shelley

March 11, 2015