Future projects

This year is all about finishing UFOs. I really have to finish some projects. But...

Those of you who know me, know that I usually design my own quilts. I often get inspiration from patterns in books and magazines, and I've even been know to actually follow a pattern a time or two. I LOVE patterns; I'm just not very good at following them. With that said, I bought two new patterns that I just HAVE to share with you.

I bought this pattern from Hancock's of Paducah. It's called "Multifaceted" from Cozy Quilt Designs. It was designed by Daniela Stout. Don't you just love it?!? It's a strip based pattern. I hate strip piecing. I hope I can get over that prejudice long enough to try this pattern. Really, don't you just love it?

Speaking of prejudices, I have always hated even the thought of doing applique. As those of you who have read my earlier posts know, a very dear friend of mine (Diana - the world's best appliquer that the world's never heard of), offered to teach me. I just couldn't say no. I'm now finishing the hand quilting on my first applique, an African mask wall hanging. I'm a novice. So what on Earth possessed me to buy this oh-so-complicated looking pattern? Have you seen these owls?

 Are they not the sweetest things ever? Look at those eyes! Look at those fun colors!

And look at the one in the hole! I needed some hand work to take with me to guild and club meetings, so this is what I chose. The pattern is called "Life's a Hoot!" by Bits 'n Pieces  (http://ajpadilla.com/ - angie@ajpadilla.com). I bought it off of Craftsy (my first purchase from this site, but not, I'm sure, my last!). Do any of you have this pattern? Am I going to hate myself forever for trying such a large project? Oh heck, I can't wait to start!

And since I don't have children, here's the gratuitous kitty photo... I set my computer on the floor while I went into the other room to talk to my husband for a few minutes. When I returned, Tessie had taken my seat and was staring fixedly at the computer screen. It only took one look for me to realize that she was waiting to pounce on my screen saver! It kept moving all over the screen and changing colors - obviously a new kitty toy!

'Til later folks...

Debbi

I fell off the fabric wagon again. Hugely!

On January 1 this year, I lost a good quilting friend. John died very unexpectedly. He left behind his wife, Martha, and a small but well stocked quilt shop, Digital Quiltz. Today Martha decided to sell much of her stock to the ladies and gentlemen of the quilt guilds she and John belonged to. As one friend described it, the shopping trip was bittersweet. We got fantastic savings and spent hours talking to friends, but we had to lose a friend to do it.

With hundreds of bolts to choose from, I would normally go wild. This time I was determined to buy backing fabric and thread only. One problem with finishing so many quilt tops is that I need the material to back them with! I love the look of pieced backings, and I have pieced several of my own, but I hate to use my gorgeous special fabrics on the back where they won't be seen.

I kept it to nine fabrics, but I bought the rest of the bolt of all but two of them. This is a great photo of the greens. I especially love the one on the left! I had to share one yard each with a couple of friends, but I got the rest. All 11 1/2 yards! 

This is a better photo of the red. This will be the backing for the Red Sea quilt top I finished this week.

 I got enough of the greens and the blue for a queen sized backing each. Aren't they luscious?

I loved the blue/green batik top right, but I only bought three yards of it. Several of us wanted it, so we shared it out. A friend's husband ferried it between the cutting tables so that we could all get what we wanted. Isn't that sweet? I'm going to send him some farm fresh eggs as a thanks this Thursday when I see his wife at Busy Bees.

This black/grey/white fabric is probably my favorite. I bought the rest of the bolt of it as well. Just looking at it is really getting my creative juices flowing! The blue/purple stripe on the left is gorgeous as well. I bought four yards of it, but again, had to share with others, including the woman who was doing the cutting! Sigh.

Don't you just love this bright orange cosmos fabric? This will be the back for the harvest-colored Turning Twenty I also finished this week. Seven new backing fabrics and two already assigned. I may have to resort to pieced backings again soon if I continue to finish UFOs at this rate! : )

By the way, I also bought 75 Mettler size 60 threads today. Did I say that I've fallen for applique after I said that I never would? Now I'm set for life on the thread front.

I don't know if I'll have anything to post tomorrow. I'll be grading papers so that the students will let me back into the classroom on Monday. It's been a good week off.

'Til later...

Debbi

Another quilt top finished!

On the cutting board -

After being stuck for weeks trying to decide on a border, I finally settled on what I wanted and got it finished today. I wanted the outside to be softer looking than the middle pattern and not too busy - as in, not peiced. I know the fabric itself is busy, but isn't it pretty? : ) The stripe is not as bright red as it looks. It's actually more dark watermelon than bright red.

 Another shot of the border design.

On the bed -

The quilt will easily fit a queen sized bed. In fact, it's a bit long, but that's a good thing! My husband is 6' 3" so he needs a really long quilt. Plus, our four cats always tuck us me into bed at night, and man, do they hog the covers!!! I have to pull them up over my head before Tessie comes to bed if I don't want her to drag them off of me to make a cozy nest for herself at the foot of the bed.

The design comes right to the edge of the bed with the borders falling naturally off of the sides. The end, however, falls a little long. I think a deep tuck under the pillow will solve this problem. : )

 Another view from the other side. Yep, I still like it.

A slight pillow tuck keeps from distorting the diamond shape, but I'm going to need a deeper one to pull that bottom border up where it should be.

A quick word about my photos -

My husband bought me a fantastic Pentax camera (very professional and fancy), but the photos are too large to download onto the blog very easily. Instead, I make do with my lovely little Casio pocket camera. It's not as sharp, and the colors are not as true, but at least the photos download. Plus, I spend more on my fabric than I do on my house, so my rooms are small and dark and my sewing room is the old remodeled garage. It does make it challenging to photograph my quilts well. Lastly, I see lovely photos on other blogs where quilters have taken their quilts outside to take advantage of natural light. How I envy them. Have I mentioned that I live on a small farm? With four dogs, an outdoor cat, and a couple dozen free range chickens? There is nothing flattering about chicken poo on a quilt. : ( 

It doesn't help either that it's been raining for a solid week. Now that it's lighter after work, maybe I can start getting better pictures. I'll try. In the meantime, thanks for bearing with me.

Back to work on Monday -

I'll be spending this weekend catching up on grading, so I probably won't be able to do much more quilting until next week. I'm really pleased with how much I've been able to get done on Spring Break with four (and sometimes five) cats and one husband constantly under foot. If students weren't so annoying about demanding that their papers get graded on a timely basis, I would be able to get at least one more borderless quilt bordered this weekend. Oh well, I bordered four large quilts and bound one large quilt in one week. How's that for productivity? *Broad smile!*

'Til later...

Debbi

Resolution! I figured out how to border my Red Sea quilt.

Upcoming:  Photos of the completed Red Sea quilt. I'm cutting and getting ready to sew on the final borders.

Next:  Maybe the blue and cream quilt? Again, all it needs is borders. (I am such a border coward!)

Be back soon!

Red Sea Quilt dilema

It's time to make the borders for my Red Sea quilt. I had lots of red triangles left over from my half square triangle blocks, and I didn't want to throw them away. I decided to cut some cream triangles to finish my HST blocks.

One soda pop later, I had a load of little blocks waiting to be sewn together. The plan was to sew these squares into long border strips for an interior border. Unfortunately, the darn things had a mind of their own. They just kept sewing themselves together until they made their own little quilt.

Now I have to decide how to border both quilts. I've chosen the fabrics for the Red Sea quilt, but I just can't seem to decide what I want to do with them. No wonder I have so many UFOs. I get to the borders and freeze. Shoot. : (

This is one of the books I bought last year. I had not seen it before, but it has some rather cool looking patterns in it. It's called 256 Fat Quarter Quilt Blocks, and it's published by House of White Birches.

On page 65 of the same book, I found this pattern for a placemat. It has a single heart made in a way I had never seen before. I'm not a heart person, but I love odd looking patterns, so I decided to multiply one heart into a full sized quilt.

I've posted this photo before, but I finally finished binding it today. Yippee! Oops, I still need a label. My least favorite part of quilting. It's such a downer to get a quilt finished only to discover that there's one more thing to do. Oh well, there's always tomorrow.

Stay tuned. There are several more patterns in this book that I intend to try out. I can't wait to finish a couple more UFOs so that I can start a new quilt. My eyes keep roaming to my stacks of fabric. Sigh. Just a few more weeks.

'Til later.

Debbi

I seem to be stalling...

My motor was revving like mad earlier this spring break; I finished two quilt tops on Saturday, built a garden bench on Sunday, and finished another quilt top on Monday. Tuesday I attended the funeral of a dear quilting friend and didn't feel like doing any quilting the rest of the day, although I did spend about an hour on binding.

Today I felt guilty about housework. Okay, you have to understand that I rarely feel guilty about housework. I just ignore it and plow a path through the house to my sewing room. So today I decided to do some cleaning. I won't talk about how deep the dust was in the guest room, but I've chiseled it off the headboard without damaging the wood too much. Unfortunately, I couldn't focus on housework for more than about 15 minutes at a time. I kept switching between sewing and cleaning. Which means, of course, that I did neither very effectively.

At one point between loading the washer and emptying the litter boxes, I started sewing some left over half square triangles together for a border for my Red Sea quilt. I planned to sew short strips of them and intersperce them with solid cream strips. My brain was so distracted that I allowed those silly little squares to sew themselves into a child's quilt. How did that happen? Now I need to make borders for that quilt as well tomorrow. Sigh. I'll post some photos tomorrow. It's late, and I'm typing this up from bed. Don't look!! I'm not wearing any make-up!

Anyway, I'm going to put my poor, stalling motor into the garage now and hope that it has more energy in the morning. I have a guild meeting tomorrow, so maybe that'll help rev up my imagination enough to create those borders before spring break is over and I have to return to grading papers. Goodnight, everyone.

Another quilt top finished!

I started this quilt at the Q.U.I.L.T. retreat in 2009 as a mystery quilt. All I had left to do was adjust two of the borders that I had mismeasured and then put on the final border. If it was that easy, why didn't I do it years ago? Oh, who knows. I always had new quilts calling, I guess. Anyway, I hope Mom doesn't have any plans for this summer since she is my quilter. This is the third top done on my To-Do List page! Hip, hip hurrah! I've also finished one side of the border on my hearts quilt. Only three more sides to go. Spring break and rainy weather = project completion time!

 I decided to pick these daffodils before the rains destroys them. We're expecting 5-7" in the next 48 hours.

 More daffodils and some paperwhites. Don't those smell great?!?

I finished two quilt tops on Saturday and one today. Yesterday I didn't touch my sewing machine. Instead, my husband and I built this plant bench outside of my new sunroom. I built one inside for my indoor plants this winter, but it's nice enough to put some of them outside now, so they needed someplace to sit where my husband doesn't have to mow around them. It may not be fancy, but we live way out in the country, so who's to see but us? I like it.