Category Archives: Quilts

What’s On My Design Wall

September 15, 2014 7:58 am ⋅ Pam

And then there were six. These are the first of 365 3″ finished LeMoyne stars I need for the Star-a-Day quilt by Karen Styles.

The idea is to stitch one star a day and at the end of the year you’ll have enough stars to make an 81″ x 81″ quilt. The designer recommends that the quilt be assembled in sections as you go along so you don’t end up with a pile of stars at the end of the year. I need a few more stars before I try to assemble my first section.

As for piecing them one a day, I can see an advantage to that – I did three last night and I can feel it in my wrist. Given that I need to also be working on the DWR binding, I need to pace myself.

As for the DWR, I need to get it back to the sewing machine. There’s a section which I need to re-stitch. It won’t take long, but it does require swapping the pressure foot on the machine and changing thread. I guess I’ll do that after work today. That is after I stitch a few more of these blocks. There are six laying on my sewing table ready for me to stitch the 2nd strip to them and a whole stack that need both strips.

See what other’s are working on by following the links over at Patchwork Times.

Posted in: designwall, Star-A-Day

Star-a-Day?

September 13, 2014 10:45 pm ⋅ Pam

I’m not sure I can call this a Star-a-Day — yet. The top left star is #1. It measures about 3″ instead of the 3-1/2″ it should measure. It took me nearly a week to get it finished. Hand piecing is right up there with applique. Which of course explains why I’m trying to embark on making 365 stars by hand.

Star #2 is the turquoise and brown. I started working on it before I finished the first one and it’s just not going together well. It will have to be taken apart and made over again.

Star #3 – the lime, blue & pink one. Well, this is about the 3rd time I’ve put it together. I discovered starching the fabric really well before tracing the templates makes it much easier to line the pieces up. However, my thread (a silk thread I use for applique) kept pulling out so I set it aside to work on star #4.

Star #4, the one with the lady bugs, I finished earlier this evening. It’s not quite 3-1/2″ but it’s close enough and I switched threads. Once I finished it I ripped out the stitches on star #3 and started over. It wasn’t until I tied off the end of my thread that I noticed I have a couple of pieces in the wrong place. My husband suggested it was a design element. Nope, simply the lack of concentration.

I’ve been told it takes about 10 stars to get in the groove. I wonder if doing stars over counts.

Posted in: hand work, Star-A-Day ⋅ Tagged: Star-a-Day

Chain of Stars

August 2, 2014 10:57 pm ⋅ Pam

Back in January I posted a pink and black pillowcase and said it went with Deadline IV. This is the quilt – my pink and black Chain of Stars. It is in this month’s issue of The Quilt Pattern Magazine.

Posted in: Chain of Stars

What Happens at Retreat…

June 24, 2014 1:45 am ⋅ Pam

There’s a saying “What Happens at Retreat Stays at Retreat”. Due to the projects I was working on I can’t show anything yet. But it was all not sewing. There was the shopping.

Starting at the bottom center and working clockwise: Several Kansas Troubles Patterns, a 20 piece charm pack of KTQ lights, a spool of thread that works well with KTQ fabrics, 9 – F8 of KTQ fabrics a stack of KTQ scraps, Perfect Circles (the smaller ones), a light FQ, backing for a secret project, a yard of a cool cat/music fabric, a FQ of a music/Halloween fabric, fabric that I’m not using for the secret project and fabric to make a tie for my husband. I just realized that I don’t have the ruler that I bought in the picture. Oh well.

I sewed, completing a quilt top start to finish with only one sewing mistake and one cutting error. Then I started working on Jared Takes a Wife with the intention of finishing it. Either I can’t count, or I simply didn’t finish cutting the cornerstones for the quilt because I came up 10 short. As I worked on these two projects my leader/ender was the 4-patches for the border of Candy Sunflower Seeds. By the time I realized I couldn’t finish JTAW, I was too tired to think through finishing Candy Sunflower Seeds.

So naturally, I pulled out my applique project. It was pretty straight forward. Cut along the dotted line – so to speak – and then fuse into place. At that point I called it a night. The next morning, I figured out the cutting plan for the quilt which will be my next leader/ender project and then stitched one length of thread on the red work snowmen.

After I pulled out the machine today, I had to give the machine a bit of a cleaning…

It was a bit fuzzy. This is what I pulled out of the machine before I started sewing on the binding to my latest finish:

Stay tuned to see my latest finish in the next post.

Posted in: Candy Sunflower Seeds, Jared Takes a Wife, red work, retreat, scraps, shopping

Quilting Plans for June

June 3, 2014 10:48 pm ⋅ Pam

When it comes to quilting, I always think I can get more done than I can in the amount of time I have available. This month will probably prove the point. Of these 5 projects I want to completely finish 2 of them and get the other 3 tops made.

Top left – Jared Takes a Wife. Two seams on each block and then a simple set with sashing and cornerstones. Middle left – Orca Bay. I think I have all the pieces sew for the center of the quilt – I still need to finish piecing the border. Bottom left – Eeyore. Still in pieces.

Top Right – Scrappy Trips Around the World – I’m planning on quilting this on the treadle. I brought the backing fabric up from the basement this morning. Bottom Right – Candy Sunflower Seeds. It has a pieced border which I’ve been working on as my leader/ender.

If I only focus on these 5 quilts, it could happen. I leave for a quilt retreat in two weeks. My plan is to focus on Eeyore and hopefully finish him. Then at the retreat I should be able to finish the 3 quilt tops. (That is if I don’t take all the projects I have stacked on the ironing board to take with me – 3 new quilts and 2 to finish.) Which means I’ll have a week and a half to get Scrappy Trips quilted.

Posted in: Candy Sunflower Seeds, goals, Jared Takes a Wife, Orca Bay, retreat, Scrappy Trips, UFOs

What’s On My Design Wall

May 26, 2014 9:04 am ⋅ Pam

First off, I finished the quilting and binding on this quilt for Sydney. She pieced the top. It measures about 51″ square. I think she’s giving it to her cousin.

As for my own quilts…

All the green star points have been sewn, so into pairs and then I can start piecing the blocks.

I cut the squares for the replacement 4-patches for this UFO. The original 4-patches are bright white and the blocks are off white/cream. I’ve got 6 different light fabrics to use in the border. These are going to be my leader/enders at the retreat this weekend.

My projects are packed – Orca Bay (Bonnie Hunter, String Fling) is in the box — ooh I need to go find my Flying Geese Ruler for “squaring” the geese and put them in the box with the rest of the rulers I’m taking with me (12-1/2″ square, 6″ x 12″, Easy Angle and Companion Angle).

Under the box is the box with Jared Takes a Wife and the zipper bag with Candy Sunflower Seeds (The Chain Event by Dorothy Young). In the flat zip bag is the fabric and instructions for my “August C” done in black and batiks.

The plan for today is to make progress on Eeyore. I’d really like to have the applique done by before I go to the retreat. We’ll see if that happens.

To see what other are working on, check out the links over at Patchwork Times.

Posted in: applique, Candy Sunflower Seeds, designwall, Jared Takes a Wife, Orca Bay, Sydney, The Chain Event

Blogger’s Quilt Festival – Scrappy Quilt

May 16, 2014 12:39 pm ⋅ Pam

Amy’s Creative Side is hosting the Blogger’s Quilt Festival.

My entry in the Scrappy Quilt category is the Spool Challenge quilt. This was the leader/ender project that Bonnie Hunter lead beginning in July 2012. Over the course of a year I made 334 spools. The great thing about this quilt is with the exception of the backing it came entirely from my stash.

When it came time to buy the backing I found the perfect fabric (it’s the body of the pillowcase in the picture below). Everyone who saw it looked at me funny — until they saw it with the quilt.

When I started making the quilt, I had no idea where it was going to end up. By the time I quilted it, I knew who I was giving it to.

Boo claimed it when it was unwrapped and placed under the Christmas tree, but ultimately landed on this beautiful antique bed.

Doesn’t it look like it was made specifically for that bed? I had no idea they owned it.

Do hop over to Amy’s Creative Side to see all the quilts.

Posted in: Spools

What’s On My Design Wall

April 7, 2014 8:31 am ⋅ Pam

It’s been such a long time since I’ve done any sewing beyond piecing quilts, that it took me a week to figure out how to hem a prom dress. It needed a narrow hem – easy enough – but I couldn’t use heat on the material, so it was a challenge. Finally ended up using a super fine machine embroidery bobbin thread in the top and bottom to stitch each fold in place and then a slightly heavier thread for the final stitching.

After the dress, I decided to work on my Jared Takes A Wife top. I stitched all of the star points and now I can’t do anything else until I cut more fabric. The green is going to be the sashing and the inner star points. There will be a narrow pink border between the sashing and the outer paisley border.

Before I do any more on JTAW, I’m going to finish the music baby quilt.

Be sure to check out the other links over at Patchwork Times.

Posted in: designwall, Jared Takes a Wife

What’s On My Design Wall

March 17, 2014 12:59 am ⋅ Pam

There is a lot going on these days. Just barely showing behind the black & gold is Eeyore, pinned up so I can work on the black & gold quilt. I still need to finish the borders and then it will be on to the quilting. I have a cool idea for the quilting in the border (which my husband loves) so I hope I can pull it off. That bit of cream on the right is from the 2 color binding.

The baby’s parents are musicians, so isn’t this the perfect fabric for the backing?

I’m going to have to do some piecing as I only have a 2 yard piece and there is a 10″ and a 5″ square cut out of it. I really like the gold with it and I bought more than I needed, so maybe there’s enough.

While I was piecing the quilt, I managed to make 40 + 4-patches for my Jared Takes A Wife. For the record, they were already paired up into 2-patches. I think I have 10 more left to make.

I’m still cutting fabrics, but that’s OK. My goal is to finish it by the end of April.

To see what others are working on, check out the links over at Patchwork Times.

Posted in: baby quilt, designwall, Jared Takes a Wife

Another Quilt in Use

January 21, 2014 7:00 am ⋅ Pam

This is my version of Kansas Spirit. It’s make entirely of Kansas Trouble Quilts fabrics and was a BOM at Heritage Fine Fabrics in Belton, Missouri in 2008 – 2009. I finished it in 2011 during the Spring 2011 Lost My Mind self challenge. I gave this quilt to my SIL Ruby and this weekend she sent me a picture of it on one of her beds.

She also sent me a picture of the wall hanging I made her for Christmas 2007.