Design Wall and a Finish

My deadline for completing the t-shirt/photo quit I'm calling "I Just Want to Dance" is finally done.  I tried taking a full photo outside with quilt open, but the sun isn't cooperating.  I used 17 t-shirts and 50 photos in the quilt.  I used my miscellaneous pieced fabrics as fillers; some where left over from previous projects, others were scraps laying withing arms reach.  It not your typical t-shirt quilt but I think I will enjoy looking at all the people I have fun with during this period of my life.

October running in so quickly made me realize I haven't worked on If the Hat Fits blocks (pattern by Buggy Barn).  I pieced all 9 blocks.  Now I'm ready to do some hand embroidery before the block/sashing/border can be sewn. One step closer, now I need to find the pearl cotton!

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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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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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Design Wall Monday

I've had a busy and full week.  I'm in the middle of a bathroom remodel but still found some time to quilt.  I think I needed it for my sanity as a large portion of my home has been taken over with supplies, contractor (and some days, his workers), plastic drop clothes and a whole lot of dust.While being majorly inconvenienced with the remodel, I decided to sew to keep my mind occupied with other, more positive things.  I'm still working on my Christmas Scraps quilt.  I finished all the red blocks this week.  After that, I started sewing a huge chunk of them into pairs.  Now I'm sewing a few more into fours's. Because I didn't use as many scraps in this quilt as in previous scrap quilts, I will need a large floor area to lay out the blocks prior to sewing the rows together. That job will need to take place at work when our craft guild meets next Friday.

I got bored with the Christmas quilt and decided something new for Halloween would be fantastic.  I've always wanted to make Buggy Barn's If the Hat Fits quilt from the Frightfully Crazy booklet.  I actually plan to make two, one for me and the other for my daughter.  Here is the first set cut awaiting the sewing. I shuffled the pieces to show one of the blocks.  This is my favorite way to make pieced blocks that would normally be paper-pieced.  It's a very creative process they have created.

Even when you skip through the directions, you always have to come back to Step #1.  I started sewing the sections together and got 9 of 10 of them sewn.  You see, I skipped the first part of the directions as I new it would be tedious and I just wasn't in the mood.  I need to make the withes' leg/shoe units.  Now, whether I'm in the mood or not, now is the time. I have the legs all cut but need to go through my scraps to find more black fabrics for the shoes.

Well, I'm visually inspired so I sewed one set of legs and shoes together so I could make one block.  Too cute!  The legs and shoes dangles in the block.  After all the blocks are sewn, I'll square them all to the same size.  Jeez, what was I thinking, making two sets, I hate, hate, hate turning those legs. I will have to put this project up this week as I need to make a few quilt backs and cut batting from the roll.  It's time to start machine quilting some of those tops in my "ready for quilting" pile.

Hope you have a great Monday and to see more design walls, visit www.patchworktimes.com.
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Bath Remodel Day 5, maybe 6 too

Yeah, now I see progress!  I have a tub.  It's all install inside the wall.  While on the subject of inside the wall, we had another problem.  Prior to purchasing this home, a bathroom was installed in the basement.  When the toilet was installed, they inserted the vent pipe upwards (as it should be) but didn't attach it to the main stack.  I guess they didn't want to rip out the wall to finish the job correctly. My family has looked at me strangely on occasion when I would walk into the house and say, "what's that smell?"  I have a very picky nose.  Well, I was validated yesterday and the problem was corrected today, prior to closing the wall.

 Picture showing shower head that was raised about seven inches.

 Had to remove the door today so we could install the remaining drywall.

 Here is where the new sink is going.  Yeah, no big hole in the wall anymore!

The downside of this day is that I now have sand dust all over my home and it will get worse before it gets better.  Tomorrow, day 6 will be another day of sanding.

Hopefully on Monday, Day 7, the painting will start.  Can you guess the new color of the bath?

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