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.

Applique update

I haven’t done much work at the machine this week, with some semi-sleepless nights and running errands getting ready for the holiday (both requiring afternoon naps) I just didn’t have time. I have managed to get 11 of the 12 flowers appliqued down to the background blocks. I love how they all look! Now to start working on attaching the scrap blocks around the flowers! I have all of the 3 block pieces ready to go, hoping to get them all attached today and then hopefully start working on the 5 block pieces.

Accuquilt has had some nice sales the last few days for Black Friday and yesterday was the sale I was waiting for! I found the 4.5″ square multi die on sale so that I could use rewards points to buy it and only pay $8 for shipping! Now once I get the fabric I can start getting things ready for the Good Night Irene SAL that starts the first of the year. Not that I should be working on that one yet, I need to finish the other 3 quilts that are in progress! Or at least finish the guild challenge top and the scrappy 9 patch – both just need 2 borders added to them!

Lots to get done today, worked on some Xmas presents (not sewing related!) and still have a few more that need to be worked on, but tonight we are meeting my cousin and her kids to go to the Holiday walk in the Metroparks by us. We took Alex last year and he had a ball!

Design Wall Monday – November 25th

I seem to be flying on these applique flowers. Finished the last of them last night and got the first 2 prepped for applique. I got one of them finished this morning while Alex watched tv and started on the second one. I had thought to add the 2.5″ squares that go around the white block, but it seems to be harder to applique that way. So I’ve prepped the rest of the flowers on just the white block and will add the squares once the applique is finished. I will work on those as I work on completing the border for the scrappy 9-patch quilt. I am hoping to get the applique completed no later than Thanksgiving – Even if I have to take them to my mom’s to work on.

I have barely thought about quilting on either of these quilts, but I am pretty sure that on the scrappy 9 patch I’ll just do straight diagonal lines through the 9 patch blocks and the 4 patches in the border. Still not sure what to do in the solid black squares though. Scrappy 25-patch will probably be more diagonal lines and just some stitching around the applique to make them pop out. Here’s what I can’t decide – should I cut out the background from behind the applique or leave it? Since I’m going to be machine quilting I’m really tempted to just leave it there. Anyone have some thoughts??

I’ll be back soon with updates, I only have 3 quilts in progress 🙂

Busy, busy, busy!

I have been busy sewing this weekend! Friday I had gotten all the pieces for the hexie flowers basted and ready to be put together. I took this picture earlier today, at the time 6 flowers were ready to be appliequed and I was working on the other 6. As of right now I have another 4 flowers done and hope to finish the other 2 while I watch shows with the hubby tonight. They go pretty fast, so I don’t know why I can’t get it done.

I spent yesterday and this afternoon putting together the scrappy 9 patch center. I haven’t taken a picture yet, by the time I finished it was getting dark out and I didn’t have a good enough spot to take a picture. I need to put on a small black border and then the pieced border that I started putting together while I worked on the center, but there’s still a lot more to do on it.

I still need to cut out and attach the borders for the guild exchange quilt, hoping to get that done this week as well. I have 2-3 weeks to have it finished, but with the holiday weekend I don’t see any reason it won’t be ready. Off to work on hexies!

Scrappy 25-Patch with Applique

I think I need to come up with another name for this quilt! Anyway, I worked last night and this morning and have all of the hexies ready to be sewn into flowers. I hope to start sewing them together this afternoon and/or evening. I have a basketball game to watch tonight so that should be easy! 🙂 Hopefully I’ll have another update soon with some finished flowers!

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!

Cutting Review on Studio

I figured that since I was already going to be cutting fabric I’d do a little review on my new Studio. I love it! It cuts so much nicer than the Go, even with the Go dies! I have a bolt of Kona black that I’m using for projects that is 44″ wide. So since I want as many black squares as I can get, I cut an 8.5″ width and the length is the full 44″ (22″ since it’s folded on the bolt). I know it’s hard to see folded up on the die, but it’s folded so that there are 4 full layers and 2 layers that are partials. After I run it through, I have a stack of 48 2.5″ squares and a small pile of scraps. There’s almost NO waste! I did 3 of the 8.5″ strips to get 144 total squares. If I don’t need these for the 9-patch scrappy quilt, I know I can use them for the hexie diamond quilt. I worked on some hexies last night while we watched tv, I’m waiting for a shipment to come from 123 stitch with some Aida cloth. I’ve decided to put away my Cavs cross stitch and do my Monopoly board instead. I have almost all the floss, just needed a big enough piece of 18 count aida to work on it. When it’s finished it will be a full sized Monopoly board and we can play on it once it’s framed/mounted. I’ll post updates as I work on it. Time to get back to sewing, laundry is done for today (more for tomorrow), dinner is in the crock pot and Alex is still sleeping!

Design Wall Monday – November 4th

I managed to get a lot done yesterday on my scrappy 9 patch quilt. Got all of the 4 patch blocks for the border pressed and ready to be put together, pulled all the black squares I have cut out and matched up to the scrap squares. 7 9-patch blocks are put together, 6 more are almost put together. I think I’ll be cutting out more black squares this afternoon and hope to put more blocks together. I also have a bag full of fabrics that my mom gave me when she was cleaning out her stash, some of them are small pieces that are going to get cut up into 2.5″ squares. Unfortunately I have laundry to do too and that has to be done before I can get back to work. *sigh* The things a mommy has to do! 🙂

Had a check-up today with my OB and everything is going great! Baby’s heartbeat was 164 and is growing like she should. I’ve started to feel her moving around the last week or so and it’ll get better as she gets bigger. Other than fatigue I feel great!

Back soon with updates!