Tis the season

Well it's Thanksgiving (Oops!!  I wrote this and then forgot to post it.)  and what better way to be thankful than to pick out someone that needs a little extra love and give it to them!  After all this is the season of giving so why not sew up a "charity" quilt or two to give to the local nursing home, or whatever other worthy cause you want to support.  Maybe you can donate a quilt to be auctioned to provide money for a charity you would like to support.

The local quilt guild got together and decided to sew up some lap quilts for the local nursing home and have them to give for Christmas.  Christmas fabric was donated and the fabric was cut to 3" strips the width of the fabric available.  Now some of the strips were the usual 44-45" and some were 12" and everything in between.  Next the strips were subcut to varying lenghts.  Anywhere from 6" to 18" and everywhere in between and then were sewn end to end to make a very long strip.  Next these long strips were cut into lengths of approximately 60" and then they were sewn together side by side.

The huge variety of prints really go together to make a beautiful
Christmasy throw!

For this particular project we sewed the strips together until they were about 41" in width making the top about 41" x 60".  No borders were added and the quilts were quilted using a simple meandering pattern which is fast and easy.  The binding is added and they are ready to go to their new home. 



It never fails to amaze me that it really doesn't matter what color
the fabric is if the theme is constant.

During this time of "Thanksgiving" stop and think about all the things you are thankful for and how blessed you are and then think about those you aren't as fortunate.  Even when time is short, this is a very quick and easy project and can be loads of fun when you get together with a few of your buddies and you all toss in some fabric scraps.  You can't imagine how much these throws mean to people in the nursing home who have no family nearby to visit during the holiday season.  Think about sharing your love during this season!
Love ya!

I love "Kansas Troubles" fabric by Moda!

I really love the warm rich color palate of the "Kansas Troubles" line by Moda.  These colors just make me feel warm and cozy and they are the kind of fabric I want to just snuggle up in and read a good book.  Recently while talking with my best bud, Peggy she was telling me about finding a sight online that had some great tutorials and patterns.  Well with a recommendation from Peggy, you know I'm going to be looking that sight over for sure and boy was I impressed.  They have great tutorials and show you how to make some really fun quilts and guess what, they aren't hard at all!!  Some of you know that I spent a portion of my life living in Missouri and met some wonderful people there and did a good bit of quilting!  What does that have to do with anything?  Well the name of the website is "Missouri Star Quilts".  If you get the chance be sure to check out some of their tutorials at:   http://tutorialsmissouriquiltco.com/  This is a really neat site.

Now on to the quilt.  This one is for ME!!  This one will not be given away.




Of course I took a picture of a mistake in the quilt.  I wanted to and
attempted to alternate the blocks, dark next to light, but as the
saying goes, the best laid plans of mice and men go awray.

At least I know you can see how the warm rich colors play off one another in this spectacular spools pattern.  Now the hard thing to believe is this block is made with 2 contrasting strips, 2 1/2 inches wide and 1 background fabric 4 1/2" wide.  If you cut your strips to the width of the fabric it really works well.  From 3 strips of fabric you will have 2 1/2 finished blocks.  I won't go into the details of how to make the block because you can all see that on the Missouri Quilt site.  I have to tell you though that this quilt goes together very easily and quickly, otherwise it would not be finished in this timely manner.

When I made this one I did some careful measuring before putting
the borders on.

Since this quilt was for me and I had some very specific ideals about what I wanted I was very careful to measure the bed and make the top to fit the bed exactly with the addition of the small burgandy border.  I know that this quilt will be used as a spread on my bed and I didn't want to have a lot of bulky fabric haning off the corners, and I didn't want the quilt to be so long that I would forever be trying to get it pulled up off the floor at the bottom of the bed.  Gee, it looks like I'm picky!  At any rate, I measured exactly what size the drop would be on the sides and foot of the bed.  I bet you could figure out those two numbers were the same.   Then I cut the drops and sewed them to the quilt.  Now I didn't want all of the extra to fold back and up over the pillows.  I'm making pillow shams to go with the quilt to cover the pillows so I don't need the extra fabric at the top of the quilt and it still looks great.  Since I'm not putting the wide green border on the top the only border there is the narrow burgandy border. 

Since I didn't want the extra at the bottom corners of the quilt I decided to cut them out so the corners would fit straight down giving a very boxy tailored look.  These edges fasten together with button and loop on the back side of the quilt.  The look is very tailored and neat which is just what I wanted.  Now don't ask me why I wanted that particular look, because nothing else in the house is even close!  At any rate the quilt is finished and the shams are completed yet, but soon.

I hope everyone has a great day.  Have fun quilting and make something that is what you want in every detail!  It's fun to make something just for me occassionally.  Love ya!

New Tees and things

Well, I've been at it again.  I love to make memory quilts with tees and people's clothes they wore and loved.  I just want to put a little more love in and then it goes to someone who will love it even more because of all the memories.  I typically get calls on the average of once a month asking for a memory quilt to be made and I really love doing them.  Unfortunately it takes me a while to get it all together.  I like to make them different, and use different techniques to make each one a unique work of art that will be cherished for many years to come.  I believe striving to make a very special item for each person is the reason I get so many calls for more.

Here is a quilt I made for a girl and the tee's belonged to her father.  She had many different tee's and all of these things demonstrate that her father loved his outdoor sports activities.  She also brought several shirts that he wore and I have used these to make the stripping between the blocks.  This is a little of the process I go through when making a memory quilt.

First I have to get the logos trimmed out and the fuseable
put on and then lay out the shirts.

This part is actually very time consuming.  Much more so than you may think.  I have to get the shirts laid out on my cutting table and I have to make sure I leave ample room around the outside of the logo for any trimming or squaring.  I also try to make a habit of cutting the logos out using a whole inch measurement.  Whether it's 6 or 14 doesn't matter but I don't want to do any 6 1/2 or 14 1/4.  That just confuses the issue when I start doing the stripping!  This is something I've learned the hard way over time.  After the logos are cut out I have to go the the ironing board to add the fuseable and I do use the woven most of the time.  This just seems to work better as far as I am concerned and there is less stretch.  Next I retrim the logos to remove rough edges,  and then I lay them out to see how it is going to look.




At this point I haven't done anything about the stripping.

Once I've laid the shirts out on the bed in the way I think I want them to go, taking into consideration the size and the colors then I can start thinking about the finish trimming.  This is where I have to make sure that all the shirts in a row are the same width.  If I can trim all the shirts in a row to a particular width, say 12" then I don't have to add any extra strips down the side.  If I can't then I will add a strip of shashing down one side to keep the sizes consistent. 


If you look at the bottom of this picture you will see where I have
added an extra strip of sashing to increase the width of that tee.

After doing the final trimming I can then add my sashing forming rows either vertically or horizonally to put the quilt top together.  Next I will put the finishing trims on the top.  In this case it is logos from hats that have been cut out and are satin stitched down before the quilting is done and then I do the quilting and binding being sure to add a rod pocket at the top because many of these quilts are hung.

These memory quilts are wonderful projects and I love doing them and seeing what new ideals I can come up with to make each quilt a very special one of a kind keepsake.

I hope you all have a great day and decide to one day try your hand at making a memory quilt as a keepsake to remember someone who has passed away, or to commemorate an event, like graduating from high school or college or getting married or having a baby.  Whatever the occasion these quilts are a lot of fun and guaranteed to make you stretch your brain to recall all of that math you had when you were in school!



I'm Back

Gee this summer has been so busy that I've really had to take some weeks off to keep my sanity.  At least I think I am still sane, but then you need to ask someone who knows me and they may tell you different! 

At any rate, it seems that I always have people asking me about what size a quilt needs to be for what size bed.  What do I consider a baby quilt and what do I consider a twin quilt.  Well I happened to find a chart and I just wanted to take a minute to just write about sizes and post one list that I have found.  Now one thing I have to say is you will find many charts and they all seem to vary a little either in width or length.  Here is the list I found.

Standard Bed Sizes
	Bed Size
Twin	39"x 76"
Double	54"x 76"
Queen	60"x 80"
King	72"x 80"
Dual King	78"x 80"
	Quilt Size
Twin	68"x 90"
Double	80"x 90"
Queen	90"x 108"
King	110"x 110"
Dual King	120"x 120"

Now in addition to the above sizes which are standard bed sizes there are lap quilts and baby quilts.  Most baby quilts will be around 36" x 45" or slightly larger.  Lap size quilts are slightly larger than the baby quilt in that they are typically around 45" x 56" or slightly larger.  In addition to that you have a twin long bed which you will find in most college dorms.  And if all of this isn't confusing enough you will have standard answers to questions like how large should my quilt be to fit my double bed.  The standard answer is you should have a drop of at least 8" on each side of the bed and the foot.  Note the measurements on this chart the twin bed mattress size is 39".  If you have a drop of 8" on each side your quilt would need to be 55" wide and for a 76" length you would need a quilt 84" long.  55 x 84 is not on that chart. Instead we have 60" x 90" which would give a drop of 12" on each side and 14" at the foot of the bed.  Wouldn't you at least think the side drop and the bottom drop should be the same?  If you do the math you will note that the same thing happens with the other quilt sizes without a standard drop for most of the sizes listed.  What's a body to do?

In addition to all of this confusion you also have personal preferences, and in addition to that you have to take into consideration the size of the people who will be using the quilt.  Now if Mr. Heart is going to get the quilt and he sleeps on a twin bed, but he weights in at about 300 lbs, you may want to give him a little more drop room.  Eight inches on each side may mean the quilt will not cover him.  If he sleeps on his side the quilt will not cover him in front and back!!!  As for me since we have a queen bed we need a queen quilt, but then my husband is not small, over 200 lbs and I'm no light weight myself.  In addition my baby Frenchie sleeps with me and she sleeps on top of the cover between me and my husband so that means we need more width to our quilts than the normal person would need.  Otherwise somebody winds up with no quilt during the night!

My suggestion is make your quilt top without the borders and make sure that fits the top of your bed, then add the amount of drop that you want on your quilt and use that as your standard for that size bed  If your top without the borders fits the bed then the borders will be your drop whether they are 3 borders making a total drop of 10" or 1 border of 14".  Quilts are individual works of art and the size depends on the person making the quilt.  Remember the charts are just guidelines.  There is no absolutes.

Remember quilts are gifts of love.  Everytime someone wraps up in a quilt you made them they will think of you!  Put your love in each seam and that love will shine for generations.

I'm Back with my bestest bud!

Well it's been an interesting few weeks and I have been so busy with gardening that I didn't even have time to do any quilting!!  God has given us an abundance of fresh veggies this year and this busy little squirrel has been storing up for the winter.  Interesting fact, scientist say the squirrel will only find about 10% of what he stores for the winter.  I hope I find more!!  Oh well on to quilting.

I did finally get started back with some quilting and the first set of quilts I had to complete came from my bud, Peggy.  Some time ago we were at a quilting shop, I think in Knoxville, and Peggy found some fabric that was just sooooo Peggy.  She loves a truly good cup of coffee, and many early mornings in nice weather Peggy and her husband Mel will go out and sit on the poarch in the swing and just spend some quality time together, just sipping their coffee and discussing life and their hopes and dreams and plans as the sun comes up.  Doesn't this sound so loving and relaxing?  I always thought so.  At any rate when Peggy found this fabric which was a panel of squares dedicated to coffee lovers it was perfect for her.  Then we started picking out coordinating fabrics because Peggy didn't want just a panel with the squares and borders.  Peggy worked out her pattern, after we purchased the fabric, which is backwards, but the way Peggy and I often work.  When she made the plans for her pattern the quilt became a tad bit larger than what we had originally planned when we were purchasing the material so then the borders became a little more difficult.  After much soul searching and figuring and measuring this is the quilt she completed.

I really loved the way she took the blocks from the panel and then added a border around those to enlarge them and then she had a variety of different blocks she could have used.  The overall look of the block she chose is great with the Irish Chain effect going on with the placement of the fabric.

This close up picture shows the border around the squares more clearly and the Irish Chain pattern.  I think her fabric choices were wonderful.  It was a sort of back to basics when picking the fabrics.  First we had the panel of squares, then the large print being the border fabric, then the geometric being the border around the panel blocks with large circles, the small print in the same color family as the large print is the one with the coffee cups used in the Irish Chain, and the contrasting fabric is the blue, which also happens to be a geometric that reads like a solid, and then the light fabric is the beige which also reads as a solid.  Peggy found one other fabric that was a light medium print that she also loved and she picked up some of that also.  When you really don't know what you are going to do, it's nice to be able to pick up a little extra fabric in case the final plan expands as this one did!

The large print was one with the writing and the coffee beans and had the diamonds in a repeating pattern.  When using a fabric of this nature you want to be able to read the words at the top of the quilt so always check your orientation.    If it isn't words but is a directional print the same rules apply and then continue around the quilt with the bottom of the fabric pattern sewn to the body of the quilt on all sides.  Here is also a look at the light fabric with a medium print that was used as an inner border.

I think she did an awesome job with the miter at the corners on the large outer border.  This fabric would not have been nearly as effective had it been square corners with the red diamonds just running off the edge of the fabric, or into a complete stop at the seam line.

Peggy did a great job of putting this top together effectively and I didn't want to detract from her hard work by putting in a lot of quilting that would draw the eye away from the piecing so I went with stitch in the ditch for the quilting with the only variation being in the dark geometric with the large circles and I quilted a meandering circles pattern in those areas.  In the panel blocks, since they were a larger area than I like to leave without any quilting, I did some outlining of the pattern printed on the fabric.  Very simple quilting for a great quilt.  It is important to remember that quilting should enhance the quilt, not detract from the piece work.  In some quilts the quilting is the showpiece of the final quilt, and that is great also.  You are the one to decide how much or how little of the quilting you want to show in your quilt.

Hope you all have a great day!

Why is it taking me so long to finish this???

There are so many different ways to make quilts that it is really hard sometimes to decide which project to start next.  Sometimes projects are just so time consuming that I find them difficult to complete.  It isn't that they are not pretty, it isn't that I have made some kind of error that just ruins it for me and it isn't really because I want to have another unfinished quilt laying in my stack of to do projects, they just take so long and I have a desire to complete something, or see something that I want to do now!  I'm so sure that none of you experience the same type symptoms (tongue in cheek).  The fact is that we are all human and sometimes we just pick a project that is larger than our attention span.  (I have a few of those.)  Through my few years of quilting I have learned that there are some projects that I just don't need to start, and there are some that if the size is adjusted then perhaps I would have some hope of finishing.

I have one project that I have been working on (I should say working on and off) that is just one of those that I want to finish, I love what I am doing and the meaning, it's just too darn big.  I wish I had gone with something smaller.  What inspired me to start this was a class I took and in one short class, (4 hours)  I basically completed my project of a small wall hanging.

I really had a lot of fun creating this in a class I took a few years ago.
Lots of great machine quilting and completed in just a few hours.

This was really a wonderful class and we spent the majority of the time doing the machine quilting on this piece.  Actually most of the class was the quilting and quilting is one thing I love.  Every leaf has a different quilting pattern as does each of the different sections of background and the borders.  All the different patterns were really neat to learn.

I was so enthused about how quickly the project went together that I immedately when home and finished the project and the started looking around for what I wanted to do next using the same technique.  Here are some of the things I did not take into consideration when I dove into my new project.

1.  When you do a class project you typically already have the fabrics that are going to be used or they are supplied for you in addition to any special supplies such as bias tape, fusables and spray adhesive or whatever is required for the project.

2.  If the fabric is supplied then typically the pieces are already cut for you, or at least they are rough cut so most of your class time is not spent at the cutting board.

3.  The pattern is supplied in a ready to use format.

Okay, lets start with number 3.  The pattern.  I now have the know how and want to pick a pattern.  I had been told where to look for patterns.  This was not something you could run out to the quilt store and purchase.  The advise was to purchase a coloring book and pick your pattern from the pictures in a coloring book.  That is a great ideal.  I now know that I could have picked dozens of patterns that would have made wonderful blocks for a quilt and would have been really easy to complete.  I could have even used the blocks in a Georgia Bonsteel type configuration and had the blocks all quilted and then put them together.  I could have made an awesome quilt in just a few days!!  I actually found the pattern I wanted to use in a relatively short time in a coloring book with Christmas scenes.  I chose a nativity scene.  Since I collect nativity sets I thought this would be wonderful.  I still think it would be wonderful.  Of course the next step was enlarging the pattern to the size I wanted which was large!!  This I managed on my copy machine by coping portions of the page enlarging them as I went to the size I wanted, then I had to tape all the pages together.  I believe I have something like 40 pages tapes together for this project.  Needless to say this took quite a bit of time to complete.  It was like a 3 day project just to get the pattern enlarged correctly.  Next I had to get my fusible fabric and the pattern was to be traced onto the fusible.  This part of the project only took me a couple of days.  Boy I was moving fast.  I had just spent a week just getting my pattern and getting it ready!

Now lets skip up the the very first consideration, the fabric.  I had to pick the fabric for this project and I really do strive to do things right and I know there are fabrics out there that are prints that when cut correctly you can get some wonderful effects.  I started to hunt my fabrics.  This process took about 4 months.  Every time I entered a fabric store I was on the lookout for fabrics that would give me exactly what I wanted.  I had the wise men the animals the doves the wood in the stable the straw, there was a night sky, oh this was a very detailed pattern, in case I forgot to mention that bit of information.  I would wind up purchasing 1/4 yard of fabric or a fat quarter for a beard.  This was getting to be a very expensive project also, but the effects are really worth the effort.

It may be a little difficult to tell at this stage that this is a dove, but the fabric I found
actually is feathers and I attempted to cut it so the feathers on the wings were
going in the right direction.  Yes fussy cut!



This section, which I believe you can tell is a beard I think is great.




Another section of beard and notice the skin tones. 
I actually used different skin tones for all the wise men
which meant different hair colors and types.



This picture shows two of the wise men and as you can see they are
very different.



The last picture also shows that this project is not complete.  As you can see, finding the right fabrics will make a huge difference in the completed project, when that happens. 

Now for the other thing I did not take into consideration when I started this project, cutting the fabric.  Almost every piece of fabric is fussy cut.  Doing fussy cuts takes an enormous amount of time if you are being very particular about the effect you are striving to attain.  The orientation of the pattern piece and the the orientation of that item on the quilt both play a part.  There are some pieces that I have cut several times before I achieved the effect I wanted.



My project hanging on my quilting room wall.

As you can see from the above picture, my project is not yet at the half way mark of completion.  One day I'm sure it will be a great show piece for my collection and will beautiful hung with some shelves around to hold a few of my nativity collections.  I actually have at least one nativity in every room of my house and in some I have more than one and I love them.  They are a constant reminder of my Lord and what he gave up for me.

I hope you have a great day, and a wonderful time quilting.  Let me encourage you to sign up for my blog.  I promise you will not receive emails trying to get you to purchase my products or use my services.  I hate it when I sign up for something and then get a mailbox full of junk!!

Some quilts take longer than others!! Quilting

I actually didn't start out to make this into a 2 part post but it got so long I really didn't want you to get bored and just quit reading so here is my method for quilting for the "Oriental Garden Path Quilt."



This is a picture of the blocks and I think the quilting did make the right
portions of the block pop up.

 The quilt itself began with a print fabric, oriental, with a oriental garden with pagoda and waterfalls which was given to me by Kay.  The name of the pattern used for the blocks is "Garden Path".  I had recently taken a class by Nichole Webb showcasing her book of quilting designs called "Garden Branching".  Okay, these things all just seemed to go together in my mind.  I had also designed the quilt to have some larger spaces for special quilting and Nichole's patterns just really seemed to fit.  First I did a simple stitch in the ditch quilting around the blocks.  Next I wanted to pull the fabric down in the second square so that the center square popped up and the eye would be drawn to that fabric because that was the focus fabric.  I did a sort of simple small paisley pattern.



Since the object of the quilting in the background here was to
pull it down so the other pieces seemed to pop up I did not want
to draw attention to the quilting by putting a contrasting
color in this area.  The object was to minimize.

 Now anyone who has flower gardens will tell you that the beauty of the garden is in the variety of flowers, colors and sizes.  Well I wanted my quilt to show that same diversity so I wanted to use patterns of several different flower and I wanted to use different colors in the flowers.  Anyone who does machine quilting will tell you very quickly that it is more difficult when you have to change thread numerous times in one quilt.  Most quilts will be quilted with one or two different threads.  Rarely will you see them use 3 different colors in one quilt.  When you are talking about a really nice show quality quilt though you will often find quilts that have used several different colors to enhance their quilting.  Well, my quilt isn't show quality, but I really wanted this to be special, soooo.  Here are some pictures of part of the flowers that I quilted into the quilt.


Picture #1
Chrysanthemum



Picture #2
Giant Camellia



Picture #3
Whoville Rose



Picture #4
Fuchsia



Picture #5
Star Flower



Picture #6
Iris




Picture #7
Orchid



Picture #8
Gerber Daisy



Picture #9
Drooping Thistle

 

Picture #10
Violets




Picture #11
Fuchsia




Picture #12
Fuchsia




Picture #13
Orchid





Picture #14
Drooping Thistle

As you can see, some of the flowers turned out better than others.  The yellow (Picture #14) just did not pop on the background fabric, so I didn't do very many yellow flowers.  I thought the picture of the thistle was great but it was much prettier to me in the blue (Picture #9).  I did do violets in groups and as a single flower and I did the fuchsia in the same manner.  You will notice the green around the flowers.  This was the branching or vines that pulled all of the quilting together and it was done with a verigated green thread.  There is a green bush shown in the fabric with the pagoda and I tried to duplicate this in the large outer border. 

I really enjoyed quilting this quilt.  My biggest problem was I got behind on my other quilting while I was trying to finish this so had to take it off my machine before it was finished and for some reason I let this lay in my quilting room, folded up for more than a year before I decided on the 4th of July to declare my independence from a UFO (unfinished object) and put it back on my machine.  The really interesting part is when I put it back on the machine and started quilting again I was finished in just a couple of hours.  I really don't know why I put it off so long, but am so happy I finally kicked myself into finishing this project.  Well it is almost finished.  My friend Peggy has the quilt now, putting the binding on for me.  There just isn't anything as wonderful as a great friend, but a finished quilt runs a close race.

I hope you enjoy reading about my adventures in quilting, my trials and triumphs.  Let me know how you are doing with your projects.  I love hearing from my blogger buddies.