Single Irish Chain

My friend, Donna, recently finished piecing her first quilt. I am the lucky one that got to quilt this beautiful Single Irish Chain!  

 Can you believe this is her first? It is so beautifully done! She chose this panto from Urban Elementz. 

I used Glide thread in Celery for the top and Cream Magna Glide Classic in the bobbin. I turned off the lights to take this next picture so the quilting would really show. 

And this is the lovely label on the back. The little white bits are stabilizer that will wash away.

I thought it might be fun to try taking a video of the quilting process. The quality admittedly isn’t great. I taped my phone to the long arm machine to do this. I hope it isn’t too loud!  

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Thanks, Donna, for letting me quilt this special quilt for you!

Linking up with Pink Doxies.

Posted in Finishes, Machine quilting, Pantographs | 9 Comments

Finish It Up Friday

A few weeks ago I mentioned a super secret project that I was working on. It has  now been gifted so I can share it here. 

 

Daughter #1 made these blocks before her wedding. The guests signed the blocks instead of a guest book. She hasn’t had time to put them together and with Baby #2 coming along in December, I knew it wasn’t going to happen any time soon. So I decided to finish the quilt for her birthday.  

  

 

She was so pleased! Here is a look at the back: 

I used a vintage sheet that my sister found in the wedding colors.


I used Glide  thread, Hobbs 80/29 batting, and a panto called Featherize from Urban Elementz.

Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts, Richard and Tanya Quilts, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Prairie Sewn Studios, Pink Doxies, Sew Can She.
 

Posted in Finishes | 18 Comments

Progress and a Timesaving Tip or Two….

I got all the rest of the strip sets sewn and sub cut yesterday. This is not a final layout but it does show one of each strip set. 

And I have a couple time saving tips for you as well. The first is only for those that have die cutters. Sorry!

After I make my strip sets, I subcut them with my strip cutting die. In this case, the original print strips were cut at 2 1/2 inches wide. So I lay them out on my 2 1/2 inch strip cutting die like this:

 You can see that I have gently folded them to fit. I also have marked my die to make sure that my new cuts will be perfectly perpendicular to the seams in my sets. I lay the cutting mat on top and run it through the die.

And here they are all ready to sew!

 You can see how fast this goes. And that is how I could do all the sub cutting for the first set on my lunch break yesterday! Here are my sets all ready to go.

 I made a total of 20 strip sets for this quilt. Each strip set yielded 16 rows.That will give me a total of 64 blocks. This is more than I need but I can use the leftovers for a baby quilt.

Bonnie mentioned in a comment yesterday that she couldn’t believe all I got done before work! She didn’t know that I didn’t have to be there until 1 PM yesterday! But it does lead me to another tip. And that is, to sew something, anything before work. And I almost always do. Even when I have to be there at 9 AM. If I get something started before I go, I am much more likely to get back at it when I return home. Maybe I don’t sew, but I will get some pieces laid out and ready or play a bit at the design wall, perhaps sew a row of a pantograph at the long arm.

I also only work part time but I guess telling you all to quit your jobs wouldn’t be a very helpful tip. And my kids have all left the nest but I certainly won’t suggest that you kick any of your little birds out! But those two things do help make more time for quilting!

Have a wonderful day!

Linking up with My Quilt Infatuation for NTT.

 

Posted in Timesaver Tips | 8 Comments

Work in Progress Wednesday

I finally decided on a design for my sister’so quilt. As I was messing around on EQ, I remembered an old book that I had from Quilt in a Day. 


I originally bought  this back when we lived in France to teach a friend to quilt. It still has the Irish Chain feel I was going for. I got my strips cut before work. 

And one set sewn. 

When I came home on lunch, I got these sets subcut and one block laid out. 

The book pattern calls for over cutting the background strips and then trimming the blocks to size. I cut the strips to the exact size to begin with. I understand why they do this and that they want beginners to be successful, but I find this unnecessary for myself.

This won’t be a quilt in a day because I don’t have a full day to devote to it right now.

I used this pattern to make this quilt for my nephew and his wife when they got married 15 years ago.  


That is a picture of a picture and the quality is bad. But it is the only picture of this quilt that I have. And it only shows half of the quilt! It was huge. I quilted it on my 1955 Singer Model 201. It is made from all Repro 30’s prints.

In digging through old pictures looking for this, I realized I made an Irish Chain quilt for this same sister 16 years ago. 

 This is a full size quilt shown on a queen size bed. And it is another picture of a picture. 

Linking up with Freshly Pieced, Sew Fresh Quilts.

Posted in Uncategorized | 10 Comments

A Quilt for My Sister

I am planning to make a quilt for my older sister this summer. I want to make something using these 2 1/2 inch strips. They are all from various Denyse Schmidt collections.

I have 64 strips cut from 64 different prints.  I’ve been playing around on  EQ7 trying to come up with a plan.  
  

Obviously, my version of either will be scrappy. I need to commit and start sewing!

Linking up with Free Motion By The River and Quilt Story.

Posted in Uncategorized | 7 Comments

Design Wall Monday

Here’s a peek at what is on my design wall today. 


I had originally planned to put all the red blocks in the upper left hand corner to give the impression of a flag. But I would need a lot more blue blocks and a lot less red. With this layout, I was able to use every block and not have any leftover.

I started with a bundle of 8 fat quarters and added the background fabric. You may remember that I had just enough left to cut out these HSTs. 


I am using these for leaders/enders now.  Here’s hoping I can get this top together today!

Linking up with Patchwork Times for DWM A Quilting Reader’s Garden for WIP Be Gone, and Cooking Up Quilts for MCM, and I Have to Say for Show and Tell Tuesday.

Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments

Happy Father’s Day!

Yesterday, Mr. Wonderful and I spent the day bumming around. We went to a few garage sales, a farmers market, an antique fair, and some antique malls. The weather was perfect and we had a great time. The mister found this lovely little machine in the first place we stopped. It was made in the 1950’s by the Artcraft Company. 

We also found this tiny little Casige machine. 

Some of these booths are so inviting!


I picked up a few more pieces of enamelware as well. 

I love the little boxes with lids. I have quite a lot of this so I am pretty picky about what I buy and it has to be very inexpensive. I’m willing to wait for a real deal on any antiques. It is part of the fun for me.

At the Farmer’s market, I picked up one of these: 


I love to hang my clothes on the line but always used an ice cream bucket for my clothes pins. Now I have a real pin bag! I could have made this myself, but I’ve been hanging clothes out for 27 years and haven gotten around to it, so it wasn’t likely to happen.

I took along some slow stitching but didn’t get much done. It is my plan for today as well.

We celebrated Father’s Day a few weeks ago with our local kids but I have to give a shoutout to Mr. Wonderful.

And to my own dad as well. 


I am blessed.

Linking up to Kathy’s Quilts for  Slow Stitching Sunday.

 

Posted in Uncategorized | 15 Comments

It’s a Beautiful Day!

And here is a lovely little quilt to share with you. 

 

The squares in this measure half of an inch! I purchased this beautiful vintage block, added borders, quilted, and bound it. This unknown quilter’s effort deserved to be finished! This is an old project but I recently pulled it out to use in my guest room and decided to share it here. 

Have a glorious weekend!

Posted in Uncategorized | 11 Comments

Finish It Up Friday

I started this Log Cabin quilt over two years ago and I am SO happy to say it is finally done!  

The blocks finish at 4 inches. I think I drafted the block in EQ but I don’t really remember anymore. The quilt finished at 42 inches square. And it really is square but the wind made it look like it wasn’t in these pics. 

  

  

  

 And the back. 

  

  

I used Warm and White batting, Glide thread, and Superior Mono-Poly. I used a template for the circles in the red border. It has 72,224 quilting stitches in the top and has 848 pieces. I did a lot of ripping on this one. It is one of the few quilts that I didn’t love working on. But now it’s done and I like it. It will soon hang in my hall. 
Linking up with Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Crazy Mom Quilts, Richard and Tanya Quilts, A Quilting Reader’s Garden, Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework

Posted in Civil War Repro Quilts, Finishes | 28 Comments

TBThursday

I purchased this antique quilt top a couple years ago. I found it in a thrift shop for the princely sum of one dollar! I took advantage of some nice weather recently to take some better pictures of it.

    

  

Aren’t these fabrics wonderful?

  

Someday I would like to hand quilt this.

I will never forget the day I found this top. I was having a horrible day and on a whim, I stopped in to a local thrift shop and found this. It felt like a gift. This top will always serve as a reminder of God’s goodness and care because of that. Have a great day!

Linking up with Quilting Jet Girl for Thankful Thursday.

Posted in Uncategorized | 7 Comments