Purple baby quilt for Carmen

Here's Carmen's quilt, quilted and bound and with a label too!  It took me longer to quilt it than I had planned...I had to fight with my machine.  I finally took it off the frame and quilted it with my Pfaff at the kitchen table.  I just can't seem to get the hang of the Brother machine.  I'm going to sit down with it and have a nice long chat with it.  I piddled around with it for about 3 hours and quilted a little bit that I had to take out... Now, I can make a diaper storage and I'm even going to make a mug rug for her. I'm not going to call it a mug rug though...I'm going to call it a bottle rug!  I had two flowers left over from the border and these will be just the thing to hold her bottles or for her Mama's tea cup or whatever!  Anyway, I'll be working on those this week.  The shower is this next Sunday so I'll be ready.  I love not having to rush.  I want to make some receiving blankets with a little bit of crochet around them before she makes her appearance. I want to make some sheets for her crib and the bumper pad too. I have another month before she's supposed to be here so I'm sure I'll get it done.  For now, here's her quilt:

National Quilting Day

Hey everybody, Happy National Quilting Day!

Fab Shop Hop website has a free quilt pattern to celebrate the event.  Here's a link to the pattern.
I'm sure there are alot more freebies out there to celebrate, I just don't have the time to look right now. I gotta get out from in front of this computer and go get in front of my sewing machine and finish that baby quilt.  Have a fun day and go sew!

Friday night sewing with Heidi and Bobby

This week has been busy with my quilt meetings. I had two different meetings this week so I did not get to sew those nights.  I haven't done any sewing this week except for last night.  I went up to the church and sewed with some of my friends and worked on the purple baby quilt.  I decided to do the border a little differently than the picture of the pink quilt.  I'm not doing the leaves all going in one direction.  I'm doing them going up both sides and out both sides at the top and bottom with 3 flowers at the top and bottom....Since I didn't have a pattern and had to figure out sizes of leaves and filler, this is how I decided was the best way to do it.  (I had help from my Friday night friends and help from Freda over at http://imperamagna.blogspot.com/. Freda gave me some help with the size of the leaves.  I played around with several different size leaves  and finally decided which size to use and it was the size Freda had originally given me....I'll be finishing this up today and I plan to start quilting on it today  too...Here's a picture of what it looks like right now and I'll take a picture and show you what it looks like later today.

One thing I did get accomplished this week was to finish tatting my flag.  I have not hidden all the threads on it and I haven't blocked it but here it is all tatted up.

I'll hide the threads that need to be hidden, block it and decide how to put stars on it and the next time you see it, it will look a lot different.  I'm still trying to decide if I should use button stars or what.  I want to play around with some polymer clay and see what comes of that.  I haven't been able to find star buttons the size or color that I want. The pattern just says to tat rings and use those but I didn't like those, so now I'm trying to decide what to do about this.  I worked on this off and on since last July. It's just ring and chains but each row took about 13 hours to do. 

Weekend sewing and the Dallas Quilt Show

I didn't do alot of sewing this weekend as I had other quilty things to do. I did work on my border for the purple baby quilt.  I had made the flower blocks last week  except for the white on the edges.  I had run out of white fabric and had to get some more before I could continue.  I put the white on white on the flowers and they now look like flowers.  I made some leaf blocks too  but I'm not going to use them...I made them 3 1/4" squares with 1 1/2" squares on the corners and these are way too big for my taste. So, I'm going to try 2 1/2" squares tonight and see if I like them better.  I don't want my leaves to over-power my flowers....Now, I have a few leaves to put into some other project and believe me, they won't go to waste. 

I tatted on my flag last night too.  I finished the last row of white and now I'm on the last rows of red.  Only two rows of this red and I'll be completedly finished.  I have been trying to decide how I'm going to do the stars and I've about decided on buttons.  This will be mine and I was thinking I would do them in thread but the more I've thought  about it the more I'm leaning toward the buttons.  I've looked online and at various shops for star buttons and haven't found anything I'm interested in, so I guess I'll make them. Some of the girls at tatting do polymer clay and suggested this to me sometime back...so, I'm thinking that's what I'll be doing.  I've never done this but there's always a first!  I'll be showing you my flag soon, I promise.

The reason I didn't do alot of sewing this weekend was the Dallas Quilt Show.  I went Saturday with two of my friends and we oogled and oggled at all the beautiful quilts.  In my opinion, this was the best show I've been to in many years.  The quilts were all great and it wasn't the same thing, over and over....Everyone is getting so good!!!  There was lots of eye candy to look at and I had a hard time deciding on which one I liked best.  I had several favorites.   Yes, I have pictures and I'll upload those later tonight when I get home.  So for now, this post has no pics but come back later and you'll see lots!  Have a great day and go get some sewing time in!

Knitting night

This week has been crazy.  I've had something to do each night and haven't sewed all week.  Tonight was knitting and it was a fun night.  One of my friends brought this cute little bag and showed it tonight.  No, I didn't make this but I just have to share it with you....so cute.  I want to make it and if I can get the pattern from my friend, I will make it.

Sewing on Sunday

This afternoon, I got to sew a little bit more.  I finished up three more turtles for community service....As it turns out, these are bigger than I first thought. I was just guestimating the size when I told you last. I measured these this afternoon and they are 28" long and 20" wide.

I put together last week's Civil War Block

and I put three more blocks together for one of my UFO's...

This is my purple quilt with some of the almost flower blocks around it.  I say almost because I ran out of white fabric and will have to buy some before I can finish these blocks.  I'll also be putting the leaves around it too.... this is on my design wall right now waiting for the white fabric to put the finishing touches onto the flower blocks.   

Another little quilt on the design wall is my Disappearing 9 patch.  I put this one together Friday night. I've decided it needs another row before a border so I have to make 4 more blocks.  I'll be doing those this week and finish this one up too.

  Anyway, that's all for now, more to come later.  Have a great week and happy sewing! 

Sewing for the week, Friday night sewing and Saturday sewing

This week has just flown by.  I have been so busy and haven't had the time to post a thing.  I have sewn a little bit this week. I haven't finished anything this week except for a few blocks. Block by block, piece by piece, a little at a time, creates a finished project, or at least that's what I tell myself...So, I don't feel too badly when I don't finish something.

 Last night I went to sit and sew with some friends at the church.  I decided I would cut things out before I went and I got nearly everything sewn together that I took.  I felt so good and was so glad I got so much done.  I sewed my D9P together and decided to make a few more blocks to make it bigger.  I sewed three other blocks together for one of my UFO's, I think it's UFO 2 on my list and I sewed all the flower blocks for my border on the purple baby quilt.  Now, I need to make the leaves and vines sections and I'll be able to put the border together.  Sorry, I didn't take any pictures of these but I will and I'll post them later...

  Today, I went and sewed with my sewing guild friends.  We were sewing on our community projects for the year.  I made a turtle. Yes, you heard me right.  A turtle.  It is so cute...I have three more to sew together. My group is one of many of the ASG (American Sewing Guild) and the community service project nationwide is to make turtle pillows for Paul Newman's Hole in the Wall Camp.  We got together today and worked on those...Here's a picture of my cute turtle all done and ready for stuffing. We don't have to stuff these ourselves, we make them and send them to our headquarters.  They are gathering them up and a sewing guild in California will stuff these and sew them shut and deliver them to the camp.  These are alot of fun to make...I have two more to sew up.



I haven't measured these but I'm guessing these are about twenty inches long by about fourteen inches wide.  They are pretty big and will take quite a bit of stuffing.  I hope the kids like them...