Monday Musings

Vintage Quilt Top

I was lucky enough to receive a quilt top that had been started by my Great-Great Aunt.  I am so ecstatic to have gotten this and honored!  There are soooo many little squares lovingly pieced together.  The fabrics are so fun and retro - it's an I-Spy quilt for sure!  We've spent many hours looking at it and finding all sorts of fun things, little squirrels, cowboys, horses, bicycles, Japanese fans, all sorts of things.  There are some squares that need repairing.  I will have to go over this with a fine tooth comb for sure, and identify any areas that need fixing, then I will put this together.  I'm a little nervous tho.  Has anyone ever 'renovated' an old quilt?  Any tips?

In other randomness - I cannot follow patterns.  I've thrown the patterns out the window.  For some reason, I'm a sheer idiot when it comes to reading and/or following directions.  (My husband can attest to this. Ha!)  I can look at a quilt block and figure it out, but if I have to read, and follow measurements and then try to cut them AND put them together in the specific order said, and not in the order I want too ....Forget about it.  Does anyone else suffer from this?  :(  Please say yes. I don't want to battle this disease by myself.  Just kidding..it's not a disease...well, probably not anyway.  I have a quilt kit I purchased, a fairly easy pattern, I'm sure my 9 year old could put it together in no time, except I can't.  I messed up on the sizes and then forgot to square up my blocks.  It's tragic...VERY tragic.   Quilting 101 - hello.   For some reason I freak out if a pattern is involved.  So tonight, I will enlist the children to help me unpick.  I'm sure they will think it's a blast. ;) Haha.

Have a good week everyone!

Hugs

♥

I ♥ a good deal!

I love coupons and sales and all that good stuff.  I especially love it when JoAnn's sends out KILLER coupons, oh but everything is on sale anyway, so sorry - you can't use your coupon!  Haha!  The jokes on you!  (insert sarcasm here please)

No biggie, I only needed to replenish my stock of white Kona fabric, but then I noticed their books were 40% off.  Hello....excuse me...let me browse through here...okay YES!  I will take two please!  This was me yesterday, jumping up and down like a giddy 5 year old. Unfortunately, I didn't have my giddy 5 year old with me, so I looked pretty stupid.  Oh well.  I got two awesome books that I am going to snuggle up with tonight and enjoy.  I also got some super vibrant beautiful solids that I plan on using with some delightful fabric that may or may not have owls in it!  EEEK!  So exciting.

Sigh...I love shopping.  Even if I can't use my super awesome 50% off coupon..but I will try again this weekend. Mwahahaha.  There has to be something they've missed putting on sale. ;)

For my Q2 update, I have finished my Quilts Beyond Borders Quilt.  My fabric for Suck it Cancer should arrive tomorrow!  Big Top is finished so I just need to finish one and I'll have made it!! YAY!

Happy Wednesday everyone!

♥ 

April showers bring April Finishes!

Okay, okay - cheesy title...I got nothin' else.  BUT, I do have some quilts that are finished and TWO of them are for Q2!  Woohoo!  The last one is ALMOST done.  My quilt for Quilts Beyond Borders is done, I just need to whip up the label.  Pictures to come...



Big Top



 Big Top is finished.  I LOVE the circus theme of this one and the prints I found are so adorable.  And NO clowns!  YAY!  Even better...no one likes clowns.  (Sorry if you actually do like clowns, and if so, why?)  ;)

Hello-isn't this the perfect binding?  I think so. Very circus-y.  It also sort-of reminds me of Beetlejuice. Haha.

 

Tickets Please!



Next up, we have 'Tickets Please'.  That's right ladies and gents.  Come one come all!  

  I love this one.  I'm quite the fan of the Tw3nty Thr3e line.  
Obviously, this is my 2nd quilt and I've got more planned to use with it!

 This was a super fun quilt to make.  I had one charm pack and matching jelly roll. It was way easy.  I got my inspiration from Aneela Hoey's pattern, Comic Strip.
I even have a TON left over from my jelly roll. Yay!

Gratuitous Binding Shot

Suck it, Cancer

Last, but NOT least, my Suck it Cancer quilt top is done.  I ran out of fabric and need to order more and it'll be done!  Hopefully in time for the end of Q2!  Yay!
This one was made with the Cuzco line...I find it very soothing and comforting, the blend of purples and light greens and blues, with a SPLASH of pink so it's not too subdued.  It's perfect...and I love it.

Linking up to these lovely hosts:
Quilt Story
Sew Cute Tuesday
Let's Get Acquainted!

Pirates, Mermaids and Stars Oh MY!

 I have two finishes to show today. They've been finished for a while, but the weather has not been nice, nor cooperating...so I snagged up a minute of good weather for these shots.



Pirate Girls



I think everyone knows how much I ♥ the Out To Sea line.  It's my favorite and I have a bunch hoarded. Don't ask me for any...I don't share. ;)

 Maps and pinwheels, pirate girls and mermaids, octopus and narwhals!  Hello - SO.much.fun.

 The mermaid fabric is by far my most favorite.  I love it to pieces.

 Stripe-y binding - of course. ;)



Giant Baby Vintage Star



 My next favorite current fabric line, is the 2wenty Thr3e.  It is SO cute, modern and lots of great colors and scrap booking-like prints!  LoVE iT! ;)

I decided to go with a Pewter grey fabric for the back, so you could see the quilting, which echoed the star and then I did some random zig zags to fill it in.

Oh, how I ♥ all-rolled-up-quilt shots. ;)

Q2 - Joinining in the Finish-a-long

I am joining in for the 2nd quarter of the Finish-A-Long, hosted by Leanne from She Can Quilt.

So, I have a shameful amount of UFO's that need to be finished.  Shameful I tell you.

Currently, my treadmill is so graciously holding these for me....in a snarky reminder they need attention.

So what better chance to do that than NOW!  And a QAL to boot!  I'm in!

So, here is what I have.

Big Top

This one is basted and ready to be quilted!  Sorry for the bad photo. :)

I am loving the big star quilts. They are so easy and fun.

Suck it, Cancer

The blocks are done, just need to get sashing it, find some backing, quilt, bind etc.

Quilts Beyond Borders

I volunteered to donate two quilts to the Quilts Beyond Borders charity.  Click on the link to learn more about it!  I ran into it reading Audrey's blog and I immediately sent them an email asking if I could help.  I already have one finished quilt I plan on sending, then I remembered I had some 9 patch blocks but I had ran out of fabric and never did anything with them.  So Robot Child #1 and I headed out to the fabric store and found some coordinating prints to make more, and break it up a little bit. I am excited to be a part of something so awesome as this group and to know that my quilts will hopefully make a child somewhere around the world, happy. :)  If you can and are willing, check out their blog and sign up yourselves!  What an awesome way to use your quilty talents and help out! 

*This quilt was added late, I removed the prior triangle quilt post from Q2.  Turns out I am just using those triangles as practice - to proceed forth on the below triangle quilt.  Plus Robot Husband said it was hideous. HAHA!  The truth hurts sometimes, but it is true.  It was hideous and purely experimental. ;)

Hibernation

Sigh.  I REALLY love triangle quilts.  However, this one too gave me a stroke. My points don't match up in several places and it's uber noticeable and it drives me mad.  I was up all night googling tips and tricks. I've tried two different things differently and same thing.  So, we'll see.

 If you have any secrets for solving this issue, please share!  Pretty please!! 

This may need to be unpicked. Enter in Robot Child #1.  She will do it for me, begrudgingly, but she will.  Perhaps bribery will make the deal sweeter. ;)

I'm excited to get these done.  I made myself a pact that I cannot start any new projects until these are done.  And trust me, there is plenty o'fabric waiting to be worked on.

I'll post my progress on these.  Stay tuned!

Linking to Q2!

And Quilt Story!

♥

Riding a Narwhal

Want to ride a Narwhal?  Who doesn't!
I love this quilt.  My friend Sharon asked me to make her new grandbaby a quilt.
She had purchased the Viking on the Narwhal fabric from Spoonflower and wanted the quilt crafted around that.  I had so much fun picking out the fabric. 

She also wanted the map fabric from Out to Sea on the back.  Remember the Quilt for Ivy?  That was for Miss Sharon's grandbaby too. :)  So she has two new grandbabies, with map quilts.  How fun!

 I snuck a little Viking man on the back.  He's in the ocean, mapping out his destination. ;)

 All the fabrics I chose, seemed nautical to me.  The blue swirls are tide pools, the chevron print looks like fish bones to me.  And well, the plaid, is just plaid, but it matched and is boy-ish and it ties it all together I think.

I hope this baby loves his new quilt!

♥

Linking up to:
Quilt Story
Show and Tell Tuesday
Let's Get Acquainted
Never to Hot to Sew

How do YOU bind your quilts?

Just a random post today on binding.

How do you bind your quilts?  Do you machine quilt both sides or handstitch the back?

I personally am a handstitch-er.  I used to LOATHE binding, until I figured out to do it.  Now it is my favorite part. I love being able to sit and catch up on my shows and bind a quilt...or just sit and bind in peace and quiet - which is rare!  It's very soothing and relaxing.  Sometimes I wish I could hoard a bunch of quilts that are needing binding to be done when I'm extra stressed or need some down time. ;)

But, I can never leave a quilt un-done.  I have a LOT of UFO's mind you, but no quilts all completed waiting for binding.  Oh well. Haha.

One thing I learned about binding, that you may already know... if not, here is a tip.

I zig-zag the edges after I machine stitch the binding on.  I stay really close to the edge and just do small zig-zags to prevent all those loose threads from coming out through the binding after it's washed and loved for a while.  This cleans it up a little and keeps everything orderly.

Do you have any tips on binding that you never skip?

Share them!  I'd love to hear.

My Baby Vintage Star quilt is almost done.  I'll be relaxing later today finishing up the binding.

CAN'T wait.

♥