The Carpenter's Daughter Who Quilts

Category: WIP Wednesday

WIP: Many Projects Midweek

Hi, I thought I would share what I am working on this week and give some progress reports. (Updated for Friday)

I have been attempting to make some headway on the 288 flying geese needed for my Batik Flying Happy quilt. I think I have over 80 completed.

Flying Happy Geese in Formation

Here is one pile laid out in flying formation.

Rows of Geese Flying Happy

I love chain piecing. It just seems to take forever to make these geese because I have handle them so much. I started finger pressing my cream squares to get a sewing line. I now have decided to just wing it sewing the diagonal of the 2.5 inch squares. It is not too hard to sew a straight line for that short of a distance. Everyone will get a good press before being assembled into the rest of the block.

I am working on designing a back for my The Cowboy Way quilt which is a Grande Scrappy Tiles design by Meadow Mist Designs. It is for my daughter who is studying Animal Science and Veterinary Tech. She loves her cowboy boots, cowboys and horses. My daughter started a personal blog but did not get too far with it. She has kept the name and is looking to revamp the page and maybe use the name to sell some of the things she likes to make like jewelry, headbands, and tooled/beaded leather items. She calls herself “Shunned From the Herd”. I had one of those lightbulb moments in the shower a couple weeks ago to (of course) make an appliqued back for this quilt. I remembered that I had Holstein cow print leftover from my grandson Sawyer’s 2nd birthday quilt Oinka Doodle Moo. Years ago we bought a Holstein calf and grafted it onto one of our favorite Gelbveih Momma cows who had lost her calf. We named him, Daryl as in “Daryl and my other brother Daryl from the Bob Newhart show”.

The Cowboy Way backing concept

I did have the two cowprint strips sewn to my appliqued strip but cut them apart as it appeared to be too much white and black. I am looking at adding a strip of the red print to both sides of the applique to frame it. The length of the word applique by itself is 57 inches. I am needing a 80 by 100 inch backing so I have some more piecing that needs to be designed for this backing yet. Maybe some plaid shirting, stars and stripes bunting??? Digging deep in the fabric bins for this one.

Backing center prints

The red is from the front of the quilt, and has a really neat old barn scenery design inked on to the barn red color.

I did not do any new sewing over my birthday weekend, but I did finalize two new quilting project ideas.

Get A Clue Nancy Drew

I have finally decided what I can make with my two charm packs of Get A Clue Nancy Drew fabric. I will be making a modernized disappearing nine patch quilt for my son’s girlfriend. I discovered that her Mom shared the love for reading and the Nancy Drew Mysteries with her as a child just like my Mom did with me. So it seems fitting to make her a quilt with these fun prints. I miss I could find more squares as it is out of stock and out of print.

Any One have some in their stash hidden away???

My second quilt project idea is a way to use the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fabric I bought my grandson Sawyer. It will be for a quilt to stay at Grandma’s house. I love these design so much that if it all goes together nicely, I have other fabrics to use in this quilt pattern.

Turtles Gridlock Fabric Pull

This quilt pattern is Giddy Gridlock by Tanya Finken and it is in the last Quilty magazine issue ever (May/June 2015). I thought about using Thimble Blossom’s Framed to make this quilt idea, but I really like the angular longer rectangles to show off my turtles. I of course have ideas all ready for a special backing for this quilt. I am pretty excited to start piecing this one, but I need to finish up my flying geese first.

I got some exciting news this week that the Blue Island Tribal block that I designed for the Fabri-Quilt Block Hop was chosen to be entered into The Quilter’s Planner that my quilty friend, Stephanie over at LateNight Quilter designed and is publishing. You can preorder this wonderful and useful planner for holiday gifts.

Updated for Friday:

I have finished piecing all the flying geese for Flying Happy. I may have gotten off count and made more than I needed. Any extras may be worked in to a backing design.

Flying Geese and More Flying Geese

The piles on the outer perimeter are sewn into two patches. The center three rows of sorted flying geese needed to be sewn into matching pairs yet. In my counting of blocks this is where I am possibly off, as I count enough geese to make 37 blocks and I all ready have 4 blocks completed. This would make a possible 41 blocks when I need 36. I only have centers pieced for 36 blocks.

Flying Happy 4 of 36 blocks completed

With four blocks completed, you can get a better idea of what the Flying Happy quilt pattern will look like in batiks. I am pretty happy with the color choices. I am doing my best to make sure that each block has 6 different colors.

All my flying geese trimmings in a gallon bag

I save all the trimmings from cutting my 288 flying geese. It fills a gallon size ziplock bag. It looks quite pretty. They would make 1 inch finished half square triangles when sewn and trimmed.

I am hoping to get my Flying Happy flimsy completed this weekend. I had hoped for a Friday finish but it will more likely be a Saturday finish. I have made a lot of progress in just two days.

I hope that everyone is having a great week. I will be linking my WIP with various weekly linky parties that the links are on my linky page at the top of this page.

Thanks for stopping by.

Happy Sewing,

Shelley

October 22, 2015
Wed. QIP: Mod Gears

Hi, I thought I would give a quick peek at the quilting I started today on my Mod Gears quilt top. Mod Gears is a pattern by Elizabeth Dackson (Don’t Call Me Betsey). I am making it as a baby quilt for a special little boy whose parents love Harley Davidson motorcycles.

Mod Gears

This version of the quilt is to be approximately 56.5 inches square. I chose to add a white border and then I rounded the corners with a dinner plate. With my added borders, my quilt top is approximately 62 inches square.

Close up of a Mod Gears block quilted

I am quilting inside each churn dash and cross section with coordinating thread colors.

Backside of the quilting

I am using white in the bobbin for simplicity and it does set of the overall quilting design nicely. I do not want additional colors taking away from my center name applique work.

Full back view of Mod Gears

My basted backing is smoother than this photo looks. Picking it up and flipping around causes wrinkles. I did get the top centered so the top and bottom last black rows will likely be cut off when finished. I will be making bias binding out of the orange colored grunge fabric used in the cross blocks on the front. I will be hand stitching to finish this binding which is the first I have done in ages. I will be using the Wonder Clips that I won from Scraptastic Tuesday.

I can see that the quilting will take a little longer on this quilt with working around all the churn dashes. It should be neat in the end.

I am linking up this post with WIP Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced.

Thank you for stopping by my blog.

Happy Sewing,

Shelley

October 7, 2015
Wednesday WIPs: 3 Quilts

Hi, Hope everyone is having a great week. I discovered I have a baby shower to attend this weekend so I am hurrying to make a quilt as a gift. I also have cut out fabrics for a blue version of my Blue Island Tribal with the hibiscus flower appliques that I worked up a quilt design last week using the PhotoScape software program. While I am trying to work on these two projects, I am hoping to be able to sew more blocks for my Flying Happy batik quilt.

Lions Roar Modernized Disappearing 9 Patch layout

I am working on another version of Kristy Daum’s Modernized Disappearing 9 Patch quilt tutorial. I am making a baby quilt from a set of 5 fat quarters that I have had in my stash for 5 years and three bright solids with a white background.

Fabric Squares cut for Modernized Disappearing 9 Patch

These are my cut fabrics that I am working with. I cut 12 – 5 inch squares from each of the 5 printed fat quarters, and 16 – 5 inch squares from the three bright solids. I had a 2 yard cut of each of the bright solids in my stash. I had various left over cut strips of the white solid and managed to cut 80 – 5 inch squares. Since you use 5 white or background colored squares in each of your nine patch configurations, this should produce 16 nine patches. I have 10 nine patches made and cut into fourths so far.

Nine Patches

This shows 8 of the 10 nine patches that I have made so far. I am not sure how large my quilt is going to be yet. I am flying by the seat of my pants. I have made the tutorial before but with 4 inch squares and used it on the back of my Puppy Stars quilt. I have been thinking of possibly making a larger than standard baby size quilt that Mom or Dad can snuggle with the baby in and if there are extra squares also make a small car seat size baby quilt. I do want to incorporate the baby’s name “Thomas Owen” into the back of the quilt and could applique a large letter “T” in a circle on the smaller quilt. This all depends on how many blocks I get made. When they are cut into their fourths, mine are measuring approximately 7 inches square. Using those numbers, 16 nine patches would create 64 quarter blocks and that would make an approximate 52 inch square quilt. I would like larger than that, but if that is all that I can create with my fabrics that is fine. I am just going to make nine patches til I run out of my main fabrics. I can always cut more white squares. Whatever I do needs to be finished by Saturday afternoon.

Blue Island Tribal Hibiscus applique blocks

I have cut out fabric to make a quilt with 20 blocks from my Blue Island Tribal quilt block design. I only have a portion of the half square triangles created. I have a stack of each hsts that need to be squared up. I still really dislike that process but it is necessary to have good fitting squares to piece with. I am using a bright blue solid instead of the bright blue mottled blender fabric I used in my demo block. I was not able to find more of that same fabric. I should have enough of the pink, yellow and green to make my 20 hibiscus flower appliques.

This is the version of the Blue Island Tribal quilt that I have the fabrics cut out for.

Flying Happy

I am hoping to find a way to work in making more of the Flying Happy quilt blocks. I have been using scrap material for leaders and enders when piecing my blocks this week. I just need to figure out how I want to layout my blocks and just sort the squares out so I can feed a few in at a time between piecing other blocks. I found the nice plastic basket at the Dollar Tree. It works nicely for laying out quilt projects in. I need to go back and buy more baskets. I only have two at the moment. The other basket has pieces for the Single Wedding Ring Block quilt, black and turquoise plus blocks for backing of 39 Shades of Charming quilt all in stacks in the one basket, separated by instruction sheets. I certainly would not want to dump over either basket.

Well, it looks like I have a lot of sewing to do this week. I hope to be back on Friday with a Friday Finish of the disappearing nine patch baby quilt.

Thanks for stopping by my blog. I am linking up with WIP Wednesday and Let’s Bee Social.

Happy Sewing,

Shelley

September 30, 2015
More PhotoScape Quilt Ideas using my Blue Island Tribal blocks

Hi, I am still playing with PhotoScape today. My friend Jan O over at The Colorful Fabriholic suggested making a plain white block photo to make alternate block designs. This is a great idea and I really like how the designs work up. I also laid out my floral appliqued block with the full blue version block folded in half and snapped a new photo to show what a new quilt block with look like with the appliqued hibiscus center. It was kind of tricky to get the photo cropped correctly for this program’s useage so the design is not as clean as others but you do get the idea of what it can look like.

I have 20 blocks made up for this version. These blocks would be approximately 12 by 18 inches when finished so that would make an approximate 72 by 60 inch quilt???

Blue Island Tribal PhotoScape concept with alternate blocks

Here is my original Blue Island Tribal block set with alternate plain white blocks in a 25 block set. This should make a 60 inch square quilt. I really like this one.

Blue Version of Blue Island Tribal with alternate blocks

And here is the all blue version of my Blue Island Tribal block with alternating white squares in the same 25 block set. This would make approximately a 60 inch square quilt.

Be sure to check out PhotoScape as it is a free program. It seems to be pretty straight forward. It pulls up the photos on your computer and you can edit them and resize them all from same program. The Combine function button is how I am making my quilt layouts as described in Joy’s tutorial.

Be sure to check out my previous post on pattern options if you missed it.

Thanks for stopping by my blog.

Happy Sewing,

Shelley

September 23, 2015
Zen Gardens Bento Box Quilt Finished

Hi, I am excited to share that I have my Zen Gardens Bento Box quilt completely quilted and bound. I really like how it turned out. I won the set of jelly roll strips back in December from the Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Day in a package of fabric with a solids charm pack and three mini charm packs. I loved the bold graphics of the black and white prints and the red certainly adds lots of interest to the mix, but I was just not sure to do with them and they sat for months in my stash.

Zen Gardens Bento Box Quilt Completed, Quilted and Bound

I really love the red binding as it pulls it all together. I would like to thank my friend Cheryl @ Meadow Mist Designs for suggesting adding the gray solid. Gray has become one of my favorite go to colors and I need to restock as I am down to less than a yard.

Plus and Dash pieced back to Zen Gardens Bento Box

As much as I love the actual front to the Bento Box quilt, I almost love the back more. I love all plus and cross quilt block designs. This particular plus block is one of my favorites and I have numerous pins on my Pinterest boards of quilts made with this block. It started as fly by the seat of your pants kind of idea to possibly use miscut fabric from my mystery quiltalong project. I actually used the leftover fabric and cut the plus and dash blocks and the binding from that instead. I will be using my miscut squares in a new plus quilt project since they were the perfect size. I would like to thank my quilting friend Sandra @ Musings of a Menopausal Melon for helping me to decide on whether to add the dash to my plus blocks I had made up.

Front and Back together

I think the two sides would make a cool quilt together??

Zen Gardens Bento Box back on the bed after quilting

I quilted in a mock plaid or argyle pattern with double rows in the center of each block and where each block joined the next. I almost did not follow through with adding the diagonal center quilting as it looked good with out it. I am glad I did finish it as I planned as it makes a really cool design. I had to fill 21 bobbins to get all the stitching completed.

Full back of Zen Gardens Bento Box

I love the red, white and black paisley print I found at Walmart. I have a small portion left that will be cut into 3.5 inch squares to go into my black and white prints with red solid plus quilt project. I saved the extra black solid from cutting down the quilt backing after quilting and it will yield a few squares for the plus project as well.

Closeup of mock plaid quilting

Smokey, my cat helped hold down this quilt top this week every chance he could get. It did not mattern how many safety pins he was laying on.

Smokey does not mind the safety pins

Ugh, looks like a new project…need to reupholster my Mom’s sewing chair. I do have vinyl upholstery and foam cushions in my stash of supplies. I need to decide on whether to make my own vinyl piping to add back to the chair.

No Pins is more comfortable

I always try to wash my finished quilts before they are presented. This way I can determine how well they are going to hold up. There usually is alot of praying involved, especially when combining white and red together or other dark colors. I have had trouble with bright blue doing more bleeding of color than red like in my Dr. Seuss quilt. I live with two cats and two dogs so there can be lots of shedding of hair, and not everyone loves them as much as we do. Smokey did shed on to the black backing and I somehow picked up some dirt from my outdoor bench onto one of my white blocks. So into the wash it went.

A Quilter’s Life saving Trick

I decided to throw 3 color catchers in to the wash with the quilt. This is the end result. No red transfer to any of the white fabrics that I could see. I actually think this is color bleed from the black fabric. I got this result when I washed other very black based quilts.

Washed and Ready to Go.

Here is my quilt all washed and ready to go. It ended up finishing up at 82 inches square. It started out at 86 inches square. I really like how it turned out using a cotton bedsheet as the batting. I am now looking for a California King white sheet so maybe I can use that in my Charming quilt that is 105 inches square. After making the plus and dash block design for this quilt backing, I am thinking it would be awesome to use it over in the back for Charming. I have a lovely black and white French text print and turquoise solid that could have black pluses added to it fairly easy.

One Last Peek

Thank you for stopping by and checking out my quilts. I have heard that some of you have had trouble leaving comments. I am not sure why or what is happened to the comments. If you click on the blog post title and open it up, that is where the comments show. You did not have to use to do it that way. Comments are open. I do appreciate all comments and do my best to get personal responses back to all.

I will be linking up this quilt finish with the various mid week linky parties that you can find the live links to in my Linky Party tab at top of the blog.

I hope everyone is having a great week.

Happy Sewing,

Shelley

July 29, 2015
Zen Gardens Bento Box Flimsy Finish

Hi, I would like to share my Bento Box quilt top that I finished today as my WIP Wednesday project (updated for Friday). I have decided to call my quilt Zen Gardens Bento Box after a couple of the prints that were amongst the jelly roll strip set it was made from.

Zen Gardens Bento Box

I got 49 blocks made to make the quilt top 86 inches square. I certainly did not plan on a quilt top that large but it had a life of its own and this is what it has become. I really, really like it. I think my friend should really like it as well. This size of quilt will work on whatever she uses for a bed in her new house.

Bento Box Closeup

It took a bit to figure out how to lay out all the blocks to get the patterns to be spread throughout the quilt. I tried to not get too much intense red or black clustered in one area. I did discover after all pieced that on the one side I ended up with two opposite coordinating bentos right above each other. I did not want to take it apart so it will stay that way. They look enough different that it doesn’t stick out too much.

Zen Gardens Bento Box 86 inches Square shown on a King Size Bed

When I won this set of jelly roll strips, I had no idea what I would make from them. I questioned using the red with gold metallic fans on it, the bright red solid and the black solid strips that were in the set. I now think they help add an extra pop of interest. The gray solid does that as well.

Smokey Approves!

It is officially Summer in Iowa this week with temperatures over 90 and the heat index in the 100’s. It’s been hard on Smokey and Buddy. They are hot and want to lay on you as to say make me “un-hot”. Last night it was quite lovely outside after 10 PM and we thought Smokey almost was Coyote food. My daughter and I were out walking the new puppy one last time, and we heard the Coyote and pups start calling and yipping up a storm. This is a usual occurrence but then we heard an odd screech. We rush the dogs inside but Smokey is unaccounted for. My daughter gets the wild hair to hop in Dad’s truck to drive down the road and see if she can scare them off, hoping that Smokey is not a goner as the Coyote are sounding like they are just across the road in the field. My daughter pulls into the farm drive and here is ol’Smokey standing in the middle of the driveway with a wide deer in headlights look. The silly cat starts his yeowling and chortling. Nothing like giving the Coyote something to find you easier with. As a joke, we have taught our Black Lab to howl like a Coyote and the new Aussie puppy is having a good time yipping with other dog. It is not likely that the cat is confused by the two sounds. Smokey thinks he is a big hunter, which he actually is. His most recent kill find was a Least Weasel. I am not sure where he found it, but he brought it home to me. He has a definite call he makes when he has caught something. You can hear him coming across the farm yard and know he has some sort of mouse, vole or even rabbit. After his week, I will allow him to test out the new quilt.

I am trying to decide what color of thread to quilt this with? White, gray or red? I am running low on white thread so am leaning towards the gray.

Friday Update: I have the backing for this quilt made. I pieced a dozen cross blocks in the remaining red solid yardage I had from cutting my Midnight Mystery Quiltalong fabrics. I cut binding strips out of it as well. I used the wild red,white and black paisley yardage that I found at Walmart as my focus fabric for the back.

Pieced Back of Zen Gardens Bento Boxes

The back is straight, even if photo is not. I may have extra black solid on top and bottom that is not needed. It seems way bigger than my quilt top.

Cross block closeup

I really like how the backing turned out. What started as a fly by the seat of your pants idea seemed to work out quite well. Adding the dot or dash just came to me, and it was an easy add for sashing.

I will be linking up my flimsy finish with Freshly Pieced’s WIP Wednesday, Let’s Bee Social and Needle and Thread Thursday and Crazy Mom Quilt’s Finish It Friday.

Thanks for stopping by. I appreciate all comments and am doing my best to send personal emails to everyone.

Happy Sewing,

Shelley

July 15, 2015
WIP Wednesday: Puppy Stars

Hi, I thought I would share a quick post on what I am working on this week. I am creating the back for my Positively Puppy Stars (Sea Stars) pattern test quilt for Meadow Mist Designs.

I am using the leftover scraps of the puppy print fabrics and solids from the front of the quilt. I am playing with the Modernized Disappearing 9 Patch quilt tutorial by Kristy Daum at St. Louis Folk Victorian. I sized mine down from 5 inch squares to 3.5 inches to use up what I had available. I have been wanting to try out this design for quite a while. I think I have multiple pins for this quilt pattern on my Quilting Inspiration Pinterest Board.

I have made a disappearing 9 patch before but this version totally changes how you make your 9 patches. It seemed weird at first sewing some of them together. It was easier to visualize once the 9 patches were cut into fourths.

These were some of the blocks I started out with.

Modernized Disappearing 9 Patch

This is all the blocks sewn together. It ended up being 26 inches square and I need approximately 66 inches square for my backing so I am looking at to fill in the back with bands of white and gray solid.

KATIE

Here is a quick pic of our new Australian Shepherd puppy, Katie. She is keeping me quite busy.

FYI: There is still time to enter for a chance to win a copy of Grande Scrappy Tiles, the newest pattern by Meadow Mist Designs. I will be drawing for the winner Saturday June 27th morning.

I will be a stop on the pattern launch blog hop for Sea Stars on Friday.

Thanks for stopping by.

Happy Sewing,

Shelley

June 25, 2015
HST Palooza: 3 Baby Quilts at once

Hi, I am sharing my newest works in progress this week. I am pulling fabrics for 3 baby or kid size quilts. If you are a regular follower, you would know that I am known for making larger quilts when ever possible. I am working on making three special smaller quilts.

I am pattern testing Sea Stars by Meadow Mist Designs and will be making the lap size quilt as my test quilt. It is supposed to finish off at 60 inches square. The blocks finish off at 15 inches and there are lots and lots of half square triangles. I think 192 in this particular quilt size. This will be for a 2 year old girl cousin.

I pulled a set of 5 fat quarters from my stash that I have had since before my 3 year old grandson was born. I purchased some girl and boy fabrics before we knew what the baby was going to be. Our family has 8 boys in a row from 2 months old to 17 years old. It will be fun to play with girly colors for once. I picked my favorite 4 of the five fat quarters. The missing print was an orange with white flowers and it was not bold enough to go with the rest of my fabrics. I found the eight bright solids at our Walmart. They brought fabrics back last year and these fabrics are from Waverly. I was very pleasantly surprised on the quality of these new fabrics. They are $2.97 a yard and I purchased a half yard of each and cut in half to make two fat quarters as I am making a coordinating quilt with the other half pieces.

I am going to make a coordinating WoW-E quilt which is a pattern by Lorna McMahon of Sew Fresh Quilts. This version of the quilt is supposed to finish off at around 41 inches by 52 inches. This quilt takes upwards of 320 half square triangles and half of them are quite tiny. This should be a cute coordinating quilt to go to the 8 month old sister of the 2 year old recipient of the Sea Stars quilt.

To balance out all the girly cuteness, I am making a Mod Gears quilt by Elizabeth Dackson at Don’t Call Me Betsy. This is a really cool modern take on the churn dash and adds a plus block center. I thought it would be great for a special little boy, whose both parents like Harley Davidson motorcycles. There will gray and black gears with the orange and red plus centers. There is 64 half square triangles in this quilt, which is the least of the three quilts and also the largest triangles to make. I am making the throw size quilt which supposed to finish off at 56.5 inches square. This quilt divides up the needed plus blocks between two colors and adds one accent plus. I had the idea to add one Harley print plus block, but I was not able to find any fabrics that were Harley related in my area. I looked on Ebay and a single fat quarter of Harley fabric was going from $13. to $22.00 a piece, so I decided to just use an even amount of red and orange blocks. I purchased enough fabric that I am going to incorporate the little boy’s name on the back of the quilt.

So you can see that I will be really busy sewing and creating half square triangles in numerous sizes and in abundance for my three smaller quilts. Cheryl at Meadow Mist Designs wanted the quilt patterns tests turned in by June 17th so I will be starting on the Sea Stars first. I have finished off two other pattern test quilts for her this month, Plus Plus and Grande Scrappy Tiles. I am working on creating backs for both quilts.

I am participating in Sew Mama Sew’s May Giveaway Day during the week of May 6-10th. I am giving away some fabric and patterns so be sure to come back and enter the contest.

I am off to sharpen some pencils and sit with a ruler and mark off the diagonal lines for my half square triangle palooza.

Thanks for stopping by.

Happy Sewing,

Shelley

April 30, 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
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