Free Motion Quilting challenge

I worked on a few things Saturday.  My Free Motion quilting was one of the things I started....

I am participating in SewCalGal's Free Motion Quilting challenge this year. I put a sandwich of fabric together and started working on my homework for this month's challenge. I started out using Robison-Anton thread on top and the bobbin. I then changed to a bobbin thread in the bobbin case. That worked a little better. I slowed my machine down too and that helped also. I went to the quilt shop and purchased some King Tut thread and some top stitching needles. I changed those out and started playing again. I could tell a difference right off. The stitches looked alot better on the front and back. I have bobbin thread in the bobbin case but it's old thread. It kept breaking so I changed back to regular thread in my bobbin. I found some Coat's and Clark bobbin thread Sunday afternoon at Joann's and I'll be trying that out next. I've heard about some bobbin thread called Bottom Line that they say is good but I can't find that locally. I'm going to order some of that and play with it too. Here's my sample of the leaves we are supposed to do this month.   It was hard for me to change directions with this but I finally got that down.  I'm pleased with the way the different threads made my stitches look and I  feel like I have more control now since I slowed my machine speed down a little.  I know it's going to just take practice and more practice to get it right.  But, here's my start:

Christmas Package Quilt

I came in Friday afternoon and was going to go sew with my friends.  I got off a little early Friday and came home and instead of going up to my sewing room and getting ready. I laid down on the bed and decided to finish a book I had been reading. Well, needless to say, I fell asleep, didn't get to the sewing night with my friends and didn't finish the book either!   I woke up and decided it was too late to go sew with my friends but I did go on up to my sewing room.  I sat there for awhile trying to decide what I would work on.  I have so many projects to finish and was feeling overwhelmed.  I decided to just pull out one of my projects and work on it and see how far along I could get. If you don't get started, you can't finish, right?  Anyway, I pulled out the Christmas package blocks that I won at my quilt group from our Christmas party.  I put them on the design wall and played with the layout and decided I needed to make more blocks.  I won 16 blocks but wanted this quilt to be a bit bigger so I made 9 more blocks.  Here is the middle part of the quilt put together.  I finished sewing it together tonight.  Now, I'll be putting a white 2 1/2" strip around the outside, some 2 1/2" blocks sewn into strips for the next round, another white 2 1/2" strip, then a final outer border of a Christmas print.  I'm not sure what that will be yet.  I think this has turned out pretty cute so far.  Here's the middle part to this quilt...

I'll be working on this later in the week to see if I can get it to the flimsy stage.  I'll show you my progress later.

soscrappy: Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2012 and SewCalGal Free Motion Challenge

Happy New Year!   I hope your Christmas or holiday was wonderful and you got to spend time with the ones you love. 

I don't know about you but I'm ready to get busy again.  I decided I didn't want to overwhelm myself right off but I do want to challenge myself to get things done. I know I always do better with deadlines so I decided to take stock and see what I wanted to accomplish this year. One thing I want to do is to use up some of my scrap stash, so I turned my attention to Angela.  She had a rainbow scrap challenge last year and is at it again this year.   I've been organizing today and I didn't do too much with my colored scraps last year but I'm willing to try again.  I love seeing what everyone does with their scraps and I want to use up alot of mine too.  Angela is way more organized with her colors than I am but I can always pull mine out as I go.  She's already started the month off and decided on reds.  I'm going to incorporate this challenge this month with another.  My group is doing a Mug Rug a month.  This month is a house mug rug.  I'm going to use my red scraps to make some house mug rugs.  So, to that end, I'll go pull out my reds and get busy.  Here's a link to Angela's Scrap Challenge, go check her out.soscrappy: Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2012

 But before I go, I want to tell you about the other challenge I decided to do this year.  I'm always trying to finish my own projects.  I like to be able to work on my quilts from start to finish.  I love to hand quilt and do still hand quilt occasionally but I'm not a fast quilter and I want to see my quilts finished in my life time.  I used to work in quilt shops (I worked in three different shops over a ten year period) and I did alot of samples.  These samples did not have to be quilted at the time.  So, I have several of those hanging around and I have several other tops finished waiting to be quilted.  I like to machine quilt but I don't like to quilt big quilts on my sewing machine.  I have quilted a king size quilt in the past and did not enjoy it at all.  I will quilt up to a full size but I don't like it to be bigger than that.  I am an ok machine quilter but want to improve my skills,  so to that end, I have decided to participate in the Free Motion Quilting challenge  over on SewCalGal's site. She's having 12 different teachers, one each month and she's giving away prizes too.  So, I think that's a win-win combination. 

  There is a link on the sidebar of my blog for more info. Or, you can click here: http://sewcalgal.blogspot.com/p/free-motion-quilt-challenge.html

Ok, I'm getting off now so I can get busy.   Until next time, happy sewing!

Some Christmas pictures....

I haven't been able to blog lately.  I can't blog at work anymore and I have been too busy at night to blog.

Here are my beautiful grandchildren.....We had a great Christmas. I love spending time with my kids and grandkids during the holiday season.   They make it so special for me.

Here's some knitted scarves I made and gave away at Christmas.

My oldest granddaughter and my sweet MIL....

I have done very little sewing this month.  When I was in the mood, I didn't have the time and when I had the time, I  wasn't in the mood.  Hopefully, the new year will bring some much needed rest and I'll want to get busy too. 

I was going to have some drawings this month and just haven't gotten it together. I will celebrate the new year and have some giveaways in January.  Please bear with me while I get my momentum back!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas or holiday season and that you will have a prosperous, healthy and happy new year!

Until next time, happy sewing!

Our anniversary and my husband's birthday.

Today was our 33rd Wedding Anniversary.  Wow, 33 years!  Some days it seems like just yesterday and other days, well, we won't go there! I am a very lucky woman and I'm married to my best friend. He loves me and let's me be me....We have grown and changed but we've done it together. 

Tomorrow is his birthday and we will continue to celebrate.  He's off work tomorrow and we'll be hanging out together.  I guess I won't be sewing too much this weekend.

Happy Anniversary and Happy Birthday, honey, I love you! 

Christmas with my sewing friends.

Last night, my quilting group had our Christmas party.  It was so good to be with my sewing friends, eat good food and win some quilting blocks too. Yes, that's right, I was one of the lucky winners for the Christmas blocks.  I won 16 blocks and three other people won 16 blocks too. I don't know if you've seen or remember the Christmas blocks I've shown but here are some of the blocks....

and here is a quilt made by one of the girls that picked out the Christmas blocks for this year. 

This pattern can be found a few places on the web but here's a link to it if you want it....

Christmas boxes

There were 32 of us that ventured out last night in the rain for our party.  Here's a few pics of some of the quilts that my little group did to give as gifts this year.

This was Rosemarie's first quilt from years ago.  She had put it away. She dug it out and just got it back from being quilted...

This is a gift for one of her daughters.

A gift for another daughter.

Deanna made this one and she worked on this at retreat. It is from Suzanne McNeill's new book, 10 Minute Blocks. It's based on using Layer cakes and looks like a big bow tie block. (She's got a great Youtube video out there, here's a link to it...)

This is the back of the quilt.

Deanna made this one for her grown daughter, it's a sock monkey quilt.

Lois made this one for a customer. 

Rita made this one for a customer too. The customer gave her her baby's shirts and clothes to use for the blocks.   If you click on the picture you can see photos of the little guy and some of the sayings in the quilt.  This turned out so cute!

This one is Martha's redwork Santa quilt.

This is Dee's snowman quilt.  There were 10 of us involved in this exchange.  Of course, mine is not finished yet...Dee did hers with Log Cabin blocks and this is wonderful.

I gave Dee the boot pattern two months ago and she made this cute Christmas boot quilt...

Here's my wonderful quilting group.   You can't see all of the ladies but we were all smiles and wishing you a wonderful Christmas.

Queenie and a few projects.

I forgot to show you my new friend....

  This is the bunny I won from Cathey at the sewing party.  I just love her. She sits on my sewing machine and greets me every time I go up there.  I have named her "Queenie" as she is the Queen of my sewing room!  She even has her own little quilt and is dressed in my favorite color. 

This is another bag I made to give as a gift.  This one is about 9" x 12" big. It is another Lazy Girl pattern, it is the Perfect Pouch pattern again and is the biggest one. The fabric is prequilted and is double-sided.  It was pretty pricey fabric but I've used it for this and another project too.  I bought it for an applique pillow, I guess that's what you would call it...It's a big pillow you put in your lap and use as a large pincushion or aid to help you bring your work closer to you and also help your back...  

Here's the big lap pillow I made using the same fabric. 

I have a little bit left over and I'm going to make a small version of the Perfect pouch.