Finished Friday, the Wedding Quilt

The wedding quilt had to be done to go to the Iowa wedding on Friday, so I am calling it Finished Friday!  Here are some pictures.  The blocks are paper pieced multi color and the in between is a red and black ginkgo leaves block.  The theme of the wedding was red and black so the ginkgoes fit well while the paper pieced blocks made it much more colorful and bright.

For the paper pieced blocks, I quilted a section to highlight the star, just in the ditch.  On the ginkgo leaves, I did a crossed canoe.  It looked really nice I thought.  (Although hard to see in the picture)

The backing is a more orange red ginkgo with a black border.  I need to say one thing about washing quilts.  I did a lot of line marking to make the crossed canoes.  The quilt needed washing, you can see it kind of puffed up in the pictures.  However, the paper pieced blocks were made with batiks and the black was very black.  I used quilt soap and I put a couple of Shout Color catchers in the wash.

You can see they were well used.  I maybe should have used more than two, but the color of the batik blocks did not dull so I think it was enough.  Clear warning when using dark colors with lights, Color Catchers can make a huge difference on how your quilt looks after washing!

Poor Sadie

One of the things I was busy with last weekend was my poor baby Sadie girl got stung by a bee.  Well, we did not know this at first, but she all of a sudden swelled up in the face like this:

Doesn't she just look so sad and pathetic?  So we rushed her in to the vet at 8:15 on Saturday morning and she got a shot and some allergy pills.  Dr. Hedges said it looked like a bee sting.  Poor baby.

Now $98 and a few days later, she is as good as new.

Thanks Dr. Hedges!  And yes, she is normally all curled up on the sofa.  Her favorite thing to do is snooze, bee sting or no bee sting.  Love always, k

Sunday Stash Share with pileofabric.com, a few days late

Okay, I am a few days late.  Life gets the best of me on the weekends.  Kids and hubby stuff mostly.  But, I have also been working on the quilt for my nephew's wedding this weekend.  Right now I am washing (gently please) out the quilting marks and hopefully all of the fuzz.  Gosh, does black collect fuzz!  Anyway, the quilt is primarily black and red so the fuzz shows everywhere!

Anyway, here is my Sunday Stash share.  Check out Alyssa's at www.pileofabric.com and see how close I came.  I think I did pretty well...

So, how did I do?  Love always, k

WIP Work in Progress Wednesday

It's Wednesday so it is time for WIP!  I have to admit that it seems lik a good idea to kill two birds with one stone and show my Molli Sparkles QAL.

And well, I have been fighting the creeping crud for a while, it has kept me from accomplishing all that I want to.  It now has turned into a sinus infection and pink eye in bith eyes so at least now I have drugs to help cure it!

So, here is my WIP Wednesday

lots and lots of strips cut to make into the broken herringbone blocks for the MSBHQAL (or for you who don't know, the Molli Sparkles Broken Herringbone Quilt Along...  Remember this block?

that's the one...  now let me see if I can get a few more done.  love always, k

Sunday Stash Share with Pile O Fabric

Each week Alyssa at Pileofabric.com challenges us to match her stash share as a way of looking at our own stash a bit differently and getting new ideas.  I have not been so good at getting this done in the past (and well, I have not been blogging that long) so here is my third Stash Share:  #pileofabricstashshare

You can't see it really well, but I have three gray/black combinations there.  I have put my grays in a group somewhere because I have a project in mind (always a project in mind) and I can't find them.  LOL, has that happened to you???  I bet so...

So, these three are my black gray combos for this stash share.  And, actually, they are pretty darn close to Alyssa's.

Well, gotta sew.  Love always, k

Favorite Notion

Since I am busy doing some domestic machine quilting, I have a favorite notion to share that I don't think many people use.  However, if you pin baste your sandwich, you might want to give it a try.  From an earlier post, my WIP Wednesday post, I showed my pin basted quilt ready for the sewing machine:

All my pins have a "cover" on them.  I can't tell you how much easier a pin is to grab and work with when you have the cover on the top.  Here is the product:

It is the Kwik Klip and pin covers.  The Kwik Klip is a tool that helps you pull up the pin from the back so you don't kill your fingers as you try to get the pin closed.  You could use it with or without the pin covers and I personally think it is great.  I don't use it on every pin, but sometimes the pin can be stubborn as you are trying to close it and this product really helps.

The pin covers are another story.  Here is a picture of the pins and pin covers:

I use a #2 pin, any larger and it makes a big hole in the fabric.  I also always use the bent pins as you can see.  They are so very much easier to get up from the back without any strain on my part.  But there is one problem with the pin covers.  They don't stay on well.  If you have tried them and you are frustrated, this is probably why.  So, I put the cover on the pin and a drop of crazy glue on the top and bottom where the cover meets the pin.  It is kind of a pain, but once you have them on, you will be so glad you took the time to put them together.  They are easy to see, easy to grab ahold of, and when you are bringing the pin up from the back, you are not straining your fingers to pull it up because you have a fairly large surface to work with and combined with the Kwik Klip, you can easily pin a quilt sandwich in no time.

I have used other methods to get my sandwich prepared, but frankly this is my favorite.  Here is the set of tools I use:

Dritz Curved safety pins size #2, crazy glue, and Kwik Klip and the pin covers, both made by Paula Deen.

Let me know if you have any questions...  love always, k

I like hand quilting

I have to tell you, I am really enjoying a hand quilting project I am doing.  It actually was a Block of the Month for Aurifil last year.  I decided to make a big quilt instead of a wall hanging, but since the blocks were hand embroidered, I thought it would look cool to hand quilt them.  I am on my fourth month block of quilting but I also have to do the squares in between.  Anyway, here is a sample:

This is January and on it, although it is hard to see white on white, I have quilted snowflakes in several spots.

This is Roseann's at Rosebud's Cottage.  She was the first designer.

Isn't it pretty?  I am really having a lot of fun with this...

This is obviously May and I have just started.  I plan to quilt all around every object and then do some clouds and flowers...

Anyway, this is my handwork for now.  love always, k

Stash Share for week 9

Alyssa at Pileofabric challenged us to go back and do some of her earlier stash shares because she said they were kind of "quiet".  So, since I am a great fan of Alyssa, I decided to try to do that.  Well, I only got to one because, well, I have a bunch of stuff to do.  So, to Alyssa, tada, Week 9 Stash Share!

#pileofabricstashshare

I promise to keep up better in the future (I hope!).  Love always, k

WIP, Work in Progress Wednesday!

Lee at Freshly Pieced has a Linky for WIP Wednesday and since I have one sitting on my machine at this very moment, I thought I should share...
Freshly Pieced WIP Wednesday

Here I am using my favorite spray on the back, beautiful ginko leaves.  I find that using starch really helps to keep the quilt firm and makes it much easier to quilt on my domestic machine.

Here is the top before I made the sandwich.  It is a really fun and colorful paper pieced quilt.

Here it is pin basted into the sandwich.  I am ready to quilt!

Hopefully I get done by next week so I can show something else!  I also have my Molli Sparkles Broken Herringbone QAL to get done so gotta run!  Love always, k

Sunday Stash Share with Pile O Fabric

Well, I had fun going through my stash and finding out that I really could match Alyssa's stash share.  I wasn't sure because I know she must have a much larger stash than I do, but...  I did it!  Now I feel like I want to go back and do the other nine weeks (Alyssa - here I come!).  Try it, it is fun and you will be surprised, I guarantee it.

Here is my stash for this week:

#pileofabricstashshare

How did I do?  Check out Alyssa's page at www.pileofabric.com.  She is challenging us to get it done!


Love Always, k

msbhqal or mollisparkles broken herringbone quilt a long

I made my first broken herringbone block for the qal I am doing. I fell in love with this block following Molli Sparkles showing off all the blocks he has made and have been collecting fabrics.

 This first one I did was out of a bundle of greens I had to get from Fresh Squeezed Fabrics on Etsy. I have to admit that I am so in love with the vibrant colors of the new lines and I have been adding yellows and reds and oranges to my stash, and so I saw the greens and just had to get it.

 I really love it when the sellers put together fq bundles of the new colors so we can do our rainbow things or just plain have great colors to work with. So different from the older muted colors, which I still like, but need the happier vibrant colors right now.

 And for the unveiling, tada, my first broken herringbone block:

And kind of a cool picture of me with "angelic" lighting. More later. love you always...k

Two blocks done!

I made it all the way to March 1 in my Amy Gibson BOM.  I know, not highly impressive since today is September 1, but I had made myself a promise not to start anything new until I had certain projects done, so I am just working on it starting this weekend.  But...  I have to get another project quilted for a wedding the end of this month And, I haven't even shown you pictures of my quilt top and back I just got done...  So much to do, but now that school is starting the day after tomorrow, I will be able to devote more time to my quilting.

I know you are waiting impatiently to see my Jan and Feb blocks so here they are (tada):

January BOM

February BOM

Tomorrow I will get a picture of the quilt I am quilting.

love always, k