Friday Finish: 22 of 30

Woot woot!  I've quilted and bound 22 quilts since November 1.  That's 22 of my 30-quilt goal!

Here is "A Wedding Quilt for Joseph and Annie."  It was designed by Malka Dubrowsky, and the pattern is available here.  She includes the Kona Cotton colors so you can make your quilt exactly as shown!

I didn't remember that Malka also used straight-line quilting on her quilt.  I thought I was being so clever to quilt it that way!

Lucky for me, Elder Son came down from Denver for an appointment this week.  He replaced the nylon tracks on Meggie so she doesn't do the "swoop" when I'm trying to quilt straight lines.

Quilt #20/30 is a Strip Club quilt from early this year.  The fabric is Fig Tree & Co.'s "Strawberry Fields."  The pattern is called "Shortcakes."  Hence, "Strawberry Shortcakes!"

Next is an oldie that was almost a tragedy.  This quilt was waiting to be bound, sitting on the wet bar in my downstairs sewing room.  The kitchen sink overflowed and soaked everything on the wet bar.  Of course, I didn't notice it right away, and the dark red sashing bled into the off-white sashing.  I didn't want to just trash this lovely quilt, so I serged all the edges, then washed it with some color-catcher sheets.  Success!

The pattern is called "Four Patch Posies.  It's a kaleidoscope variation -- it is really fun to see how every block is different, even though they're all from the same fabric.

I'm slowly but surely getting all my 30s reproduction fabrics pieced and quilted.  This one, "Bowties" was another "Block a Day" from Anna Lena:

 My bookcase of ready-to-go quilts is filling up!

And since it's Friday, I'm linking up to TGIFF at Quilt Matters.

Only two more days to enter the giveaway for a free membership in Amy's "Sugar Block Club."  Go here to comment and enter!


From the desk of your

A Few Friday Finishes

Woo hoo!  I'm making progress toward my 30 quilts in 60 days!

I've got a pretty good system going:  QPC.  That stands for Quilt Piece Clean.  I set the kitchen timer for 23 minutes, Quilt (or load the long arm) for 23 minutes; Piece for 23 minutes (today it's Easy Street, Bonnie Hunter's newest mystery); then Clean for 23 minutes.  I'm decluttering the basement -- such fun.

Two of the three quilts I've quilted and bound this week are somewhat larger than the eight previous ones.  I'm trying to take advantage of a week with no commitments!

Since I had the time, I tried some more detailed quilting on this Schnibbles quilt, "Leap Year."  

The pattern called for 2" squares, but I used 2 1/2" from my Scrap Therapy collection.

I added this one to my "ready to hand off quilts" shelf.

I liked the look of the "back and forth" quilting in the borders so much, I decided to use it on "Flurry" by Kate Spain.  This lovely is going on my quilt rack for the holiday season:

Oops, it is too big for my quilt holder to handle!  I ventured into quilting poinsettias, since the fabric has a perfect flower to copy:

I joined the flowers with loop-de-loops and quilted the sashing with red thread in Angela Walter's "back and forth" design:

Then a real challenge, a UFO from 2011, "Night Stars."  This was a "Thangles" BOM project from Ruth's Stitchery several years ago.  It went in the UFO pile when I decided I hate using Thangles to make half-square triangles.

Chocolate Mousse' helped DH hold the quilt over the edge of the deck so I could photograph it! 

I love this fun backing!  I'm thinking I'll send this one to Ohio for my niece, whose bed is the only one in the house without an Aunt Marti quilt.

Linking up to "Thank Goodness It's Finished Friday" at Quilting by Moonlight.

And "Finish it Up Friday" at Crazy Mom Quilts.

Be sure to go to this post to take the survey on solid fabrics and enter my Blogiversary celebration giveaway!












From the desk of your

WIP Wednesday: 30 Quilts in 60 Days

I'm still on track!  Today is the 14th of November, and I've quilted 7 quilts and bound 6.

Here are the next two of my 30 quilts in 60 days.

First, "Cherish Nature," the largest quilt I have quilted.  I quilted an all-over loops and swirls design using a teal "Omni" thread from Superior Threads:

It took both guys to hold this one over the edge of the deck so I could photograph it!

The next "finish" is hanging in my kitchen.  "Dimestore" is a Schnibbles pattern by Carrie Nelson.  My Little Sailor held up his Kindle so you can judge the size of this quilt.  I quilted it on my Juki (Zippy) using white Omni thread at 1/4" away from each seam.

Not a quilt, but displayed in my kitchen next to "Dimestore," I just think these plates are funny.  Misplaced apostrophes make me crazy!

I bought them here.  It's a little hard to read the bottom plate -- the rule is, "it's" means "it is."  "Its" means "belongs to."  Don't you cringe every time you read a blog post with grammar mistakes?

Linking up to "WIP Wednesday" at Freshly Pieced:

From the desk of your

WIP - Thursday?

I'm sure there was a Wednesday this week -- but I missed it!  I've been working hard on quilting some of the 51 tops I've pieced so far in 2012.  My professional long-arm quilter and friend, Ann, teased me into committing to quilting 30 of my quilt tops by the end of the year.  My plan is to quilt on odd-numbered days and bind on even-numbered days.  If I get a quilt bound, as a reward, I get to piece the rest of that day!

So far, I'm right on schedule:

Here are the quilts I've quilted so far:

#1 is a mystery quilt I pieced early in the year.  It went to a friend who hooked up the new TV/DVD in my sewing room.  Phillip's daughter sent me a really cute photo of him sleeping under this quilt!

My Little Sailor (MLS) was the quilt-holder for this photo, and he persuaded Oliver to pose also!

#2 is a baby quilt for a friend of MLS.  She recently became a Grandma, and MLS did some of the quilting. This is our first attempt at quilting spirals!

Quilt #3 is for my neighbor who retired from teaching foreign languages at the nearby middle school.  I had fun deciding on the quilt design for the triangle blocks -- but when I got almost to the bottom, OOPS!

That red and white stripe is the leader on Meggie -- not the backing of the quilt.  The batting is too short!  I quilted as far as I could, then took the quilt off the longarm and added batting.  I quilted the border on my Juki.  It doesn't look as good as the rest of the quilting, but cotton batting and a good machine wash hide a multitude of quilterly mistakes!

Here is a closeup of my quilting design.  I need to learn how to quilt the sashing and the blocks without starting and stopping at each block --

Yesterday's quilt is one I test-sewed for the designer.  I experimented with Denyse Schmidt's signature quilting pattern, but it made the sashing curve unevenly.  Next time I will be more careful about keeping the edges taut while I'm quilting.

This pattern is not as easy to quilt as it looks!
 

Ann says the only way to get better at quilting on the long-arm is to quilt on the long arm!

Have you commented on my most recent giveaway post?  Go here to comment for a chance to win a copy of Quiltmaker 100 Blocks vol. 6 and one of my sample blocks!


From the desk of your

I Should have Known

It's almost time!  Time to take another road trip.  This time to Idaho for my annual Quilt Retreat pilgrimage.

I'm going here:

Payette Lake, where I used to attend Girl Scout Camp at Camp Alice Pittenger.  Where everything is peaceful, quiet, the food is wonderful -- and my cell phone doesn't work!

I've done so well on my UFO-tober projects, I decided I had time to quilt the Mystery Quilt we made at Spring Quilting in the Pines in May:

I had the brilliant idea to quilt meanders in the off-white background, then go back and quilt a custom design in the blue blocks.

Last evening, I loaded the quilt on Meggie and quilted the meandering:

I've tried quilting all of one color thread, then re-rolling the quilt and quilting a second color thread before.  And it didn't work very well.

I forgot that trying to re-roll the quilt top while on the machine makes the batting and backing bunch up.

Not only that, it looks like the stars are going to be loose and I will get folds in the fabric when I quilt it.

I'm sure one of my long-arm pros (harrumph, ANN) would have told me that, if I'd remembered to ask!  I should have known!

Fortunately, I am using the summer-weight batting I bought at The Idaho Quilt Barn last Spring.  This batting scrunches up beautifully when washed.  So I'll go ahead and quilt the stars, then wash the quilt.  Scrunchies ccover a multitude of long-arming mistakes!

And go to bed tonight dreaming of this:

Linking up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.

I have some Idaho-hostess gifts to show off -- come back Friday for Finally It's Finished!



From the desk of your

Finally a Friday Finish

Friday finishes have been few and far between this summer.  But when My Little Sailor asks for a "purple quilt for a sailor who earned her Navy Warfare Badge," by golly, the Juki is pushed to its top speed!

I wanted to make this quilt using the pattern "Bento Box," as their ship's home port is Yokosuka, Japan.

 (this photo from Hancock's of Paducah, where you can also buy the pattern)

However, the pattern calls for fat quarters.  If you remember, Shelley at High Country Quilts crawled around under the display table to find a jelly roll of purple strips for me.  So I HAD to use strips, didn't I?  Scrabbling through the pattern drawer, I found this pattern I picked up on our recent trip to Seattle:

 

(photo from Quilt in a Day, where you can also buy the pattern)

I have to tell you, this is one of the fastest quilts you'll ever put together. The pattern comes with a plastic template that makes cutting the braids super fast, and they go together perfectly.  The traditional method of making braids has you sew together rectangles, then cut off the ends to make the edges even.  Really hard to get a straight cut if the braid is longer than your longest ruler! I should have made a tutorial.  I'll make this qilt again, and I promise a tutorial when I do.

So now, without further ado, I present Quilt #41 for 2012, Danielle's Braids!

This is the first quilt on which I've used a Handi Quilter ruler to make a custom design.  I'm quite pleased with the result:

Congratulations, Danielle!

Linking up to Richard and Tanya's Link a Finish Friday, and

Remember to comment to win my 200+ followers giveaway.  Go here to comment.


From the desk of your