A Christmas Quilt

I finished quilting the Christmas quilt for my Grandma.  (Although the quilt is from my mother-in-law.  It's fun to work on family quilts.)

I did spirals on the outside, swirl scrolls in the inside borders (per Angela Walters), and copied the quilting for the inside squares...I thought of them as leaves. I thought the leaves would be a ton harder than what they ended up being.  There are so many lines that needed to look straight...but they do!  I did mark the center of each block and I think that helped a lot.

It's rather snowy right now, but I enjoyed the lighting that the snow gave.  When the snow isn't directly in the picture everything is illuminated nicely, but when it is in the picture everything else looks dark.

The quilt pattern is Rosemary and Thyme by It's Sew Emma.

Curves

I sewed curves for the first time with December's Bee block.

Tutorial from here.


It only turned out ok.  It's a bit wavy, but that should disappear in the quilting.  I hope.  I had been thinking about trying to conquer curves in 2014 and I still think I might try it, but I'm a little more scared of them now.

November accomplishments, December goals

For November, my top goals where
1.  Finish quilting the pony quilt.  Done!  Cupcakes, rainbows, and hearts, oh my!

2. Finish the surprise mini (bind) Done!  With the smallest sneak-peak ever - the back corner in B&W.

3. Finish the top of the picture quilt. I didn't finish it.  I ended up using Spoonflower to print the pictures.  It took a little longer because of the queue time, but so far I'm really happy with how they turned out.  I was rather nervous since I wouldn't be able to check the pictures as they came out and pretty much got one shot at it, but the quality is good and I'm hoping the quality will stay that way longer than the ink jet fabric.  They're slightly on the dark side, but still look good.  I have one row of three done, but all of the framing is finished.

And the other things that are still on the list, hanging out:

7. Aunt's throw.  The blocks are now in pairs.  I want to lay it out again and double check the values before I put them together in 4s.

8. Pillow for family room.  Progress!  Although I still need to add quite a bit to have it cover the pillow.

13. Baby quilt - Urban Cabins.  I ran out of blue for the sashing, but made a lot of progress on it this month while waiting for the picture fabric to arrive.

14. Christen's T-shirt quilt.  I did get a few more squares finished.  I ruined one of the T-shirts and am trying not to think about it.  It doesn't look like a super special one and I could do some creative stuff with it, but in the meantime I'm ignoring that square.
22. Quilt Grandma's quilt (ideally by Christmas) - in progress

For December, my top goal (and the goal for A Lovely Year of Finishes) is
1. Finish the picture quilt.  I have everything framed, but need to finish putting them together, quilt, and bind.  Hopefully before Christmas.  I should be in fine shape unless December gets significantly busier than I expect.

I also would like to
2. Quilt Grandma's quilt (this needs to be finished in order to finish number 1.)

3. Work on the T-shirt quilt.

And the other things that are still on the list, hanging out:

4. make the wall hanging for office.
5. pretend to work on scrap quilt.
6. finish green coasters.
7. Aunt's throw. 
8. Pillow for family room.
9. Jeweled floors.
10. Lost piece (almost whole cloth quilt)
11. Baby girl daisy quilt
12. Baby paper airplane quilt
13. Baby quilt - urban cabins
15. Winter quilt
16. Orphan rocket block
17. Quilt mint green baby quilt
18. Quilt nautical quilt
19. Quilt a doll quilt (for Christmas?)

Linking up with Fresh Sewing Day.

WIP Wednesday

I feel like I'm in the middle of a gazillion things right now.  But here are two...

I started quilting Grandma's Christmas quilt.  It is going to have swirls on the outside.  I was a little nervous about swirls, but they are turning out ok.

I also worked on Urban Cabins.  Then I realized I didn't have enough blue for the sashing...so it's on hold until I can get more.

Linking up with WIP Wednesday.

Cupcakes, unicorns, and hearts

I finished quilting my niece's very girly quilt. :D  (This is my finish for A Lovely Year of  Finishes.)

In the purple and pink octagons I put cupcakes, similar to the cupcakes on the border.  I traced around a paper template to make them as I'm not comfortable enough to completely freehand it.  In the unicorns I put hearts, and in the square heart sections I did arcs to mimic rainbows.  It was the first time I've used my circle ruler templates.  I learned that I can't use the same template the whole time and get them to look like rainbows, but I can use the same one twice before the arcs start looking too bad.

In the background I did my normal meandering stars in a light pink thread and feathers in the border.  It was my first time doing feathers and for the most part they turned out pretty well.

Charming - finished

I made this baby blanket, Charming, for a couple that just had their first baby.  While I didn't quite get it to them before the baby arrived, it was there within a few days.

I used some charms that I had won from AppliqueAddict a while ago.  I added a few more blues.

The quilting is a normal stipple in light grey thread.  Not the most exciting, but I also feel as though I'm getting the flow of it down pretty well...there were a lot fewer sharp corners.

I bound it in black sateen.  I was really hoping for a dark grey, but that wasn't a color option.  Then the light grey and blue didn't have enough in stock in the store.  So I went on a limb and went with black.  It does make it rather dark, but I kind of like the effect.

Linking up with Whoop-whoop Friday,  Link A Finish Friday, and Finish it Up Friday. 

October accomplishments, November goals

Here's how October went...I'm pretty happy with my progress.
1. Finish the One-up quilt. Done!  I'm really happy with how it turned out.

2. Finish the Charming baby quilt.  Done!  I've been lazy and haven't gotten the final post up yet, but it's done and sent out.

3. Send out the October and November Simply Solids Blocks.  Done!

14. Surprise mini (Christmas) - everything is done except the binding!  I really like how it turned out too.
15. Baby paper airplane quilt - all pieced. I didn't look at the airplane pattern closely enough before buying fabrics, so I ended up dying some of the pieces with tea to give them depth.

16. Baby quilt - undecided pattern/greens - I spent a lot of time thinking about this one and almost ended up with a Flying Dutchmen block.  But the the Urban log cabin tickled my fancy and I starting cutting before I could fourth guess myself.  (The last "log" still needs to be pressed open.)

17. Christen's T-shirt quilt - I've started ironing the interfacing and cutting the T-shirts

21. Quilt table runner (ideally by Thanksgiving) - done!  With loops like falling leaves.

22. Quilt pony quilt (ideally by Christmas) - started.  I'm doing cupcakes, faux-rainbows, and hearts in the main blocks.

For November, my top goal (and the goal for A Lovely Year of Finishes) is
1.  Finish quilting the pony quilt (pictured above).

My other top priorities are
2. Finish the surprise mini (bind)
3. Finish the top of the picture quilt

And the other things that are still on the list, hanging out:

4. make the wall hanging for office.
5. pretend to work on scrap quilt.
6. finish green coasters.
7. Aunt's throw. 
8. Pillow for family room.
9. Jeweled floors.
10. Lost piece (almost whole cloth quilt)
11. Baby girl daisy quilt
12. Baby paper airplane quilt
13. Baby quilt - undecided pattern/greens
14. Christen's T-shirt quilt
15. Simply solids green quilt
16. Winter quilt
17. Orphan rocket block
18. Quilt table runner (ideally by Thanksgiving)
19. Quilt pony quilt (ideally by Christmas)
20. Quilt mint green baby quilt
21. Quilt nautical quilt
22. Quilt Grandma's quilt (ideally by Christmas)

Linking up to Fresh Sewing Day.

Table runner and loops

My mother-in-law made a nice fall table runner.

 

I quilted loops on it.  They reminded me of falling leaves.

I also made one large mistake...instead of looping I turned a sharp corner.  I marked it when it happened to reevaluate later, and later I thought it still looked bad.  So I unpicked it, intending to resew.  But then I realized I could unpick just a little bit more and use the edge of the leaf to continue the line...you can't even tell there are a few stiches missing. :)  (That white thing in the middle is an arrow showing you the problem area.)

1-up - finished!

The 1-up quilt is finished!  It was requested by a friend and based on Cut to Pieces Super Mario Bros. QAL.  I added the clouds and ground so that it would be rectangular.

I found some fabric with squares on it for the back, to keep with the pixelated idea.

 

Quilting took a rather long time on this quilt, although it could be that school started up around the same time so I just had less time overall.  For most of the sky I put squares and rectangles, but also added a few Easter eggs.  I know they're hard to see, but that was kind of the point.

Some bricks and question marks,

 

source: http://www.giantbomb.com/mario-block/3055-702/images/

some mountians,

source: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/smashing-newsletter-issue-50/

and a pipe.

source: http://gamecola.net/2006/01/what-the-crap-super-mario-bros/

You can also see in the picture above that I did back and forths for the grass and square pebbles for the dirt.

Finally, the 1-up dude was mostly done using a maze pattern, with back and forths in the black area.  The thread always matched the fabric color.

The quilt was bound so that the binding matched the quilt.  (So it is sky blue for the sky area and brown for the dirt area.)  (I had a picture for this, but really it's easier to see on the quilting close-ups above.)

And finally, no video game quilt would be complete without a picture of some controllers.  Now, if he only had hands.

This is my finish for A Lovely Year of Finishes!

Simply Solids - layout

I'm still waiting on a block from the Simply Solids bee, but in the meantime I thought I'd lay out some of the blocks that I have as I think about a layout.  Here they are:

1) Straight

2) Diagonal

3) Zig-zag (I'd add cornerstones so that it would be a clean zig-zag)

Which layout do you like best?

September accomplishments, October goals

I wasn't very close in finishing up any goals this month.  I was busy playing Minecraft.  But here's how the month went:

1. Finish the One-up quilt.  I got a lot of quilting done, but still have several rows to finish.

2. Finish the Charmed baby quilt. The flimsy is done and I purchased the backing.

3. Send out the September Simply Solids Block.  Done!!  I really liked this block.

7. Aunt's throw.  I think I have all the pieces cut.  I haven't actually counted my lights/mediums/darks though, so I might be a little short.

10. Picture quilt (finish by Christmas).  The fabric has been purchased and I'm working on the pictures
14. Surprise mini (Christmas) I have the flimsy done but can't show any pictures. :(
17. Christen's T-shirt quilt Almost all the T-shirts have been cut out

So for October my main goals look very similar.  I feel as though I should add a few more things that I really want to finish, but I'm afraid that would put half the list in there.  I'm trying to keep top priorities focused.

1. Finish the One-up quilt.  This is my Lovely Year of Finishes goal. I'm finishing up the sky and have the ground to do too.

Other things I'd really like to try and finish...
2. Finish the Charmed baby quilt.
3. Send out the October and November Simply Solids Blocks

And the other things that are still on the list, hanging out:

4. make the wall hanging for office.
5. pretend to work on scrap quilt.
6. finish green coasters.
7. Aunt's throw. 
8. Pillow for family room.
9. Jeweled floors.
10. Picture quilt (finish by Christmas).
12. Lost piece (almost whole cloth quilt)
13. Baby girl daisy quilt
14. Surprise mini (Christmas)
15. Baby paper airplane quilt
16. Baby quilt - undecided pattern/greens
17. Christen's T-shirt quilt
18. Simply solids green quilt
19. Winter quilt
20. Orphan rocket block
21. Quilt table runner (ideally by Thanksgiving)
22. Quilt pony quilt (ideally by Christmas)
23. Quilt mint green baby quilt
24. Quilt nautical quilt