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

English Paper Piecing Project

Posted on June 8, 2016 by katyquilts

Say that three times fast! I know, I said after Brinton Hall that I wouldn’t do any more EPP. I didn’t enjoy it that much, even though I loved the results. But somewhere on our travels last summer, those Honeycomb pieces jumped into my hands. Then I had to get the squares to go with them.

I needed a travel project for our trip and my other hand piecing hexie top is just too big for air travel. So I got these out and started playing to see what I could make with them. I found two possibilities, this:

And this:

I still don’t know which way I am going, but I do know that I will be using this fabric, plus a few scraps from my tub. The prints here are all small so they will work well with these tiny pieces.

I have everything packed up in my Sew Together bag from Jackie.

Want a peek inside?

Fabric in the middle, precut to size, paper pieces in the top pocket and a ziplock for trash in the bottom pocket.

In the zippered parts, I have thread, glue stick, pencil,  scissors, needles, needle threader, and a thimble.

I thread basted my hexies for Brinton Hall. I decided to try glue basting this time. This will be a tiny quilt, probably 12 inches square. I can’t wait to get started!

I wanted to mention that I am not likely to respond to comments while I am gone. I read and appreciate each and every one. And I try to answer all questions. But every free moment over the next week or so will be spent with family. I have posts scheduled for most days that I am gone and I will do my best to play catch up when I get back. I hope you will visit anyway, I have some neat projects to share with you!

Linking up with Sew Fresh Quilts, Quilt Fabrication

Posted in EPP, Hand piecing, Uncategorized | 16 Comments

Brinton Hall Progress!

Posted on June 7, 2016 by katyquilts

After nearly a year, I finally was able to pull the papers from my Brinton Hall medallion.


That back sure looks messy!

Yesterday, I finished the borders. Sigh. So happy to be at this stage! Both the red and taupe border fabrics are from French General.



And here is the whole thing!

I love this large print in the border and was happy to have enough that I could center the motifs on each side. I’m so happy with how this turned out! I love all the scrappy hexies here! It finished at a bit under 60 inches square. It made it a goal to finish this before I left for Arizona and that really pushed me to get this done. Now I will take my time figuring out how to quilt this.

Linking up with Mel’s Quilting Room, Free Motion by the River, She Can Quilt

Posted in Brinton Hall, Civil War Repro Quilts, Uncategorized | 13 Comments

Gwennie Inspired Medallion QAL ~ Center Reveal!

Posted on June 6, 2016 by katyquilts
Humble Quilts

Today is the big day! All of those participating in the GIMQAL will be sharing their center blocks today on the link up with Lori over at Humble Quilts. Lori set the theme for the center block and the theme she chose was  baskets. You could interpret this any way you wanted; it should just be inspired by Gwen Marston’s work. I reached WAY out of my comfort zone and decided to do hand applique. Here is my block.

This currently measures about 24 wide and 22 inches tall. I will trim this, but I am waiting until I find out what the next theme is before I do. Then I hope to have enough extra around the edges to trim to a convenient size.

And yes, I know my basket does not have handles. I got so focused on putting something IN my basket that I totally forgot to add a handle. Now it is not getting one.

To be honest, this was my second attempt. You may recall that I pieced a block to use.IMG_6213

But this didn’t look very Gwen-like. So I am not sure what I will do with this, if anything.

I can’t wait to go see what everyone else made (click here)!It isn’t too late to join us. Whip up a basket block and you will be right on target. We have a month to finish the next round. All the details can be found here.

Speaking of the next round, the theme will be…..CHILDHOOD! For a more complete explanation, hop on over to Cynthia’s blog,   Wabi Sabi Quilts, and read about it.

Have a great day!

Also linking up with Cooking Up Quilts, Love Laugh Quilt, Em’s Scrapbag

Posted in Gwennie inspired Medallion QAL, Uncategorized | 26 Comments

Slow Stitching ~ Brinton Hall

Posted on June 5, 2016 by katyquilts

It has been a while since a Brinton Hall update. That’s because there hadn’t been any progress until this weekend. I am finally adding the red borders. I am appliqué in the hexies to it and will trim after.

This gives an idea of where I am now. The borders are glue basted and I have just begun stitching them on.

Sorry for the horrible picture. I hope to get this done before we leave for Arizona later this week. It USA bit too unwieldy for stitching on the plane. So I will need to find a travel project to take. 

We went to alocal antique fest yesterday with Daughter #1 and Little E. He was such a good boy!


I saw a number of quilts, but these two caught my eye. 

That was has been loved nearly to death! I hope mine look like this one day!


This one had the most magnificent stitching! 

Have a glorious day!

Linking up with Kathy’s Quilts

Posted in Uncategorized | 10 Comments

Quilting for a Friend

Posted on June 4, 2016 by katyquilts

My friend, Donna, is a fairly new quilter, but she is good. I knew she would be! This is the second top I have quilted for her and both of them were perfectly flat! Music to a long armer’s ears :). Isn’t this beautiful?

I quilted a fairly dense pantograph called Ground Cover from Urban Elementz on this.

I used Light Tan Glide thread. It has Warm and Natural batting.  This next picture shows the colors the best.

Color is off on this one, but the quilting shows! I really love this backing fabric that she chose.

It was a pleasure quilting for you, my friend!

 

 

Posted in Customer Quilts, HQ Avante, Machine quilting, Pantographs, Uncategorized | 8 Comments

Finish It Up Friday ~ Black and White Reveal!

Posted on June 3, 2016 by katyquilts

You have all been so very patient and indulgent with me as I have worked on this project. It is a rather long time coming! But there are reasons for that which I will share with all of you today. I started this way back some time last year.

I began working on it , but do you know how hard it is to keep all those one inch finished squares in a certain order? Because they HAD to be in perfect order. One misplaced square and the whole project was sunk. So I set it aside.

There is another part of this story so follow me down this rabbit trail for a bit. Around the end of the year, I noticed I was getting VERY close to the limit of storage space allowed for my blog. In order to get more storage, I had to start forking over money or deleting posts. I decided to spend some money on this blogging hobby and paid for my own domain name. Some of you regular and astute readers will know that around the first of the year, my address changed to katyquilts.net. Now if you have the old blog address, you are redirected here so no big deal. But this also meant my project was put on hold because my plan was to create…..a QR Code quilt that would link to my blog!

I used an online QR Code generator to get this:


My road map! Since I was starting over, I looked for an easier method to make this small quilt and I decided to use this product.

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It was a good move. It was like a jigsaw puzzle to put all the pieces in place and that was quite fun! This shows all the squares fused in place.


And with the rows in one direction sewn, you can really see how the size changes.

 

Next came borders and quilting. I wasn’t sure how the quilting would go with the layer of fusible in this, but it worked out just fine. Ready for some finished pictures? Here you go!

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Ta daaaaa!

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I quilted this in a simple free hand grid. No rulers. I just eyeballed the middle of the block. When I got all the lines in one direction, I took it off the frame and rotated it 90 degrees and reloaded it. I love this backing fabric from Ikea!

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You can see the quilting better here. It is far from exact, but it works for me.

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And there you have it. A long story indeed for a small quilt! But it was something I had in the back of my mind for a long time and I am glad I finally did it. And best of all, it works! If you have a QR Code scanner app on your phone or mobile device and scan this quilt (even the picture of it), it will bring you to my blog! How cool is that? It makes this nerdy little heart happy :).

This is where it is currently residing in the sewing room:

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Have a great day!

Linking up with Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Crazy Mom Quilts, Devoted Quilter, A Quilting Reader’s Garden, A Quilted Passion

 

 

Posted in Finishes, Uncategorized | 41 Comments

Throwback Thursday

Posted on June 2, 2016 by katyquilts

Here are a few more finds from my recent closet cleaning. This Elongated Hexagon was hand pieced from Civil War Repro scraps. It is probably close to 10 years old.

 It is machine quilted on my 1955 vintage Singer 201. It is a great machine for free motion work. Here is the back.

I really love this backing fabric and I pieced in this corner to have enough to use for the back  (see above). Feathers in the border and a 60 degree cross hatch in the body of the quilt.

You can really see the texture in this quilt taken in the sun! And the wrinkles too. Sorry about that!


This one is newer. It was made as part of a challenge on the Yahoo Small Quilt Talk group. This is one of my favorite small quilts.

Feathers and cross hatch again!
  The quilting shows better here.

And here.


This is the back.

I need to find places to hang these two again. I still like them after all these years!

Linking up with A Quarter Inch From The Edge for Throwback Thursday 

Posted in Doll Quilts, Throwback Thursday, Uncategorized | 9 Comments

Work In Progress Wednesday ~ Flying Geese

Posted on June 1, 2016 by katyquilts

Yesterday, I came across some flying geese I had pieced while looking for something else. I wanted a quick project, so I decided to stop looking and start piecing!

You might remember another quilt I made from more of these Flying Geese units last summer.

I am completely out of my favorite white fabric that I used for piecing these, so I had to get creative as to how I used them. First I tried adding these solids. Its okay.

Then I decided maybe more gray, but I didn’t have any more of the gray on the left so I tried the polka dot.

Nope. Then I found a couple  prints.

I really like the one on the left. I didn’t have enough of either  and didn’t care for these two together, so I kept looking.

This works for me! The one on the left is an older Denyse Schmidt print and the one on the right is a Lotta Jansdotter print that Daughter #2 gifted  to me.

I may trim a bit of the left hand side. I will decide after I quilt it.

Linking up with Sew Fresh Quilts, Quilt Fabrication

Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments