4th Christmas Quilt Done!

I have finished the 4th Christmas quilt and started working on the 5th (last) one for my Christmas quota. :)

I quilted Cameron's quilt with the Matrix. I quilted pretty far apart. About 4 in. It's going to be very cuddly;)

The last one is for my son, Drew who also likes blue. This one will be HST's again, but very different.

I got a new ruler to assist in trimming HST's and I have to say I love it!

I know my posts and comments have been scarce. But I am concentrating on "making" at the moment. So I apologies. Also, posting from my iPhone with iPhone. Not sure how that's gonna work out. I'll get better pictures of Cameron's quilt later.

I'm linking up with Leah Day's quilt along Wednesday's.

Now, off to bed:)

Danielle

Blood Sweat and Tears

 I didn't link up for UFO Sunday this weekend for 2 reasons. I'm furiously working on my Christmas quilt quota, and I have FINISHED all of my UFO'S!

OK, I said furiously. How furiously? I knew it would happen sooner or later. It did. As I was slicing and dicing fabric.....

.....this happened

Yep. Rotary cutting accident. It bleed like the dickens. A quick trip to Walmart was in order to pick up band aids. When you have children at home, you never have a supply on hand. The moment you buy a box causes a band aid obsession that even a box of 100 can't surpass.

So I got home and got doctored up. I was determined to get this pieced together.

This is my #4 Christmas quilt for Cameron. I got going on the piecing and then this happend.

A little scissor snipping incident. I didn't let that detour me. I still managed to get 3/4 of the top pieced. I used the quadrant method to piece it. Just Like Leah Day's quadrant method of quilting, I applied it to the piecing. It made the rows much more manageable. This is Christmas quilt #4 out of 5 needed. Obviously I need to slow down a little so I don't mutilate myself. But I need to keep a steady pace.  Wish me luck that I don't have any needle incidents!

Danielle

The Learning Quilt

Finally! It's done! This quilt is a culmination of designs I have learned since the beginning of the year. Most of the designs have come from Leah Day from The Free Motion Quilting Project, a couple from Elizabeth Hartman from Oh, Fransson!, and one from Jennyfrom Sew Kind Of Wonderful.

I did all of the binding in Jay McCarroll's Habitat City Planning in Green. I absolutely love it!

I'm glad to have this quilt done and it holds a special place in my heart. I set out to learn to FMQ and a year later, I can say, I AM a Free Motion Quilter! If you want to see the individual square up close you can check out my Flickr account here http://www.flickr.com/photos/freshoffthespool/sets/72157630442317044/

Upon posting these picks I just realized I mixed 2 of my squares up! The orange at the top of this photo with the light pink directly under it. DANGIT! I thought I was being so careful! Oh, well, these things happen;)

Danielle

The Wrestling Match

For the past 2 days, I have been attaching my quilted blocks via QAYG method. Yes, I said 2 days, approximately 10 hours. At times, I felt like I was in a wrestling match with my quilt! Trying to attach those little bitty strips to the weight of the quilt dragging down, sticking me with a gazillion pins!

I was so surprised at how long it has taken me! Either I am slow, or, this is a much more tedious process than I anticipated!

Here I am at the end stitching my last row of blocks together. I won! (the wrestling match)

I will put on the binding tomorrow. Why do I always get to this point for UFO Sundays??

I was planning on giving this quilt to my other step-daughter Moriah for Christmas. I may switch the plan and give this one to my daughter Ashley, and the Greek Cross quilt to Moriah. Honestly, I  love how this quilt is turning out. I'm not sure if I can bear it to leave my house. If I had time, I'd just make another one and keep it for myself. I'm very attached to it. Maybe because I have put my heart and soul into it learning all of these great FMQ designs that Leah Day has taught us. That's why I have dubbed it The Learning Quilt.

Even though there are challenges with the QAYG method, please don't let that discourage you from trying it. I quite enjoyed the process. Just don't be fooled into thinking you are going to whip one up in a couple of hours!

I'm linking up with Leah Day:)

Lost Data

I got the Lost Data finished EARLY this week! I think I got some redemption from Jagged Lines. What helped me is one, to WATCH THE VIDEO! This design can be a bit tricky when you are meeting the jagged lines! And two, I drew a sort of grid to keep the design reigned in a bit.

Hope you can see the lines. they were hard to photograph on this light color!

I'm working on my color layout for my FMQ sampler quilt. Here is the first layout.

I thought is could be better, so I thought about another way. Instead of putting the color families another way instead of on the horizon. The problem with this layout is the middle row. I had 5 of each color family except for green and yellow. Green I had 6 and yellow,2. My lack of experience has led me to this mistake. But my mistake has led me to a revelation. The importance to planning a quilt. I really didn't have a clear plan in mind at all except the square size, and different FMQ designs.

To hide this I thought maybe If I put the color families on the diagonal??

Yes! Much better! See??

In the meantime, i finished my binding with little of 2yrds of fabric to spare! I had 4 triangles left! Whew, talk about cutting it close! I had no idea that QAYG binding would take so much fabric! I used about 50 in on the binding strips used to piece the squares and rows together, and all I had was 20in left for the actual binding! I found a formula for figuring out how much fabric you will need for binding. You figure out the square root of your total perimeter of your quilt, plus 10in. This formula is for bias binding, and it also depends how you cut it. I use the envelope method, so I would suggest to add 20in to the calculation. Anyhoo, thats all for now!

WIP

Swirling water is the design I decided to use on my last block.This is one of Leah Day's 365 designs. Not to bad, although I need a little practice on swirls...**hint hint, Leah**

This is the first time I have actually used my design wall. Well, for a whole quilt anyway. I normally have a cutting table up against here, which with the things stored beneath, can be a pain to move sometimes. Oh, do you like my lighting(aka Christmas lights)?? I know it's not ideal, but for $8.oo and a quick fix of a very dark corner of the room, it actually helps!!

My binding strips are all cut and almost ready to sew. I still have to iron the 1 1/2 in strips in half.  So, do you all think I am crazy for picking out this fabric vs. black?  I'm still holding my breath as to whether it will look good or not. I just have a feeling I will like it.

I printed out this picture to cut up into squares to see if I will like another color layout. As is, not sure. This is a little trick I picked up on Elizabeth Hartman's  Creative Quilt Backs Craftsy class. So ya, I have been busy this afternoon. I'm excited to get this LAST UFO done!

Moving On

 I'm moving on to my last UFO. Yesterday I realized I had enough practice samples (25) to put my QAYG quilt together. I was thinking I could get this done, or close, yesterday.

Each square is cut down to 12 1/2 in. So, that would make my finished quilt 62.5x62.5. That is a little short in my book, unless you are a kid. I'm not particularly tall, but I find the standard lap quilt, 50x60in., a little to short to comfortably stretch my legs out for a nap. So, I made the decision to make another row. Plus, I eliminated a couple of my squares I was not happy with and made new ones. Here is what I have so far.

You see my Lost Data in there? I have it done early! YAY! I have one more square to quilt out. then I'm ready to bind these together. I'm trying to decide on a design;)

Now is the decision on what fabric to use to bind it all together. Originally I was going to go with black. It would go nicely with all of the different colors. Kinda boring though. I was thinking a small print would be nice. Then I remembered I had bought a couple of yards of this Jay McCarroll Habitat print.

I know I am taking a chance here. Besides the purples and oranges, it has all of the other color families in it. Also, the pixelated image on the print kind of mimics all of the quilt squares:) So I think hope, it looks good cause I'm going for it!


I ordered Leah's Craftsy class! I had it running last night as I was quilting my squares. I know that I can't pay to close attention while I am sewing, but I swear, it was like we were sewing together. Besides, it is my class forever, now and I can re-watch it whenever I want! And there is something to be said about the subconscious. Even though I wasn't watching intently, I was listening;) The pebbling video came in handy when I went to do the pebbling quilt square above. I haven't done to much of that design. I had a LOT of trouble with this design. My quilt kept puckering on the back! See...

It did this all over. I changed the needle and it helped, but still kept on puckering. I'm not sure if it was my speed ratio or what. I did notice I had the backside of the batting up top. I have heard that there are two sides to batting. The top side and the scrim side. Am I saying that right? And if you get them reversed, it can cause quilting problems.  In any event, it was quite annoying, but I'm not gonna remake this block, it's going in the quilt;) What do you think, Leah?

* I had great time sewing with you last night, Leah;) Seriously, your Craftsy class is totally AWESOME. You give great attention to detail. You really ARE a great teacher! If it weren't for you, I don't know that I'd be quilting at this level today, if at all. I always wanted to quilt since I can remember. It was not until I found you on YouTube a little over a year ago that you gave me the confidence and skills to do what I have always wanted to. I thank you for that.

I'm linking up with Leah Day today for UFO Sunday's.

Now I am off to the sewing room............bye;)