Guild – Kelly's Kwilts

Busy Summer!

Ugh! I swear I had major intentions of doing a lot more posting this year. And I have been finishing projects this summer. However we had a LOT of stuff happening this summer. My sister got married in July and it was a wonderful day! We had a bit of traveling to North Carolina, a bunch of camping trips and then it was time to get ready for school to start again!

So I did manage to finish my plaid-ish quilt the end of June, with a small problem – self inflicted! I was having problems with thread breaking and changed the needle. Unfortunately I put the darn thing in backwards and the thread just kept breaking. Didn’t know I had it in wrong until I called Handiquilter Customer Support and they told me. Once I fixed the needle it worked perfectly again and I could finish the quilt before our July 4th camping trip. The kids used it to sit on for fireworks when camping.

We have various charities we donate quilts to through our quilt guild. I volunteered to quilt 5 quilts for Honor Quilts. We give quilts to veterans in the county where I live. That was fun and good practice my quilting when I didn’t have anything ready to quilt. They didn’t have anything else needing quilted at our last meeting so I can work on some of my own quilts. I have 2 that just need batting cut and they need pressed before they can go on the frame. Hope to get to work on that this week. One of the quilts is from the workshop held on September 12th at our last meeting. We had the Redneck Quilter teaching us how to make a Deb Tucker quilt Star Shadows. It was a great workshop and I already have the top completed and waiting to be quilted. Can’t wait to see that one finished and not joining my UFO list for next year!

I was able to finish the Fall Simply Sign from Fat Quarter Shop, Cassie couldn’t wait to put it up on the door and get the Summer one down. Only 2 more to get done for this series and I don’t know if I’ll get to them this year or not. We’ll see, I might skip Halloween and do Christmas first.

So I know I’ve mentioned in the past my participation in Elise Baek’s groups and SAL’s (sew alongs). Earlier in the year I did a hexagon flower swap and 16 people signed up with only 10 sending in hexagons. It was asked that we do another one and I currently have 74 people signed up! This means since I’m making 1 hexagon flower for each person I have to make that many flowers. I think I have all the petal pieces picked up and grouped and I’m working on basting them. I need to figure out what I’m using for the centers so I can start putting the flowers together. The deadline for mailing is October 31st, so I have time but I don’t want to wait until the last minute!

I’m also working on basting pieces for the Daisy Bloom EPP SAL that is currently happening with Elise. I have 2 basted and the other 14 are in baggies all with the fabric ready to be basted. I’ll work on these when I have time. My plan is to make all of Elise’s flower EPP blocks and applique them all together on background blocks. That will be another long term project and I don’t even have all the templates for the other flowers yet.

I’ll be back soon, I’ll have 2 quilts to show!

Kelly

Cassie’s Quilt Done!

Cassie’s quilt, started in 2019 is finally finished and on her bed! She’s loving it and keeps saying how cozy and warm it is. The backing is totally pieced together from 3 blocks I picked up from the free table at guild, 2 yards of Effie’s Woods by Deb Strain, a couple of mini charm packs of Effie’s Woods and a regular charm pack of Effie’s Woods. Of course that wasn’t close to enough, so I grabbed a couple of Harry Potter fat quarters to fill in where needed. She loves it so much and I’m really glad to have it off the UFO list!

I was looking at my lists to see what I had to work on. I came across my EPP Party quilt. There’s 13 blocks and I only completed 6 back in 2017 when it was released online. This was a SAL done by Mister Domestic and Pat Bravo in 2017, and the paper pieces were and are still available at paperpieces.com. I realized that with all the EPP projects I have in progress and new ones I’d really like to do, I just wasn’t going to get back to doing this one. So I put the 6 blocks together and used some of the 2.5″ batik strips to make a bigger border. It’s completed quilted and bound and ready to be donated to Community Service at the next guild meeting.

With these 2 now completed and off the list, 10 items are now crossed off my to-do list. 50% quilts and 50% cross stitch! I spent the last few days working on a cross stitch for my sister’s wedding. I asked if I could make the ring pillow for her and while it’s not in pillow form yet, she does love it so far! I’ll get the pillow completed in the next week or so, I’m not worried yet 🙂 It’s hard to tell but I did use Kimberly’s Light Pink 14-count aida from Fat Quarter Shop, my sister is a pink girl! Now I need to find the right pink for a little border around the stitching so I have somewhere to stitch a ribbon down for the rings, plus the back of it.

I’ll be back soon, I pulled out an old EPP hexagon project after I finished the cross stitch yesterday. I swear I blogged about it before, but I couldn’t find it last night. So I need to document the project!

Lots of updates!

I finished this months Table of Elements section with plenty of time to spare. It was getting difficult to hold the scroll frame while trying to stitch so I ordered a stand with an Amazon gift card I received. It’s taken some getting used to using both hands for stitching, but it’s made me actually stitch faster since my right hand isn’t going under the frame for each stitch. Right hand now stays on top and left hand stays on the bottom. Now I’m looking to see if I can put some of my other projects in a scroll frame so I can work on them faster. I’ll be able to just switch out the frame on the stand when needed. Can’t wait for Monday to get the next piece of the design, we had 13 elements for the first month and for February we get 20 elements! Since I’m hoping to have other projects done before then, I might actually be able to stay on target with this.

I had to order way too many fabrics to try and get what I wanted for the last border on this quilt and still didn’t get the one I wanted. But after a couple of guild meetings where I asked advice from friends, I picked a fabric and got the borders on this and now it’s ready to be quilted. I talked about finding the pieces for this quilt back in 2020, the post is here. This was a fun quilt to do, and used a ton of my 1.5″ squares, but somehow there’s still a ton of them in the bin. I have another quilt that will use a bunch of those, that will be another post though!

Wow, this 2017 Hexagon Temperature Quilt took 5 years to complete the top! I started part way the year in 2017 and just totally lost the urge to work on it for awhile. The hexagon blocks were done for a long time, I just needed all the sashing pieces completed. I even had the 4 border pieces completed way before I needed them. Thankfully EQ allows me to see how many pieces are used in a quilt, 1,415 2.5″ squares in this quilt. Yet somehow the bin is just as full as it was before! I have 1 little lone hexagon that needs appliqued on and it’s ready for quilting. I have so many ready for quilting!!

So while I was doing some cleaning and putting things away I found a bin of already cut HST pieces that finish at 2.5″. So I decided that would be perfect to use as a leader/ender project while I work on other things. I matched up everything I had already cut – 1 white with 1 color and then found that I had a TON of colored triangles that needed a white to match. Ended up spending an afternoon cutting white-on-white fabrics with the Studio, I needed 356 white triangles cut and then spent time during Cassie’s gymnastics class pinning them together so they are ready to stitch when I need them. Have no clue what pattern I’ll use for these yet, I have plenty of time before that needs to be figured out!

I finally finished the Harry Potter quilt top!!! Well I need to do a border still, but the fabric is sitting here waiting to be cut and sewn on. I am only going to do a small border on the top and bottom since it’s already the right size for our bed. I need a little bit more on the sides though. I have no clue what to do about the backing yet, I have a bunch of different Harry Potter fabrics I’m thinking about putting together for the back, I just don’t know if I have enough or not though.

I’m very excited that I’m making progress on so many things this month. I currently have 46 items on my 2022 UFO Challenge list, and I think about 20 of them JUST need quilted. I’m still saving up to get a long arm and I’m hoping there are some good deals at the sewing expo this year that will allow me to get the one I want for less money. Still not 100% sure where it’d go if I do get one, but man I’d be able to get so many quilts completely finished if I had one! I’ll be back in a few days with more, I have an OMG post to do as soon as I finish the EPP work on Cassie’s quilt and I have a new project to let you know about.

A Post with Another Finish

Back in July when we were allowed to start having guild meetings again, one of our members – who owns a quilt shop – did a presentation and showed a new MSQC Quilt As You Go (QAYG) hexagon template. Of course I had to buy one! When I got home that night I grabbed a charm pack I had sitting here and some scraps of muslin to see how quickly I could put one together. While you can machine stitch them once you’ve folded the sides over, I decided to hand stitch them all. Because you know I needed another hand project 🙂 I used 3 charm packs I bought from Connecting Threads years ago, Mirage Garden and Mirage Home, for the centers and black and muslin for the backings. I used just enough of the muslin to account for the 6 really dark charm squares that just wouldn’t show up with a black binding/border, of course that was just enough to make a big hexagon for the center. 🙂 I think once I get my dresser in the bedroom cleared off – it’s a mess! – I’ll use this as a cover for it. But I might find somewhere else to use it in the meantime.

I’ve been busy the last few days working on orders – a few HUGE orders came in so it’s been all day with the embroidery machine running. Hope to start quilting the next quilt soon.

Finishes!

I mentioned earlier in the month that I had 2 finishes, I just didn’t have any pictures! So finish #1, last year I picked up a baggie of HST from the free table at guild. I started putting them together slowly as the leader/ender as I was working on other projects. Eventually it took center stage and became a finished top. Then came the part I just don’t like – basting! It was small so I was able to spray baste it before I started quilting it. I decided to step outside my comfort zone and do something different, so I put on the ruler foot and used a straight edge ruler to help me stitch stars in each 9 patch area. Still not sure where it’s going, might just let Cassie have it for a doll blanket 🙂

In 2013 we had a block swap at guild. 6 women participated and each made 2 blocks. I wanted it to be a little bigger so I added the blocks in the corners. I finished the top right away in 2013, but it sat here for a long time because I just don’t like to baste! This year I just had to complete something, so this was basted in January and was just sitting here waiting for me to quilt. Since I had started working with rulers I decided let’s get moving and work more with them. It was so much fun! I did ribbon candy in the sashing, which I’ve never done before. Once I got the hang of the moving the quilt the right directions it wasn’t bad. The picture doesn’t show any of the details of the quilting, it was taken at guild and I don’t feel like pulling it out to get another picture 🙂

So, 2 more finishes for the year, I have another quilt that I basted a couple of weeks ago at guild that I’m just waiting to start quilting. Working on a huge order right now and hopefully I can get to it in the next day or so. I’d love to have 1 or 2 more finishes for the year.

Updates in September

Wow, 5 months without a post! It’s been a whirlwind last 5 months and I just haven’t done a lot of stitching. We finished the school year at home with mommy as the teacher, Cassie did great and Alex just didn’t want to work on anything. Home just isn’t the right place for my kids and school. They just started back this week and we’ve had an eventful first week! Yesterday the phone rang and my heart always drops when it says it’s the school. Yep, Alex threw up at recess and had to come home from school. So I had to run up to school and get him. Let’s hope it’s the only time this year!

It was a busy spring and summer with orders, including one to Germany that took forever to get there! Everyone was shopping online for the end of the school year gifts and it definitely helped me! It’s been a slow start to fall, but that’s ok it will pick up in the next month or so for Xmas. Because I was so busy with orders the sewing machine sat idle for a long time. Plus we were doing a lot of camping and visiting with family in other states. We stayed in the whole time but had so much fun!

Now that I am starting to have some time to myself I’ve been working on Harry Potter SAL blocks. Just finished another one today, I only have 9 more blocks and I can get the top put together. Since our quilt show for 2020 was cancelled due to COVID-19 I have time to get this and maybe a couple more quilts completed before our show in September 2021.

I have a lot of projects to work on when I’m sitting in my chair at night, cross stitch, all the various EPP projects, a new knitting project and I picked up a QAYG Hexagon template at a guild meeting a few months ago and have been hand stitching those and will be machine stitching them together when they are all ready. Hope to be back soon with a new update, hopefully it won’t be 5 months from now!

February Goals

I’m trying to figure out what I want to work on for my goals this month. I have a lot of tasks I have to do for Valentine’s Day for the kids school, but I certainly don’t want to list those as goals., those are MUST DO’s. 🙂 I think what I really would like to do is put together at least 1 Harry Potter block (not sure which one yet) and quilt the baby doll quilt that I basted last month. I ordered thread for the guild block exchange quilt but I know that won’t get done this month. Maybe if I have time I can get another quilt basted, but I certainly don’t think that will happen!

Linking up to Elm Street Quilt OMG.

January Finishes

January goal: Baste 2 quilts. Shouldn’t be too hard right? Well it wasn’t! Granted one of them was quite small, I still got it done! The small one is going to be a baby doll blanket for Cassie. Just need to figure out how I want to quilt it. Then I picked out a large quilt to baste. Found just the right color backing and basted my 2013 quilt guild challenge quilt! I need to get some Aurifil thread in the right aqua/blue color before I can quilt it, but I’m not sure how I want to quilt it yet anyway. The board basting was easier than I thought it would be, it took me an afternoon when Alex was sick to get it basted. Can’t wait to start quilting it!

Like I said Alex was sick for 3 days last week, then of course this week I get it! So I haven’t had time – or felt like even working – on quilting anything yet. I do have another quilt that is on my UFO list to get a binding on, that will be another post when it’s finished. 🙂 I did pull out another top to baste, but since I was sick it didn’t get anywhere. I want to start hand quilting my first hexagon quilt, just need to pick out a backing first!

Linking up to Elm Street Quilts and will have to start thinking about next months goal!

Happy New Year!

Wow! I can’t believe it’s 2020! Seems like just yesterday that we were getting married in 1999, then the kids being born 2010 and 2014 and now here it is 2020. Why does time have to march so fast??

I spent the last week of the year working on getting some things completed, including finishing the top we started at our mystery workshop at guild in December. I bought the fabric back in 2013 I was trying to get folks interested in doing a block exchange with the 2014 Hoffman Challenge fabric. No one was interested but I decided to buy fabric anyway because I liked it so much. So when I decided to do the mystery quilt I remembered this fabric and found that it was just about enough to make the top. I had to order some additional – yes I found some even 5 years later! – so I could finish the top. Not sure when it will be quilted, but it is on my UFO challenge list for this year!

Back in 2016, one of my online groups, the Twilters, did a block exchange based on the book by Frances O’Roarke Dowell called Birds in the Air. It started as a way to help Frances get a quilt completed for the release of the book, and then morphed into a signed block exchange. My blocks sat here for quite some time because I couldn’t decide what to do with them. How did i want to set them? I had a lot of designs done in EQ and just never followed through with any of them. So as I was working on my UFO list for 2020, I decided that these might be a quick finish to completed top – I just needed to make 3-4 blocks to finish the design. Got that all put together New Year’s Day. Now it’s on the UFO list and just needs to be quilted.

Beginning of last year I found out about a SAL for a Harry Potter quilt – and you know how much I love Harry Potter! It was being run by Kelli over at Seriously I think it needs stitches who did the Pokemon quilt I put together a year or so ago. (links are to the pages on Kelli’s site). I bought the kit from Fat Quarter Shop and got started on blocks. I fizzled out during the year, business started picking up and we just weren’t home much over the summer. But at the end of the year I really wanted to be working on something simple, and these blocks are put together pretty simply – just lots of pieces. So I sat and figured out how many I need for the layout that would totally cover our king sized bed and started working to fill in the blocks I needed for the first 2 rows. Got those 3 blocks done and the first 2 rows are now put together. As soon as I can get my year end inventory completed I can work on the next block.

So, I want to rejoin the One Monthly Goal linkup this year in the hopes that I can get something done on my UFO list this year. Last year I completed NOTHING on my list! I’ve created the page at the top and hope to have some finished quilts in it this year! This month I want to get 2 quilts basted and possibly start quilting them. I don’t know which 2 they will be, possibly the ones shown above, maybe one of the many others that just needs to be quilted. I have batting, just need to figure out backings.

Back soon!!

I’m back!

Sigh….I just need to get back into sewing so I can post more! I started working on this post over a month ago, I don’ t even remember why I didn’t finish it!

School has started and both kids are loving their teachers and going to school – no matter what Alex says! Cassie is flying through sight words, her kindergarten teacher is amazed at what she knows already. My little girl is going to do so well in school! Alex is in third grade and he’s doing well too, loving his teachers this year which is a good thing! Just got reports cards for the 1st quarter and he’s got 3 B’s and an A – this is the first year that they get real grades. I’m more than happy with that!

In one of my IGSecretPal boxes I received some yarn, a Sweet Roll from Premier Yarns in a color way called Bubble Pop. I looked through Ravelry and found the Absolute Beginner Knit Cowl. It was so very easy and fairly quick, well quick for me, as I got it finished in 3 months. Once I got it finished I gave it to my little sister since pink is her color. The pattern was so easy that I might just make some more with some of the many, many yarns I have.

In September, I took a workshop on how to make jelly roll rugs. I used a jelly roll the husband bought me back in 2003 called Icicle Kisses from Kansas Troubles Quilters. Usually when I have time to take workshops I end up not having time to finish the project. Well not this time! I had my rug completed and took it back to the meeting in October for show and tell. It looks great in my kitchen right in front of the sink. I got some of that non-skid stuff to put under it so that no one slips and falls.

I’m trying to figure out what quilt I can pull out, baste and start working on quilting. I have too many quilts that are in the quilting queue and I have not been able to complete even 1 item off my UFO list this year. At least half of my list just needs to be quilted! I hope to be back soon with something to show!