Guild – Page 3 – Kelly's Kwilts

Guild Block Exchange – Xmas

Well I finally did it and finished the quilt top for the guild block exchange! I only had to put the border on, and had originally intended on putting 2 borders – a thin one using the background fabric and then the thicker one using the focus fabric. Unfortunately I didn’t have enough of the background fabric to do a border, and not enough time to order more. So I just took that border out and put the thicker one on with the focus fabric. I do like how it looks, and I have NO clue how I’ll even quilt it. Now that it’s done I’ve folded it and hung it in the closet with the other tops needing quilted. I’m trying to get people interested in next years exchange, but I don’t have a single person that has signed up yet. I’ll keep trying, if I don’t get any takers I’ll order the fabric and make myself a quilt instead!

Last year I had found a pattern online and made a hexie wreath for the tree with a jingle bell in the center. I had pulled the 2.5″ squares to make 3 more but never finished them. I found them while looking for something else and decided that I needed to finish them this year. Didn’t take me long, when I was awake enough to work on them, they are now all hanging on the tree!

I did make a few items for Christmas gifts this year, however I will not be posting any information about them until after they have been received. Right now the embroidery machine is humming along stitching out some free-standing lace gingerbread men ornaments. I found the design on Embroidery Library – my favorite site for embroidery designs. I love doing lace designs, they turn out so cute and there’s really nothing I need to do for them. Put the same color in the bobbin and on the top and let it go. This design stitches out in under 20 minutes, so I can work on lots of other things while it runs.

I spent a little time working on cleaning things up in my office, things have gotten WAY too dusty and unorganized in here. Since I’m now done with pretty much all my Xmas gifts and just have to finish decorating and get a few items ready for folks the hubby works with I can spend some time working on items for myself. I’m hoping to finish Scrappy 9-patch this week and since they announced at our guild meeting last week that the next quilt show is going to be in October 2014, I’m planning on seeing if I can get hexie diamonds finished for the show. Of course I’d really rather it be ready for the 2014 camping season, but we’ll see what happens.

We have just barely started getting the baby’s room ready, which means my mini-pinni frame needs to come down. I asked hubby to leave it in the room for now, I have a few quilts I’d like to put on it to pin before we take it apart. The basement isn’t finished yet and I don’t want it setup in the basement until it’s cleaned and looking better down there! I think I’ll be able to easily quilt some of the scrappy quilts and get them finished before the baby is born.

I think I’m going to go play with a few of my Go dies and plan a few more quilts – I think baby girl needs something made by mommy!

Design Wall Monday – December 2

Well I’ve been very busy working on the applique blocks this last week. Finished up the last sets yesterday while Alex was napping. I’m about halfway done with this quilt already! I’m putting it aside for awhile so I can finish putting together the guild challenge quilt for the next meeting (Dec 12th) and so I can put the borders on the scrappy 9-patch quilt. I have the borders cut out/put together, just need to attach them to the 9-patch quilt. Not sure when I’ll get around to quilting it, I don’t think I even have a backing for it! But at least I know I made a quilt 100% from my stash of fabrics. Not 1 piece was bought for it!

I keep forgetting to mention that I’ve been asked to teach EQ classes for another guild in my area. Classes will be once a month for 2 hours starting in January. Obviously I’ll need to take a few months off once the baby is born, but they are aware of it and maybe I can do some lessons they can work on independently while I get the house back in order here. We’ll see what happens. Now I need to get started on lessons!!!

Hope to be back with an update this afternoon on the scrappy 9-patch, it shouldn’t be too hard to get it finished while Alex naps this afternoon.

Linking up to Patchworktimes.

Guild Block Exchange & New Project

Well I am ALMOST done with my guild block exchange quilt!! I just need to do the borders. I had to do a little fixing on some of the blocks, including some of my own! I just added strips of my background fabric and then squared them up to 12.5″. Made it quite easy to add all the sashing and finish putting the rows together. I really like how it’s turned out, and I can’t wait to see what everyone else has done.

I know, I need another project like I need a hole in my head! I saw a few rows of a quilt on Facebook and really liked the idea of the scrappy 25-patch blocks mixing with a scrappy block that has an applique on it. I’ve already pulled all the pieces I need for the hexie flowers and started pinning them to my 1″ papers. I just happen to have the 6.5″ square die for my Studio so I can cut the white squares I need to applique them to. By the time this is done I’ll have used up 517 2.5″ squares!!! Quilt will end up being 58″ x 58″ with the border.

I mentioned the other day that I was joining another SAL over at Terry’s Treasures. I designed the quilt in EQ so I could play with sizes and decide how big I wanted to make it. With a border this quilt will be around 58″ x 58″. This will be entirely made of scrap pieces as well, using 2.5″ squares (or triangles) and 4.5″ squares. I need to see what whites I have to use, I may have to make a trip to Joann’s to get a white of some sort to use. I just figured it out and this quilt (in the size I’ve chosen) will use 192 2.5″ squares in the 16-patches, 96 4.5″ squares, 144 2.5″ squares (or triangles) in the X blocks. That will use 336 2.5″ squares in the quilt! Between the 2 quilts I’ll use up a lot of scraps!!!!

I still need to cut 40 black 6.5″ squares for the scrappy 9-patch quilt. I will most likely cut the white and black squares at the same time since I’ll have the Studio out from under the sewing table. I just got the larger tray and the large Go adapter for the Studio today, so I’ll be able to use my 2.5″ strip die now. Definitely having fun working on scrap quilts, even though I have LOTS of other quilts I need to finish! I’ve also been slowly working on pieces for my hexagon diamond quilt, still haven’t put the row together even though I finished the diamonds, I will need to work on that soon, but I did start working on the black hexies I need for fill in on the top and bottom. Although now I’ll be working on the hexies for the applique instead!

Alex is up from his nap, so I better get him up and it’s almost time to start working on dinner anyway. Laters!

Various Updates

I haven’t posted in a couple of weeks, but I have been busy! I finished all the 9 patches for the scrappy 9 patch quilt. I just got the die to cut my 6.5″ squares to go with this, but since I really want to get my guild challenge quilt done I’m putting the scrappy one aside for awhile. I have sashing on half of the 12.5″ blocks for the guild challenge quilt, the other 8 need a little bit of help making that 12.5″ size. I don’t think I’ll have time tomorrow to work on them, we are heading to my mom’s to celebrate some birthdays, mine and my sisters! I turned 40 a week ago and my little sister turned 36 last Wednesday.

While I waited for my aida to show up for the Monopoly board cross stitch, I continued working on hexagons. I finished the 5 diamonds needed for the 3rd row from the bottom. Just need to attach those to the main piece and I can work on the next row. I took a bunch of black squares to guild the other night and worked on getting those basted so I can start working on the fill in sections at the top and bottom. I need about 71 black hexies just for the top sections alone! Can’t wait to have this one done so I can get it quilted!!! I hope to put it in our next quilt show too.

While reading blogs the other day, I found that Terry over at Terry’s Treasures is planning another sew along for next year. I participated in this years – and of course couldn’t wait and got the whole quilt completed before everyone else. Of course it’s still not quilted!!! I really like the idea of this quilt, and it can be scrappy, so maybe I can use a ton of my 2.5″ squares and triangles that are already cut up in the containers. So I’m doing another sew along next year. I might fall majorly behind at the beginning of the year, what with the baby being due in March and all! But one day at a time is all I can do! Of course I also had to draw it up in EQ, just so I could experiment with sizes and the components of each block. I really like how it looks!!

I’m starting to fall asleep already so I guess I need to get going and maybe go to bed early!

Guild Block Challenge

Well, I finished the blocks I needed to make in order to put my top together. I made 4 blocks for the corners, all the challenge blocks will go in the middle. I’ve put some of them in just as an example. I am hoping to work on cutting out the sashing pieces tomorrow and attach them to the blocks. I am hoping I still have enough of the challenge fabric to do the borders, I’m pretty sure I do have enough, but I’m not cutting it up until I have everything put together. I used my Accuquilt Go to cut out most of the pieces for the corner blocks, I think it was cut out in less than an hour!

I’m really happy with how this is turning out so far and next I’ll need to decide how to quilt it. I really don’t want to think about that part yet though! I have a lot of other tops to get quilted!

I can’t wait to see how everyone else sets their blocks. It will be great if finished tops will get more people in the guild to participate next year. I really like the colors in the Hoffman Challenge fabric for 2014.

Time for me to go and see if I can finish the binding on my scrappy table topper. Hoping to post the finished piece tomorrow!

A Finish!!

I finished hand stitching the binding down last night on my table runner! This was made out of a charm pack called Blessings by Brannock and Patek for Moda. I used my Accuquilt Go and my 4″ Finished Triangles in a Square die to cut out all the triangles. It went together so quickly, and then it sat for a few months all pinned and ready to quilt. I think it may have only taken an hour or so to quilt. Why do I do that? Get it ready and then let it sit when I can have it done and use it if I just sat down to quilt it. Oh well, this one is done and ready to be used on the table.

I quilted the scrappy table topper yesterday afternoon, it only took a few hours to complete. I put the binding on, and started doing the hand work last night after I finished the table runner. I am hoping to finish working on that tonight.

Today I’m going to see if I can cut out the pieces I need for the 4 additional blocks for the Guild block exchange quilts. I wanted to make mine a little larger so I’m making 4 blocks for the corners that match. Almost all of the pieces I need can be cut out with my Go so I think maybe I can start sewing them together this afternoon. I know it won’t get quilted before the December meeting, but I really just want to get the top completed before I forget about it! We want to get more people signed up for next year!

Time to get to work on cutting, I’ll be back when I get the table topper finished.

Where have I been???

Wow, it’s been a LONG time since I posted anything! I was trying hard this summer to get my hexie diamonds quilt finished for our quilt show, until they posted that quilts had to be completed by the end of September. AHHHHH! I’d never make it since I had 3 rows to finish, plus the black fill in spots at the top and bottom, PLUS quilting it? Yeah, I decided to just put it aside and work on it slow and just have it ready for the next show. Then I realized I needed to start working on a cross stitch piece for a wedding gift. Now of course it’s still not done and the wedding is next weekend! The bride works with the hubby and asked Alex to be the ring bearer! He’s going to look so cute in a tux, I just don’t know if he’s going to do what he’s asked or not!

In July the hubby went to California to see his dad for his 70th birthday. Alex and I stayed home since I don’t really want to take him on an airplane yet! (There’s another reason why we didn’t go that I’ll explain in another post.) Turns out it was a good thing we didn’t go as Alex got sick that weekend and had a 100 degree fever – only for about 24 hours though! Anyway, I found out there was a new quilt shop (The Quilt Loft) that opened within walking distance of his dad’s house. We’ve always had this deal that if one of us went out of town, the other would bring back a “prize”. So I told him where he could get my prize! So he went and picked out a jelly roll of Icicle Kisses by Kansas Troubles Quilters. I have no idea what I’ll do with it yet, but I will come up with something!

I was playing around with one of my Accuquilt Go dies and made this little table runner. I’ve had it pinned for awhile, just haven’t gotten around to sitting down at the machine to quilt it! This was a charm pack that I ran through on the triangle die (don’t remember which one off hand since we are camping while I write this post!) and just put them together into 2 rows. Haven’t decided if I will square it off once quilted or bind it with the angled corners. Once we get home from camping I will look at which die I used and also get the information for which line this was from.

Spent some time working on blocks for our Guild block exchange using the 2013 Hoffman Challenge fabric. All blocks have been exchanged and now it’s time to put it all together into a quilt. We want to have all the quilt tops completed by the December meeting so we can hopefully get more people to participate next year! I’ll do another post with those once we get home, I haven’t taken pictures of all the blocks yet!

I received an email yesterday from Accuquilt that the Studio cutter is on sale again for $399, the lowest price I’ve seen all year. I’ve been debating it for a long time, mainly because there are a few dies I’d love to have that are only made for the Studio. Plus I’ve been thinking about adding die cuts to my business, since at some point I need to get that going again. I currently only have 2 customers for embroidery work and I need to start making things I can put on etsy. Die cuts might be a good thing, quick and I could even cut customer fabrics! Plus right now is triple reward points and that will be nice, since it will give me a good way to buy more dies at limited cost to me! 🙂

Time to charge the laptop and make some lunch, I’ll be back later with more of where I’ve been!

Quilt Show!

I know, I know, I haven’t been around much lately. I will explain in a post (or 2) soon. I wanted to get this posted right away though. My guild (Lorain County Piecemakers) is having a Quilt Show October 4-6.

Over 100 guild quilts will be displayed along with our own Quilt Car. Many vendors will be set up displaying their sewing and supply items. We will also be raffling off a Serger and many baskets of sewing and other items.

Hours:
October 4th: 10am – 8pm
October 5th: 10am – 5pm
October 6th: 11am – 3pm

New Russia Township Hall
46268 Butternut Ridge Road
Oberlin, Ohio

Hope to see you there!

Hexie Diamonds Update

It’s been busy around here lately, but I have managed to get all the half and full diamonds completed for the next row. I’ve started to sew them to the main piece and hope to have it done before the weekend, I don’t want to take this big thing camping! I was going to work on it last night after Alex went to bed, but my fingers got slammed in the car door and now 3 finger tips are bruised and hurt. Hoping to work on it soon! I have the next row all prepped and plan on taking them with me, I should be able to work on it at night when Alex is asleep. I’m determined to finish this quilt so I can enter it in the Guild quilt show in October, but that means I have to have it completed (together and quilted) by the end of September. If I can finish it soon, it’ll be just over a year since I started it. I posted about designing it here, and that was last June. I had a lot of start and stops last fall though since I was working on presents for people, and that was all cross stitch. I’ll probably only work on cross stitch and hand quilting when this quilt is finished, I need a break from hexagons! But if I had to guess, the break won’t last long!

Four rows to go!

I managed to get the 5 diamonds finished for the next row pretty quickly. Only took about 10 days to get the 5 diamonds put together. I love the colors in this row! I think my favorite is the rainbow stripes. The picture of the full quilt isn’t the best, we took it at night and the hubby wasn’t holding it right. I’m working on the next row and hope to have it done pretty quickly. I HAVE to have the top completed and quilted before the end of September, so I can enter it into the guild quilt show. I have 2 others I’m entering, but they are ones that have been completed for years. Hubby will be out of town next weekend, so I’ll have PLENTY of time to work on it! 🙂