Think Spring

I guess I must be in the mood to sew with pretty pastel colors because I can't seem to get enough of them right now. I found this fabric basket on the Moda Bake Shop blog and had to make one up. I've never made a basket like this before so I was surprised at how easy it was. I made the whole thing from start to finish in one day.  You need 6 yards of cording 12/32" and 39" of cording 6/32 for the handle which only comes in 10 yard packages so I have enough of that to make another one or something else. I bought a jelly roll from JoAnns, which are only 22 strips I think vs. a normal jelly roll which is 42 2-1/2" strips. I did not have to use the entire jelly roll, so you need less than 22 strips to cover your cording. Check out their pattern on the Moda Bake Shop site for all of the detailed instructions.

What do you think?

Big Stitch quilting

I'm obsessed with this BIg Stitch Quilting. I'll be honest I never thought this would be something for me, but I've been wanting to try my hand at it for over a year. I turned my sister-in-law onto it when she came over to ask me to help her layer a king sized quilt she had made for her daughter and husband for their 10 year anniversary and told me she wanted to hand quilt it but wasn't sure how she was going to go about it because she had never hand quilted before. I turned her onto big stitch quilting from Wendy Gratz's blog Shiny Happy World and at the same time told her she was crazy for trying hand quilting for the first time on such a HUGE project. But she did it and it turned out gorgeous. So after that I knew I had to give it a shot but wanted to try it out on a much smaller project. I found this adorable spring bunny pillow pattern on a blog  called "Flamingo Toes." OMG it was so fun to hand quilt this little pillow top using the big stitch quilting. I did not mark my lines at first but soon realized I couldn't see in a straight line, but now that I've done a whole pillow top I think I could do it without marking my straight lines,  it it takes some practice. I am actually on my second pillow top now. My sister saw it and asked if I would make her one. If you think you might like to try hand quilting, this is the way to go. Check out Wendy's video. She explaines it very well and is a great teacher. She has a lot of other really cute things on her blog as well. It is definitely worth checking her out.

This is the hand quilted gift I gave to my sister Chris for Christmas 2017. I made one for myself last year and love it so much that I thought she would like one too. She usually likes smaller items. I believe this is a Crazy Mom Quilts pattern.

Table Runners for Moms at Mother's Day

I was going to be in Florida this year over Mother's Day so I whipped up these table runners to give my sisters and my mom even though I wasn't going to be there.  I wanted to make everyone something I already had in my stash - blocks that had been started or left over from another project.  All the gals loved them.

May, 2017

Trish

My 4th of July Quilt Story

I received an email from Fort Worth Fabric Studio at the beginning of June, 2017 with a tutorial to make this star quilt. It looked so simple because it was really big blocks and I needed something fast because I wanted to make a quilt to take to the 4th of July parade.

I literally made the quilt from start to finish in a weekend. I found this Bonnie & Camile Patriotic fat quarter bundle on Etsy from JennyLaneFabricShop and I whipped up this quilt. I love the lighter blue turquoise in the pack. For the back I just used a red and white check and inserted a strip with the leftover strips.

The funny thing is, on the 4th of July we went to the parade and set all of our things down on the ground and I set up my beautiful patriotic quilt. At the same time my daughter in law set up her old blanket she brought for the 2 girls to sit on and that's what we basically centered our stuff on. I was chuckling under my breath because even people that walked by were very careful not to step on it. We even told some kids next to us that they could sit on it and they didn't even sit on it. My sister said it was because it looked too nice and no one wanted to ruin it.  Maybe next year it will look a little older and more ready to cushion someone's bum on the cement.

Do you have a quilt you always take to watch a parade?

Trish

Hope for Haiti Quilt

The raffle is over and I wanted to post a quilt I made. I sometimes am able to keep up with So Scrappy's color of the month and sometimes not. I believe it was January's color and it was purple so I pulled out my purple scraps to make some "string" blocks. Right around the time I had made a "LOT" of blocks, my sister-in-law called and asked if I would be willing to donate a quilt. I think it turned out gorgeous and am very happy to say that I raised $600 for the charity.

I thought you would all enjoy seeing my finished paper pieced girl with umbrella. I was laying this out on the table getting it ready to quilt when I had to piece my batting. I laid 2 pieces of batting out over the wall hanging and then cut them so I would have a straight edge of batting on each piece to butt against. I forgot I had my wall hanging underneath and ended up cutting it right in half.  ARGHHHHH!  I was able to stipple quilt over it in smaller stipples so you can't really tell but I was dumbfounded at first.  Hope you enjoy it. I got the pattern on Craftsy - I'd have to check but it may be a Quiet Play pattern.