Fabric Shopping!

Posted on June 18, 2016 by katyquilts

Our week here in Phoenix is going by all too fast! But today I squeezed in a trip to my favorite fabric shop, SAS herein Phoenix. Here is my haul:

When the lady started measuring that flag fabric, she started belting out You’re a Grand Old Flag! No kidding! Every single word. 

I appreciate all the comments and visits even though I have not had time to respond. Tomorrow will be my last chance to see my Daughter #2 until she returns from her deployment sometime next year. So this is a bittersweet trip for sure. We are enjoying Big L and Little L as well as #1 Son and Dear Daughter in Law. 

Have a wonderful weekend!

Posted in Fabric | 8 Comments

Finish It Up Friday ~ The Hawaiian Version

Posted on June 17, 2016 by katyquilts

No, I’m not in Hawaii. I am in Arizona! Yay! But Hubby and I did go to Hawaii a few years back with his parents. It was a wonderful trip. I bought some Hawaiian fabric and a book on Hawaiian quilts.  Have I ever mentioned how I feel about appliqué? Um, yeah. I cut out exactly one block and fused it to the background with Heat N Bond.


And it never got any farther than this. Heat N Bond is not a good product for this application. Not for me anyway. I never did stitch around the edges because it gummed up my machine needle.

Anyway, I recently found this ancient UFO and decided it might be a fun piece to practice with on the long arm. I wouldn’t be bothered if I ended up throwing it out. You have to just play now and then.

 So I loaded it up and tried out a border idea I had. So far, so good. Then I stitched along the edges of the appliqué. Not so good. The speed of the needle heats up and causes the glue to get gummy. This means skipped stitches at best. After cleaning the needle several times, I got around it once and called it good. Then I practiced pebbling in the background.


I am not good at this. But knowing it would be better when I wasn’t so close, I soldiered on and bound it by machine. Here it is before washing.


Okay, better than I expected but I wanted to wash and see how the fusing held up. The answer? Not good. Not at all. And it didn’t help that I failed to stitch around those little openings.


Yeah, that was awful.
But I loved the texture of the border and background.


So I figured I would try to salvage the mess. I used my walking foot to stitch around the little openings. Then I ironed the darn thing into submission.


I think it worked! Not a masterpiece by any stretch, but I rather like it now. I think I’ll keep it. The picture above shows the texture well but the one below shows the actual color best.


I learn something from every piece I make.

Have a great weekend!

Linking up with Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Crazy Mom Quilts, Sew Can She, Arabesque Scissors

Posted in Finishes, Free Motion Quilting, UFOs, Uncategorized | 16 Comments

Throwback Thursday!

Posted on June 16, 2016 by katyquilts

Are you tired of my closet quilts yet? LOL I could do TBT posts for at least the next year and never repeat!

I remember making this quilt when we lived in France in the late 1990s. The teal fabrics were all from a single piece of fabric that had these gradated stripes. I am pretty sure I bought it at JoAnn Fabrics before  we left.

I couldn’t bear to not use those two leftover blocks so they went in the border.

The backing fabric came from Ikea.

And this quilt was made around the same time. I remember that it hung in my son’s room in France.

That border fabric is an old Alexander Henry print and I thought I was so clever to applique a couple parrots onto the blocks!

It is still just as bright as the day I finished it! Some quilts like this one, I just don’t know what to do with now. I can’t just throw it out, but neither do I want to hang it in my house. It’s too small for a baby quilt and I am not sure I would give away something this old anyway. First world quilting problems, I know!

Have a great day!

 

Posted in Uncategorized | 7 Comments

WIP Wednesday ~ Leaders/Enders

Posted on June 15, 2016 by katyquilts

Here is a quick update on my leader/ender project. I have finished all 64 blocks! Here are the last few.

That’s quite a stack there!

This is all the pieces I had left.

IMG_9856

I am donating these to our Maker Space for kids at the library. I want them out of my house! I am still debating on a border for this. I would like to add a narrow border, but it will be 96 inches square before adding one. If I do, I will need to buy bigger batting than I have right now!

Remember these hour glass blocks? They will be my next leader/ender project.

It shouldn’t take long to finish these blocks up that way. In the mean time, I need to think about the next leader/ender project that I want to do.

Have a great day!

Linking up with Sew Fresh Quilts, Quilt Fabrication

 

Posted in Leader/Ender, Scraps, Uncategorized | 9 Comments

A Few Sewing Room Projects

Posted on June 14, 2016 by katyquilts

It seems that I am forever tweaking things in the sewing room. I am always looking for things that could work or work better. I found this little cart at a local antique fest. You know that enamel top got me!  It had lost its wheels, the poor thing.

A trip to Menard’s remedied that! While I was there, I picked up some spray paint. It really needed a bit of a do-over and if I were going to paint, it might as well be red!

Not perfect, but better! At the same place, I found one of these paper roll holders. I have wanted one forever, but I am too cheap to pay the prices I have seen on these. This one was a bargain at $15 so it came home with me.

Hubby has a piece of wood that I will mount it to rather than permanently fixing it to my table top. I had a roll of paper from Ikea, but it was too long! Ugh! Well, necessity is the mother of invention, so I wrapped painters tape around the roll in one spot and used a hack saw to cut it down to size. Then I had a small roll that I can use for paper piecing the borders for my Gwennie Inspired QAL Medallion. It was a win-win!

The cabinets in my sewing room are nearing 20 years old now. Hard to believe! Until you looked at those brass trimmed knobs. I found a whole bag of new knobs for $4.99 so I switched them out. Don’t they look better? Changing all 20 of them took about 20 minutes.

Have a great day!

 

Posted in Sewing Room Pics, Uncategorized | 17 Comments

Design Wall Monday ~ Mug Rug

Posted on June 13, 2016 by katyquilts

Craftsy offered a free mug rug pattern a while back on their blog. I printed it out and set it aside, knowing it would be a perfect small project to do when I didn’t have a lot of time to sew. The day came! So I got out my box of solid scraps.

This is what the paper piecing pattern looks like.

The mug rug on the blog was done in a rainbow and I planned to do the same. I wasn’t sure I had enough scraps in the right shades to do this, you need 15. I was surprised to find that I had to edit out about 5 or 6 pieces to get down to 15!

It was a quick sew, all done by machine except for the last bit of binding.

Sadly, I got the last two pieces added out of order. Ugh! They are staying now!

I think it looks great sitting in this bush in my yard!

Have a great day!

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

Posted in Finishes, Uncategorized | 9 Comments

Slow Stitching

Posted on June 12, 2016 by katyquilts

So far my little slow stitching English paper piecing project is going pretty well. I did quite a bit of glue basting in the car on the way to the airport and while waiting to take off. 

 
It took a bit to get into the rhythm of glue basting, but I think I have it down now. I started stitching on the plane. I got these done. 

  
Not sure how many more I will do this week, because there are kids to visit, babies to snuggle, and grand dogs to play with. But perhaps here and there…. 

 
Also, many of you said to use the extra goose for a label on my baby quilt. Great idea! I think I will! Thanks!

I also had questions regarding the outlet stores mentioned yesterday. It is a small Michigan only chain called Merchandise Outlet. Their stores are all in small towns, Gaylord, Gladwin, Harrison, the biggest is Mount Pleasant.

And now for some gratuitous baby pics. Big L.

  

And Little L.

 
Love my boys! Happy slow stitching.
 

Linking up with Kathy’s Quilts

Posted in Uncategorized | 11 Comments

Bargains

Posted on June 11, 2016 by katyquilts

Hubby and I recently spent some time shopping at our favorite closeout stores. There is a small chain of them here in Michigan and you never know what you will find there.

At one, I found some of this:

It is for piecing together scrap batting into useable sizes. With my long arm, I end up with TONS of scraps. I usually zig zag the pieces together but this is much faster. I have use it once so far and it was very easy. It runs over $5 each at JoAnn’s but I got 9 rolls for 80 cents each. I would never buy and use this at full price, I am way too cheap. But at this price, I couldn’t leave it.

I also picked up these badge reels. They are so handy for thread snips!

I also found this. I haven’t made many bags, I prefer to sew quilts. but I was intrigued by this product. I might use if for making more Pixie baskets.

I’ve been wanting to try out this batting blend so it was nice to get a crib sized batt at a bargain price.

And yes, I did just buy an iron like this!  Knowing how many irons I go through, hubby said to buy it so I had a spare. For $26, I decided to go for it.

We also stopped at a few yard sales on our travels. I found these Denyse Schmidt fabrics at one.

And this pile of zippers for $2 at another.

Not a bad little haul! have you found any wonderful bargains in unexpected places?

Posted in Uncategorized | 12 Comments

Finish It Up Friday ~ Flying Geese Baby Quilt

Posted on June 10, 2016 by katyquilts

Today I am sharing  with you my Flying Geese Baby Quilt. I love it when I find bits and pieces around my sewing room that I can use for a quick finish! I found these flying geese units while scrounging for something else. My only regret is that I have one left over. I would have used it but then I wouldn’t have had enough of the fabric on the sides. Such a dilemma!

I had fun with the quilting. It is all freehand work. I think the ribbon candy design in the geese looks a bit like little trees.

Big clam shells in the red. I didn’t want the quilting too tight because I wanted the quilt to stay soft.

I call the quilting in the blue area topographic map. You just have to be careful not to quilt yourself into a corner with this design!

Here is the back.

Here are a few pics after washing.

  
  
  
Have a great day!

Linking up with Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Crazy Mom Quilts, Sew Can She, Sarah Goer Quilts

Posted in Baby Quilts, Finishes, Uncategorized | 14 Comments

TBThursday – Mini Trip Around the World/Border Tutorial

Posted on June 9, 2016 by katyquilts

Here ‘s another older quilt that I made. Actually, I need to qualify that. I and my friend Anonymous made this. I bought this vintage block on e-Bay, added borders, quilted and finished it. I love it!

This is another quilt that ended up in one or another issue of QUILT magazine. You can see the quilting on the back here.

This border quilting design was often used by  my husband’s grandmother.

I like to use it still! And I thought you might as well. I tried to draw in my quilting plan below to show you how I did this.


I hope you can tell that you end up quilting some lines twice in order to keep this continuous and not have to break your thread. Also, I have a small template that I created to mark this with. It is a simple house shape.

Sorry for the even messier than usual handwriting! I used an app called Adobe Ideas to make these and that requires “writing” with my finger tip. Sadly, this app is no longer available. However, there is another app that can be used for this called You Doodle. I learned about it from Kathy over at Rose City Quilter. If you click the link, you can read more about it.

I hope this is helpful!

Linking up with A Quarter Inch From the Edge, My Quilt Infatuation

Posted in Doll Quilts, Throwback Thursday, Tutorials, Uncategorized | 12 Comments