WIP

Preparing to quilt this one for my nephew!

Baptist Fan

I'm working on a broken herringbone quilt that I started 13 months ago, with Molli Sparkles in a QAL.  Of coarse I set my vision to big and eventually decided to put the quilt on hold and just made this Christmas table runner.

Well, 13 months after starting this broken herringbone quilt,  I have finally finished the quilt top and am ready to put this quilt together.  

I have decided for this quilt I want to quilt a baptist fan pattern but I have never done this.  I know I'm a little crazy to quilt a pattern like this on a home machine, a 72"x85" quilt, and never having tried the pattern before.  

My first issue is I  don't have a circular template to create the fan.  I looked at my local quilting store and they have 1" half circle patterns.    I really want the fans to be farther apart than 1" but not so far as 2", meaning they won't work.  Many tutorials out there show how you can freehand your circle, but that does not work for me!  Other blogs show how some used lids or other circular shapes.... Not what I want.

I decided to create a template for me.  After digging around in my untouched scrapbooking closet I found some thin plastic and a hole punch.  

At first I thought I would want my fans quilting with circles 1 1/2" apart so I marked and punched my template ever 1 1/2".

After drawing the circles and seeing how far apart they looked, I re-marked (notice the black dots) my template at every 1 1/4".

Here is my sample drawings to see how big my fans will be.

Before I quilt anything I have to draw it!  If I can draw something on paper I can learn to quilt it on fabric,  if I can't draw on paper then I'm crazy to think I can make it quilt perfectly on fabric. It's not perfect, but it works and I found how I wanted my baptist fans quilted.  I will be quilting from right to left so I drew my fans from left to right.  Make sure you know the direction you will be quilting before you draw fans on your quilt!  

Next I practiced quilting on scrap fabric, but you aren't going to see how that turned out ;).

Next I marked my quilt's lower half and started quilting it using Arofill, 50wt light grey thread.

Here is where I am to.

Wip Wednesday

I have finally gotten this UFO into the ready to quilt stage!  

I have an unfinished basement in my house and so last night I taped the backing, batting and top onto the floor and started pinning.  This quilt took over 200 pins!  I think it will be quilted with a wonky zig zag.

One more step finished!  

Here it is when I first started pinning:

I'm linking this up to 

WIP Wednesday by Freshly pieced!

And 

Let's bee Social

Both are linked on my side bar

WIP

Lately I've been to busy with my new relief society calling to do anything!  I need to take some time off from running here and there, having dinners, planning activites and do some quilting, my relaxation/fun time.

I saw a quilt online that I loved and decided I had to try!  (I'll link it to the original).  I have done flying geese a little, meaning one of my 4 templates was actually unwrapped from its packaging.  So, it did have me a little nervous.  It turns out that this quilt was so easy to put together, and now I just need to finish the  quilting and binding.   I used the Moda, scruptious line, fabric I've been dying to use since September, when I first saw it.

I absolutely love flying geese and they really are so easy.  They do make one of my favorite quilts.

 My good friend is having a baby any day.  It's been 12 years since she had her last girl, so she needed a girly blanket. 

I'm going to link this to WIP Wednesday from www.freshlypieced.com and Sew Fresh Quilts

WIP

I've been doing lots of quilting lately, just no time to document all that I've been doing.  Right now I'm working on a flying geese baby quilt for a friend of mine.  I just finished a large queen pinwheel quilt for my mother and father, and I still have about 10 works in progress!

I may be one who works on a project, gets to busy, looses the desire for that project, and moves on to a new project, but I did finish quite a few small projects this year.  Here are a few on them:

My parents pinwheel quilt, (can't believe I have it away before a finished photo). I'll get an update photo from my mom.

Baby blanket for sister

Christmas table runner:

  

Neices quilt:

Hailey's Belle Dress

Nephew's Quilt

Macey's Quilt

WIP

This week I really have to many mommy things going on to sew very much, but when I get a few minutes the machine is chucking along!  

Hailey wants to be Belle for Halloween.  This is really fun for me, because most 11 year olds want nothing to do with being a "Princess".  Keeping her little for another year is just what I need (though she's over 5' already).  I was thinking the other day how almost 2/3 or 66% of her time at home while I'm raising her is over.  Time passes so quickly!

Now I just need to make the top and the poofy slip!

I'm working on sashing this MSHBQAL.  This week is suppose to be the quilting week, but let's just say I'm a little behind.

I do have 20 of my 24 blocks made.

Now off I go to get ready for teaching our rotating preschool in a few hours.  Tomorrow is my Princess #4's birthday do I'll be showing of the cake and fun birthday party tomorrow!

I'm linking up to Freshly Pieced, (her links on my sidebar).

I also just recently finished my 3 year olds new blankie.  Thankfully she loves this!

I just used my walking foot for quilting this with straight lines.

This is the quilt I made for my neice Ashlee and is my FMQ!

Here you can see its swirls.

I really love the choice of fabrics on the back.

WIP

Last week, sewing projects started to fall apart.  I was doing really good in that I finished my 3 yer olds new blankie and I was really doing great on my first ever free arm quilted quilt.  Until Thursday!  I accidentally got my finger to close (to that unprotected darning foot) and had the needle go through the side of my pointer finger.  It was just a small wound, we'll actually two, where the needle went in and out.  It was a new needle and I had had a tetanus shot 5 years ago so I opted not to have it looked at by a Dr.  It looks good now and hasn't had any signs of infection.  

After this I stopped for the day, Thursday was out.  So Friday, I started chucking along on the machine quilting, when my machine just stopped!  I couldn't get the needle to move!  After a few nudges I finally got it up so I could remove the quilt and figure out the problem.  I cleaned the machine, but still nothing. 

My husband and my father each love to fix things so I thought to myself I can fix  this.  And I took the machine apart, all 13 screws.  This is what I found

Wow!!!

I recleaned the machine and it would move but not smoothly.  I figured it was the needle casing from the tension it was getting so I oiled it and now, its working great!  My manual said not to oil your machine, it won't need it.  I think I use my machine a little more than normal the average person with this costco machine.  Someday I'll get me a new one, now it's just a dream.  

So here's my progress and what I'll be working on today:

Wish me luck!

I'll link this into freshly pieced 

No time to POST!

It seems that time is literally flying by.  There is not enough time for cleaning (up after 4 keiki's), not enough to accomplish all I want to with my 3 year old, little time for scrapbooking and little time for quilting.  Where does it all go?  That's a question I wish I could answer.

Today I have finished quilting my first machine quilting quilt.  This one is only stripes done with a walking foot.  The next quilt I'll try something more fun, but this one I needed simple.  I also got the bindin sewn on but not without a fun mistake.  

Notice anything funny about the binding I'm sewing on in the picture?

We'll, the quilt is pink/white/green and the binding is BLUE.  The colors go great together, but they just don't match this quilt.  So after some seem ripping, here is what I put away when I am going to bed... And started blogging.

 

I am hand stitching the binding on and so while watching NCIS tonight I was able to get 3 of the 4 sides seen on.  Tomorrow night I'm really hoping this WIP becomes a finished project!

WIP

I have so many projects going right now!

I've just started working on these blocks and have 4 made so far.  They are with a quilt along hosted by Molli Sparkles it's his MSBHQAL.  It's fun and I really love the laid back look of this Robert Kaufmann fabric.

Besides these blocks I am 3 months behind on my BOM kit so today my project is making these blocks before our Saturday meet up. 

Besides all this craziness and being a mom to 4 little keiki, I am also learning to use my walking foot and doing stripes on this quilt you have seen me slowly puttin together.

I'll link this all up to Freshly Pieced !  Have a great Wednesday!  

Works in Progress

When I ran across this Glamping by Moda fabric in my Cotton Shop store last month I knew that this was a fabric for me. As a mother of four daughters I really love the "girly" fabrics out there.  This was purchased in mind for my 3 year old.

It is a basic four patch pattern that is lap quilt size.  It may be a little to big to replace my 3 year olds, drag everywhere, blankie, but we can always hope it that it works :)

For the past 7 years I have been on the DT for Storytellers scrapbooking club.  Yesterday I received the email I had known was coming for a long time, they sold the company and their kits are finished.

It's a very sad day.  I've been getting their scrapbook kits for 9 years.  Their discussion boards have been a big part of my life for that long.   On different occasions, I have met multiple women from the discussion boards.  Together we have talked through so many excitements to trials in life, that they are almost like family.  I hope we can stay in touch, but truthfully I know that it won't be easy.  

I guess I have been feeling like the company owners Jeff and Leslie did, scrapbooking has had a time and place and that it is ending.  They sold the company and I turned my creativity to quilting.  Hopefully I will still scrapbook my childrens childhoods because we all know how I have so many scrapbooking supplies.  

Last night I had to create this page just to use some more of one of their kits.  The pages were so easy and so fun to put together.  Bye!

WIP Wednesday

I'm continuing to work on the quilts I am making for my niece and nephew.  They should have been finished two weeks ago but they are not quite there yet. 

 My nephews quilt:

As you can see it almost finished just a few more cuts.

My nieces quilt still needs three borders added around the main quilt as well as all the quilting/binding:

Hopefully this Friday his quilt will be finished and next Friday I can complete hers!

I linked it up with WIP wednesday