KatyQuilts

May Wrap Up/ June Goals

Posted on May 31, 2016 by katyquilts

It’s that time again! Here is a look at how well I did on my May goals:

I want to get my nephew’s quilt finished. Done!
Brinton Hall borders! Not done.
I want to get my Metropolitan Fair Shoo Fly quilt done. I started it three years ago! Not done.
I want to get a black and white quilt that I have had in my head for ages out and into fabric! Done! Reveal will be on Friday!
I want to cut and kit up the rest of the fabrics for the log cabin quilt that I started. Done! Well, at least as far as I can go until I get more of the white fabric. It won’t take long to finish though.

What else did I accomplish this month?

I got my Dear Betty quilt done!

And I made a tiny bag.

I also made a trip home to Wisconsin to visit family. I have another big trip this month. Hubby and I will be heading to Arizona to see our kids and grandkids for 10 days. So I need to be reasonable in my goals! Here goes:

I want to cut out a quilt using this Mixology Jelly Roll that Daughter #3 bought me for Mother’s Day.
I am going to put the Metropolitan Fair top on this list one more time as I have a recipient in mind for it.
Borders on Brinton Hall!
The next border for the Gwennie Inspired Medallion QAL.
I want to join in on the Mystery Quilts for Military Yahoo Group mystery this time around. It is organized by Alycia over at Alycia Quilts. The first clue comes out while I am gone, but I really want to do this, Alycia designs beautiful quilts for this.

I think that is enough for this busy month!

Have a great day!

Linking up with Quilt Story, Free Motion by the River, Blossom Heart Quilts

Posted in Uncategorized | 9 Comments

Remember…..

Posted on May 30, 2016 by katyquilts

“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

‭‭John‬ ‭15:13‬ ‭ASV‬‬

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Slow Stitching Sunday ~ Appliqué Prep

Posted on May 29, 2016 by katyquilts

I’ve been prepping more pieces for my Gwennie Inspired Medallion QAL. I told you I was slow at this! I am no expert on the A word, but I thought I’d show you how I prep my leaves for appliqué.

First, I take a piece of freezer paper and fan fold it into 4 layers.

I used a small circle template to make a curved line.

And another.
There’s my leaf shape! Pretty simple. Then I place a staple through all the layers so they don’t shift when I cut them out.

Here are my four leaves.
The freezer paper on the waxy side can be ironed onto the back of my fabric.
Then I cut them out leaving about a quarter inch seam allowance.

Next, I thread baste the edges under. I shouldn’t have used green thread for this step!

This is what the back looks like, I don’t worry about perfectly tucking those points under, I will take care of that during the actual applique.

Then I pin the leaf in place on the background. You can see it is pretty small!

I applique around the edges, leaving the area between the arrows unstitched.

Then I remove the basting stitches and use tweezers to pull out the freezer paper template.

After tucking that edge back in, I finish the applique.

One leaf down, a bunch to go!

I only have one more week to finish this so I better get moving! Linking up with Kathy’s Quilts for Slow Stitching Sunday

Posted in Gwennie inspired Medallion QAL, Tutorials, Uncategorized | 17 Comments

More Black and White

Posted on May 28, 2016 by katyquilts

What a response to this WIP this past week! I am making forward progress on this. On my last post, I had my squares fused to the grid. Time to sew! I folded one row at a time on the line “between” pieces and pressed.

Then I took the whole thing to the machine to sew. I had my seam guide set for 1/4 inch. I pressed each seam before sewing.

After I had all the seams in one direction sewn, I very carefully used my rotary cutter to remove just a sliver of the fold.

Then I pressed these seams open. This took a long time.

Time to sew the other way! Again, I folded on the line and pressed before sewing each seam.

I trimmed the seam folds again, but this time I pressed to one direction. I think I was losing patience!

This is kind of a pain, but the results made it so very worth it! Not every intersection turned out perfectly, but most were quite nice.

Again, this kind of sewing can get a bit tedious. This helped:

I listened to 4 tracks while doing the sewing on this small top. Time to think about borders and quilting. Not sure how that will go with this fusible grid on the back. We shall see!

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Finsh It Up Friday ~ Dear Betty

Posted on May 27, 2016 by katyquilts

It all started with this Christmas gift from Daughter #1.

I immediately loved it, but it took me a while to find the perfect pattern for it. I finally settled on this traditional Rolling Star pattern.

These blocks are a whopping 18 inches finished. I wanted the fabrics to really shine here.

I need a good place to hang a big quilt for pictures!

I used my pattern boards to quilt this with a Baptist Fan design. Here is the backing, it is part of a duvet cover I found on clearance. The pattern and color were perfect!

I just love the texture that the quilting gives.

I used Superior Mono-poly thread on top and white magna Glide Classic in the bobbin. It is currently living in my guest room.

Sorry for the picture overload, but I love this texture!

I love leaving the door open and walking by this room.

I didn’t end up using all the fabrics in that bundle, so another quilt from this will be coming somewhere down the road.

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

Posted in Bed Quilts, Finishes, Uncategorized | 28 Comments

Throwback Thursday ~ More Closet Quilts

Posted on May 26, 2016 by katyquilts

Here are a couple more quilts I found while cleaning closets this week. This first one was made while we lived in France in the late 90s. I purchased a small bundle of these Provencal fabrics from a quilt shop in Paris called Le Rouvray.

I machine quilted this on my 1955 Singer Model 201. I think the white fabric came from Ikea.

The next one started out as a vintage top purchased at a garage sale. I could not believe my luck when I found it at a price I could afford!

I hand quilted this. I just love this sashing fabric. See the little duck blowing bubbles?

I quilted it simply and used a vintage purple fabric for the binding.

I have more closets to clean. I wonder what else I will find!

Linking up with My Quilt Infatuation

Posted in Throwback Thursday, Uncategorized | 4 Comments

WIP Wednesday ~ Black and White

Posted on May 25, 2016 by katyquilts

Have you figured it out yet? I had to cut up a bunch more inch and a half squares.

I’m using this fusible grid product.

I placed all my squares on the grid in my chosen pattern.

Then I placed a piece of parchment paper over the top and used my iron to fuse them in place.

That’s as far as I got yesterday. I’m hoping to start sewing today. I sure hope this all works out as planned! Stay tuned!

Linking up with Sew Fresh Quilts, Quilt Fabrication

Posted in Uncategorized | 13 Comments

Cleaning Closets

Posted on May 24, 2016 by katyquilts

Sounds fun, right? Not so much. I didn’t take a single stitch yesterday as I was too busy cleaning. The up side is that I found a couple quilts I hadn’t seen in a while. This is one inspired by Gwen Marston. I couldn’t find it when I did my announcement for theGwennie Inspired QAL. This one actually appeared in an issue of Quilt Magazine back in the day. It has been washed a gazillion times.

This next one has blocks from a swap way back in the days of the AOL Online quilters. Remember that? We had a small group and each made blocks to represent our house.

I love the lace curtains in the one on the upper right! The one on the right in the second row was made by a lady who lives Ina very modern looking house. She said if the roof was removed and you looked at her house from above, it would resemble a box of fabric!

At the time, we lived in a 1950s ranch and had just painted it blue.

Daughter #2 loved this quilt. I used to rock her with this quilt and we would make up stories about the people that lived in these houses. It isn’t a “pretty” quilt, or well done. But the memories of sitting with my baby girl mean it’s a keeper.

Happy Tuesday!

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

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Design Wall Monday ~ Another UFO…..Sort of….

Posted on May 23, 2016 by katyquilts

Em, over at Em’s Scrapbag, has a linky party on Monday’s called Moving It Forward. The idea is to share forward movement on any project. I really like this concept. There isn’t any pressure to share a finish, just encouragement to take another step toward the goal. In fact, I like this idea so much, that as I wander around my sewing room deciding what to work on, I find myself looking at UFOs and thinking, what do I need to do to move this forward? And that is exactly what I am doing with this one.

I listed this in my UFO parade at the beginning of the year.

I’m finally ready to start working on it again; but, I threw most of it out and decided to start over.

I have the same vision for this project, but in thinking about moving this project forward, I changed my mind about the process I will take to get there. Anyone want to guess where I am headed with this?