Eye Spy in Red

Dear Readers,

My first finish of 2018 was this eye spy in red.  I use Pat Yamin's Come Quilt with me Templates for her larger eye spy blocks.  Here is a link to her page.   I made it for my neighbor John Henry who walks with me.  I had hoped to finish it by Christmas, but with working so close to Christmas Day I couldn't get it done.  So once I had finished it, I took it over to their house and the kiddos were not home!  They were off to the movies with their grandmother.  So I left the two quilts with the parents.  When they got home they came over to thank me.  They were so appreciative and sweet. John Henry was so pleased, he had already picked his favorite blocks.  It was touching to watch how he folded it ever so carefully.  This quilt came out to be 61 x 47 so a nice sized throw for a little boy and he can use it for a throw for quite some time before he out grows it.  I mostly chose camping, sports and animal prints for John Henry.  I forgot to photograph the back, but it is a navy blue fabric.

On to the next UFO!!

Sew long, it is back to work tomorrow if the weather doesn't keep us out of school.

Terry

Stars over Winona

Dear Readers,

Another quilt I finished last fall was my Cookie Cutter Stars quilt that Barbara Cline designed for the Mississippi Quilting Association.  I had decided that I was going to make it using material that I had on hand.  In addition, I have wanted a quilted wall hanging for my classroom for a while, so of course I wanted it in school colors.  Red and white are the official colors but, we also use grey and black.  So I chose to do it in a variety of reds, black and white.

So each summer MQA hosts a nationally known teacher.  Last July it was Barbara Cline from Virginia.   She is the sister of one of my local guild members Julia Graber.  She has written a number of books, I have 3 of them I think.  You can go to her shop here.  Anyway she developed a new pattern that was only available to MQA members to teach.  She has it in her shop now.  It is called Cookie Cutter.

I learned several new techniques, which is wonderful!

Barbara has a way of inserting a fabric into a piece of fabric and she outlines that technique in her newest book.  Anyway, she taught us that technique and others too.  The two sided fabric twist at the corners was another technique that was new to me.

My tiger paws meander

I quilted this using a graffiti quilting technique I had been seeing quilting teachers like Angela Walters do on youtube.  I had also watched videos by Karlee Porter.  The other inspiration came from a book I have had for a while by Laura Lee Fritz.  I created my own design of for the top right corner and bottom left corner of tiger paws, since we are the Winona Tigers.  In the top left I quilted symbols for all the different subjects and activities I could think of.  In the bottom right I did words that I think of when I think of our school.  Around the edge I quilted words.  I did echo quilting on the stars and stipple quilting on the red background areas.

This quilt is 38 x 38 and is hanging in my classroom.  I put fabric with numbers on the back as I teach high school math.  No one will ever see it since it is a wall hanging, but I know it is there.

Have fun with your quilting from start to finish.  Thank you Barbara!!

Sew on,

Terry

My Favorite Things

Dear Readers,

When I walk, at a time when they are home, my two little neighbors walk with me.  Well, at the beginning of the summer, MC, the older child started asking me about helping her to make a quilt.  I put her off as I was working on the elephant quilt, and I thought she may not be ready.  After I got home from my trip to Georgia, she was still asking.  So I told her to let me think about it and see what I could come up with.  So I cleaned my studio and put out my featherweight for MC to sew on.  I thought she might like to do a disappearing 9 patch pattern.  It has all straight seams and I like the way you get a cool pattern that appears when you cut it apart and put it back together.  My plan was to have her sew the nine patches and I would do the ironing and cutting.  So I put tape on the machine so that she could use that to line up the fabric.  It did not go well...she struggled with keeping it lined up.  

 I ended up having her use my scraps to  practice with and then after she left, I finished putting the 9 patches together.

Later in the year, I put the 9 patches together as a quilt, adding a few more to the mix to make it the size of a small throw.

I decided to call it my favorite things as I know MC loves pretty colors.  So then I quilted the white background and the borders.  The borders I had used fabric with a dragonfly pattern.  So I was just outlining the dragonfly and making swirls on the border.  Because I was using a different kind of thread, I guess I wasn't handling it right, as the machine kept shredding it.  Eventually I got the border done and the white areas.

After I did that, I was looking at it and decided the colored blocks needed quilting too.  So I free motioned a different animal or something I knew she liked on each block.

Since I was working on it at night after school, a lot of the time, I messed up and did some of the quilting sideways.

I had a piece of a horse print in my stash, and I know that MC loves horses so I put it on the back.
It wasn't great looking but MC loved it.

Also busted the stash on using up some greens that kind of coordinated on the back, AND a piece of orange flannel for the binding.  Whoop, whoop!!

Still, despite all the issues, overall I really like the way this came out.  Finished size is 51 x 57.

Sew on,

Terry

Misty Mountains

Hey all,

The next quilt that I completed was the Misty Mountain quilt that Celeste wanted.   The pattern is Bonnie Hunter's Scrappy Mountain Majesties.  I figured out the measurement to do a border like they did on a similar quilt on Missouri Star Quilt Co.   She wanted a gray color.  I started it in Colorado, sewing the diagonals on the squares.  I cut ironed and the blocks after I got home from Diane and Carlos's home.  Then I started making the mountains.

When Celeste was home for Memorial Day we laid out the blocks I had done to decide on what style of layout she liked.

I love an asymmetrical block as there are so many ways to lay it out.

So we decided on this layout.

This was quilted by Betty Lewis.

Sew on,

Terry

Catching up! Collaboration Quilt

Dear Readers,

Sorry I have been so slack in posting.  My computer had gotten where it ran so slow that it was painful to use.  By the time it responded to a command, I had stopped watching the screen, then it would time out and I would have to start the log in process all over again!

Anyway since blogging (or playing) on the lap top was not happening, I did get more sewing done!

Before I went to Diane and Carlos's for our quilting week,  Celeste and I did a quilt together.  She chose a pattern by Sweet Jane called Borderline Crazy.  Here is a link to her Etsy shop if you want the pattern.  It is a small throw...

 

I misread the instructions, on my defense, the pictures of the crib sized quilt were next to the instructions for the throw sized quilt.  So Celeste, figured out how she wanted it expanded back to be a throw sized.  luckily we figured out I had messed up, before we got it all together!  Betty Lewis did the quilting on this quilt.

absolutely love the backing fabric that Celeste chose!

This was finished in August or September of 2017.

I will try to do one catch up post every few days till I am back up to date!!  More to follow!

Sew long,

Terry