Becky's quilt obsession

Just a really quick post today as I need to move to the quilting machine. I thank everyone for the encouraging comments about the star quilt. I failed to mention that this is a component class, and all but one set of components are finished, all are cut out. I did take the suggestions to add more of the blue, and I’m incorporating them into the flying geese border that is still in progress. I pulled out the pattern piece for the center star, and may replace that, but paper piecing is hard to rip out without the paper still on without stretching, and I’d hate to stretch the center star. I added the one side of the feathers in the top picture, and liked the quilt better as the darker background toned down the “warmness” of the center border. I will finish this quilt, but after Christmas and some wood finishing. Second photo is of the pieced backing for the bottom left quilt. The next photo is closer to the true color – this quilt has lots of pink. The bottom pictures are the two tops

It has taken a huge amount of time to get to this point on this Judy Niemeyer Lone Star, and when I put the diamonds up on the design wall last night I was really disappointed. I wanted to do a more neutral quilt, but this one is really blah. It’s not so bad up close where some of the smaller textures show, but it definitely is missing a zinger. I have my final class on it tomorrow. I bought enough patterns and fabric to make it up to a queen size quilt, but now that I see it, I’m not sure I want to put that much more work into it. Bummer. I hope your design wall Monday is better. Happy Quilting, Becky

This one ( the one that was being bound last time) is gone and sold. I took it over to DN(ephew)’s house to meet with the other SILs that were putting on the gala. I was told that they would make really great Christmas gifts. This one was auctioned Saturday night last with a ceramic duck centerpiece. I don’t know the going price. The large queen quilt went for $325 – a steal – but it went to SIL’s sister, one of the people responsible for putting the sale on, so it was okay with me. The two above are the latest that I quilted Sunday. They are both Quilts for Kids. The one on the right was the kit, the left one was some odd pieces I was trying to use up – the animals were fussy cut from left over linear pieces that were used for a border on something else. I actually loaded them both at the same time by sewing the two backings together since they were almost the same size. I used the Circle Lord wave templates because everything else was angular. Sew fine blue on top with

When I read the tutorial on binding for the Wannabes over at M Samm’s, I asked if she was going to include one on mitering the seams at the joins instead of blunt seams. It’s not hard to do, and really reduces the bulk in your bindings. The following is how I do it: To sew the seams of the binding, place the end of the first piece, right side up, on the bed of your machine. Open up the second piece of binding and place the end, right side down, at a right angle to the first piece. The selvage of the bottom piece points to the right, and the selvage of the top is – well, to the top. You might note that I have a line drawn on the bed of my sewing table directly straight to the needle of my machine. Some people use an angler, or other devices, I just use a Sharpie fine line marker. If you make a mistake, it cleans off with alcohol, and you can mark it again. It wears off with time, I just keep remarking it. I use a leader, put my needle down, and then place the exact angle w

I finished up this UFO – another “dead quilter’s UFO”. It was also donated to Friends United, with one block finished, some strip sets, and the muslin. The quilter had started the muslin pieces, but they were cut wrong, probably why this was set aside. Years ago I had plenty of this country blue with white pin dots. I used the circle lord feathered wreath to do the center, then free-handed the wavy lines, following an idea in a book. I was petrified about doing the border. I wanted to do feathers, but I didn’t think for my second time I would want to do them where each stitch would show.  I didn’t have any thread to match the border fabric. I used Cream So Fine in the center, and a dark taupe on the borders. The “plan” is to group with some other items for a table cover as it is only about 40” square. I’m off now to do the binding. Happy Quilting, Becky

The V & T wall hanging was finished for our trip to Carson City, NV, last week. We had a good time, and I , of course, found time to play at a quilt shop in Gardiner, NV.The wall hanging was part of the silent auction, and it brought $125. When making it, I tried using a wool batting as well as a thin cotton batting on the bottom. It certainly made everything puffy. I really hate it when pictures sag. I quilted this on my DSM as the big needles on Black Bart would have torn holes in the pictures. I know a lot of people don’t quilt in pictures, but I like the look of outlining the major lines in the photos. I took beautiful pictures of Gold Hill and Virginia City, but now can’t find them on my computer. I hate it when I do that. I made a new folder for them, but where did it end up? Happy quilting, Becky

Where did September go? I’m sure there must be more of it left somewhere! Yes, I finished the monster other person’s UFO. I did the binding by sewing the back from the front. I even glued it down, but I’m still not happy with how it turned out. I still had to do a lot of resewing.  I haven’t found a foot for the Bernina that let’s me open the ditch as wide as I would like on the binding. I’ve tried the new ditch attachment for the walking foot, and it didn’t help. If it hadn’t been so large, I would have turned it by hand. This is as far as  I am on the donation quilt for the Virginia and Truckee Railroad Symposium next week. It only needs a small border – I’m debating between the red and the yellow. The yellow is a subtle tone-on-tone, but the red has trains on it. Every other piece of fabric in it is train fabric, so I’m leaning towards the red. It doesn’t show very much, but each of the railroad crossing blocks have red lights under the white crosses. I’m hoping it is a half yard

I’m having an attack of ADD. I have too many projects in process. I kinda like it that way! This is the first project. It needs to be finished ASAP as it is supposed to be auctioned Friday. This was a top donated to my SIL’s foundation, Friends’ United. They provide teaching instruction for teachers and supplies for students in Honduras. This project was a challenge! It started with the backing made out of 3 pieces of the blue fabric. It was sewn together by hand, the shrunken selvages still attached. I sewed them again on my DSM, then trimmed the selvages.  I loaded it, and it was nice and square on Black Bart. Then I started to load the top. It was a very friendly top. The blue border was “gathered” in, and one side was 4” longer than the other side. It had cornerstones that had a cut out corner for the white border. I ended up removing all 4 blue borders and the cornerstones, measuring them by the center of the quilt, then reapplied them. There was enough length that I used just

Here/s DGD #2 with the first quilt she designed. She loves to play with my scraps, especially cutting them into smaller sizes. I’ve seen several quilts by “modern quilters” where they just lay the pieces of fabric on the background, then sew around them. I had DGD use a glue stick and putting the glue in the middle of the fabric, she glued the pieces she wanted in place. These scraps are mainly from the quilt I’m making my friend’s DIL.  She cut most of them – I helped on some of the hearts and the Coca Cola emblem. With her permission, I added a few pieces that would bridge from one area to another for sewing down all the patches. I went ahead and pin basted the quilt top with just the glued on pieces, with a thin poly batting  and backing (same fabric as the binding). I loaded some light pink Bottom Line thread and started sewing around the patches, I was bored with straight stitches after the first two patches, so I played with a variety of the fancy stitches on my machine. DGD

The blocks are finished!!!! This is the quilt for my BFF’s DIL’s quilt of activities she participated in while growing  up and the present. I haven’t used nearly all of the fabrics she purchased for this. I’m sure it is going to be a scrappy backing as well.   These are some of the latest fun blocks I created. I purchased the embroideries off eBay, and they were done on a thin poly/cotton. I fused them to the interfacing used for t-shirt quilts, and they handled very well. I’m really fond of the double circle around the little dress with the hologram dragonflies. This is the side effect of working with circles. I think I will have to make a bull’s eye quilt with some of the leftovers. There is quite a stack here.       The latest design wall addition is this circle. Last night I just wanted to play a bit, and made this partial block. I ordered the Sue Ross templates from Material Obsessions in Australia awhile back, and hadn’t taken the time to play with it. I’m glad. After al