A Custom Quilted QOV

Posted on August 27, 2016 by katyquilts

Here is a recent QOV top that I quilted. This beautiful top was made by Val. I love this pattern! I made a quilt all in Denyse Schmidt prints a few years ago like this and am planning to do another soon.  So it was fun to quilt this one.

 Here is a look at the back.

And these are the rulers I used. They are available from Linda at The Quilted Pineapple.


I was asked by someone how I quilted this without a gazillion starts and stops. Good question! This is something I am still learning. I will try to show you how I did that on this top.


First, I quilted from left to right following  the path of the green arrows as shown above. I came back from right to left following the red arrows. I quilted half of the arcs in the hexagons, then did the little red continuous curve bit at the bottom of the white triangle to get to the next point of the hexagon. Then I did the last three arcs forming a star in each hexagon as I went. Then I did the little red curve at the top of the next triangle to get to the next hexagon.

I hope this makes sense! It takes me quite a while still to find a good continuous path for quilting like this. It sure helps when I find it!

Have a great day!

Posted in Long Arm Quilting, Longarm Quilting, Quilt of Valor, Uncategorized | 9 Comments

Finish It Up Friday ~ Little Flags!

Posted on August 26, 2016 by katyquilts

I am in Arizona, but as they say on all the cooking shows, here’s a little something I prepared earlier!

This little quilt is my take on the Temecula Calendar quilt for this past  July. You know I can never follow a pattern exactly!

And remember that little teaser picture I showed you a few weeks ago?

That was the little quilt I made with the smaller flag block I paper pieced.

Even with the messed up stripes, I love this one!

Sometimes, you just gotta make a mini!

As always, when I am out here, responding to comments is sporadic at best. But I always read and appreciate every one! Also, I try to answer all questions, though it may  not be in a timely fashion.  I do have other “prepared earlier” posts for you while I am gone.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Linking up with Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Sew Can She, Anja Quilts

Posted in Civil War Repro Quilts, Doll Quilts, Finishes | 13 Comments

Trip Sewing

Posted on August 25, 2016 by katyquilts

Once again, I am heading to Arizona! Yay! It is starting to feel like going home now. I love it! This time, I will be doing a bit of dog sitting for Daughter #2. As she is deployed, she has someone to house sit and dog sit, but the sitter has to be away and so I am taking over for a bit. I have a sewing machine at Daughter #2’s house, so I am taking a bit of sewing with me. First of all, I plan to get my swap blocks done for the Broken Dishes swap being hosted by Barb at Fun with Barb. Here is my test block to make sure they all come out the right size!

And here are my cut pieces. I will have to put them in another container. I’m not taking that enamelware on the plane!

I will be making forty blocks from each red/muslin combination. 

I plan to take my vintage daisy blocks for my hand work for the plane.


I’m really pleased with how they are coming along!

I have blog  posts scheduled ahead, but as always, family comes first on these trips! So I though I love and read every comment, I will not be able to respond often. I appreciate your understanding in this.

It will be wonderful to spend time with my son and his family. I can’t wait to snuggle my two little boys out there! They are growing so fast.

Take care!

 Linking up with My Quilt Infatuation

Posted in Uncategorized | 8 Comments

WIP Wednesday ~ Flag Block

Posted on August 24, 2016 by katyquilts

I showed you the little flag block I made the other day. It is the center for a small calendar quilt from the Temecula Quilt Company.

Of course, I can never leave a pattern alone and I wanted to set my flag horizontally, but the proper way to display a flag is with the blue field in the upper left hand corner. Always. So I am back to their layout, almost.

I thought I would add these wide borders. But I ripped them off.

It was okay, It just didn’t have the naïve look of a doll quilt.

That’s better! I’ll be using those border strips for binding.

Have a great day!

Linking up with Sew Fresh Quilts, Quilt Fabrication, Esther’s Blog

Posted in Civil War Repro Quilts, Doll Quilts, Uncategorized | 5 Comments

Twist is a Top!

Posted on August 22, 2016 by katyquilts

I’ve been multitasking with my projects lately. I got the Twist blocks sewn into a top this weekend.

And I got it loaded into the frame.  My plan was to stitch an edge to edge design. I narrowed it down to these two:


This is how it looks so far.
This likely won’t get finished until mid month as I am preparing for another trip. 

Linking up with The Quilting Room with Mel, Free Motion by the River

Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments

DWMonday~ Using a Singer 99K

Posted on August 22, 2016 by katyquilts

Daughter #3 was having trouble with her vintage machine recently. So I brought it home to see what was up. These things work beautifully, as long as you don’t miss any thread guides (her mistake) and you have the right needle in (my mistake)! I kept it for a few days to make sure all was well.

I figured in order to give it a thorough test, I should make something on it. So I printed out a paper foundation pattern and got to it.

That was fun! Even though I printed it backwards from the way I wanted it. Oh well.

I enjoyed that so much that I had to make another, smaller block. Yep, did that one backwards too!

Sadly, I didn’t keep my stripes in the light strips going the same way either. Ugh. Oh well. I have a plan in mind for one of these. Stay tuned.

Linking up with Cooking Up Quilts, Love Laugh Quilts, Em’s Scrap Bag, Patchwork Times

Posted in Uncategorized, Vintage Singer Sewing Stuff | 10 Comments

Slow Stitching Sunday ~ Vintage Daisies

Posted on August 21, 2016 by katyquilts

The day hubby and I went down to Detroit, I was pretty sure I would finish the hand stitching I had planned to do and wanted another something in the queue in case I had more time. And I did! I didn’t have much time to think about a project, but I opened one of my cupboards and spied a pile of these vintage blocks.

They are round about 17 inches and the background fabric is a rather loose weave. But they are all basted so who am I to argue?

Aren’t these fabrics fun?

I am going to applique the centers and petals and leave the stems until the end. When I get that far, I will trim all the blocks to the same size and then applique the stems.

There are 20 of these blocks. I think they will look great with sashing and corner stones. This will likely be a very long term project, but I will be slow stitching on it today!

Hold the presses! I just found this on Pinterest!

I love the black stitching! But I’ve never done this kind of stitching. I think pearl cotton would work? Any ideas on needles/thread for this? Thanks in advance for any help!

Have a great day!

Linking up with Kathy’s Quilts

PS There area few days of voting left for Pets on Quilts over at Lilypad quilting. Click here to see all the entries and to vote for your favorite. 

 

Posted in Uncategorized, Vintage Fabrics | 17 Comments

Stitching Sisters 

Posted on August 20, 2016 by katyquilts

If you have hung around here for any length of time, you have heard me talk about the Stitching Sisters Quilt of Valor group that I am lucky enough to be a part of. They meet once a month for sew days, but since they are about 90 minutes away and I work every other Saturday, I have only gotten down there to sew with them twice! Usually, one of the faithful members of the group attends the meetings and picks up tops for me. Then we meet halfway and she hands them off. When I am done quilting them, we meet up again and she delivers the finished quilts. Last weekend, all things worked out and I was able to go. I had a great time quilting with my friends and we even had a quilt presentation that afternoon. Yay!

Here are some pictures. First the quilt is awarded by the maker, Karen made this top and I got to quilt it.

We unfold the quilt so everyone can see it.

Then we wrap our vet in a big quilty hug and tell him (or her), “Welcome home!”

This next quilt was made by Lori. She is over on the left helping to hold up the quilt.

This next one was made by Val. Love it!

And this last beauty was pieced and quilted by Sue over on the left.

Such an honor to be a part of this!

The above pictures were all taken by our fearless leader, Terri. I only took the two pictures below of our sewing time. There were more people here than you would guess by my pics!

I love this organization and am blessed to be a part of it. These ladies trust me with their precious tops and I never take that for granted. They have welcomed me into their group with open arms. This is my “tribe.”

If you would like to learn more about the Quilts of Valor Foundation, click here to visit the web site.

Have a great day!

Posted in Quilt of Valor, Uncategorized | 9 Comments

Finish It Up Friday ~ Grant and Lee

Posted on August 19, 2016 by katyquilts

I’m calling this one, The Get Along Quilt. Have you seen the internet pictures of the two kids wearing a single t-shirt that says “Get Along Shirt” on it? The idea is that they have to wear it until they can get along and play nicely together. I was reminded of that with this center panel. In this case, Grant and Lee seem to be getting along quite well!

Or maybe they are just giving each other the silent treatment.

In any case, the picture above  shows the quilt before washing and the rest  after.

The last time I did a panel quilt, I quilted around the images in the panel. I wanted to do something differently here so I used a cross hatch. I also used invisible thread on this part. I didn’t want them to look like they were in jail.

I am most pleased with the border quilting on this one. I will definitely do this again.

The fabric on the back is a Mary Koval print that I picked up out in AZ.

My foyer is a bit tight and I can’t get a straight on shot, but I wanted to show you where I decided to hang this.

And one last shot on the fence.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Linking up with Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Sew Can She, The Quilt Journal

Posted in Civil War Repro Quilts, Finishes | 22 Comments

Pantograph Tutorial

Posted on August 18, 2016 by katyquilts

Someone recently asked me how I line up my pantographs for quilting. It’s a bit hard to explain, so I thought I would do a tutorial here. This beautiful top was made by Kathy from our Stitching Sisters QOV group. She also took part in the Mystery Quilts 4 Military that Alycia hosted. I love her top!

This is the panto I am using.

And this crayon is a tool I couldn’t do without when I am quilting with pantographs. I have a plastic covering on the table of my frame and I slide my pantos underneath that. It keeps them flat and I can use this crayon to mark them up. It wipes off with a dry rag when I am done.

The first thing I do, is drop my needle at the corner of my loaded quilt.

This is the view if you are standing at the back of the machine. That red dot is my laser light and it’s position directly corresponds with the needle on the quilt top. I have used the crayon to draw in a vertical line representing the side of the quilt and a horizontal line representing the top of the quilt. The line is at the bottom of the picture because you are standing at the back of the frame and the top of the quilt is closest to you. Hope that makes sense!

I could slide my panto to the right or left under the plastic to get a convenient part of the pattern to start on.

The lighter gray lines toward the bottom represent a previous row. Since we are just starting, there isn’t one stitched on the top yet. The darker lines correspond  to our working row. Nothing below the red horizontal line will appear on the top and nothing to the right of the red line will appear on the top. You will notice that I don’t start at the very beginning edge of the pantograph. This is so the design is completely filled in on the quilt top without any blank spaces. This is the beginning of my first row.

I have also drawn a vertical line representing the left edge of my quilt. Nothing to the right of this line will be on the top so I don’t need to stitch beyond that. It is my stopping point.

When I finish a row and am ready to advance the quilt in the frame, I drop the needle at the very top of the design like this:

You can see that the laser light is in the corresponding position on the pantograph.

Leaving the needle down, I advance the quilt and the machine moves with it.

I will continue advancing the quilt until the laser light reaches the top of the “row below” on the pantograph. Now you can see that the partial rows at the top and bottom are for lining up with panto. This keeps all the rows perfectly spaced without any gaps in the quilting across the surface.

Now I am ready to start quilting the next row!

I hope this makes sense! Please ask questions. I will do a follow up post if necessary.

Have a great day!

Posted in Long Arm Quilting, Longarm Quilting, Pantographs, Tutorials, Uncategorized | 7 Comments