Jelly Roll quilt update

Hey readers,

I finished the top of the jelly roll quilt!!  Whoop, Whoop....now to work on kitting up projects for the summer time.  I need to get a better picture, but here is what it looks like with the borders on.  I have not finalized a name or scripture to go on the back, so if you have any suggestions put them in the comments!  Tomorrow I will call Betty Lewis and see if she can get it quilted for me.

Hope you have a big week and all goes well for you and yours.

Sew on,

Terry

Jelly Roll quilt

Hey Readers,

I found out last week who won the Modern Christmas Quilt...Linda Kay Barbour, mother of my across the street neighbor and very sweet lady!! I was so excited to find out she won the silent auction for the quilt.

The other day I was on Facebook and Stitchin Heaven in Texas was doing a live broadcast and said if you left a comment you could win a prize, so I said "Hi from Mississippi" and next thing you know they called my name and sent me this book!  

My latest project is  a quilt for William and Laura.  William is Anne's nephew and Laura is his fiancé'.  They are getting married in June.  My project is out of the book Smash Your Precut Stash!   I am doing the Sassy 16.   The pattern designers called for all the background to be the same fabric.  I chose to do it a variety of creams and whites.  

 So Friday we were out of school for Good Friday and my car had a recall on the airbags which is a 5 hour repair.  So I packed up my Featherweight and the project and took it with me.  So I sat there and sewed 168 flip and stitch corners and made strips of the  16 patch blocks.

I need to get going on this so I can get it to them by wedding day...hope I make it!

Terry 

Modern Christmas

Hey all,

It has been a couple of months since I have posted, but not a lot of quilting has been going on.  Last nine weeks I did way too much testing so school was my main focus.  I was desperately trying to get my Algebra II students to memorize the formulas that would make them be successful on the ACT.  Not sure it worked.   Some were extremely good but the average ones were a little lower than I would  have liked.

As you can deduce from the title I did make a decision on the alternate blocks from the Bonnie Hunter Allietare  Mystery quilt.   I am so happy with the result.  And to make things even better, I was asked to make a quilt for the local junior league and it is just right for that purpose.  Using the alternate blocks I set them on point with the setting directions from the mystery quilt and ended up with a quilt that is about 46 x 68. That makes a nice sized throw.  I put a hanging sleeve on the top as the junior league will need to display it.

Betty Lewis, of Louisville, MS did the quilting.  I had asked for a white thread, and the pattern she used on Judy Stokes last mystery quilt and she made the choice for an off white, which looks outstanding!!  So glad she did that.  This is one of the advantages of having your long armer getting to know what you like!

Here is a couple of close up of the quilting:

I have really gotten into binding things with striped fabric and on the bias.  I had this mostly left from another project and rummaged through my small pieces and added enough that it worked out perfectly to bind this project.  Y'all know I am the slowest hand stitcher on the planet, and when I bind something with a black binding I am even slower.  These old eyes aren't what they used to be.

Here is a picture of the back.

The back is more a traditional red tartan so that may fit more folks homes.

Next to work on the quilt for a sweet couple that is getting married.

I will try to do better on regular updates!

Sew on,

Terry

Decisions, Decisions

Hey all,

I seem to be having a much harder time making decision than I used to.  Used to be I would look at something  and then just decide...if I messed up, I would back track and figure out what to do.  Now I seem to second guess myself a lot more frequently.

Anyway, what brought that revelation on is the fact that I am finally working on my Bonnie Hunter mystery from LAST year, and I am not happy with how it is looking.  At the moment my plan is to continue putting the blocks together as they are.

The star blocks are all sewn together and the green blocks are on the flannel design boards.  I am just not loving it.  So as I was finishing the star blocks and laying out the remainder of the green blocks I had a thought, still no decision tho-  what if I made two quilts out of it?  Here is kind of what the blocks look like separate.  With and without sashing....

star blocks - no sashing

Star blocks and green sashing yellow corner stones.

Star blocks neutral sashing yellow corner stones.

Green blocks neutral sashing - yellow corner stones (more imagination required here.)

Green blocks no sashing.

So I should finish the green blocks some time this week.  Then I will have to make a decision.  I have one small strip of the green fabric left...so I don't know if I would have enough to make any additional blocks.  There are fewer of these than the star blocks so it would be a much smaller quilt.

Sew on...

Terry

Guild Challenge

Hey all,

It is almost Christmas!!  I am excited because today my son arrives and tomorrow my daughter arrives.  We are so excited.  Have a good bit on the 'to do' list, but wanted to write this post so I would be up to date on what I have been working on.

I have finished the Black and White plus one guild challenge from Mountain Quiltfest.  The challenge is to create a quilt with a perimeter less than 160 inches that is comprised of only black and white fabrics and one other fabric, I think I remember that the other fabric had to read as a solid.

Matt and Taylor's baby quilt 60 x 60

I really liked the quilt that I did for Matt and Taylor's baby and had enough of that fabric to make another, only revised to be smaller.  Their quilt was about 60 inches square and this quilt needed to be
a max of 40 on each side.  So I revised how I made the stars, shrunk the sashing and border....I was also not in love with the center square on Matt and Taylor's quilt.  So I was talking to Will, my son, on the phone and asked what he thought.  We were tossing ideas back and forth and he said something about a setting sun, and that made me think of the moon over a mountain block.

Shadows of Kilimanjaro 37 x 37

I took a free motion quilting class on craftsy.com by Leah Day, so I decided to do various quilting designs in each of the orange blocks.  I was thinking, pick ones that are organic looking, that would remind people of nature.

I did bamboo on this one.

A vine with long fronds.

 A lotus looking pod.

 Pebbles.

 Flowing water.

Flowers.

Curly vines.

 I also quilted each of the animal blocks and the mountain and the sun.  I decided not to quilt the white areas, so I just need to put on a label and a hanging sleeve.

I hope each of you has an amazing Christmas and remembers that we celebrate this season because Christ died on the cross for our sins and this gift that God gave us is the ultimate gift of salvation and it is worth celebrating the birth of the Christ child.

Merry Christmas.

Terry

A Jere' Funk Mystery Quilt

Hey all,

I don't know why I have had such a hard time keeping up with this blog this year...I really enjoy doing it.  This post should have been written around Thanksgiving!!!!

At the June Mississippi Quilting Association (MQA) they offer classes.  I took the class with Jere' Funk.  She sent fabric and cutting directions to do before you arrived to class.  With the class only being one day long, you would not make enough progress if you didn't have the cutting done ahead.

I decided I would like to have a Christmas throw and I had enough fabric in my stash to make the throw size without buying a thing!!  At the class I got about 8 blocks made (out of 20).

After I got home from the meeting, I was in full prepping for surgery mode as I was having replacement knee surgery in a month and in that time I also had a trip to Denver planned.  So I made about 10 pots of soups and package and froze them in individual servings.  I also trimmed all the shrubs, built some furniture and various other tasks to try to be ahead.

Christmas Hugs and Kisses  58 x 70

So during the fall, I finally got the blocks back out and finished them.  I only needed one seam to be done.   My friend Lauren came over for a sew day and I got them sashed then.  During the Thanksgiving holiday I rented my friend Lou Caffey's long arm and quilted it. After I got it home, I quilted Christmas words in the white area.  So it is done and hanging across the back of my love seat.

Rudolf

Merry

Christmas

All

I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Sew on,

Terry

An I Spy Quilt

Dear Readers,

Despite all the projects I wrote about last post, I took time out to do a special I spy quilt.  There is a little boy in our community and a member of my church that has Mitochondrial disease.  His name is Judson and his story has touched my heart so I made him a quilt.

Several years ago I bought some of Pat Yamin's Come Quilt With Me templates for eye spy quilts.   I purchased the 5 in diameter hex that comes with the hexagon template and the setting triangle.  I also purchased the smaller size, but I used the 5 inch size for this quilt.

I have a large collection of novelty prints and some were already cut into hexies.   I had also picked up a number of other prints this summer when I was out in Colorado.  So I spent a night or two cutting them into hexies.  I talked to Judson's pre school teacher to find out what his favorite color was and what he liked.  She told me super heroes and black!  I was so surprised about the black.  I had thought I would use a red for the star points, but I decided to change them to black.   I machine quilted the quilt on my Juki.  Just stitching in the ditch on all the seams.  The back was spiderman fabric with red on either side.  I did not write down the finished measurements but I think it is about 55 by 77.

I got the sweetest note from Judson's mom, Raven, and she sent me these photos of Judson with his quilt.  I am so happy he likes it.  

 I have also recently taken a trip to Colorado...I will write about that another day, but it was a fabulous visit.

I am behind in grading...ugh.  I will be working on that till I am caught back up, then on to the other projects on the table.

Sew on.

Terry