Design Wall Monday with Two Finishes

Venetian Tiles, an X-Block pattern is finally done (well, almost as I have one side border to sew the binding down).  Just another of those quilt tops that needed to be quilted.  I used the scraps and my tri-recs ruler to make the border pieces.

The Stitch Connection is one of my favorite applique sampler sites.  I've made the Snowman Sampler in applique and machine redwork embroidery too.  I have the teddy bears, angles, a lot of embroidery designs as well. This one is called Bloomin' Flowers and it was a treat to stitch on the embroidery machine.  I get a kick out of combining my favorites styles in one quilt, i.e., traditional piecing, machine embroidery and using scraps.  Mine look totally different than their version but I wanted to see what effect scraps would look like and it's WONDERFUL.

To view more design walls, visit www.patchworktimes.com.
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My Weekend, Finished Projects, Design Wall Monday

I attended the Round Bobbin Expo on Saturday. Actually, my guild had a booth that I staffed for an hour or so.  I saw the funniest quilt, Haunted by UFOs that I had to share.  While I'm definitely not stressed about having well over 125 works in progress it did make me stop for a moment to think about them.  I even counted how many UFOs are completed quilt tops.  I found 20 quilts that need backs made and another 17 with backs made ready for quilting.

I finished the binding on four quilts today!  Yeah!!! Mon Sheri Waves, available at the following link, www.robertkaufman.com/assets/pdf/mon_sheri_waves_tutorial_final.pdf,is a project assigned to the Scrap Quilting Club in May.  I brought my GO! Cutter to the meeting and anyone that wanted to participate could cut their drunkards path blocks with the die. I did make a modification and added setting triangles all the way around instead of chopping off the sides as instructed in the pattern.

Tumbling Frolics is finally finished. I have a tutorial on cutting fabrics with the GO! Cutter on my blog I uploaded in October 2010. I really like this quilt and don't know why I didn't quilt it sooner.  The binding was relatively easy to sew, just cut a stripe fabric on the bias and then sewed in a slight curve fashion along the edges; worked for me!

In 2001 I made a Butterfly Kaleidoscope (scroll down and look on right) stack and whack quilt. I've always been a saver and user of scraps.  When I cut the first angle to get 45 degree angle, I cut the scraps into squares. After making the quilt, I pieced this quilt top, putting stars around the kaleidoscope squares.  It's been sitting the the quilting pile all these years.  Boy am I glad this one is completed.

I made this rail fence quilt top for my brother in February of 2010 but never got it quilted.  I thinks he's finally ready for his quilt. LOL  

I sewed some more on my line dance t-shirt quilt. I'm working on adding a photo border all the way around. I have two sides made, taking up 6 hours of my sewing time.  I sure didn't think it would take so long to make this border.  I decided to put it aside to work on bindings instead. As I look at this picture during the upload, there is definitely no space to rest the eyes on this quilt!

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Left Border...

3 hours of sewing = 1 side of the border.  I didn't think it would take so long to sew the photos into a border and then sew them to the quilt top.  Wrong!  I decided to just randomly sew them together in keeping with the theme of the quilt.  However, I decided to use predominately black fabrics.

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My Design Wall

I'm so late posting for this week that I missed design wall Monday.  I'm posting anyway as I have done a little work. I have binding sewed on three of the six quilts I quilted but am slowly hand sewing it to the back. I will post finished photos of each quilt when I get there.

My Christmas Scraps quilt is ready for sewing the blocks into rows.  I now have all the blocks labeled.

I also did a little work on my t-shirt quilt that is now changing to a line dancing t-shirt photo quilt.  I had problems getting the pictures printed, even having to send the original printer back to the manufacturer.  Then I got slowed down as my husband decided to upgrade our Internet service and had to wait to install the wireless printer.  I FINALLY got the photos printed with pretty good clarity.  I printed them on Timeless Treasures printer photo fabric.

Have a great weekend everyone!
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Design Wall Monday

Along with the bathroom remodel, I've been busy with quiltmaking.  It was the only thing keeping me sane during the process. By Tuesday, I was ready to scream really loud.  To see photos of the finished room, click HERE.

On Tuesday I gave a lecture on scrap quilts to Loose Threads quilt guild that meets in Ballwin, Missouri. I enjoyed meeting new people and ran into a few friends that I knew from other quilt guilds and quilt shops. Below is a photo of my table set up.  I completely forgot to bring my quilt stand. LOL Behind the first table is three bins with more quilts!

Friday I spent the day sewing quilt backs and cutting batting for seven quilts.  I headed over to a friend's house (who is out of town) to borrow her long arm machine for a round of marathon quilting.  I already appreciated my local long arm machine quilters but quilting so many quilts in such a short period time made me also admire them. I had top tension problem, bobbin tension problems, bobbin spring popping out, thread breakage, pin sticks, feet hurting from standing so long (even on one of those stress mats), a little back pain, a loose seam toward the end of one quilt I needed to creatively repair, frame adjustments, and probably a few other things I'm not remembering at the moment.  Just because it's quilted on a long arm machine doesn't mean it's stress free. By the way, I gave up on quilt #7 at 5pm; I was tired and wanted a nap!

If I get any time this week, it will be spent making binding; only one of these will have the binding installed completely by machine.  I'll talk about them more as I finish them.

To see more design walls, visit www.patchworktimes.com .

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http://www.teaquilts.com

Bath Remodel - FINISHED

Yesterday the bathroom was completely finished.  I feel like I'm living inside of a HGTV home remodel program.  I just want to stand at the door and admire this beautiful room.  I need to purchase new trash can and soap dishes as the ones we purchased before the work began do not look good in the finished room.

I now have the remodel bug and will start shopping for supplies to get the kitchen done next year. This time I should be able to get better prices since I have a longer period to shop than I did with the bath.

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My day...

As I start typing this post, it's 11:53 p.m.  Don't quite know why I not asleep other that I'm excited with how my day progressed.

First, I posted about the bath remodel earlier in the week but received spam comments advertising remodeling supplies and services.  I attempted to delete the comments from my phone and instead deleted the post. Anyway, the most exciting part of my day was the completing of the bath remodel.  I guess I was too exhausted with the waiting to take finished photos; will upload a few.  Here is one wall from the previous post that was mistakenly deleted prior to grouting.  About Wednesday, I was getting a little testy with the inconvenience so I'm really excited that it's all over; it took almost two weeks.







My other exciting event was using a friend's long arm machine to quilt a few quilts.  Yesterday I pieced backs and cut batting for seven quilt tops. Here are photos of two of them on the frame; forgot to take the third photo.  I plan to go back tomorrow to quilt another 2-3 quilts, depending upon time. In my WIP stack, I have over 30 quilts that need quilting.

Have a blessed Sunday!

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