Quilting as you go...and practicing

Hello Everyone,

I hope you all in the States are enjoying some cool Fall weather. I know I am :) And there is fresh snow on the mtn top! That always makes me happy.

I have four of these blocks. They are 15" square. A little design I made up for a quilt design contest a few years ago. As they've just been sitting and doing nothing, I thought I would do a quilt as I go method. While I practiced my FMQing.

 

 I was having a little trouble at first.... till I realized I hadn't put my stitch length to zero. lol Here's some pebbling, I got confused which way to go occasionally.

 I just did some simple lines in these blocks... but it's hard to keep the line curved right.

 My regular readers know how much I love flowers. They are getting a little easier.

I'm still having fun! It sure is going to take a lot of practice! I best see what other ufo's I have laying around, small ones, that I can practice on. I know there is a lot of them somewhere. LOL

Linking up with:

Quilt story
I have to say
Free motion by the river

A slow week in the sewing room

Hello Everyone,

It's been a gorgeous week weather wise here. Mostly in the 70s or low 80s during the day, and a bit chilly at night. We get a nice wind most nights, and I've had to shut the window a few nights in a row, as it was just a bit too chilly. That means Fall is almost upon us, yah! I love the crisp, cool Fall days and chilly nights. I'm totally ready for some heavier foods too...soups and stews, beans and roasts.... mmmm!

But about that sewing room...

My little guy has lots of ouchy gums where teeth are trying to come in. Which means sleepless nights and clingy days. I'm not complaining, just explaining ;) He's also deciding that he only needs ONE nap a day... come on Mom, why do I need two?? LOL. Geesh.

I realized that I didn't show you the finished red/black/white mystery top I was working on a few weeks ago. Here it is. The Someday Pattern by Jessica JE Smith.

Sooo, I am still working on the mystery quilt from last weekend. I had some problems with a few of the blocks. Totally MY error, not the patterns. If you are interested in seeing what the quilt top looks like, you can go to Jess's face book page here. But if you don't want to see what it looks like yet...then don't go look ;) lol

Have a great night ya'all.

workS in progress wednesday

Hello, hello everyone,

Hope you are all enjoying the winding down?? of Summer. At least it's cooling off a bit here. I am ready for crisp Fall days and chilly nights.

I got the book (Beginners guide to FMQing) I ordered and had such a great time doing some practicing. I was having tensions issues that I thought was operator error, I thought I just needed to get my sewing machine speed and hand movement speed better coordinated. Well, I am happy to say, I was wrong! After reading my new book, I realized I might have to loosen my top tension some more. And low and behold, it worked!!

This first picture, you can see the black thread from the front coming thru and looping. See it on the left hand side?  But once I set the top tension looser, look here on the right. Much better!

 Here's another piece. You can't see any black stitching at all :D I am having so much fun!

Here's the front of the second piece. It's a LOT harder to stay on the lines then a person would think!!! lol. Yup, need lots more practice.

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Another mystery quilt weekend is coming up this weekend!!  (The link is for ordering the pattern) Jess asked if I wanted to/have time to test. Of course I want too!!! I just hope I have the time too ;) lol

Here are the fabrics I am using.

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I have a post up on the Q&N blog about keeping organized while sewing big projects. Especially useful if you do not have a design wall.

Thats what I'm up to, what about you?

Linking up with Lee.


 

Happy Friday!

Hello Folks, Happy Friday to you,

My poor little blog, sorry I've been so absent, there isn't a whole lot of quilting going on here. Although I have been doing some things with my quilting supplies.

* I got my sewing machine moved , so I know have more room. I need to get my table rearranged so that it abuts up to my machine and I can have a larger space for actually quilting my tops on.

* I have started to go thru one of my boxes of scraps and put them into some sort of order. I really need to get some clear plastic bins to put them in, but for now, they are color co-ordinated into plastic baggies. I am hoping to get around to doing the BIG bin of scraps sometime too. I've been inspired to get my scraps in order and make some more scrappy quilts.

*I've ordered some more supplies. I needed a new 6x24" ruler, so thats on the way. Along with some more thread, needles, pins and this book, finally!! I've been wanting this book for ages, and have just never ordered it. lol I can't wait for it to get here. Connecting threads is still having a nice sale! So head over and stock up  :)

* And here's some progress on my Someday quilt. I have rows 1-4, 5-8, 9-12, 14-16 sewn together. So I am almost done~ well, this picture isn't quite right if you look at the number tags. lol, but you get the idea :)

* I'm also working on an Organizing post for the Q&N blog, I hope that will be up sometime next week. But I need to finish this quilt first :)

Have a great weekend, I hope it includes some sewing time!

 

August goal....failed

Hello Folks,

Well, I didn't make it. I know, I could be sewing right now instead of blogging and maybe finish by this afternoon.... but with a teething 17month old...it's not going to happen. lol It's been a rough week. He is teething really hard, and that means a LOT of Mommy time. I am not complaining. I am trying to savor every moment of his babyhood, as I know, he will be grown up in a blink of an eye.

I have gotten all the pieces of each row sewn into their rows.

Someday pattern by Jessica Smith of thequiltandneedle.com

And I have rows 1 & 2 and 3 & 4 sewn together. There are 16 rows. So I have a ways to go yet.

Someday pattern by Jessica Smith of thequiltandneedle.com

Linking up with Shanna and Melissa, even though I didn't finish. lol Thanks again Ladies.



Thanks for stopping by.

Dorian

Hexie blog hop

Hello Everyone,

Welcome to my blog, those of you coming over from Sew We Quilt blog hop. And welcome back to my regular readers :)

Thank you again Samm and Debbie, for putting together another great blog hop!

I was going to make this project for the Christmas blog hop. But
then I found out that there was a hexie hop right after that one, so waited till now to do this project.

A month or so ago I saw this pattern.

photo borrowed from the Fat Quarter Shops Jolly Jabber

It's a free quilt a long on the Jolly Jabber. See that cute hexie ornament? I had to make one!

So I left out the star in the middle and just used a plain hex. Drafted the pattern to look like an ornament and put them in hexagon shaped tree skirt.

I've been wanting a new tree skirt for many years now, and have finally got one made! Although it is a bit small.

I used fleece for the backing and didn't use any batting.

It quilted up just fine too :)

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you enjoyed my creation. Please don't forget to stop at the rest of the stops on the hop. Here's who I'm sharing the day with.



  

Sunshine Girl Nicola 

Cheryl James

   

Fish Kopp   

Grizz 'n' Dove   

Secretly Stitching  

In the Boon Docks  

Elizabeth Coughlin Designs 

   

Quilt Doodle Designs 

   

Ridge Top Quilts 

  

KaHolly

    Why-Knot-Kwilt

 

 

 

Some stash fabric

Hello All,

I haven't touched my sewing machine in at least 3 days. I don't know how I am going to complete my August goal at this rate.

But I HAVE been adding to the stash! Here are some of my recent purchases, over the past month or so.

These are Kona Bay Shadowland fabrics. They are much darker than I thought they would be (I ordered them online). But hubby really likes them :) I do like how rich and saturated the colors are.

I finally got my hands on some of this very lovely Blushing line too, from Margot Languedoc for Henry Glass fabrics. I've been wanting some of this since before it even came out!

And I've added to my hoard of Sunkissed, by Sweetwater, with these prints I found on sale :)

Taking theses pictures, I realized how well the Sunkissed and Blushing line go together :)

Baby has been making it hard to sit and sew, but I am hoping to get some done today.

 I have the backing and batting for Jeds quilt, so I need to get to quilting that too. Winter will be here before we know it!

Tomorrow starts the Hexie blog hop from Sew We Quilt. My day is Wednesday, the 21st. So come on back to see what I created :)

Have a great day!

 

Mid-month check in

Howdy Folks,

It's time to check in with Shanna and Melissa, ALYOF. I've been working steadily on my quilt top. A little bit every day, I hope I can finish by the end of the month.

This quilt is 78 x89 inches. It has 224 six inch blocks in it!! That's a lot of blocks. I blogged about my goal here.

pattern by Jessica Smith, quiltandneedle.com

I am finished piecing them all together.

Now for putting the blocks together. You have to be very careful here, or your design wont turn out right.

As you can see, the pattern calls for 2 more colors than I am using. I didn't have ANYTHING in my stash to go with these black, white and reds. And as I was testing, I didn't have time to get anything to go with them either. So I just stuck with these 4 colors.

 I think it will still be pretty striking.... not that I haven't thought about adding some yellow  for some pops of color... LOL.... too late now though, I am not redoing some of these blocks.

ALYOF....August goals

Hello Everyone,

I hope you are enjoying the HO, Ho, Ho blog hop over at Sew We Quilt. There is lots of cute, lovely projects.

I can't believe it's August already! Just 4 short months till Christmas and a new year. WOW!

This month I want to finish this pattern, it's called Someday and you can find in Jess's store.

It was a mystery pattern last year and I never got it finished. Here are my pieces, mostly ready to sew together.

I think it will look great in these colors.

Linking up with Shanna and Melissa again, thank you Girls!

Have a great day!

Christmas in July blog hop!

Hello Everyone,

And welcome to my stop on the blog hop. A big thank you going out to Samm and Carol, for their great ideas, blog hops and cheering.

I love Christmas :) The snow, the Christmas carol's, the cookies, the joy on little kid faces...And there is some darling Christmas fabric out there too. But, for some reason, I just don't decorate for Christmas with FABRIC stuff!? So I had very little Christmas fabric in my stash.

 I dug out these fabrics that my quilting forum swapped a few years ago.

I made 3 stars and some strips of squares. And put together a quilt as you go (QAYG) table runner.

Here is how I did it.

First lay your backing right side down, and smooth your batting on top. Find the middle of your batting and mark it.  Put your middle block right on that mark. Centering it.

Lay your second piece right sides together with the first, and sew your 1/4" seam. You'll sew right thru the batting and backing, so that your blocks will not only be sewn together, but to the batting/backing as well.

Open up that second piece, smooth it out (or even iron it if you want) and lay your third piece, right side down, on top of the second piece. Sew, press open, repeat.

When you are done going one way, do the same thing going the other way. Until your blocks all all sewn down.

Then sew your bottom and top sashings and blocks the same way.

When you have all your blocks/sashings sewn on, you can trim and bind it. It's already quilted :) Or you can do some more quilting on the blocks.

I did some FMQing, I have to practice, a LOT! Still having some tension issues. I go to fast with the machine, then have to slow down, and slow down too much, then speed up again... And when I finally get the speed of the machine right, I have to figure out how fast to move the fabric thru with my hands. Sigh~

 I practiced doing some simple back and forth loopy things, and circles in all the little squares. Plus a little tree.

Made a star in each of the big blocks, and TRIED to sew straight lines along the seams. Dang that's hard!! lol

Then I trimmed and put my binding on.

(Forgive the poor photos. Our sky is filled with smoke from a fire up in Oregon!)

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you are getting some Christmas sewing done :)

Don't forget to check out the other lovely projects. Here's today's schedule.

August 2

Quilt Doodle Doodles

life, quilts and a cat too

Elizabeth Coughlin Designs

Ridge Top Quilts

Editha

Stitchin By the Lake

Quilts, Fabric and Thread Tales

Sew Many Yarns

Kwilty Pleasures

Kris Loves Fabric

52 Quilts in 52 Weeks

Robin’s Fabric Nest