Tuesday, September 24, 2013

TWO finishes for September

Medallion is complete! Binding is on, sleeve is on the back, labeled and a pillow case is labeled and ready to bring this baby to our guild's quilt show this weekend.
Yesterday afternoon I washed and blocked the quilt overnight, this morning it is laying much better and square. After the quilting it went from 42 inch square to 39! 
(note: the two lines in the corners are my longarm magnets to hold up the quilts)
Also finished is this UFO from 2005. Binding is on, sleeve is on the back and it's labeled! This quilt is 60 x 60. A mystery quilt top completed with Planet Patchwork in one day. My quilting friend from Illinois, Mary Kay was visiting and she helped with cutting. We made a few changes to the original design. Later I made a few more, adding the folded yellow inner border and then stitching that down with a decorative stitch on my Bernina. If I knew the layout before, would have made different choices with the directional fabrics, but that's the 'fun' of doing a mystery quilt! Glad it's finished. Some close up pics of the quilting...



I will be linking on Carrie's A Passion for Applique Link is up...
Clink on Nothing but UFOs to see what other UFOs were finished for September!

Check back after this weekend and I will have pics posted from the quilt show! 
Enjoy the day, stitching away!

Thursday, September 19, 2013

Quilting finished on the Medallion

I finished all the quilting on my Medallion quilt made along with Lori and Randy's SAL. This is the most quilting I've done on one quilt. Using a wool batting to create a trapunto effect with a heavy feather and pebble fill around the applique border with a double outline stitch...

1/2" Crosshatch behind the center basket... the one thing I am not happy with is my choice of fabric for the basket. It would be better with a darker print.
"Melon" (I've named them) stitches in the pinwheels...
as well as in the quarter square triangle blocks in the second border and feathers in the triangles around them...
 and last, a sawtooth stitch with more melons in both of the one inch inner borders.
The entire quilt was quilted on my Juki TL2010Q (not one stitch was done on the longarm). I still enjoy doing FMQing on a domestic. I like the 'organic' look of designs that are not exactly the same and without a stitch regulator, the stitching is not perfect either :0) altho, a stitch regulator would be nice! My Gammill is great for large designs and pantos but for me its too heavy to do small hand guided designs. I am looking to buy a lighter weight longarm and have been test driving the Innova. I have someone interested in buying my Gammill so will see how that goes. 

Last night was our last meeting for our Chico guild's quilt show coming up soon! My job is vendors and have 17 signed up for the show. Set up will happen a week from tomorrow with the show on Sept 28th and 29th. It's Annie's Star Quilt Guild's Harvest of Quilts.

My Medallion will be in the show along with two more of my quilts plus a challenge quilt. I will take lots of pictures and post them as I did for the last show in 2011 (our shows are every other year). There will also be pics of customer quilts that I have not posted because they will be in the show too. Very exciting! This is the first show that I am this involved in. It's allot of work and allot of fun... and it will be nice when it's over and my days won't be quite so crazy!!!

Enjoy the day, stitching away :0)

Sunday, September 8, 2013

Amazing Yard Sale Find!!!

Check this out! It's crazy!!!

 DH found this at a yard sale this weekend! Sold by a (looked to be in his 50s) gentleman that said this quilt was made by his grandmother. He was guessing in the 1930s.
 Her name ~ Florence Cole. I am guessing that she may have made it for her mother. The initials below are not the makers... E.L.B. 1893, possibly the mother's initials and DOB?
 Further down there are pics of the foundation squares. The block above is the only one pieced to muslin that looks pretty old. All of the other blocks are pieced to other fabrics.
 A printed ribbon. More pieces are ribbons of satin and velvet in different colors and widths
 Love the bird and the bug!
 A satin with a printed logo
 Flowers and all sorts of stitches and colors of pearl cotton
 Two fan blocks in the two lower corners
 You can see some of the basting stitches were left in
The fabrics are foundation pieced onto other scraps of fabric. Some were stained. Each piece was hand basted to the foundation squares and then stitched with pearl cotton with the decorative stitches. Some edges were turned under, including around corners. Some were left flat if the edge had a selvedge or was a ribbon. You can see the turned edges of the blocks on the back of the top.
 This is the back. All mid to light weight canvas and denim fabrics with the exception on one block that was sewn onto muslin. The muslin looks to be older fabric. It's the block with the initials. Could have been made earlier that the rest, possibly by the mother? If quilts could only talk more!
Amazing! And even more amazing DH paid $15 for this quilt top!!!

UFOs for September

With one quilt finish in August, that carries two projects into September and adding a third to get that one on it's way to getting finished...

1. First up is my Medallion made earlier this year with Lori and Randy's SAL...
To do: finish FMQing, binding and a label. That's doable and a have to do this month for ASQG quilt show. Deadlines, like I don't have enough going on. Why do we do this to ourselves? Gets me up in the mornings.

2... a UFO since 2005. A mystery quilt pieced in one day with Planet Patchwork
Also doable as most of the quilting was done last year. The hangup... there is a ziplock bag containing the thread that I used, fabric for the binding and scraps for the label. That bag exists somewhere, problem is I have not been able to find out where it's hiding!
To do: find that bag, finish the quilting, binding and a label.

3... is a UFO from 2002, a BOM with Claudia's Quilt Shoppe. This pattern is still available on their website! The fabrics are vintage... all calico scraps from the 90's. Yikes!
The top is pieced. To do: Piece the backing, quilt, binding and attach the label that is ready :0) I am hoping when I pull the fabrics for this one, maybe I'll find that ziplock bag. Just thought of another place it might be in a stack of (clean/unused :0) pizza boxes I use for storing BOMs and BOWs in progress. I also made a small version of this quilt with the same fabrics. It's a finish.


I am linking up with Carrie's Nothing But UFOs. With one week into the month, I better get going!
 Enjoy the day, stitching away