Another Top For Sale

OMG, I have found yet another quilt top that was never finished. When I started my quilting business, I made up 8-10 quilt tops that I thought would be used for practice. The business took off so rapidly, that I have a couple that never actually got finished. So...this is a 65"x85" top and it is for sale.
It is neatly pieced from Free Spirit fabrics of the Annabella and Treetop Fancy lines (you can tell that I loved this stuff 2 years ago!) It is hip with polka dots, sure to please any young to teenage girl. I may have backing fabric that I got at the same time which will coordinate, if interested.

The top is for sale for $55 plus shipping. Paypal please.

Top For Sale

SOLD

Last year sometime I started on a commisison quilt with these fabrics, at a customer's request. The client stopped her payments, and I am now stuck with a 60"x80" top that I don't really wish to finish. It is all top quality fabrics that I have ordered from good online quilt shops. Materials are from the Treetop Fancy and Annabella lines, with some Fairy Frosts thrown in too. It would finish off into a lovely quilt.

And there is more...If you are interested, I have many of these fabrics that I could also sell off to you at between $4-5 per yard. This would facilitate finishing the quilt if interested. Note: I have a large backing piece assembled too that coordinates. If you want the quilt larger, more could be added to the backing.

email me for add'l fabric amounts. This top $50 plus shipping

What You Can Do for your Flimsy

You have made this fantastic flimsy and now it is ready to be quilted. The rest is up to the quilter, right? Well, yes generally speaking that is true. But before you get to that point in the quiltmaking process, there are many things that you as the piecer can do to ensure that your quilter has the best possible top to work with (and hence, make you the best possible looking quilt!). Thinking about how it will be quilted as it is designed and made will help.

Fabrics...
My list naturally begins with fabrics. There are a plethora of fabrics to choose from, and a tremendous range of weights/thicknesses of fabrics too. You will find the junkier, stiffer "chain-store" (or Walmart) fabrics, which I'd say as a general rule to just avoid. They'll never be soft and snuggly. When piecing, select what you like, but try to keep them all of a similar weight. The weight of the fabrics (or the fabric sandwich) affects how the quilter will tension his or her machine. If the weight of the sandwich varies, you very well may see a tension change as the stitching passes over lighter and heavier patches. Plus, varying weights of fabric will wear differently.

When piecing with white, buy the absolute best quality white you can rationalize. You can always make slight sacrifices elsewhere, but if you select a thinner, lower grade white, it will be the first thing you will see on the finished quilt. Thin whites show anything underneath them, including rogue threads from neighboring seams. I like the Moda Bella and Kona whites. Still, however, when using a white of any kind, try your best to press all seams AWAY from the white fabric. I would even go so far as to suggest not making quilts that have a lot of white with other deep colors such as red, navy or another deep color. They will show through the top somewhere, and are so very prone to bleeding onto the white.
Thread...
Use a thread that either matches your fabrics or is of similar tone. Lights are usually fine with a white or pale gray. Darker fabrics need a darker thread. Once the quilter gently tensions your top, any white threads will definitely show. Use a lighter weight thread, like a 50 wt. I hate when I see a quilt all pieced with 40wt hand quilting thread. It leaves a most visible line in the seam. Use a reasonably short stitch length too. On my digital machine, I sew with a 1.8. The shorter stitch length does a couple things. If you are not prone to backstitching at the end of a seam, the tighter stitches will not pull out as easily. Also, the tighter stitches will hold the seam nicer when it is tensioned for quilting (less likelihood of seeing those stitches if they are not a perfect thread color match!). I have actually started piecing with my 50wt (60wt in bobbin) polyester longarm quilting thread, but you can find a nice fine thread.

Tension...
The tension of your piecing thread should be properly adjusted so that you don't have those little ticks along the seam. Don't assume that because it is inside of the quilt that it will be just fine. An ill-tensioned seam will pull open and show the threads (often in an unmatched color!) when tensioned. Plus, that seam is much more likely to come open at the ends.

Seam allowances...
We all know about the sacred 1/4" seam, but too many people still have their version of what 1/4" really is. In actuality, it does not really matter if you sew at 3/8" or 5/8" as long as you are consistent throughout your top. Where problems creep in is when there is a 3/8" seam somewhere, some 1/4" seams and that dreaded 1/16th inch. First off, inconsistent seam allowances create non-flat and non-square blocks, that very likely have poor matching of points. Secondly, if there is a very narrow seam allowance, it creates a weak area that may well pull open when the quilter puts the quilt onto the frame. So, just be careful here.

Pressing...
Yea, I mean with an iron. And if you find that a seam flip-flops, then kindly do the noble thing. Rip out a few stitches, move it to the direction it should lay, and restitch. In the end, you will have a much nicer quilt, that will lay flat where it ought to be flat.

Borders...
Any piecing on the outside of the quit top's periphery should be either be backstitched, or have a row of stay stitching across. There's nothing that chaps me more than to load someone's quilt and have the outer border start pulling apart before it is even quilted. This step takes very little time too. Many people need to go back to "Borders 101" and revisit how to add borders of the proper length (see the internet for hints here...but generally speaking, measure quilt at center, and cut border this length, pin and sew on). If you improperly add your borders you run the risk of having borders that will have too much fabric, and will require the quilter to take what can sometimes be an unsightly tuck or tucks in the border (in addition to pulling out her own hair). Some quilters go to the extent of removing a client's borders and restitching them properly (at the client's cost). I don't go this far. Additionally, I commend those of you that do mitered corners on your borders. They are classy. But do check that the corner lays squarely (use a 12"x12" square).
Piecing & Squaring...
If you are piecing blocks, take the time to square them all up before they are sashed. This will help you to make a squarer quilt. This is especially important if you are placing your blocks on point. Somehow the on-point setting distorts small anomalies more. Envision this: Your top is attached to a roller and then pinned to another parallel roller. If it is not square, then it cannot possibly lay smoothely where it is supposed to be quilted. Your quilter will curse a bit, use lots of pins to help make it lay down, etc. It makes the process of quilting much harder, and you run the risk that your finished quilt is not as pretty. One last thing about piecing (only because this eventually affects the squareness of a top) - For those on-point quilts that require setting triangles, keep the outer edges always ON GRAIN! No quilter wants to see a quilt that has bias edges on the outer edges of a quilt.

Flat...
I'm sure you can imagine how hard it would be to quilt a bra and make it look like a square, so keep those blocks and tops flat. Sure, your quilter can quilt anything down, but it won't look like anything you will want to pay for. I saw a recent YouTube video by Sharon Shaumber (may be misspelled) about using spray starch to shrink blocks if they have too much cleavage. Might want to check this out.

Backings...
This list of helpful hints is brief. Keep them on-grain. Keep all selvages out of seams, as they will pucker. Press those seams open. Leave the recommended amount of additional backing fabric that your quilter requests (yes the back must be several inches larger than the top). The back must be square. There are many other personal considerations for backings, but from a technical standpoint, they are of lesser importance. I prefer not to see busy fabrics on the back when a custom quilting is desired. Similarly, I don't care for heavily pieced (aka double-sided) quilts for anything but a simple edge-to-edge quilting. I also like to choose a backing fabric that is mid-toned, or is not one of the really light or really dark tones that are in the top. Again, this is just my preference.

Plan for the quilting...
By this I mean, don't spend $100 on your fabrics, another 20 hours or more making your top, only to cheap out on the quilting. Before the top is quilted, it woud be valued at at least $400 (your time IS worth something, right??!), so expect to pay between $150-250 to quilt it acceptably. Lovely quilting only enhances a carefully made quilt top.

closing comments...
99% of the quilts I receive to quilt for clients are without significant issues that would hinder acceptable quilting. Most, in fact, are really nicely made. There are many less experienced piecers out there though that might benefit from my compilation of things that make quilting for others easier and more successful. These are only my thoughts. I welcome whatever you might like to add too.

I hope you enjoy my sneak peeks of my next quilt.

PreTurkey Day preparations

Sophie is at preschool this morning. The boys and I are home doing a little cooking and a little of nothing. I have the boys making their "thankful turkey". One is doing this much more willingly than the other, but the turkey is cute. The less cooperative one with his feathers & sentiments was overly helpful with the mechanical things we pulled from craft drawer for attaching the feet & feathers. I guess all things even out somehow, though I am not sure wat it says about our upbringing when one of the 4 things he is most thankful for reads "I have a good DS"! My younger boy did me proud though...look at the bottom right feather. It reads " We have wrm qillts" (translated "We have warm quilts!").

I made a Pumpkin Pie crunch cake that truly is to die for. I had this last month at the Handi Quilter retreat in Utah, and they gave us the recipe. It's painfully easy, and I can hardly wait for it to cook so we can dig into it. This won't wait until tomorrow! My mom is making pies, so we only need a little of this to bring. Hopefully there will be that much of it left! My house is wafting with this delicious scent. If you are dying to make something that is untraditionally traditional (and I do because pumpkin pie is not my absolute favorite), then here's the recipe.

1-16 oz can pumpkin

3 eggs

1-1/2 C sugar

1/2t salt

1 can evaporated mik

4t pumpkin pie spice

Mix above ingredients together. Pour into greased 9x13 greased pan. Melt 1C butter. Sprinkle 1 yellow or white cake mix over the pumpkin pie mixture. Sprinkle with 1C chopped pecans. Drizzle butter over cake/nut mixture. Bake at 350 for 55-60 minutes. Cool & eat.

Now onto regular programming...

In my spare time (if you know me, you ought to be laughing & choking right now!) I have finished piecing the outer border of this quilt. It is currently 73" square, give or take a little. I was awaiting an order which had the backing fabric and more black, since I ran out last week. I think I may add another 2" of black around the outside to ground the outside of the quilt better. Or maybe not. It's not like it needs to be any larger since I don't really know what I am doing with it anyways! I still have one corner to revisit and modify the squareness a little bit. It has areas because of the heavy piecing that will definitely take a little manipilation while quilting, but I am hopeful that it will quilt well...if only I knew what to do with it!!??!!Here is my other experimental quilt - ha ha. It is smaller, and I don't intend on it growing much. It's maybe 45" square. I had originally thought I'd applique butterflies and or dragonflies onto the corners & center of the quilt to help fill in the background some. I am sort of leaning away from that. I want to bring another color in. It needs a punch - something to awaken the senses. The green & purple are nice, but they are simple & refined. It needed something to bring it to life. Whether or not I have found that is the question of the day! Gold & orange are perfect complimentary colors for both green and purple. I have appliqued some shapes that will resemble a morning glory flower. Now, I know that morning glories are not these colors. I have that issue covered. I did a little research and these look like a nasturtium flower, sort of - or at least in their color selections. They are a low climbing-style flower.

I am on the fence about whether adding these flowers to the applique is the right direction. It needs an accent color, but is this too much? They will obviously have embroidered stems, tendrils, and maybe a few leaves from a brighter green too. The other thing I am planning is to accent the flowers with colored pencils (there is a technique that makes this painting permanent) to make them look like the real flowers, and then small seed beeds will be added to the flower centers. What I did below is an approximation of how it will look. I have ordered a dozen gold, brown and orange pencils and will not get them until next week sometime. The flower will get similar accenting with the quilting, but it needs color deepening and shading as well, which the pencils will provide.

Thoughts? Am I nuts?

Have a good Turkey day!~

T Minus 1

I have been puttering the last couple days before I leave for vacation. My kids are more than psyched about going here and here, and about having a house with a pool 3 houses away from the beach. Gotta say, I am pretty excited too. I just hope that the weather and the potential hurricane out there stay away. We made a very last minute change last week and decided to stay at the Disney resort rather than a few miles further away at a cheaper hotel. The convenience and allure of the resort was overpowering. It's also pretty neat that we have a riverboat as our main means of transportation to the village!

The last few days I have been playing in a pack of charm squares (right) that were given to me last year in a swap. They are kind of too "Americana" for my taste, too much muddy colors and browns. So, I made up a couple of runners that I hope to sell this fall. Same thing for the other two brighter runners. I had many left over 5" squares from another project I did last fall. The DP9 is a fun pattern to mix many fabrics together with. They will be quick quilt projects when I return, especially if I think ahead and connect all of the backings (one backing load for all 4 runners). I have another smaller table topper in progress, but it will have to wait.

I also got these squares put together earlier last week. This fabric is SO soft and pretty (I'll have to check the selvage for who made it again). The colors are a departure from my usual brightness, but it is very delicate all stitched.
So I am off for 12 days. Don't miss me. I'll be off getting rested and tanned, and rejuvinated to quilt a marathon (I have a TON of pieces to complete when I return!).

Dead

Dead.

No, not my cat (slight sinister grin...!). And there's no long lost (and wealthy) relative of mine that has met their demise. I'm just not that fortunate. I'm talking about my trusty sewing machine. My small machine that I do all my piecing with has a problem. I was pushing her this weekend to get a few projects finished up so I could quilt them, and it may have been too much. Tomorrow I have to take the machine for servicing and get my older machine back from my mom's house for emergency sewing. I kind of permanently loaned it to her months ago when her dinosaur died. Mine, however, is only 3 years old, and despite having quilted at least 75 quilts with it, I am seriously hoping it has much more life left.
Here's the majority of a newer top I made. I didn't get to add the green border, but that is a quick job. I did manage to get backings pieced for two of my quilt tops that were made recently...here and here. The latter top is actually sashed and bordered, but no finished picture was posted. So here, have a looksee...
I have had a terrible liking for greens lately. Seems much of what I am sewing has bold, modern green fabrics. It just makes me happy! I pieced 16 blocks for a project I will show soon, but not yet. And got a client quilt loaded up and ready to quilt tomorrow. Unfortunately, the only thing I didn't get to were Kellie's Fresh Comfort Bee June blocks...sigh...maybe I will still get them done before I leave on vacation in July. I plan to go get the old sewing machine next weekend. I need to check in on my dad, make sure he hasn't died of lonliness (that was definitely not my sewing machine's fate). My mother has been in Italy the last 3 weeks and has another 2 weeks before she's home again.

A Pukey Week

This week has stunk in terms of just about everything. My daughter is barely walking (with good chocolate bribes and under pain). My younger son was home 2 days with it running from both ends. Ewww!.. He admitted to eating a berry off of a Barbery bush on Monday, but when Sophie got the symptoms a day or 2 later, I learned that the berry was basically benign. So my husband was busy worshipping the porcelain this morning - actually I caught him sitting on the porcelain, puking into a trash can that he had to dump onto the floor. Poor guy! Now my tummy is not sick, but it is not happy either. I haven't really quilted in a few days because it was too hard to stop when I heard one of the kids on the monitor, and run up 2 flights of stairs to see what they'd produced for me to clean.

I've been puttering on designs for a new quilt to start - kind of a long term project intended to be finished next year sometime, and using the new Northcott Stonehenge fabrics I got recently. I want it to resemble some of the mosaic work I have seen on Italian marble floors. This is probably nowhere near my final layout, but an initial concept anyways.
Managed to get these blocks sashed in a soft butter yellow. The picture stinks, but I think it will be nice quilted.

And I cut into some of the new greens to finish off this set of blocks too. I was very luke-warm about them a week ago, but after pulling out a few of the more kelly-colored ones, I am really feeling the greens. I have ivory for the sashings. So many people gravitate for the white, but I just hate the harshness of white unless the colors dictate that level of crispness. These all have tones of ivory in them so it seems like the logical choice.

I have a lovely applique & block sampler on the LA right now. It's sweet, nicely colored, and really pretty fabrics (from LakeHouse Dry Goods I think). I worked on it for a little this morning while Sophie actually went to her last day of preschool until September, but this afternoon I couldn't get into it. WHen I feel crummy, my creativity suffers. It was better to chip away at some of my Bee blocks which are more mechanical than creative. Afterall, the end of the month is fast approaching.

So here's my question of the week...

Next weekend we are having my 6yr olds birthday party. What do I do with these kids (5-6 total)??? I've never had parties at home - we've always went to a museum or ChuckECheese, or this year, bowling. I have no idea what type of game(s) to do with these kids. HELP!!!

Happy Birthday to Me

Birthdays are not as fun as they used to be. I hate the thought of being more than half of my useful and happy life. I want to be young like her again! My irises are gorgeous this year, but she was not to interested in standing in front of the bed with the most number of them. Her casts have been off almost a week and I'm just angry and sad that nobody told us how insanely hard it would be after she had her feet back. She had fun today splashing in our kiddo pool though!
So, as alluded to previously, I had a birthday. It's not a markable number like 30 or 50, but will be soon enough. My family finally all (and I mean each and every one of them) figured me out this year. No gift certificates to stores I dislike, and things just plain unneeded. OK, sarcasm - like I need 30 more yards of fabric??! Of course. Who doesn't. This set of batik FQs came from my MIL, with a little assistance from my husband. They may be used to cover a couple living room throw pillows, eventually.

My husband got me the EQ7 upgrade, but that isn't coming until next month. My mom also got me two of the additional block libraries. I'm particularly obsessed with designing a quilt that will look like an Italian inlaid marble floor, and will use some kaleidoscope blocks. I also found the Northcott Stonehenge line which looks just like marble. Before my birthday (I kind of didnt think anybody had gotten me fabric..."grins"!), I had a little shopping spree. I selected several of the Stonehenge prints, some solids, and other (ha ha, just wait). But then my mom brought my bday present Sunday and low and behold, she had been Stonehenge shopping too! And a few coordinating Fairy Frosts as well. Did I say they all nailed it on the head this year or what?

And of all that I bought, we only duplicated one piece. Mine are below. I got a few more of the gold toned ones, and a few Bella solids for works in progress.

Today, my other order arrived from fabric.com. DO you see a trend?? Did I have green on the mind?! They are so yummy I can hardly stand it.

I am also done piecing the top for a commission quilt. It now goes into the queue of things needing to be quilted before I go on vacation!

And one last peek at a work in progress. It is a rather simple piecing to say the very least. I have modeled the blocks after the Mod Sampler quilt along that Elizabeth Hartman did last fall, but modified it a little since I don't like all of her blocks. I threw in a couple aqua and brown blocks for giggles too. I have another one started that is in just greens (hmmm, maybe some of the fabrics above will appear in it!). Those that know me know how much I loathe brown so this is a real stretch. I want to get a couple of more modern-ish quilts made and listed on Etsy before the fall (Christmas cash, ya know!), and I have finally decided to dip into the stash I got last fall at the Linus blanket event.

Now, I must spend the rest of the week starting an applique quilt and making some May bee blocks. Procrastination must end there.

Taking a Deep Breath

At T-minus one day for my youngest kid's surgery, I am feeling more than a bit stressed out. I'm unnerved because I hate the hospital. I hate subjecting her at a mere three and a half to that world. Nothing that happens in the hospital is fun. Perhaps necessary, but not fun. We did our "visit" last night and I almost wish we had not. She hardly said 2 words. The woman who toured us around gave her a stuffed moose to be uer surgery buddy. At bedtime, she tossed it out into the hallway and told me that the moose could sleep with daddy and I. If that doesn't exemplify her thoughts, nothing does. I'll be glad when tomorrow is over, even though things then will be harder than now. I just want my little girl home and not in pain. Casts we can manage with for 6 weeks, but pain breaks my heart.

I have spent the week puttering, partly because I don't really want to start on anything only to leave it for 1-2 weeks. Partly because my mind was not into sewing much. I have prepped a couple of hand sewing things to take tomorrow. And this morning I threw this together. A friend of my husband's had a baby girl last week. I've been hoarding the Lakehouse fabrics for a while now, patiently awaiting a baby girl to make a quilt for. Maybe in a month or so I will manage to get it quilted. At the moment, I have my applique show quilt loaded on the LA, and it will be there for at least a week once I start quilting again!
And since I am showing baby quilts, the next two were completed 1-2 weeks ago for a client who is expecting twin grand-daughters in a few weeks. This is an odd log cabin pattern, made in reverse for the other baby. It is intended to look like two hearts.

The fabrics are not the best (mostly Joann's $3/yard stuff and not overly soft), but I tried to make the quilting as pretty as possible to counteract that. She wanted hearts quilted. I added a layer of batting to make the two feathered hearts trapunto'd. It has a nice effect.

She also wanted a hidden butterfly or two.

The owner was very pleased. I hope and suspect that these will generate some more local business. She claims to have friends that quilt and would love to have a local quilter. Works for me.

And one last note of interest (maybe?!)...I am told that Amy formerly of Park City Girl is doing a short expose on none other than me on her blog. This is scheduled (unless that agenda has changed) for tomorrow. Check it out here if you want. She is the host of the previous two sessions of the Blogger's quilt Festival.

Belated Happy Easter

The camera was being persnicketty so these didn't get uploaded sooner! The kids & I did the eggs on Saturday. They are a dye as well as a metallic paint added afterwards, mostly by my 3 yr old. The boys were anxious to get out and enjoy the unusually warm day, but Sophie wanted to paint all afternoon!
Mamma bunny and her babies, for the annual and mandatory Easter picture. This year it was not in the least bit chilly to be doing this outside. Some years it is a fast phot shoot with many forced cold smiles! It hit upper 70's on Easter - about 20 above what is normal. Talk about Joyous!

This week Big Bertha was getting her first visit to the longarm doc so I was in another mode - operation turn blocks into tops. These are from a block swap last year. Acually it was a row robin that I had blocks made for. Some of the blocks were of suspicious size (ie not correct!) so they were not used. Others were used on 3 table runners I made at Christmastime. This was what I had left. It finishes at about 55"x 65" or so.

These blocks are from the Fresh Comfort Bee. The last 2 arrived last week. I decided I only wanted to use 20 on the quilt since they are larger 14". The other 5 were placed on the backing. Much to my frustration though, I discovered the asymmetry of the top, and that it was not quite layed out like I designed it for. So...this one may take a little pickingout and rearanging. Maybe.

...backing

Clarity, a day later

I couldn't have been more right yesterday when I thought that these blocks might be better off sashed, despite not planning to do so initially. Fortunately I had a couple yards of ivory Kona on hand which matched nicely. There is a certain randomness amongst the blocks, which I was going for.

Yet, the sashing makes the random nature of the fabrics and design have a sense of order too. I will machine quilt this soon (I hope) and bind it in dark brown. It fits a twin bed, and with any luck will be snatched up from my Etsy shop once it is listed.

With not finishing quilts lately, I have had a void of hand work to do in my evenings while I watch the TV. So a few weeks ago, I dug these out (which I got for my birthday a few months ago, and really had just not had a grand epiphany as to what to use them for), and began designing a mostly hand sewn piece. It has lots of bias strips on the plan, as well as more appliqued flowers. I have many feet of 1/4" bias strips in a few shades of green ready for an intricate swirling pattern around the border.

(before I added the corner applique)

And after the lotus flowers were hand appliqued. Yes, it is all needle turn, which is a totay joy to do with the hand-dyes. They are so tightly woven that nothing really ravels or streaches out of place. The green border will connect into the bottoms of the flowers. That is why they are not sewn completely down yet. I have a plan for something in the center, and perhaps another border as well.

...and a close up of the corner. I love the drunkards path border in very subtly changing shades of indigo. Stay tuned, there will probably be another update to this in the coming weeks.

And the moment we have all been awaiting (or at least I have been waiting for)...the LA is officially here. I am something excited!! There are a few additional items that my rep may have neglected to order which I must followup on, but the big boxes are here. I've never had a UPS delivery need to come to be via 18-wheeler semi tractor trailor truck!

My agenda...

• Get said machine out of box and installed. Something tells me it will take longer than the 3-4 hours suggested
• Find my 2nd favorite quilt for the Online Bloggers Quilt Festival which starts tomorrow
• Probably go buy some batting. I have ordered 60 yards wholesale 12 days ago, and it has not yet arrived. Must be coming by camel! Looks like I may need some before this weekend is over.
  

Another Day, Another Top

I finally pieced all (or mostly all) of my Colorblocks together. This is 90 blocks, with about 8 unpieced blocks worked in to make the top a little larger. I still have a few of these blocks put aside to do a few other things which are smaller. I have no idea what to use on the back, but I know it is not in my stash of fabrics! Perhaps a boldly colored stripe?... It'll finish lap sized at 55"x60".
...And another pillow cover. It's once again 14", and has a fun free-handed all-over pattern that I machine quilted. This pillow has the striped fabric (which was on the backing of the last one) as the ruffle. I totally detest gathering ruffles, but I really like how they complete the pillow.

The front fabric is a subtle tan print. Finding "subtle" or simple prints in my stash is a trick. I guess I generally find them boring and don't tend to buy them. This was a free FQ that Whittles sent me with one of my recent massive orders.

The quilting is in a sage green thread. It did exactly what I hoped for - made the pillow front appear more green than tan. I once again tried my hand at McMargaretting inside of the hearts. On day it will look better, but not so bad today. The meandering feather is free quilted. I think I may have marked the spine (hence, any lingering purple marks are my pen which will fade soon).

And one last peek at the leafy feathering variation I tried in the corners. I wanted to try something a bit different from the traditional feathers. This picture was taken of the inside of the pillow (just muslin) before pillow construction.

Not too bad, eh?!

Have a fun week!

More Quilt Flimsies in the Wait

As I anxiously await the arrival of my long-arm, I am still making flimsies which I will quilt. This is one I started last month, a pattern from a magazine. I had to stop and reorder more of the Kaffe zig-zag after making a cutting error. Last weekend on my mucho-shopping spree, I picked up the deep purple that is on the border. It's about 60" square.
This flimsy is a departure from the large-scale and modern prints I have been using a lot of lately. I had wanted to make some "beach" or picnic quilts back in the summer and had a hard time locating this Elizabeth Studios fabric which I really love. I did this 55"x65" quilt in rows.

These beach scene "fussy cuts" are framed in a royal blue Fairy Frost which I managed to get 2 yards of for free back in the early summer (fabric shop kept sending me the wrong color!). I especially love the scene below - it reminds me of my mom's 5 grand children.At the top of the quilt is a row of this sailing print (didn't show in the 1st picture I took). I think that living in Maine (and the scenes look very Maine-ish) may help this quilt to sell locally.

My last flimsy, which I have not decided yet if I will expand to a queen size bed quilt (now only 60" square) is based on the pattern done by Old Red Barn Co. It uses loads of modern large-scale prints, and exudes color and liveliness. It has many of the Chocolate Lollipop prints in it, as well as others.

I know I will be swamped with things to quilt when I do get my machine, but that fact has not stopped me from making more. I have a twin bed flimsy in the works as well as a top from my 9-patch blocks, which is just for quilting practice. I realize I will need several of these before I start stitching away on one of the better tops I have made.