Carol's Red Stepping Stones

Carol brought this embroidered masterpiece over. I usually love custom quilting these embroidered blocks, but I really struggled to come up with a custom design for this pattern.  The red areas were a bit too large to leave unquilted and how to quilt the rest without a ton of starts and stops.  Plus the blocks are large enough that I would have to advance the quilt up and back down for each block.  The more I thought about it, an overall design seemed like the right idea.

I quilted an overall swirl inside an eye-shape with feathers around it. A feathered eye swirl.  That's what I'm going to call it!

I saw a video online somewhere of this design, but I cannot recollect where.

Here you can see it better.

And she loved it!  Thanks Carol!!

Joyce's Dinosaur baby quilt and a T-shirt quilt

Joyce is at it again with another dinosaur baby quilt.

Looks like my son took this pic.  He loved this quilt! I asked which dinosaur was his favorite and he pointed to all of them!

Spring is almost in the air, so that means T-shirt quilt time!! 

I like this guy's choice in fabrics!

(Go Cyclones!)

Paisley's, stars, and a few other things to keep things interesting.

I love a good T-shirt quilt, they are so fun to quilt. As long as they don't pucker!

Thanks Joyce!

Wool stars

Katie also made this neat quilt with hand stitched wool stars.

Large swooshing swirls make the sky come alive.

Twinkle, twinkle!

Her back is a navy flannel...

...with a funky stripe!

Thanks Katie for the fun quilts!!

DGS Jan and Feb, Katie's sawtooth star

DoGood Stitches blocks---Haven Circle

CosbyGryffin was in charge for both January and February, so she posted them both at the same time so we could send them both together. These large flying geese were for February's quilt.

Two 12.5 inch pinwheel blocks were for January. Thankful for these simple blocks and to knock out two months at once!

Katie made this amazing sawtooth star quilt.

I custom quilted the border with large triangles and swirls.

Large swirls keep those sawblades spinning.

Her almost solid gray backing.

Enjoy Katie!!

My Splendid Sampler

Have you seen this?? Are you sewing along too?  I'm talking about the Splendid Sampler.  It's a sew-a-long by Pat Sloan and Jane Davidson. They enlisted several designers to come up with a unique 6 inch block and share two of them a week.  For a year.  100 blocks in all. So far we are 9 blocks (1 month) into it and I am really enjoying it!

I know starting another sewing project is probably the last thing I need to do, but  I decided to jump in anyways.  I'm using my 30's repro stash that I've been hoarding for a while for some unknown project.  I've always admired those Farmer's Wife samplers, but the project always seems so daunting.  This is the same deal, just served in little bits on Thursdays and Sundays.  Plus, if you join the Facebook group (there's over 18,000 so far!) there's plenty of quilters to help you out if you have any problems. And you get to see what others are doing with their blocks. It's been fun seeing how others interpret the blocks to make them their own.  I've gotten lots of ideas from others sharing their blocks.

Here is block #7- Snug as a Bug. How cute is this?!?  I added a little sister under mine for my two littles. I also added a little color with crayons.  Embroidery is not my area of expertise but I've been learning the past year.

Natalia Bonner designed this one--Focal Point.  This block would look really neat as a whole quilt.

The flower vase took me a while--I'm pretty new to applique.  But I learned of a great way to make those little circles.  You wrap your fabric around a coin and tie a little rubber band (ones you would use on a toddler's hair) around it. Then you spray it with starch.  Once it dries, you cut the fabric off at the rubber band and there you go! a perfect little circle with the edges all turned under.

Melissa Corry designed this one #3-Lots of Love. So cute.  I learned a new trick on this one too.  Don't trim the bottom layer when you stitch and flip.  This way if you are not exactly square, as long as you are close, you sew along the bottom layer that is square as your guide and you will come out fine.  I don't know if that made much sense the way I explained it, but someone shared a tut in the fb group that really helped me out.  I hate those stitch and flips-they always come out goofy.  Not anymore!

#2- Wings was a challenge. Mine ended up 1/2 inch too big, so I ripped it apart and started over. This time using more starch, more squaring up, and more focus on that scant 1/4 inch. And I got it right!

And here is block #1-Hearts a Flutter. As you can see there are a variety of different techniques and methods for each block/designer.  Each little block is a new challenge, and I've already learned a lot so far--and it's just getting started! Did I mention that this is all FREE?!  So far I've been able to keep up pretty well--the applique and embroidery do slow me down a bit though.  I haven't been this excited about a sewing project for quite a while--I cant wait to see what the next block is going to be! Have I convinced you to sew along with me and 18,000 others?  I hope so because it's been soo fun so far. Here's another link to the website.  

Gretta's baby quilt

This quilt is one I made for my baby girl, Gretta.  She's 21 months old now, but I finally got her baby quilt done! I did start it before she was born, got the top done while she was a baby, then it sat in my cupboard for a year or more while I worked on customer quilts.  I got a small break in customer quilts this winter and that's when it was time to get this one done!

A little bit about how this quilt came together::

I used to improv piece all my same colored scraps into 10 inch blocks until I had so many, I stopped, and I kinda got burnt out on it too. (it takes a long time-and a big mess- to sew all those tiny pieces into a 10 inch block!)  I made several baby quilts for others with them, but I got tired of making the same quilt, (like this one, this one, these, and this one) until I thought to use them to make HST's  and make a very large quilt block out of them. I was inspired by one of Ann Marie's blocks in her Vice Versa series for this quilt.

I had to have my sister help me figure out what size to cut out the smaller sections. My pregnant mind couldn't come up with the right numbers, but honestly I have troubles figuring that stuff out anyways!

I outlined the white star, then filled in with swirled pebbles--each colored quadrant in it's matching thread color.

My son had to have a turn quilting, so I let him have at it in the purple section while I blocked off the white part from him with a ruler.

Gosh, looking at this now makes me want to make a large queen or king sized quilt this way!

I just love how it turned out! I love how each little scrap reminds me of a project I or someone else made (they aren't all MY scraps originally!)

The back is flannel.  I bought the large animal print before I had any kiddos and had been hoarding it for years until I had my little Gretta.

And here she is--my sweet little sunshine!!

Jessica's pile

Jessica had a pile of goodies for me to quilt up- some made by her and a few from her mom too. These were a set of four placemats, the red one is the backside of one. Just some swirls.

This cowboy one is so neat.

I did an all-over of stars, lasso loops, and paisleys.

Jessica made this patchwork of sky-themed fabric for a baby quilt.

I tried something new to me--a cloud design.

Hopefully you can see it better from the back.

Next baby quilt is a flannel one.

A double bubble border seemed fitting with this fabric.  Inside is an all-over double bubble and swirl design.  Thanks Jessica and Christine for your neat quilts!