Time to Travel

We just finished the huge Minnesota Renaissance Festival and are packing down to travel.  So sad to put my sewing machines away for now.  Heading to Missouri Star Quilt Shop *yeah* to meet Jenny Doan and her family, and many quilting forum friends and oh yes, did I say SHOP?!!!

They have just opened a Sleep and Sew, but we have our 5th wheel and will stay at a nearby RV Park.  With 20 sewing machines in the Sleep and Sew we plan on making blocks for a Quilt of Valor, having show and tell, 2 BBQ's, and I expect much quilting talk and sewing!  This is better than a birthday, Anniversary *ooops* ok maybe not an Anniversary ;-) but Christmas all rolled into one!

I am going to show how to add Easy Machine Binding with the pesky ends that some folks struggle with and have a beautiful Fall table runner quilted and ready.  

Will be off line until we then drive the long trip home and have many events planned for November.  I am going to be hosting the Vintage Sewing Contest on Pattern Review in November, Working on my Iron Quilter Challenge Quilt AND awaiting Bonnie Hunter's tremendous Mystery Quilt!  So many exciting things.

Thanks and I hope you all had an amazing summer and fall!

Dee

Baby Quilts are so much fun!

Well after working on a California King Size quilt I really needed some small projects so decided to use 1 kids Charm pack with some fat quarters to make 2 Baby quilts -- I forgot how much FUN it is making smaller ones.

Do you find yourself wanting to do something quick after a long, or large project?  These two fit the bill and how cute they look.  

First for a boy, and my 1st time making a disappearing 9 patch.  I made a little tie with cars on it to go with.  I love adding these special fun machine stitches, we almost never use in other sewing items.  They go great on kids Quilts.

The cross sections are driving lanes for the little cars driving across

As a quilter I've heard for Baby quilts you want Bright colors to help their stimulation.  Well a gorgeous batik Orange and Yellow's that pop with tiny bees on them should give some little girl a lot to look at.

The pieced back of the Girls Baby Quilt - off set square and quilt tons!  This I put little hearts in the border.  

Sew much fun these are about 32" x 38" and in a few days Done!

Lazy Dayz - What helps you get moving?

Well the temps are up in Minnesota (where we are camping), along with the humidity so it feels like the Lazy Dayz of summer!  Our cat Lucky doing his best imitation of a penguin?

So what helps you get moving?  

The latest project is a boring quilt (boring because hubby picked the design)!  Had I known I would be doing tons of sashes I would have sewn this different as it's taken me 2 LONG weeks to get the top section done *ugh* I can normally make 1 quilt a WEEK, except this was being designed as I went along... Well the good news is that hubby really likes this and now I will add a small border, then a larger one and it will be ready to layout and sandwich.  Yahooo Then it's quilting time in our 5th wheel!

This is on our King Bed in the 5th wheel, but will be made to fit our California King at home.  A View from the Top

And a view from the side of the bed

This quilt should have been so Easy to do if I knew what it was going to become when I began.  I'm thrilled it's down to adding the borders.

To help get a Kick start I need to do a quick project or two!  That always seems to help me get out of the Lazy mode.

I have a cute toy Charm pack and wanted to stretch it to make 2 Quilts4Kids so separated out the boy and girl colors.  Sewn to make giant 9 patches and cut into a disappearing 9 patch. Now all I have to do is add lively, colorful borders and these both will make nice toddler quilts.  I typically will do 2 things at once, so both should be ready to be sandwiched with Photo's ready tomorrow.  

How do you get yourself moving when the Lazy mood strikes?

Have you ever had to make up a Quilt Design as you sew?

I began making a 9 patch Parfait quilt - Free Pattern on McCalls.  The perfect size for me to begin with 90 1/2" x 90 1/2".  The too many pink and black colors weren't to my taste so I substituted them for Tans and chocolate, blues and greens.  I've been wanting to make this pattern since I learned how to quilt in Nov 2012~

I put all the 9 patch blocks together using a Batik jelly roll and loved how they looked... EXCEPT they were suppose to come be 6 1/2"!  When I pressed the fold out of the jelly roll strips there were smile lines so unfortunately only a few blocks were near the 6 1/2"!!!  Joann's batik jelly roll was not on grain, nor were they the full 2 1/2" *sigh*...  I had already cut the large blocks, so either I cut everything down to 6" and kept on with the same pattern, or needed to change the entire quilt!

Well I had already cut 150 6 1/2" squares and was not feeling the love to recut them again - So the 9 patches were set to the side to be cut down later and added into various Quilts4Kids.

I thought about all the quilts I've learned to make and decided to add some white and black sashing around my blocks and see how big that was - Aiming for a California King Bed (but in the meantime it will grace our 5th wheel King Bed).

As I sashed the gorgeous Green blocks I realized they reminded me of the Monet Painting, Givinnecy's Garden (forgive my spelling!).  We have a very large print of this framed hanging over our bed at home, this will be the perfect center piece for this quilt!

Making this up as I sew I have no idea what it will look like when I'm done, which is making this a much longer project than it could have been!!!

How many of you begin working on a quilt pattern only to have to turn your quilt into something else??

Photo's after I add the next several rows so I can see how it is looking.  Thanks for reading