Borders

I'm trying to decide how I feel about this border. Sorry about the ripple. Just as I was about to take the picture my husband was being "helpful" and pulled it a little. So my question is this.... is the border too distracting? I want people to notice the center of the quilt before they notice the border. What do you think?

Pictures

My camera is being a little weird lately. I took some pictures of the borders, binding and back and they all turned out black. I can't see a thing in them. Here is the picture I took on Saturday night right before the batteries died. It did turn it sideways and I don't know how to unturn it.

Happy National Quilting Day!!!!

Today I celebrated National Quilting Day. I tried to get my husband to quilt alongside me. I told him that not quilting on National Quilting Day was like not eating turkey on Thanksgiving or not having Santa come for Christmas. I mean really! He didn't buy it.


I went to Quilter's Haven in Bountiful. I found some great 30's fabric for 40% off. I bought some for the back, borders and binding for my Grandma's Flowers quilt. I've been working on it this afternoon. I did take a picture, but then my camera batteries died so I'll post them when I have time!

What is it About Hexagons?

I'm beginning to become obsessed. My goal at the beginning of the year was to make at least one block, hand pieced of Grandmother's Flower Garden.I did it and am still going. This one has 1 1/2 inch sides.

I'm making either a hand pieced baby quilt or table runner (we'll see when I decide I'm done). The problem? I don't think I can bring myself to hand quilt it. I tried hand quilting once. I ended up unpicking it and machine quilting the project.

Yesterday I made my first machine pieced flower.

I plan to do another layer of petals, but I haven't decided what color to do yet. I may need some new fabric since most of my 30's is scraps now. I want to make at least a throw size, but hopefully a bed size. I figure this may be one of those quilts that takes awhile. It was so fast to machine stitch. Makes me wonder why I've been avoiding it all these years. It took me about 20 minutes to do this much. By hand it took me two hours do do this much. I can't wait to make more!

I think I've showed this quilt before. It's from quilts, Quilts, QUILTS (but the first edition)it says it was made between 1930-1940 with an unknown maker. Wouldn't her posterity love to have this quilt? I love this arrangement of the hexagons. The ones used in this quilt measure 1/2 inch! It doesn't say how big it is and I'm too lazy to figure it out, but I would like to know!

National Quilting Day

I swear I'm the last person to get new information on any given subject. I went to the library this weekend and checked out The Quilter's Kitchen. I have to say it was not my favorite book. There are some books in the Elm Creek Quilts series I just love and some maybe not so much. My favorites are The Runaway Quilt and I also really liked the Sugar Camp Quilt. Anyway... on to the point now.

I didn't really like The Quilter's Kitchen, but it did mention that the third Saturday in March is National Quilting Day. Who knew? Well, I didn't! I went and googled it to see if it was something made up for the book or if it was a real day. Sure enough, it is. I even found this article telling ways to celebrate National Quilting Day. I need to plan a little celebration for myself, whether it means locking myself in my sewing room all day and sewing away, fabric shopping or maybe I could even find a class to take. My plans weren't too big before, comparison shop for a new railing for our front porch, help friends move, clean the house, do the laundry...... nothing that can't wait. Right? What are you all going to do to celebrate?

In other quilting news.... I'm still appliqueing lady bugs. I bought stuff for backing so I'm ready to finish, but I have come to the conclusion that I don't love fusible webbing, machine applique. I like the needle turned look. I think from now on I will have to do a fake needle turn with cardboard and then use invisible thread to machine stitch it in place. I'm just not a fan of the fusible web look. I've seen other people do it where it looks fine, but it's not looking cute for me!

Butterscotch Tart

I had several people ask what the name of the Fig Tree Pattern is. It's Butterscotch Tart and it uses a layer cake. I love traditional patterns that are made a little easier without Y seams or partial seams.

Speaking of Fig Tree, have you seen the new line? I have been waiting for this to come out since it was announced several months ago ( I stalk the Moda site). I went into the quilt shop the other day and had to buy a jelly roll. I've been thinking long and hard about what I'd make out of Patisserie. I've decided on Jelly Girl. I can't wait to get started! I don't usually make the quilt out of the fabric used in the pattern, but I just love this one. I've done it a few times, but I try not to, but this time I just HAVE to! I keep taking my jelly roll out of the drawer and just looking at it. I cant' wait to unroll it and look at a bigger piece of each one. My husband thinks I'm nuts when I "hang out" with my fabric.

What I'm working on

It's been awhile. Over a week, in fact. My excuse? No batteries in the camera. I know that shouldn't really count, but I haven't made a ton of progress. I am wanting to start new stuff, but I know I need to finish the other projects first. I'm feeling a little scatterbrained in the quilt department lately.

I got this pattern for Christmas. It uses a layer cake and I am using Fig and Plum from Fig Tree Quilts. I really wanted to try just one block. I only cut enough fabric for one and put it together. Now I can work on other things and not feel quite as antsy to get started on this one done. As I've mentioned before, I'm quite baby hungry. Still no word on a baby, but I really want one. A few years ago before my 2 year old was born, I saw this pattern in a magazine. I bought all the stuff and then my next baby was a boy. I decided to get this out and work on it a little this summer, then we moved and it got put away. I'm trying to finish it now. The lady bugs are taking quite awhile to applique. I'm just doing it on my machine, but I am not very good at it, especially the little ones. I also finished the top of Jake's football quilt. I've been working on my grandmother's flower garden. I've decided it's gong to be a baby quilt, or possibly a table runner, depending on when I get tired of it. Last night I did the white hexagons. It took over two hours and most of them don't have the sides sewn yet. My quilt group exchanged blocks again. It's always interesting to see what fabric people used. I was so sure I was using the right color blue. Um..... mine is the only one that color. Sorry guys! Here is every one's blocks. Now.... what to do with them?

1974 Done!!!

We had little bit of a dramatic weekend and I didn't get near as much sewing done as I would have liked. I did get my quilt bound that I used my 1974 jelly roll to make. I decided not to go with borders. It's a little on the small side, maybe a large crib size, but I decided I liked it better without borders. I used my border fabric for the back though! This is one of the patterns I won from Camille's giveaway a few months ago called Jelly Filled. I was really curious about grandmother's flower garden. In November I bought hexagon paper pieces and started to work on this block. I haven't been working on it very often because I've been doing the appliqued flowers, but I made this one grandmother's flower. I really like the look of it..... but would I really keep this up for a whole quilt?

I started on another one. Maybe I'll do a baby one with just one row of petals. Hopefully I can figure out a method of machine piecing that I like. One as posted on the Moda Lissa blog awhile ago.

I need an easy way to deal with Y seams or marking the dots. Maybe I should just do one year and then in 30 years I'll have enough for a whole quilt. What do you think?

Giveaway!

V and Co is having a giveaway! You could win either of these two honey buns, Sweet or Swanky. Go on over and check it out!