Ellie Ann's Treasures Charm Quilt

Last Monday and Tuesday when it was bad weather and I was at home, I was able to start working on this little lap quilt.  I saw this on Pinterest. I liked it and decided to make it with the two charm packs and yardage for the border that I had bought a few weeks ago. This was one of Missouri Star's Daily Deals that I couldn't pass up but I didn't have any pattern in mind when I bought it.  When I saw the pattern I knew that's what I wanted to make with it.  The pattern on Pinterest was called  Tumbling Charms Quilt and it is a free pattern from Farm Fresh Fabrics.

 

Here's a link to the pattern:

http://farmfreshfabrics.com/article/tumbling-charms-quilt/?utm_source=Farm+Fresh+Fabrics&utm_campaign=b8b4fcdcff-061614&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_ae70c9ebf8-b8b4fcdcff-64366785

 

 

I've also seen a tutorial on this quilt or a version that's really close to being this same quilt on the Missouri Star Quilt Company. Here's a link on YouTube for the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KkpbFKBaKA

They call it the Falling Charms quilt on their site..This is a fun and easy quilt to make.  I used 2 charm packs called Ellie Ann's Treasures from Eleanor Burns for the charms and the border fabric was in her line of fabric too.  I used some white muslin out of my sister's stash for the background.  This was a good project just to sit and sew and not a lot of  thinking. I did think about my sister while I was sewing this and I know she would have liked this pattern...Now, I just have to decide how I want to quilt this..  Another bad weather day to sew on!  Til next time, happy stitching.

3 Quilt Tops ready for quilting!

Well, I didn't get to do my teal blocks Saturday or during the week last week like I intended but I did sew all week.  Friday night, I finished putting together my Friendship Star quilt and I must say that I am so pleased with it.  I have never used black to sash anything with and I really like how it looks. The quilt is made up of big friendship star block (12 inch finished) and the borders are 6 1/2" borders with 6 1/2" friendship stars on the corners.  Some of the 12 inch blocks were birthday blocks from many years ago that I received from my quilting group.  I made a lot of them myself to make the quilt as big as I wanted.  

 

 

I found out something lately that took me by surprise.  I finally realized that the thing I like least about quilting is putting borders on.  I like making blocks and putting sashing on. I like binding and quilting but I never realized that the biggest thing that bothers me or stops me from finishing is the borders.  I can be almost finished with a project and I'll put it up for awhile and not finish it. When I look at my project lists, a lot of the unfinished projects just need a final border to be finished.  Hmm, I made up my mind when I realized this that I'm going to stop procrastinating and get over this obstacle.  I pulled two more projects out Saturday and started pulling fabric for them.  I was going to work on them Saturday but didn't get a chance.  I went to sew with a few friends at the church and we worked on charity quilts.  So, when I finally got home, I cut the borders for two of the quilts that were almost finished and started putting the borders on them.  I finished these two quilt tops up Sunday afternoon and they are both now ready for quilting.....I was so pleased with myself and so glad I was able to sew and get these together over the weekend.  So, for the weekend I finished three quilt tops!  Woo hoo, I love it. It was good to get these done.   Do you have a hang up or something that stops you from completing your projects, or is it just me?    Now that it's finally dawned on me that this is one of the things I don't like, I'm going to make sure this doesn't cause me anymore problems.  After all, it's just another step in the process and shouldn't be a stumbling block and I'm going to really work on not letting it affect the process.


   

Catching up, feeling better and a finished top

I haven't posted in a few weeks.  I haven't felt good and haven't done any sewing.  I have had a terrible tooth ache.  My dentist fixed this tooth back in January but it didn't work. I finally had to give up and go to the endodontist and they drilled through the crown to do a root canal.  After two weeks of tooth  and jaw pain, I finally got some relief on Thursday and started feeling lots better.  My mouth is still tender but no pain..Woo hoo, you can only imagine the relief!  Anyway, I'm not on any more drugs and I finally felt like doing something besides going to bed... 

I worked on several things this weekend.  I made a quick little quilt top out of some Brown Bear fabric I've had in my stash.  I haven't had this in my stash very long, maybe a year or two...anyway, I already did one Brown Bear top a few months ago but I really liked this one when I saw it in another magazine. I fussy cut the animals out and the fabric I have left is really holey...(I hate fussy cutting only because of the waste of the fabric) I'm going to cut up the rest of the animals and use them on my last Brown Bear panel  that I have. I'm going to keep the panel all together on this last one  and just add borders around it. I'll use the left over animals in the border or maybe on the back of the quilt. Here's the Brown Bear top I made this weekend:

Brown Bear, Brown Bear what do you see?

I finished this little quilt top for community service. This is a little top I started at my small group at our last meeting. I couldn't finish it at the meeting as the kit was short two blue cornerstones and I had to cut those out of my stash.  I cut those and finished sewing up the little top.  I'll give this back to the  group and we have long arm quilters that will do the quilting for us...

Here's a close-up of the blocks, this fabric is all different kinds of mocassins.  The fabric was pretty cute and I didn't like the border at first but it grew on me as I was putting it on.  I think it turned out ok and I hope some little kid will like it.

I also worked on catching up on my row by row quilt.  I made three rows and I'll add these to the other rows I  have already done. Now,  my little row by row is all caught up.. I didn't take a picture of those but I will and I'll show you later.

I didn't do this over the weekend but I wanted to show you this cute pincushion that I made at my last ASG meeting.  It is made out of wool and he turned out so cute. It's a little porcupine.

 I planned on working on the Barbara Brackman blocks but didn't get to them .  I have fallen behind and need to catch up on these too. I'll try to work on them this week.  I did all of my sewing while watching the youngest grandchild and she demanded my time too...so, these were on my list but she took priority. I'll have to catch up on them another time.

A Few Finishes

I haven't been doing alot of sewing or crafting this month.  Grandbabies  and family have taken priority this month. My life is slowly getting back to normal or whatever that is....
I have done a little bit of tatting and I have also sewed one little top and finished binding on another quilt so I have gotten a few things done along the way. 

Here's the tatting I've done this month:

This cherry pattern came from Nancy Tracy over at Be-stitched.  Here's a link to her free pattern. If you sign up for her newsletter, you get a free pattern and a new easy recipe every month. Plus you get to hear about all of the stuff she has in the shop... I love getting her newsletters and seeing her new patterns....Go check her out when you have time.

I made a mistake on this pattern and didn't want to untat it.  I just decided to leave it in because you know as well as I do that all cherries aren't always round, right????  Anyway, I decided I could live with it as is... I used Lizbeth size 20 for this. Nancy's pattern was all one color but I like colors....

A friend of mine gave me this bookmark pattern and if I can find a link, I will share it....

This was in the Handy Hands newsletter from December 2010. It's actually about 6 inches across. I saw this on Lace Loving Librarian's (Diane) site first and just had to get the thread and make one for myself...See Diane, I do get a little bit of tatting done.  Better late than never, right?

Here's my scrappy doily. I've been working on this off and on for awhile now.  I'm still not through with this one either but it's getting there. This one is about 8 inches wide. I found this on the web too. This one has a couple of links to it...I saw it on Martha Ess's website first and she referred to the site she got it from...

 This butterfly is a big one.  It is about 12" long by 5" wide.It was made with size 10 thread.  I didn't make this one though...A friend of mine found this at a garage sale. She bought it and gave it to me.  It had a few bad spots in it. I washed it and fixed the threads that were coming loose and blocked it.  I'm going to put this one in a frame and I'll show you this again when it's done...

Here's the quilt top I made. I've had this fabric in my stash for awhile and saw it again in an old magazine I was looking through, May/June 2008 Fons and Porter-Love of Quilting and I decided to pull the fabric out and put this together.  This was a real quick top to put together since the middle part is a panel.  This one's called the Very Hungry Caterpillar and the fabric is still available online.  I'll be quilting this one soon. I want to see it finished quickly. I have the book to go with it too.

Here's my finished wallhanging. It turned out beautiful.  A friend of mine quilted it for me  and I just finished binding it. I wish you could see how beautiful the quilting is on this one.  Carolyn did a wonderful job and  I love this one.  The pattern was in Quilt Sampler magazine last year. This will be going on my wall after I show it this Thursday at my small quilt  group.... I'm calling this the Schoolhouse Quilt.  I know it's not a very original name but that's what I called it the whole time I was working on it and it stuck....I joined 4 of my friends and we swapped some blocks on this one.  You saw it  a long time ago but it wasn't quilted.  We swapped the small houses, the schoolhouses, the baskets and the pinwheels.  The middle part was all done by me. It's funny that even though we made blocks alike, all of our quilts look really different. 

I have some items I need to work on but don't want to. I've decided since this is July and more than halfway over, I'll be doing only things I want to work on. 

til next time....happy sewing!

Friday night sewing and Saturday sewing

Well, I didn't do as much as I wanted to Friday night but I enjoyed myself. I went over to the church and visited with my buddies and I worked on binding a quilt.  I finished  a little over half of it before I put it up and just walked around to see what everybody else was working on.  I enjoy seeing what everybody else is doing to see if I want to do it too!  One lady was working on the blocks that the Fabshophop was promoting and they were turning out really cute.  They call it the Fab Shop Celebration Sampler and you can find it here. They have alot of different blocks and hers was turning out really cute.  I pulled out my camera to take some pics and discovered that my battery was dead.  Sorry about that...Anyway, I charged it up Saturday morning and took some pics of what I worked on yesterday too.  Other ladies were crocheting and working on wool.  I guess I'm going to break down and do some wool work too.  I just love the way it looks and you don't have to needle turn it either....

Here's the quilt I finished binding Saturday morning.  This is called Fiddlesticks and I think it is a Bonnie Blue pattern.  A friend of mine quilted it for me and I just love the way she quilted it...if you click on the picture you can see the quilting...

I also worked on putting together my Cupcake quilt.  My group had an exchange (I showed you pics previously) and then last Saturday we got together and sewed on the quilt top. I put together some 16 patches and decided I didn't like them with the blocks so I then put together some big Nine Patches and cut them apart (Disappearing Nine Patch style). The alternating blocks are the D9P blocks.

I found the cutest cupcake fabric to use as setting triangles and the border fabric. I had some left over DP9 blocks and between that cupcake fabric and those, I might have enough to do the backing too.  Here's the flimsy all put together, ready for quilting...

Mother Goose is Finished and Crazy Patch Flimsy is together

Sunday afternoon I was able to sew on the binding to my little Mother Goose quilt. I finished it off late last night by hand sewing the binding down. I haven't made a label or a hanging sleeve for it yet but I plan on it. I just wanted to be able to sit in front of the TV and watch my shows and have some hand work to do. I am very pleased with how it turned out. My friend, Judy, quilted it and she did a great job.





This afternoon, I went to my LQS and bought the border fabric for my Jelly Roll quilt. They only had one bolt left of this fabric. I was lucky that it was in one of the colors that I wanted. I had decided on the green, red or purple and the red was the only color they had. So, I now have some red fabric to put a border on. I'll put the border on this tomorrow night after tatting or Wednesday night.

Sunday afternoon, I also put the sashing strips on the Crazy Patch quilt. I ran out of time and didn't put the final red border on it.
When I got home today, I put the red borders on and it is now ready for some light quilting. Here's a picture of this one...



Now, it is TV time for awhile. Til next time...

Unhealthy week-pincushions-Jelly Roll Block/Quilt- Finished Scrap quilt and a sick sewing machine

This week has been horrible. I started getting sick Tuesday and came home from work early. I have been off all week with this and haven't felt like doing anything but laying around. I guess it was a virus. Wednesday, my husband came home with it and Thursday my son came home sick. It has not been any fun to be at our house this week. My son and husband went back to work today, not completely 100% but able to deal... I finally felt good enough to do a little house cleaning and sewing. So, this week has been very unproductive.

I have sprayed my house down with Lysol and washed all the sheets, towels and cleaned all the bathrooms to prevent us getting sick again. After that, I was able to finally get a little bit of sewing done.

I didn't feel good enough to work on anything until last night. I started hand stitching this little pincushion. I finished it and stuffed it this morning...I had done this one before but it didn't turn out right so, I redid it. Here's the correct one. Isn't it funny how you can have the same pieces and if you sew it together wrong, it makes two different things? Well, that just about says quilting all over it, doesn't it?
I'm still going to do this one again. I really didn't want the green on top. I wanted the color that's on the bottom to be the fabric on top. Now that I know how to do the pattern, it will be easier next time. This is really what it is supposed to look like.



This is what I ended up with the first time...



Quite a difference, huh?



I should have told you earlier where I found the pattern for the pincushion. So, shame on me for not telling you. It was from a fellow blogger named Mae Britt from Abyquilt and here's a link to the pincushion. It was alot of fun to make.

I sewed the last row onto an organized scrap quilt and I'm calling this one done. I have more scraps and might make something else but this one's big enough. This fabric was leftover from three quilts I made a few years back. The quilt was called Starry Night and it was a Marti Michell quilt. I had to make three of the same quilt because one was for the girl that started the shop sample and had an accident. I made one for myself and I gave another away. I was really tired of this quilt by the time I finished working on these and I just put all the scraps away. I had some fairly big scrap pieces but not enough to do anything fancy. I saw a Moda University pattern and decided to do it. It was called La Jardin (I think-I can't lay my hands on the pattern right this minute). It really wasn't even necessary to have a pattern for this one. Anyway, I think this will look just fine quilted and bound in the lighter blue fabric. I have just enough left for binding. It's not anything fancy but I like the fabrics and always did.






After that was done, I finished up block 12 of the Jelly Roll quilt along...(I know mine is a little different than the pattern but this is how I wanted it)



and I sewed it into the flimsy...I don't have any border fabric. I'm still looking in my stash to see if I can use anything. If not, I'll check with the LQS and see if they have any fabrics from this line left. If not, I might just have to order something online to finish this one off...I really like this one and want to stay in the same family if I can. I'll show you again when the border's on.




While I was sewing this little quilt, my lovely little sewing machine and I were fighting. Ms. Bernina was being stubborn and kept stopping while I tried to sew. She kept freezing up. I kept pushing her along...turning her off and on to get her going again, and we finished up. (I guess she caught a virus from me too.) I was getting so much done today too...Ms. Bernina and I made a trip into town to the Bernina shop and my favorite repair man was waiting for me. I had called ahead to make sure he was there and he met me at the door and carried the sick little lady in for me. He took her in and checked her out while I sat in on a free demo. I looked around, purchased some fabric for the sashings and backing for the Crazy Patch Christmas blocks I showed a few days/weeks ago. I'll finish them up next. Anyway, he was able to fix Ms. Bernina up with cleaning, oiling and some sort of new sensor and I was able to bring her home with me. I don't know if I'll have time to sew on her anymore today but I'm going to try later. Have a good weekend and happy sewing...

Another finish for Christmas and a final block for a top

fI got this Christmas tree quilt as a UFO from someone else. At my small group, you can bring fabric, books, or whatever and leave on the table for others to purchase for a small donation. I picked this up a few months ago and decided it was time for it to be finished. I bound it and washed it. It has some rust stains from pins on it still that I have tried to take out and I'm still working on them. They have lightened with lemon juice and washing but they are still there. I guess that's why someone abandoned this little quilt. If I can't get them out, I might just have to put some holly and berries over them.




I also made a little block. This is the final block for a small quilt. It only has 20 blocks. The blocks were given to me as a castoff quilt top. I didn't like the fabric that was used for the sashings, so I took the top apart and am using different fabric to sash it with. There were 19 blocks done but one block was bare. I had the pattern from years past so I pulled it out and made it. I'll put this little quilt together this week. I have the perfect fabric for it that was also given to me! My MIL cleaned out her closet and had this fabric. It is older fabric that will go just right. I'm very excited about this little quilt and I have it pictured how it will look. I hope it turns out as good as I have imagined. Time will tell, right? Here's the little block, it is 9 1/2" and is called Achy Breaky Heart (does that tell you about how old this project was? Any Billy Ray Cyrus fans out there?).

Confetti Quilt

I had a quilt top that I made from a kit. I made this last year, it was called Confetti. I really liked it but it didn't have any personality. I found the perfect border fabric for it and bought it. Now, I think this little quilt is complete and I love it. I'm going to let a Longarmer friend quilt this one and bring it to life...I think I'll call it Confetti Dreams.

Up early and ready to sew!

My body woke me up this morning at 5:00. My back hurt and my bladder was full but, (Yay!!!) my headache was gone. I got up, let the dog out, went to potty and came back to bed. I laid there and started thinking about everything but sleep. I soon realized that sleep was not happening, so, I got out of bed, ate some cheerios, made some coffee and headed upstairs. I made another friendship block, this one is for Anna and her quilt is called Hugs and Kisses. She's wanted pastel colors...Pastels aren't really my thing but I did find enough fabric in my stash to put together this sweet block.

Here's a hug for Anna:


Then, I pulled out this red Christmas fabric that my sweet MIL gave me and decided it was just the thing I needed for my 9 Patch Christmas quilt. I looked at Christmas fabric yesterday but decided I would use what I had on hand instead of buying....
I put this red fabric on for the border of this dull Christmas quilt and I like it alot better now. What do you think? I think it really helped this quilt and now if it's quilted in red thread, I think it will look great. So, here's the finished Christmas 9 Patch flimsy.



I'm going to drink another cup of coffee, visit with my husband for a few minutes and then, decide what else I want to work on. More later...

Friday night sewing , finishing up my exchange and my iron bit the dust.

I came home yesterday and started setting out my blocks from my exchange. We finished our exchange Thursday night and I now have all of my blocks to do this quilt. I couldn't wait to get home and start this quilt. I put them all out on my design wall and started arranging/rearranging until I got them like I wanted. I sewed up the middle section and then started on the top section.










I sewed those two sections up and then stopped. I came downstairs and watched TV and tatted on my flag. I decided I would get up early and try to finish this top up...It was going together very well but it was more time consuming than I thought it would be. It was set on point for the top and bottom sections and that always throws me a little. I decided I wasn't going to rush this.

I got up this morning and made my coffee, looked around at some blogs and went upstairs. I moved my portable design wall closer to me and I was able to just turn around and pick up the blocks and sew them in the order they needed to be. It was much easier. I sewed a few and pressed and I was going along pretty good...My dog, Brandi wanted to go out so I thought this was a good time to take a potty break too. I went downstairs and let her out and piddled around in the kitchen putting dishes in the dishwasher. I guess I was downstairs for maybe 15 minutes before I went back at it. I went back upstairs and started sewing again but I started smelling something really funky....Not a good smell, either. I got up and walked over to the ironing board and smoke was coming off of my iron. I thought hmmm, smells like something rubbed up against it like plastic. I grabbed it and ran it along the end of the ironing board and it immediately scorched the ironing board cover. It was so hot! I unplugged it immediately and that's the end of that one! I'm so glad I was up there when this happened. It was so hot, I think it was close to bursting into flames. I'm also glad I didn't put it on my fabric. Boy, I would have been highly upset about that! Anyway, I was very fortunate today and have learned a good lesson from this. Don't go out of the room and leave your iron on (or any appliance, for that matter.) Turn them off just to be safe.

My Rowenta is the one that got so hot...I loved this iron, it was a great one...



I put all the blocks together and put my final borders on. I pulled out another iron and did my final press with this old thing. I picked this up at my small group. I got it for a small donation. One of our members brought it up to sell in our garage sale cause the steam part didn't work. I don't use steam so I bought it. It's nice and heavy and gets pretty hot. I will definitely watch it though now.

I'll be using this nice, heavy Sunbeam for a while...




My quilt top is together and no fires, so I'm a happy camper! Here's my top, I did this from the last issue of The Quilt Sampler magazine. There's a new issue out now but this one's still available somewhere.

Finally, a finished top. I think it turned out ok. If I had it to do over, I would make sure the pinwheels were darker so the album blocks and basket blocks would show up better. Other than that, I'm very pleased. The top went together very good and all the blocks were pretty accurate.




Here's the magazine that this pattern came out of.


Here's the picture in the magazine so you can see what the top looked like there...

Saturday Sewing

Ok, guys, I'm taking a break and going to dinner with my family. I've gotten quite a bit done today and I'm not sure if I'll be able to sew tonight when I get back but I've had a very enjoyable sewing day....
I started sewing on this last night and was able to finish it this morning. I think it's called Bella Baby. This is the second top I'm doing for Judy and I think it turned out so cute. I think she'll be pleased. I know she got this about two years ago when we went on a short shop hop (just three of us) together. She fell in love with this little quilt when she saw it. I think she needs this one for a baby shower in May, oh...it is May. Anyway, maybe she can quilt this one quickly. Here's Baby Bella or Bella Baby, I forget what it's called and I'm too lazy right now to walk up the stairs and look....




Here's a close-up. There were 4 big flowers and 12 little flowers. I used steam a seam to applique this...


I got this block done for my sewing group. This is going to be block four of the pizza box project. This is an easy block off of Marcia Hohn's site, Quilter's Cache. I wanted the girls to have a signature block that everyone can sign that participated in the project. We'll have a pizza party and reveal our blocks and everyone can sign the blocks at that time....Remember, this is just my sample block...


Here's my block for the Jelly Roll Quilt Along...



I got 6 blocks done for my small group exchange. This month was a square in a square block...I only needed 5 but I made the 6th one for good measure.



I also did 5 pinwheels and finished 4 of my Leader and Ender blocks..They are called Crazy Eights. I'm doing the blocks in florals and I'm liking the blocks alot. I love doing the Leader/Ender method...it's like doing 2 quilts at the same time and you don't even notice you're getting anything done until there they are. I wish I had started doing this years ago...



I got 13 floating four patches halfway done, the four patch part is done and I have the outside triangles cut, I just need to sew them on. Hmmm, let's see, oh yeah, I put an inner border around my middle section of the Schoolhouse quilt. The middle part is snowballs. I made the 6 Square in a Square blocks...these go with this quilt. We have two more exchanges after this month. Two months of pinwheels...17 pinwheels per month. I almost have those done now. I should be getting my little house blocks this month and I'll start putting this together and you'll see some progress on this very soon. Here's the mid section. This quilt was on the cover of Quilt Sampler and there are 5 of us exchanging.



I am now up-to-date on everything and can work on Amy's BOM. That's the next thing on my list...I bought some red and blue fabric yesterday at the quilt store. I don't feel a bit guilty either. I have only bought fabric this year to finish up things and I have been using everything else out of my stash. I have cut down alot of my spending since I quit working at the quilt shop. Mostly because I'm not there and I'm not tempted but also, I'm staying away and trying to use my stash.

I hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend and getting quality sewing time in...gotta go check on my blog buddies and see what's going on with them. til next time....