Modern Quilts
Plus Dash: Quilt Progress
Hi, I thought I would share where I am at with the progress of my quilting of Plus Dash.
This top has taken a lot longer for me to quilt than others. Quilting around all the blocks and the pluses in the sashing is a real work out. Lots of stops and starts and alot of turns. My walking foot has taken a good licking this past week. It has gotten quite noisy and squeaky. I think I read recently online that it might be possible to open up the walking foot and clean it and possibly oil it in some fashion. I will have to look into that more before I take a screwdriver to a sewing machine foot that cost over a $100.
The quilt top is quilted but I have one corner that I am not happy with. I am not sure what happened to it, but the rows of stitching really gathered up. I am going to take them out and redo them. After that I will be able to bind it.
You can see more of the quilting detail on the backing.
Yesterday, Buddy who is our adopted Maine Coon tom cat came indoors with wet muddy feet. I had finished up a long period of quilting and finished all the gray pluses. We were going away for the afternoon and I ran to the gas station to gas up the car. I folded up the quilt, but silly me, I left it out on my sewing table. My daughter came home from school and let Buddy in the house, and he proceeded to run in and walk all over my quilt. She did her best getting some of the stains out with a Tide stain remover pen. I always wash my quilts when I am finished with them, but this time it will need a little extra care and soaking to get the muddy foot prints out.
I am hoping to have the quilt finished and bound by Friday so I can share it with all the Friday Finish linky parties. I am sharing this progress report with WIP Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced.
Happy Sewing,
Shelley
Goodbye 2014, Hello 2015
Hi, Hope everyone had a wonderful New Year’s Eve. Today we welcome a new year and new beginnings. 365 days that have potential for greatness. 365 days to work on new quilts, of course.
I have only been blogging for 5 months. It has been a pretty rewarding experience. I have met many new friends, participated in the Around the World Blog Hop and shared my quilt projects on numerous weekly quilt linky parties. For such a short time blogging, I am happy with my blog having received 17,319 page views in that 5 month period, with October being my best month with over 6,400 views just that month. I had the honor of testing new quilt patterns for 3 different quilt designers this past year. I hope that I will get the opportunity to do more pattern testing in the new year.
I have many things or ideas in the works for 2015. I am not one to make New Year’s Resolutions. I am more of a list or note maker. So I will share some of the things that I am hoping to work on/plan to make in the upcoming year.
Works in Progress To Be Finished
1. My Boxed In and Out Quilt I am working on finalizing on what I want to applique on the back of the quilt. A Minnesota Vikings head, or just the Minnesota Vikings name logo. I do plan to applique our friends’ last name “The Elliotts” on the back. The quilt designer makes up a team logo applique for the front of her version of this quilt. I am not sure where I want to put the design, go smaller on front or larger on back.
2. My Plus Dash Quilt The top is finished and the backing is finished. I just need to start basting it. Since this top is ready to go, it should be pushed ahead of the Boxed In and Out for a faster finish.
3. My Looking Glass Quilt The top is finished and the backing is ready. Since this was for our bed and not a gift priority, it has been on hold for finishing. It’s queen size so I need to rethink where I have been sewing on my quilts to make a place that I can properly hold up the quilt, while quilting it easier.
4. My 39 Shades of Charming Quilt The top is finished, and I have fabrics pulled to make the backing. This quilt is 105″ square so it is between a Queen and King size quilt. This top has sat on the back burner the longest, due to size and not knowing how I wanted to quilt it.
New Fabrics to Play With
1. I won a fat eighth bundle of V and Co’s Color Theory from Bear Creek Quilting Co. during Sew Mama Sew’s Giveaway Day in December. I think it has not been released to market yet. I am pretty excited to have all those pretty fabrics to play with. Fat Eighths are my new favorite precut to use.
2. I have been collecting fat quarters of Indelible. I have the fat quarter set in Darkened Ink colors, and have most of the prints from the Subtle Watermarks colors. I think I am just missing two prints from having whole collection. Three of the prints I have 1/2 yard cuts.
3. A Layer Cake of Bali Batiks Crackers in Rum Raisin coloring. I gave away one of these lovelies on Sew Mama Sew’s Giveaway Day and I had to have one for myself. I am thinking of making up Lucky by Thimbleblossoms in these pretty colors.
Stashed Fabrics That May Finally See Use Soon
1. Fat Quarter Bundle of Sweetwater’s Authentic line. I have had these fabrics since 2010. They have reached their peak ripeness. lol I have one of each print. One print I have two fat quarters and another print I have 3 fat quarters.
I have decided to make the Nina Quilt by GE Designs that you can make with the new Stripology ruler. (I do not own the ruler yet, would love to have it, and am waiting to see it available locally somewhere as I am anxious about it arriving in one piece in the mail.) I am thinking if I add cream and black solids I can extend my prints out to the largest size quilt I can make. Pair up the green and cream prints with black solid and the black and lighter green prints with cream solid.
2. Fat Quarter Bundle of Denyse Schmidt’s Hope Valley. I have had these fabrics also since 2010. It’s time to use them.
I have pinned so many different quilts to my Quilt Pinterest boards made from Hope Valley. I have had the Swoon pattern saved for a while now as well. I am thinking that my Hope Valley should meet Swoon. I have all 24 prints and the pattern calls for 18 fat quarters, so I can pick and choose my favorite prints.
Is there anyone else out there that has not made a Swoon quilt yet??
New Quilt Patterns to Make
(Batiks or some of the leftover fun bright colors that were chosen to be included in Plus Dash.)
2. Impromptu by Rachel Griffiths Designs
(I am thinking this is a great way to use a patriotic themed layer cake I have. Make a nice quilt for a friend’s birthday in February.)
(Possibly combine the rum raisin batik layer cake with a nice gray solid)
4. Mod Gears by Don’t Call Me Betsy Elizabeth Dackson
(Love the gray and black in the quilt, add pops of color from batiks or the like)
As you can see I have lots of future plans for projects in the upcoming year. I hope you all will stick around and check out what I am working on next. I will be linking this up with Fresh Sewing Day and other linky parties.
Happy Sewing,
Shelley
Boxed In and Out Flimsy (Updated)
Hi, Welcome to my version of Santa’s Sweatshop. It is less than 10 days til Christmas and of course, I had to start one more quilt. Yes, I may be crazy. But I have a Plan.
I am making Happy Quilting‘s Boxed In and Out. I am making my version in purple and yellow and white. This will be a gift for our friends whose family are very big Minnesota Vikings fans. They moved away to a new area about 3 months ago, and I think their wedding anniversary is around the corner. So one gift of a quilt can be a Christmas, Anniversary and House Warming gift all rolled into one.
The quilt pattern directions are well written and nice diagrams and charts. Lots of chain piecing. The quilt size I chose to make is the Picnic size that is 74 by 88 inches. It is 30 blocks made of of 3 sections. After Midnight last night, while pressing my 90 block sections, I discovered that 24 out of the 30 of the bottom sections of my blocks were sewn together wrong. The yellow and white segments were flipped. There was no fixing it, other than rip/snip apart the 24 block sections. Thanks to my trusty silver Gingher snips, I had them apart and resewn by shortly after 1 AM.
This quilt pattern has a really neat design addition that Melissa shares the how tos. She tells how to use MS Excel and take a sports team logo artwork and enlarge it to make a layered quilted patch to go on this quilt. When I originally purchased this pattern last year, I did play with MS Excel and used my Niece’s high school mascot of a Tiger’s head and managed to enlarge it til it was approximately 15 inches by 30 inches. It would not be too hard to cut out the design elements of the logo and fuse them on the quilt top or back. I also worked up the logo the school uses on jerseys. I was planning on using this idea on a different quilt top that I had made up to make for our Niece. I decided to put making a high school mascot quilt on hold, when our Niece was talking about wanting to change schools. I really liked Melissa’s mascot logo idea and hope to incorporate it in to a future quilt project.
(Printing the logos took the rest of red ink so that’s why they are splotchy. Also stretching out the outer oval band on the tiger face logo somehow gets cut off in the collage printing. It is easy to draw it back in. )
With there being a week til Christmas, I am thinking of taking our friends’ family name and incorporate into the design of the back of the quilt. I would love to try to make my own Vikings head but I do have the time to go into that detail at moment. Maybe I can give them a pillow with the Vikings head appliqued ???
As for Santa’s Sweatshop, I am hoping to finish this quilt, and hope to finish quilting my Plus Dash quilt. I am working on making our grandsons and another relative standing cases for their new computer tablets (one will be Transformers and the other will be Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.)
I will be linking up this work in progress with various weekly linky parties.
I would like to wish all my blog readers a very Merry Christmas and a safe and Happy New Year’s. I hope that you all will come back and visit in new year as I have many quilty things in progress that I hope to share with you all.
Happy Sewing,
Shelley
Broken Frames Quilt Completed
Heads Up!
Make sure you come back to my blog on Monday, the 8th as I will be participating in Sew Mama Sews Giveaway Day. I will be giving away a layer cake of Bali Batiks (so pretty that I had to get one for myself) and a set of 3 of Meadow Mist Designs quilt patterns that will get you started on making your own lovely batik quilt.
A winner for the Looking Glass pattern contest was chosen this morning. Sarah Craig
Hi, I would like to share today my completed Broken Frames quilt. Broken Frames is a pattern by Meadow Mist Designs and it was created with 39 different black and white prints. Most of them were pulled from the black and white prints that were in the Moda Shades of Black fabric line. I added other black and white prints that I found on Etsy and Ebay. A turquoise solid for sashing is an amazing pop of color against all the black and white prints.
I made the quilt top earlier this fall and started quilting it last week and finished binding the quilt Thanksgiving morning. I presented the finished quilt as a gift to my Aunt Bobbie yet Thanksgiving day. She simply loved it, which is the best outcome to creating something for someone when you are not sure if they will like it. My Aunt was so excited to show everyone her quilt. I ended up sending her photos off my phone so she did not have to lug the quilt with her everywhere she went. This is all I hope for when I create my quilts and give them as gifts, that they are well liked and well used.
We had fresh snow for Thanksgiving and lovely sunshine. It was quite chilly trying to take photos outdoors.
A closer view of some of the wonderful black and white prints.
Here is the view of the pieced backing. I didn’t realize how see through my black solid was.
I really like how this quilt turned out. I would say it has to be one of my new favorite finishes. I like the off center striping on the back. For something that I just kind of threw together, I really like the end result. I kept the quilting to a minimum, as I worried about pulling the sashing off kilter even with my walking foot. It did quilt nicely over all the intersections.
Thank you for checking out my latest quilt finish. I will be linking up with various linky parties this week. It’s always fun to share and see what the other quilters are completing this week as well.
Happy Sewing,
Shelley
My Fresh Sewing Day and Small Blog Meet for December
Hi, On the first day of the month over at Lily’s Quilts, she has a Fresh Sewing Day and Small Blog Meet. This is a time to share what all you have completed or worked on during the previous month. The Small Blog Meet is for bloggers’ who have under 50 followers to get word out about their blogs and what they are doing so they can meet other like minded folks.
During the month of November, I was actually quite productive. I had the honor of testing two new quilt patterns for designers and I also finished up quilting two quilt tops that I had started earlier this year and have gifted them as early Christmas gifts.
I pattern tested Plus Dash for The Colorful Fabriholic. I made the twin size top with 20 different pastel prints with pewter gray pluses. I have the top finished, and a back pieced for it. It will be basted together this week and the quilting started so I can give it as a Christmas gift to a good friend from high school who just lost her sister inlaw to cancer. My friend is a minister and grief counselor and does so much for everyone, that I wanted to find a way to bring her some comfort during the holidays.
I also pattern tested Looking Glass for Meadow Mist Designs. I made the queen size top with Zen Chic Comma prints. I have the top completed and a back created for it as well. Since this top will be our family, I will be likely holding off to quilting it now til the beginning of the new year.
***** Please head over to my blog post on the pattern release for Looking Glass as I am giving away a free pdf copy of Looking Glass pattern.
To enter contest, just leave a comment on what you might be making as a special Christmas gift this year. For another entry, if you follow my blog in some fashion, just leave another comment on how you follow, or if you would like to follow my blog, you can earn another entry too. This is open to everyone even international followers, just will need an email to send the pattern to you. Contest is open til Friday, December 5th. ****************
A winner has been chosen: Sarah Craig.
I completed the quilting on my patriotic Square in a Square quilt that I started many moons ago. I gave it to my Uncle Bill, who is a Viet Nam Veteran. He had heart surgery last year around Thanksgiving and had complications that he ended up having a stroke. He has since recovered. It was so wonderful to be able to see him for Thanksgiving this year. I think I actually brought him to tears giving him this quilt. Welcome Home, Bill.
I also completed my Broken Frames quilt top. I gave this as an early Christmas gift to my Aunt Bobbie. She is my Dad’s sister inlaw but she was like a sister to my Mom. I know she misses my Mom as much as I do, so I wanted to do something nice for her. The quilt just blew her away. She truly loves it. She wanted to know what she did to deserve it, since she did not “go overseas” like her brother inlaw Bill. She is so funny, she had to call and thank me again the next day and said she was changing the sheets on her bed for my quilt. LOL I will be blogging more about this quilt finish this week and show more photos.
So I would have to say that the month of November was quite productive around here. I am well on my way to having my Christmas sewing completed. I drive my husband crazy with my late nights of sewing. I make plans of things I want to make, and as the days get closer to the holidays, sometimes I start dropping things off the list. Well, I am more productive possibly from starting this blog. Last year with the death of my Mom, I only finished one quilt for Christmas for my Dad. This year, I all ready have High Tea completed for a gift in addition to the two tops above all ready gifted out, and the Plus Dash will be heading out the door hopefully soon. That leaves me with one more major quilt to make for a Christmas gift. I am looking at making a quilt for friends who are Minnesota Vikings fans. So of course the quilt will be purple and gold. I have a couple quilting/sewing projects to complete as gifts for our daughter’s birthday in there as well. I have a few small sewing projects like cases for tablet computers and Kindles to create as well that will be small gifts.
Thank you for stopping by my blog. If you like what you have seen, please consider following me on Bloglovin, Facebook or email.
Until next time.
Happy Sewing,
Shelley
Looking Glass Quilt Blog Hop and Pattern Giveaway
Hi, My name is Shelley and welcome to my blog, The Carpenter’s Daughter who Quilts. Today, I am the last stop on the Looking Glass Quilt Blog Hop. I hope all my US Readers had a wonderful Thanksgiving yesterday.
I was asked by Cheryl of Meadow Mist Designs if I would like to pattern test her latest quilt design, Looking Glass. I have developed a friendship with Cheryl for over a year now, since purchasing some of her other wonderful quilt patterns. Cheryl is the one who suggested to me to start this blog. I jumped at the chance to be able to play with her new design, Looking Glass. It’s a neat design that can be made from charm squares or layer cake squares, or if you want to cut your own squares from fat quarters. It can be made in all sizes from baby to queen size. The pattern goes together so nicely. It is very easy to assemble with chain piecing. Cheryl shows how to press your seams on your blocks and rows and everything joins up nicely in the end. I love that Cheryl’s patterns have numerous charts and tells you how many strips etc for each size of quilt you choose to make and the directions are in one spot so you can easily keep track of what you need to cut out.
I chose to make the Queen size version of Looking Glass. It ends up being 90 inches by 89.5 inches. I chose to make my top out of the Zen Chic Comma line of fabrics. I love the bold graphics and typography. These are colors that are not usually in my comfort zone. I am usually stuck in a “blue” color scheme. I used Zen Chic’s Barcelona line last year to make my Dad a quilt using Cheryl’s Adding Up Nicely pattern. The Zen Chic fabrics just have such a nice feel to them. It was a joy to sew with them. I had 5 of the Comma charm packs in my fabric stash saved for making a quilt for our bed and when I decided I wanted to use them to make Looking Glass, I had to do a major hunt online to still be able to find additional charm packs. There was not much of the Comma line available anymore.
My quilt top is not quilted yet. With it being a queen size, it will be one of the larger quilts that I have had to quilt. I think I am leaning towards using rows of a curvy, scalloped scrolling pattern (if that makes sense.) I unfortunately do not FMQ yet, but will be working on that in the new year. Since this will be one of the first quilts I have saved in years to go on our own bed, I have time to make sure I pick out the right way to quilt my top.
I do have a pieced back made for this quilt all ready. Cheryl’s instructions leave a few charm squares for you to add to your backing in a fun way, if you choose.
I added gray, black and white solids to make large color bands. Here is a close up of my pieced charm square center.
Now that I have shown you my version of Looking Glass, Cheryl has given all of us pattern testers a copy of Looking Glass to giveaway to one of our blog readers.
To enter the pattern giveaway, please leave a comment telling me an item that you are making for a Christmas gift this year. If you are a no-blogger, be sure to leave your email address so we can contact you.
For a second chance entry, let me know if you are a new or old follower of my blog. On the front page of my blog, there are links to email, Bloglovin, and Facebook. Let me know which way you are following in a second comment.
The giveaway will run til Friday, December 5th. If you can not wait to test your chances of winning, you can purchase the pattern on Craftsy or Etsy on sale for $5.50 til December 6th. If the chosen winner by chance has all ready purchased the pattern, their purchase price will be refunded to them.
And if you want additional chances to win check out the other stops on the hop.
Friday Nov. 21st: Cheryl @ Meadow Mist Designs
Saturday Nov. 22nd: Lin @ Lin’s Quilts
Sunday Nov. 23rd: Beth @ Cooking Up Quilts
Monday Nov. 24th: Michelle @ From Bolt to Beauty
Monday Nov. 24th: Anna @ Fresh Dew Drops
Tuesday Nov. 25th: Chelsea @ Patch the Giraffe
Wednesday Nov. 26th: Shauna @ Shauna’s World
Friday Nov. 28th: Shelley @ The Carpenter’s Daughter Who Quilts (You are here.)
Thanks for stopping by and good luck on winning a copy of Looking Glass.
A winner has been chosen: Sarah Craig.
Happy Sewing,
Shelley
A Quilt for Bill: Square in a Square Complete
Hi, I would like to share my completed patriotic Square in Square quilt that I finished quilting this week.
I plan to give this quilt to my Uncle Bill, who is a Viet Nam Veteran. This is a way to thank him for his service to our country and also in celebration that he is here with us to share Thanksgiving this year. Last year he was in the hospital for a heart operation and suffered a stroke afterwards. We are all very thankful that he has made a full recovery and back to his old ornery self.
We had fresh snow this week with more to come tonight and tomorrow, just in time to make holiday travels intersesting. It does make for a pretty backdrop when the sun finally came out.
This quilt has been very hard to get to show nicely in photos. The red and blue bars overpower the white patriotic print and tends to make it look blurry.
Here is the pieced backing and it shows my quilting fairly well. I did the horizontal double stripes and then stitched a presser foot distance away from squares to make the chain linked effect. I quilted the first set of horizontal rows with out my walking foot on and quickly put it on as it was shifting the design more than I wanted it. I used a poly batting was in my Mom’s sewing stuff. I have not used that in years, and it seemed to work nicely and makes a fairly fluffy quilt. The stitching turned out quite nice using it.
The red fabric was a bit heavier than the white and blue backing fabrics but I didn’t seem to have any trouble quilting through it.
Here is a photo of my other trusting quilting buddy. Abbey, my Lab/Shepherd. She was my photo taking assistant today.
And we can not forget Buddy, the cat. He helped hold fabric down and keep track of my safety pins. I am going to have to fight him for this quilt as he has been laying on it quite a lot today. It needs to go in the wash before it is gifted Thursday.
*****Update….Thankfully the quilt survived it’s trip through the washing machine and dryer. I washed it in cold with Woolite and used two Color Catcher sheets. The color catchers did change a light color of pink, so there was still some red dye that bleeds. Not a spot of red or blue dye any where to be seen anywhere it should not be. Yeah, me!! There appears to be minimum overall shrinkage. Probably less than 2 inches in both directions, which can be largely to quilting and should be minimial due to some prewashing of fabrics/some could be broadcloth (so not 100% cotton )and using poly based batting. The quilt finishes at 67 by 89 inches so a nice size throw to snuggle under.
I hope my Uncle likes his quilt as much as Buddy does or more. I will be linking up this finish with the midweek quilt linky parties. I am busy quilting on my Broken Frames quilt this week as well.
Hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving!
Happy Sewing,
Shelley
Quilt Backs Need to be Interesting Too.
Hi, I have been busy this week creating backs for my quilts that have been waiting to be quilted. I have 4 quilts that I would like to have quilted by December 1st, if at all humanly possible on my part.
I have created backings for my Looking Glass quilt using the leftover Comma charm squares and added black, gray and white solids.
(Gray solid, white stripe, black solid, white band, gray, black jelly roll strips, pieced Comma squares and the same sequence of color stripes going the other direction.)
(Close up of pieced Comma stripes)
I made a back for my Broken Frames using a few scrap squares of the various black and white prints from the front and framed them off with the turquoise solid from front and off set the whole pieced frame from the center of the quilt and finished it off with black.
(My black and white scraps were 5 inches wide, I filled in the length with a five inch turquoise piece and framed it with 4 inch strips on either side. I like the look but it was no fun dealing with 90 inch or better lengths of fabric and trying to keep them straight and untangled.)
(Close up of framed inset. )
I also finished a back for my Patriotic Square in a Square quilt using red solid, a white background flag print (not the same as the front but similar print) and blue solid and made them as large vertical stripes.
(I think the vertical stripes will really show off the quilting when completed. I had to really dig in my fabric reserves to find my navy blue. Thankfully I had enough for this project . The patriotic flag print on the front of quilt has America written all over it besides the flags. I think I will bind this quilt with the red, as I finished off the navy. )
The fourth quilt that I would like to get completed by the end of the month, is the Plus Dash quilt and backing I completed and blogged about last week.
I feel I put almost as much effort in creating an interesting backing for my quilts as I do in piecing the quilt tops. It has been many years since I have purchased just one particular fabric to use as backing. I like to use what I have.
I thought I would share a photo of my quilt inspector friend, Buddy. He is a Tom Cat that showed up at our farm this past winter during the Polar Vortex. We do not know if he had been dropped off in the country or he got lost in a snow storm, as the tips of his ears were frozen off. After he was here for a few weeks, a larger piece of his one ear fell off and some time later we noticed his tail was shorter. He lost over 2 inches of his tail. He had to be someone’s pet at sometime as his front paws are declawed and he is neutered. He has certainly made himself at home at our place and since he hasn’t left in over 8 months. We wonder if someone dumped him as they might not have been able to afford to feed him. He can put away the food.
(Buddy making sure my fabric does not blow away. )
Thank you for stopping by and checking out my quilt progress. Be sure to come back next week on Friday, as I will be a stop of the Looking Glass pattern release blog hop. I will be linking up this week with various linky parties.
Happy Sewing,
Shelley
Plus Dash Pattern Test Flimsy and Backing Pieced
Hi, I would like to share the completed flimsy of my pattern testing of the Plus Dash quilt pattern by Jan at The Colorful Fabriholic.
I finished up adding the last two borders to complete the outside gray pluses. I had a bit of hard time at first “visualizing” how all the different sashing strips were going to have to go together, but once I started laying them out around my blocks then it didn’t take much to see how they pieced together the outer pluses. I have not worked with a multiple sashed quilt design in a while and this one is really cool on how it all came together in the end.
We had our first measurable snow over the weekend just in time for the bitter cold winds and windchills to set in. I managed a couple outdoor shots of my quilt top. I was hard pressed to find a larger enough area of fresh untouched snow to lay the quilt out flat. What photos I took were as good as it was going to get by myself with the wind picking up. When I get the top all quilted, I will find somewhere to lay it out completely so I can get a full size photo. I was worried at first about the bright colors and prints and how they all would work together, but the gray and white pull everything all in nicely.
And here is the top turned lengthwise. The wind wanted to suck the quilt through the gate.
For the backing, I chose to use a few of my left over squares and strips to make a pieced stripe for the center of the backing. I sashed the strip with the same pewter gray, and added white, and a little gray solid(as I needed to save the last of my pewter to use in the backing for Looking Glass quilt) and pulled a light turquoise solid from my stash to add a pop of color to the backing.
Here is a close up of my pieced strip.
I will be setting this quilt top aside for a couple days so that I can quilt and finish my pattern testing of Looking Glass to meet my deadline for the upcoming blog hop for it’s pattern debut next week.
Thanks for stopping by and looking at my quilt top. I will be linking up with various midweek linky parties.
Happy Sewing,
Shelley
Plus Dash Test Top Almost Complete
Hi, I thought I would share how my pattern testing for Plus Dash by Jan at The Colorful Fabriholic. I have made great progress in two days. I have my top completed except for the outer two borders.
This is what I had two days ago. This laid out on my 5 foot slate top desk. I use this desk as my design wall/table. I do need to finish my design wall. I have white felt to complete it. I just need to determine a place that it will be secure to attach my wip together on it.
After making quilts for upwards of 20 years, I still fight alot of doubt on my color choices. I picked out these five colorations of prints in fat eighth sets almost 2 years ago. I did not know what to do with them in the end, so they stayed put in my fabric chest of drawers. When I saw that Jan was picking all sorts of prints for her version of this quilt, I decided to give these a go. It’s very bright and colorful to say the least. I do love the pewter gray pluses. I plan on giving this as a special gift to a good friend. I hope it brings some happiness and comfort to her during the hard times she is dealing with currently.
I had a great find in my fabric stash. I found 30 precut 2 1/2 inch white strips of fabric so it made cutting out this quilt a whole lot easier. I also had some odd sized about the size of a fat quarter of white fabric that was left over from cutting borders for another quilt that I was able to cut many of the pieces I needed for this quilt. It was like winning the quilter’s lottery.
Here is one side of the quilt and after adding the last two borders, it will complete the last row of gray pluses.
And this would be one of my favorite prints from the whole set of fabrics.
I hope to get the last borders completed maybe yet tonight or most likely tomorrow. We are supposed to get some measurable snow this weekend, so it is a good time to sew and quilt. I have to make backs for my Broken Frames quilt, also for my Patriotic Square in a Square quilt and my Looking Glass quilt. I am hoping to have them quilted by Thanksgiving. Do not hold me to that, but is definitely a plan that I am shooting for. I will quilt Looking Glass first as it needs to be completed for a blog hop on the 21st, and the other two I hoped to give as early Christmas gifts to family I hope to see for Thanksgiving.
I will be linking this wip with various linky parties this weekend. Thank you for stopping by.
Happy Sewing,
Shelley
