Some red and white quickie projects

Here's the red things I did today.  I cut out these big hearts and made hot pads out of them.  I still have to bind them but I'm going to use bias binding (the kind you buy in packages) on these instead of making bias binding.
I finished the placemat I made last week. I have decided to make a placemat in all the colors we work on this year for the rainbow challenge so I can have some rainbow placements. I think the grandkids will like these. 
I made a little snippets bag, a big zipper bag to hold some of my tatting shuttles and thread, a coaster and 5 heart hotpads. I'm showing the backside of one of these to show you the silver stuff (I don't know what it's called, but it's ironing board fabric.) All of these are finished except for 4 of the hotpads.

 I was going to make this  bigger snippets bag out of red but I didn't have big enough scraps of red.  So, instead of red, I used white fabric that wasn't good enough for a quilting project to make the bag.  I don't know where I even got this fabric but it's too heavy for quilting so I decided it would do for this little bag or whatever you call it.  This is one of the things I was going to show you this week. I saw one of these at my sewing group last week and decided to see if I could make it.  This turned out ok.  I used a big equilateral triangle to cut the triangles. I cut 8 triangles out.  Put two triangles together and sew them right sides together, repeat for a total of 4 sets.  I sewed three of these from the bottom up 5 inches.  I then sewed the final triangle on the bottom. Fold down the tops and put a button on each corner to hold them down....In the picture you can see the triangle ruler I used. It is an 8"-60 degree ruler. I still need to sew the buttons on and it will be finished.  This one looks pretty plain and will look better with buttons but it will do what I want it to anyway.... The one I saw was cuter with prettier fabric.

I also cut the corner triangles and setting triangles out for my heart quilt but I didn't sew them yet.  I'll try to sew those tomorrow afternoon after church.  Until next time, happy quilting!

Happy Scrappy Saturday

Ok, today is the last red Saturday and I have got to get busy. I'm watching the baby today but she's playing and quiet right in her playpen now so I'll slip upstairs and grab some fabric to work on.  I have an idea or two and I'll show you later what I worked on.  I'll be working on red at least until the mid part of February....I have more ideas but can't share those just yet.  I'm going to be sharing those on Februay 14th, Valentine's Day, for the Show Some Love Blog Hop!  Mark your calendars and drop by to see what I'll have to show. I'll be having some drawings for you to enter too so please come by. 

Gotta go for now to get busy, check back on me later today. Now, go sew!

My First Thimbleberries Sew Day

I came in today from work and wanted to get started on sewing for my first Thimbleberries Sew Day.  However, I had to feed the grandbaby and watch the Mavs play.  I just had to do that, you know!  They got their rings tonight and it was a happy night except they lost.  My kids went to the game and I watched the baby....So, my sewing was delayed until I put her to bed....I got a late start but was able to finish this little wallhanging.  I've had this little Thimbleberries pattern for a few years and I've been wanting to make it forever. I thought it would be fun to finally make it and I was right. It was fun and quick and easy too.  I hurried upstairs and pulled some fabric and started cutting. This little pattern went together so quickly.  I even learned a new way to put together friendship stars. These little stars are only 3 inches finished but the method the pattern showed was alot easier than using all squares or triangles.  That's one thing I like about Thimbleberries patterns, they use quick methods and you get good results with their methods....Anyway, here's my first project for the Thimbleberries Sew Day and I know it won't be my last. I have several books of hers and there are patterns in each book that I want to do, so I should be busy for a few years anyway!!!   If you want to join us, we sew the last Wednesday of each month using Thimbleberries patterns or fabric or both.  There is no pressure and no quilt police, click on the button on the right hand side of my blog and you'll be directed to Barb's blog and you can sign up there or get more info.
This was a free pattern that was sent out with an advertisement for one of her books. This pattern is called Glory Be.
 Ok, it's past my bedtime so I'll say goodnight.   Happy sewing!

Hearts and trees

I didn't go to tatting tonight because the weather was so bad. I decided to come home and just sew a little.   While listening to Pat Sloan's podcast I cut some white and off-white squares and put them with my little red hearts.  The rows are together now and I'll sew them together once I figure out the sizes for the side setting triangles and corner triangles.  I just didn't want to do the math tonight....

I stopped working on the little hearts and decided to do some trees. I hadn't even looked a the pattern until tonight and wasn't sure how big these were. These will finish at 6" X 8" and look pretty big.  I thought they were small and I was pretty surprised at their size.  I'm in an exchange next month to make a tree quilt.  Here's the start of them.  I made 6 of these tonight and I only need to make 20 so I'm on my way.  There's 10 of us in the exchange, so I have to make 10 of each tree.  We're only exchanging 20 trees. The quilt requires alot more....I'll be making the rest on my own so I'll be using scraps after this.   

 

Tomorrow is Thimbleberries Sew Day and I've picked out the pattern I'll be working on. My first Thimbleberrie Sew Day with Barb of Bejeweled Quilts, I'm excited!!!  See you tomorrow!

Exciting News: GO! Ahead and Show Some Love Blog Hop

 Coming in February!!!! Save the dates and visit these fun blogs.  It's the next Accuquilt blog hop, and the theme is:  Go! Ahead and Show Some Love Blog Hop, and there are going to be lots of projects, tutorials, and maybe some giveaways, too! Since it's being done in the sweetest month or I call it the love month, we will all be focusing on red and white. Yes, more red is coming up along with hearts and valentines and of course, chocolate! Yum, yum!

If you'd like to know who will be posting in our hop, click on the graphic in the right-hand sidebar, and you'll be able to see SewCalGal's post and the list of bloggers.  Jacque (Lilypad Quilting) created the cute artwork for this blog hop. Thanks, Jacque, this is so cute!!!!

Also, thanks to Paulette (Sweet P Quilting) for twisting our arms, I mean coordinating this upcoming blog hop...  

   I love using my tools, my friends know that I'm a gadget girl and one of my favorite tools is my AccuQuilt Go.  I don't use it to it's full advantage but that's what this is all about, learning, sharing and having fun!   I'm very lucky, my day to show what I've got going on is Valentine's Day, February 14th!  I do have to share the day with Connie (Quilting by the River), but I don't mind sharing!!!!  So, click on the red badge on the side and see who else is playing and mark your calenders to visit each one of us on our special days. 

Don't forget to come join the fun in our upcoming GO! Ahead and Show Some Love Blog Hop! I think you'll have fun and find some ideas to create some really sweet projects too.

Red Weekend

I worked on red scraps all weekend.  I just couldn't get them off my mind. I made 5 string blocks and a string placemat and more little hearts, but  it just seemed like my red scraps just kept growing!  Oh my, I decided I would seperate them to keep them from multiplying and that seemed to do the trick.  The pile isn't a big pile anymore, it's a medium size one now!  I didn't take pictures of the placemat yet because I didn't bind it yet.  I did start putting my hearts together. I think I'll make a few little quilts out of the hearts instead of a big quilt.  Some little girls might like these little heart quilts and I'll be working on these this week.  I have trouble with diagonal quilts.  I'm directionally challenged or something.  I have to lay them out and look at them to make sure they are right.  I'm putting white and off-white alternating blocks in with the little hearts and I'm liking the red and white.  I've had a good time sewing red this weekend and this whole month.

 I'm even getting a surprise together for next month.  I will be participating in a Blog Hop next month and you can come over and visit me along with a few others for this special Red and White Hop.  I'll post more about it later tonight.  I'm out of time right now and gotta get busy. Go sew and come back later tonight for the info, please.

Friday night sewing and Happy Scrappy Saturday!

Last night I went to the church and sewed with my friends.  It was so much fun.  I saw two new quick things and I'll be doing those sometime this week. As soon as I get everything worked out,  I'll show them to you.   They are really fun and I know you will like them. So, please check back this week for some quick things to make.
I took my red blocks and my scrap strips and worked on those a little. We visited and ate and sewed too.  What a fun time with friends.  Today, I made some Disappearing 4 patches.  I saw these last week and just had to make them along with some easy hearts.   I am still doing the red heart blocks and I'll be making those into a little wallhanging.  I'll be making more DP4 patches. I want to make the DP4 with other colors too. This might turn into a rainbow quilt too.  Time will tell as I haven't made up my mind.  Right now, I'm just trying to use up some scraps.  I did two more Fun and Done red strip scrap blocks and that made me think about using my strips to make a little scrappy bag. I'll be working on that this afternoon.  Now, I'm going to see about making a red scrappy little bag.  I'm loving happy scrappy Saturday...mindless sewing!  Ahhh, just fun sewing while I watch kid shows with my grandbaby.   I have looked at the crumb tutorials on Quiltville and another Crumb Mile a Minute block tutorial and I'll be doing some of those too, maybe....

Here's some pics.  Now back to sewing on red blocks!  I hope you enjoy your weekend and get some sewing time in.

Little Red Hearts

Fun and Done blocks. These are quilt as you go and are fun and quick to do.

Disappearing 4 Patch Blocks. These are also easy and quick to do.

Friday Night Sew In with Heidi and Bobbi and my friends

This Friday is FNSI with Heidi and Bobbi, if you haven't signed up yet, go on over to Bobbi's site and sign up. Here's a link to go there.  I plan on sewing Friday night with my friends at the church too.  Heidi and Bobbi did this last year and are doing it again this year. Yeahhhh!  I always get more done when I sign up, I don't know why but I do.  I always enjoy seeing what everyone is working on too. 

My first finish this year.

I listened to some podcasts today of Pat Sloan.  I haven't had the chance to listen to these and had 14 to listen to.  I didn't get to listen to all of them but I did catch up a little bit while I was quilting on this little charity quilt.  I'll be giving this one to my guild this week...These were just little floral blocks that someone in the guild cut out and I put them together.   I machine quilted this one with leaves and little flowers.  The stitching wasn't great but you gotta practice, right?  Anyway, it's finished and ready for gifting....

January is red month...red blocks

Yesterday, I worked on red blocks. I pulled out my red scraps and and made some little 9 patches and one string block. 

Today, I  made 4 flower blocks.  I'm making this flower quilt out of the Easy Quilt magazine.  I'll be working on this quilt this year and I'll be using scraps to make it.  I did buy the yellow fabric for the center of the flower but I plan to use scraps for all the other flowers.

I was thinking about making some scrap blocks too.  What are they called?  Oh, yeah, crumbs...Do you use a foundation to make these or just start sewing crumbs together?  Can you use paper or should it be fabric?   I haven't done any of the crumb blocks yet but I have some crumbs that I want to try.  With the cost of fabric now, I think it would be good to use up all the fabric I have. 

Here's my pile of red fabrics, it didn't go down at all, so I'll be making a few more blocks out of my reds.

My Present Quilt

I came in Friday night and worked on my present quilt...here's a picture of it. The last border in the pattern shows just a small 1 1/2" white border.  I had several 2" blocks left over and I started putting them together two at a time.  My first thought was I would make a little quilt out of the leftovers but then I thought, well, what about a border on the quilt?  Look at the top of the quilt and you will see what I'm talking about. 

Should I use this as the border or do you think it takes away from the presents in the middle?  Let me know what you think, please.

I was hacked and I'm hacked off!

Ok, I can't send each one of you an email as my contact list and email have been compromised.  If you have received email from me in the past, you were probably in my contact list. I hope you didn't get a crazy email from me saying I was in Madrid and got mugged.  I have had so many calls and texts letting me know about this.  I apologize if you got this, it wasn't me.  I hope it's all cleared up now. All my accounts have been changed but like I said, if you continue to get crazy email, please don't hold it against me.  Thanks for your understanding.

Row By Row quilt and a little Christmas wallhanging

I finished my Row by Row quilt this weekend.  I think it turned out really cute.  We were given  a row instruction each month last year and the final instructions were given to us in November.  We are to take it back to our January meeting and show how we finished it.  For all the ones that finished, there will be a surprise drawing.  I think there was only 8 or 10 of us doing this but this was a fun project and I know everyone will be sorry they didn't do it when they see the cute quilt it made.  Here's my Row by Row quilt flimsy ready for quilting.

Here's a little wallhanging I finished too. 

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!