gifts for Christmas

HI,
thanks to the Salt Creek Patchmakers guild in Clinton, Ill. I have learned to new towel project. I went to their guild last Monday night and gave a presentation on "tips and trick"  which I enjoyed their meeting afterwards. Love show and tell.   they had been having a sew day before the meeting and making items for their fundraiser.  They had made some of these towels that look like dresses to hang over an oven door bar or a towel bar.  So they let me trace off the pattern for the top.  Today I decided to try one or two..  Each towel makes two since you cut them in half...    You can decorate them how ever you want to after sewing the top onto the towel..
here are the two that I have made so far.  Just used some pieces of fabric that I had waiting to be put into something. 

I will be making more of these for gifts and will make some for our quilt show in March for our boutique booth.   May write up some directions for these also. 

Placemats

Hi,
Monday night we had a program at our guild to make a fast and easy placemat.  Thanks Wanda for showing us this.  Made one that night and Weds has sew day at my house with few friends and made a second one, quilted and bound them.  You can get 2 out of one fat quarter of 3 fabrics and 4 5" squares this includes the back....     here is one of them.  ready for a Christmas gift.

 also on sew day Weds. I found this group of pieces folded up and thought they were ready to make the 60 degree table runner so thought might as well put it together. when unfolded the pieces found out that they were just pieces   either someone's left over pieces or they had been cut wrong  so decided to try to put them together.  Brenda and I decided to recut them and make a square placemat out of the pieces.  this is what they turned out to be...     I bound both projects  using the easy miter binding tool from Sew Biz  it is awesome  your use the backing by bringing to the front. makes great sewn mitered corners.

Happy quilting,
Sharon

bedroom makeover

Hi,
Well it has been a long time coming, but the our bedroom finally has a new quilt and valance.  The pattern was from a class I took many years ago when Pat Speth came to the Decatur Quilters Guild for a class. It is called Mount Hood.  It is made from 5 inch squares which Pat calls nickels...   
Also hubby hung up a quilt rack above our bed and I hung up a quilt made at Kaye England's quilting college several years ago...    I sure feel like I got something done for a change for me.....
hope you enjoy pictures of the finished project...

now what do I finish next??

Happy quilting
Sharon

split nine patch block

Hi,   I guild is doing Bonnie Hunter's spit nine patch block as a swap in our night group. I have signed up for this one.  Will make the blocks for the swap and hope to make many more doing it Bonnie's leader and ender way.   Just love her patterns.  I am taking my 1/2 square triangle bags and using what I can from them and even cutting some down to 2 1/2 inch to use  then using the squares from my squares bucket too.  this should empty this bucket I hope...   Here is a picture of two blocks I made this morning.  Now back to work. Oops looking at this picture I have one square sewn wrong so off to use the seam ripper.

 

Happy quilting,

Sharon

I have finished and gifted two lap quilts to my beautiful niece and her new husband this past weekend.  Waiting to post pictures of them until the wedding was over so they wouldn't see them before hand.   Hope they will have snuggling under them this winter.  I think you can tell who get which one? if not  the pink and grey goes to my niece Toni  and red/blue/grey goes to nephew Dan.
this are their favorite colors. 

Another sample for a fall class at Stewart's Sewing in Mt Zion finished.  this one is fun,easy and quick.    come join me in this class. Great gift for a quilting friend.  This class is called Spoolin' Around.

fall class sample

Hi
well I finished one class sample for the LQS in Mt Zion, Ill.  It is a fun, fast, and easy table runner.  It is made with one charm pack, batting and backing fabric.   It is quilted as you stitch the top.
If interested in taking this class contact me and I will give you the information.  Schedule should be coming out soon. If want it bigger just need another charm pack.

Happy quilting,
Sharon

Wednesday sew day

it was so great to sew with friends on Wednesday we hadn't got to sew together for over a month.  not everyone could make it but the ones that came got things done.    I worked on finishing the top from the BOM from Main Street Quilt Co in Shelbyville, Il form 2012.  I got the blocks sewn together during the day and then kept on working after friends went home and I got the top finished.. I am so happy......     here is a picture of it.

I have quilted a small wall hanging of mine today. It was a BOM that our guild did couple of years ago. Each month was a block to represent the month.   I quilted all of the background of blocks, sashing, and border on long arm and now I will quilt with invisible thread the design in the blocks on DSM and then add embellishments to each block pertaining to the month of the block...   glad to get this one done too.  Two more checked off my UFO list...  Yeah....
I will post a picture of this one when I have it done..

I have busted 7.86 yards of fabric from my stash this month making some pillow cases and back for calendar quilt  and borders for another quilt.   So nice to shop in my stash now that is it organized on new shelves.  


Happy quilting,
Sharon

Monday's projects report

Hi,
well today I put a quilt in the machine and am quilting on it, but from my weekend of working outside weeding and mulching 2 flower beds my arms are sore so can work at the machine too long at one time.  So I started putting together the new York beauty blocks for a friend  I have mine done so now getting her's done since she couldn't get the curves.
secret to curve piecing is many pins.

then here is the block sewn.   at least half of it.  needs it other piece on the large curve next. but I am doing all the smaller side first. 

well 10 blocks done and 10 more pinned  for the small curve side.  when I get done my friend will need to put the quilt together..    and so will I need to put my quilt together.

 

Happy quilting,

Sharon

 

update on progress of nieces quilt

well I thought I had the blocks made so started putting the rows together and found out that only had enough blocks made for a wall hang size quilt  so back to cutting board.  had to make about 40 more 1/2 square triangles.  got them done and cut other pieces for blocks.  I have all the blocks made so now tomorrow back to putting rows together..  hope to have the top done by weekend. 
then to get a quilt in the long arm. 
happy quilting,
Sharon

Monday's progress

Hi,
well I made progress on the half square triangles tonight,  in-between taking hubby to doctors today I got the triangles trimmed up  all 80 of them...   feels good to have that much done.

here is the slivers from trimming them up well worth it to have perfect size 1/2 square triangles.  just love the bloc-loc  ruler for this job.    now will sew some blocks together tomorrow. Too tired to do any tonight I was up about 5 am with hubby itching and haven't been back to sleep yet and it is 9 pm   so I am going off to bed

happy quilting,
Sharon

end of the week progress report

Well I have gotten some quilting done this week in-between taking care of my husband from his surgery.   I finished a customer quilt that was in the long arm when he went to the hospital.  need to get another one in the machine beginning of the week.

At the quilt show in Bloomington Indiana in March, Bonnie Hunter was there teaching and she has here pineapple quilt from her book String Fling on display.  It was wonderful.  Ever since I have wanted to start making one with all my small scraps.  Well yesterday I decided to make a block and see how it went. So much fun using tiny scraps that I have made 4 blocks already.   I am using Foundation Stuff by George Siciliano it is very light weight and is left in the block so I don't have to try to tear the paper out of these tiny pieces. It went through my printer great so made enough for 20 blocks.   here is a picture of my blocks.   

Then I started cutting out my niece's wedding quilt.   I am making her and new nephew each a lap quilt for their wedding.   So she likes pink and grey and also anything flowers.   So picked a bright pink fabric with flowers on it and then pale pink and a light/medium grey.   It has big rectangle to show off the floral fabric  and pinwheels from pink and grey. 

Well now I need to trim up all the half square triangles......   I will be using the Bloc-Loc ruler  it works great and thanks to a friend that figured out if you made two piles of opposite facing piles it goes faster.

Might get these done tonight...   well off to see about them.


happy quilting,
Sharon

finishing some projects

well this week has started with trip to hospital for my husband to have biopsy  surgery on Monday and we go back to surgeon on Wednesday for followed  up and hopefully schedule the major surgery.
so today I cleaned some of my sewing room while he is resting. In process of cleaning and putting away things I found couple of projects that were almost done or at least tops done. So I finished a block into a pillow for a friend that I had made a quilt for last year with all of his kids, their spouses, and grandkids name in the stars. I had made a sample block to make sure he liked it and put his name in it . Now it is ready to go to him and out of my room..

then had kaleidoscope  quilt blocks that I had taken a class from Marti Mitchell at Paducah 2 years ago so sewed them together and then got in stash for borders.  I think it looks good. I will quilt it up for my mother-in-law for Christmas  she like blue and yellow and flowers..

now working on a valance for my bedroom to match the new quilt I have made. I have the blocks made and sewn together now making a bottom border for it  then will need to make the header for the rod to go thru.  going to take old one apart and use the lining fabric on the new one. It kept old one from fading and is still good. Not sure what I will do with the old blocks that are perfectly good but the quilt is worn out from using it for 10 years on our bed...
well I need to take down the old to take it apart and ready to do that yet so on to another project.

I got 3 more blocks for the bible studies BOM today.  I cut and sewed them while watching Bonnie Hunter 'Tuesday night.  it is time to call it quits for now...

I have all my spool blocks made from my Edtya Sitar quilt  so next step is to cut plain blocks for inbetween them. 

 

well that is the update for this week  hope to post next week before husband.s surgery

 

happy quilting,  Sharon

 

trip to Paducah quilt show

Four of us left on Sunday April 21,2013 for the AQS quilt show in Paducah,  On Monday we went to Benton to the quilt shop Odds n Ends  to visit Zella great shop.  Had lunch at a resturant called 4 little piggies great BBQ, then went to Purple Toad Winery sampled the wines and bought some.  Red Lobster for dinner.   Tuesday we had an all day class with Eleanor Burns called Melon Patch it was great fun, she also provided lunch from Panera's..  We had dinner at The Whaler's Catch for great seafood.

 Here is her signing my pattern.  

Then Wed. we went to Eleanor's show at the fair grounds had third row seats  so funny. From there we went to the show and looked at quilts and shopped vendors for the rest of the day in the expo center.  Dinner at Outback Steak House..
 On Thursday, had two lectures one on color and one on precuts which both were great, in between lectures we saw more of the show and shopped some more.  Had dinner at our favorite place  the Japanese resurant next to our Hotel  Hiabachi style so much fun and great food.
 On Friday, we went to the Rotary Club and looked at antique quilts and shopped the vendors there, then went downtown to the vendors there, then back to expo center for another lecture on fabric selection with Alex Anderson. Quick dinner then off to the evening event with Alex Anderson and Libby Leman  to start their program off we listened to great saxaphone music but didn't get his name..
Saturday we had class with Edyta Sitar on her spools quilt. We had a fabric exchange to do this quilt. She provided us with the fabric and we all cut 2 different fabric into 24  1" strips  then made piles for each of us.
here is a picture of the piles and Edyta adding to the piles.

After the class, we had lunch at Friday's and headed home.  we really had a great week even though it was colder than normal and two days of rain...    reservations for hotel are made for next year..

Happy Quilting,
Sharon

saved by the thread

HI,
well I was quilting a customer quilt and watching the thread on the cone disappear. I was hoping I would have enough to finish the last pass on the quilt.  Well I made it just by the luck of the thread..  I couldn't have planned it any closer if I tried......

 

 

I have been doing the blocks from www.quiltersloftcompany.blogspot.com called Bible Studies. They put a block out each Monday night late. Each block if for a book in the Bible with a story to go with it. The blocks are 6" finished blocks they are really fun and I can't wait for Monday nights to come.  Several of my quilting buddies are doing them too.  check it out you might like them too. Here are a few of the blocks that I have done.  Trying to use 3 fabrics but have had to add a fourth so far added a medium blue.   We are up to 16 blocks this week.

 

 

 

 

 

Today was a sew UFO day at LQS Main Street Quilt Co. in Shelbyville, IL  Kate started a UFO club in January to help us and her to get some UFO's done this year.  We turned in a list of 10 UFO's that we want to get done this year.  Then she set up a UFO sew day on second Thursday of the month is has been so popular she added second Tuesday of the month too.  We can go and work on one of our UFO's  and for $5.00 we get lunch which is always yummy...  I got my BOM block done for her shop and 3 more blocks for the Bible stories also got most of small wall hanging put together with sashing. It is one I started about 4 years ago doing English paper piecing of hearts called mended hearts. I am doing it ot honor all the family members that have had heart surgery in my family.  I just need to make one more block for the quilt which I am going to do on the embroidery machine saying Our family of mended hearts.  I am going to put names and dates of heart surgery on heart blocks . I will post a picture of this when I am done making the top..

 

well I guess I will go work on some project for the evening..

happy quilting

Sharon

sewing room fabric closet

I posted before about getting my fabric closet redone. Well I am still putting fabric away. I am almost done  one group of novelties left to sort thru and put away and some odds and ends of fabric.  I have almost sorted thru the other stuff other than fabric not sure why all of that stuff was in my fabric closet I guess didn't know what else to do with it.  I found several old quilt tops from DH great Aunt not sure if she made them or her mother  not very good  so just put them in a box and labeled them also lots of hexies cut out for grandmother's flower garden love the old fabrics, but proabaly won't make them.  Most of this stuff is not going back into the closet.  Hopefully by the end of next week the closet will be done and the house will be cleaned up from it being all over the house or at least two rooms, our bedroom and the living room.  Have several totes for my quilting buddies to look thru and help themselves next time we get together and sew and then the rest will be donated.

Happy Sewing,
Sharon

Discount on Craftsy for Carol Doak"s class

25% Discount on Craftsy Paper Piecing Class!

 

Paper piecing is my favorite quilt making techniques! Carol gave us permission to share with my blog readers a special 25% off discount to enroll in her new Craftsy class called Mastering Foundation Paper Piecing. Just use this www.craftsy.com/ext/masteringfpp25  if link doesn't take you to where you can sign up using the discount copy and paste it into your browser.
The class has 8 lessons and covers all your paper piecing questions from the basics to learning how to join intricate blocks.
I’ve taken a couplr of classes with Carol when she came to Decatur, Ill and she is a great instructor! I also use her paper piecing techniques even if it is not one of her patterns. Come along and take her class with me. 

Quilt show winner

The quilt show in the Mattoon Mall was a huge sucess. Not as many quilts this year but great quilts. One of the better turn outs for visitors, didn't think we would ever get done counting ballots.
I was greatly surprised when I won a first place ribbon for my jacket. here is a picture of it with its ribbon

Now I need to get my quilts entered into the Decatur Quilters Guild show at the Decatur Civic Center.  need to measure them and writing a small story about them 

sewing room closet

Well my DH  took out my old shelves in my sewing closet where I keep my fabrictwo weeks ago  and when SIL arrived on the weekend they replaced them with new shelving system.  I had 3 shelves  2 foot apart and 20 inches deep before. Just wasn't working and fabric too heavy and pulled shelf out of the wall. I forgot to take a before picture but it wasn't pretty. It is a walk in closet but you couldn't walk in it..  Well I am in the process of putting all the fabric back into the closet all this last week off and on...   I am refolding all the fabric around a 6 x 12 inch ruler. so folding it in half again from how it comes on the bolt. Sorting out fabric I don't want and will let quilting buddies take what they can use and donate the rest.  Putting it back in color groups.   Will take a picture when I am done to show you. Will want to just look at it and not mess it up... Boy I sure don't need to buy any fabic.
Lots of kits to make also put them into a tote so they are together and making a list of kits, UFO's and quilts to quilt.

I also finished a couple of small projects.  One is a new purse called flip flop bag.  I really like it and its done in dark green fabric with leaf print on it. It is another over the shoulder purse. I really like them so I can have hands free and they don't come off my shoulder..  I put an extra pocket on the inside  it only called for one divided pocket so there is one on each side of the inside of purse. going to add decorative buttons to the bottom of the flap on outside. Then will be ready for my trip next week.

We were invited to an surprise birthday party this last Saturday night, so I decided I need to make her a small gift mid-morning..   I decided to make her a tea cup mug rug.  So off to sew.  Well I got it done in couple of hours  These are so easy, fun and quick to make.  I have taught a class on making this one at a LQS couple weeks ago.

here is her mug rug.

 



 well I need to get back to quilting the quilt that is in the machine so bye for now.
Happy Quilting,

applique block for class

I have finished an applique block for a machine applique class I am teaching at our Decatur Quilt Fest/show.  I will be teaching the block below on Friday March 22  from 10-4 at the Decatur Civic Center. You can sign up for the class on our guild website. www.decaturquiltguild.com
The block is from a applique quilt Sweet Sixteen designed by Edyta Sitar. She puts together beautiful kits.  the pieces are fused down and sewn with invisible thread doing a small zigzag stitch.
come join me for a fun day and have a beautiful block done at end of day.

Last Wednsday I  got out my embroidery quilt project and made four blocks and trimmed up many to correct size and sewed a few framing borders on some.   This may get done yet.    Also did some cleaning in my sewing room on the back side of quilt machine.   Took out all the VCR tapes of sewing programs  I filled a paper box that reams of paper come in to go out somewhere…  cleaned out 2 project boxes that had started projects in them that I no longer am going to do. Put fabric back in stash and parts into scrap bins….    So have 2 empty project boxes…    found a bag of quilt blocks that someone gave me long time ago so took them downstairs some sew day maybe we can arrange them into a quilt to donate somewhere…   sorted out a box of pieces of fabric  put fat quarter size pieces with other fat quarters and larger pieces in stash, smaller pieces in scrap bins…    felt good to get that far..   more to do.   Then can start on the front of the machine  and move some to the back…

 

I finished quilting and binding a quilt for our bed. It was a UFO from a class several years ago when Pat Speth was in Decatur for a class.   Here is a picture

 

Yesterday was 1st Monday of the month, so it was sew day in Charleston. I worked on another Pat Speth quilt called Woodlawn Clover. I got 6 blocks done and more parts to blocks.  We had Can Can soup for lunch it  was great.  You start with broth and add cans of soup whatever anyone brought.  Then couple of us brought dessert..  Good sewing and visiting.

I also decided on the fabric for my Summer Salsa quilt. It will be a winter salsa quilt since I am going to use snowmen fabric.  The rule for me was that it had to come from my stash the problem was that fabric needed 4 yards of one fabric and 3 yards of another. I didn't have that much of many fabrics.
here is picture of the fabric I am going to use.

 

Well I am off to quilt on a quilt in the machine this morning.

Happy quilting

Sharon



It is the first Monday of the month and that means a sew day with friends. I belong to a group called Quilts Etc. in Charleston ill  we meet on the first Monday of the month and sew on our projects, visit, and lunch of course..  today we decided to pick a simple quilt pattern called Summer Salsa and each make on by our Christmas party in Dec.in our own fabrics and see how different each one looks. This should be fun and interesting.   Also going to do a birthday block for each member  this year we decided to each do a block pertaining to a month of the year  there are 12 of us participating so put the months in a box and each drew out a paper and we will make a block for each other pertaining to the month we drew example Dec  person will make a Christmas block for each of us and we will get them in our birthday month...  going to be fun.  I have the month of September, so need to put on my thinking cap for ideas to represent September..

I worked on my basket blocks got all but two sen into blocks, hope to finish other 2 tomorrow then to design wall to arrange them and sew together with setting blocks. will post picture when they are on design wall.
Here is the picture of the tulip fields quilt I made for sample for class at Stewart's I will be teaching this on April 18, 2013. this was a fun quilt and loved using my scraps. I used a constant red fabric and the blue for sashing strip rest was from scraps.

Here is a picture of the tea cup mug rug that I am teaching at Stitch n Sew on Feb 15th  this is fun and fast.
I made many of these for Christmas presents.  there is a pocket in the tea cup for a card and tea bag.

Hi,  well it has been a trying end to the year, lost another family member that was 102.   I created three T-shirt quilts and quilting a embrodiery quilt following the blue dots  in Dec for customers to give as Christmas gifts.  here are 2 of the t-shirt quilts.well won't let me upload pictures will do it later.

 I have been working on samples for the quilt shops for my winter classes.   Check out the following shops for my classes, Stewarts in Mt Zion, Stitch n Sew in Arthur, and Main Street Quilt Co in Shelbyville.   there is variety of classes hope one interests you.  See you in class.

Well off to work on a basket quilt, I have the basket part done now appliquing the handle on the top have of the blocks.  then need to start quilting on the long arm this next week.

Happy Quilting
Sharon