Blue Moon Quilt

Journeys by Whimsical

Thank You for the lovely compliments on this quilt. I was asked if it is a design by Whimsicals by Quilter Laura, and she knows her Whimsicals.  Here is their website, the do fun stuff.

The pattern was from their book Journeys and they call it Rustic Moon, because all their moons where done in a rust color. 

I actually purchased my fabric at a quilt show and it was all in a kit.  I just fell in love with it when I saw it on their wall of the booth.  I have forgotten the name of the shop that displayed the quilt and sold the quilt. 

I have to admit I'm very happy with how it turned out and especially the colors, so not what I usually do.  Maybe I should do more like them. 

Happy Stitching!!

Blue Moon Quilt

Blue Moon on the frame quilted completed.

After I was in bed last night I realized I had not posted about my Blue Moon Quilt. I actually took it off the frame on Sunday Aug 22nd but I did not do a blog post that night or that week. I did free motion Loop de Loops with stars and crescent moons. The quilting in the sashing and borders is more open and the quilting around the applique is a little denser.

More of the quilting

 I'm happy with how it turned out.  I added the binding last Sunday night and I have been sewing the back down by hand a little every other night or so.

How it is today with the binding almost done.

I took it to work today to show my co-workers, they where all very complimentary.  One gal Mendy was so fun, as she noticed the stars and the moons in the quilting.  It is always fun to me to watch non-quilters admire quilting.  She suddenly asked me if I hang quilts on my walls and of course I do.  She came back from lunch with to lovely made quilt hangers.  I have found just the place to hang them, now to decide which quilts to hang on them.  A project for another day.  Thanks Mendy for the quilt hangers. 

Quilting Update

New Design Wall and Big Board Covering

I did accomplish a lot of quilting type things this week which means I did very little Genealogy.  I just really felt the need to accomplish a few quilting things.  Two items were completely unplanned for this week, well one of them has been on my to do list and once I did that I saw something else that needed to be done so I did it.  The one item on my to do list was to remove the old muslin on my big board and recover it with new muslin.  Well that sucker is heavy and once it was moved, I notice how dirty my design wall was, we use to have two cats that liked to hang out on the big board.  So I ripped the old batting off an re-covered it.  Which meant I had to move all my storage stacks that live under my big board.   As well as climb up and down the step ladder.  It also meant that I need to go buy more batting then I realized that I could get a flannel backed table cloth for only $5 and that was cheaper and worked just as well as batting.  I ran off to the local store and pinned it to my insulation.  Since it was bigger than my design area, I cut it with my rotatory cutter, by moving a small cutting mat against the wall to cut off the extra tablecloth.  It worked real slick and was easier than cutting it with scissors.  I can't get over how clean it all looks.  One corner of the Big Board had been scored brown. 

Topsy Snowman

My next little project was to start working on my quilt camp small auction quilt.  I sure hope it will find a happy new home.  The theme for camp is "Let it Snow".  I think my little quilt will fit in just fine with the theme.  He still needs to be machine appliqued and quilted and some buttons added as embellishment.  The border print was a fat quarter I picked up from an ugly fat quarter exchange about 2 or 3 years ago at quilt camp.  I don't think it is ugly at all, and now it looks great with the other fabrics.

Mystical Horse 3 borders on

This is my other project.  I designed this in EQ6 and had the center completed since Sept 3 of 2007.  Almost three years.  I have even had the fabric for the borders for at least 2 years.  Today it called to me.  This is Laurel Burch Mystical Horse fabric, her first run of the design.  I really like the print of the fabric and the colors.  I only had fat quarters of it and maybe one or two half yards.  I just didn't want to cut the fabric and I wanted to use it all, or most of it.  This is my own design.  I did a lot of the color placement on the design wall.  Yes I have tow design walls, one in the sewing room and this one at the end of the hall to the bedrooms, it is right outside my sewing room, or a friend calls it the "Lady Den".  I just couldn't do plain borders so I purchased two different colors and the black for the resting border.  I was thinking of doing mitered corners for the big border but when I drew them in EQ7, they didn't impress me.  So I made 9 patch blocks instead and I really like the effect.  I still have one more border to sew on, but the day has come to an end and I most go to work tomorrow. 
Good night and happy stitching.

Quilting Update

One of my friends told me, "Now that you do Genealogy you hardly blog on your quilting blog any more."  Well Rachel I think I'm making up for lost time today. 

Meandering with stars and moons

Yesterday I was watching this video to learn or improve your frame machine quilting.  I decided yesterday was the day I was going to finish that practice piece I have had on the frame since January.  Yep it has been there for 8 months.  I didn't like the quilting pattern the mystery quilt was showing us how to do.  I'm really glad I was doing it on some practice fabric instead of the quilt I made for the mystery quilt.  I'll do something else with that wall hanging.  So I finished the practice piece with some meandering loop-de-loops with stars and crescent moons.   Boy you can get rusty in 8 months.  It was like meet my machine all over again.

Blue Moon

Yesterday I suddenly felt motivated to finish a quilt that has been waiting for just two borders.  This is Blue Moon by Whimsical.    I pieced the borders and sewed them on tonight.  I went and purchased thread yesterday to quilt it with.  I already have the backing but I have to check if I have batting.  If I don't it isn't a big deal I can buy it right around the corner from my house.  You can see why I was practicing meandering with stars and moons, I think they will look on this quilt.  I will go around the applique, not over it.

And yes since August 1st I have made four Farmer's Wife Blocks.  I'm thinking I might make three more and put it away for awhile so I can work on some other projects.  Quilt Camp is coming up in 3 weeks and it would be nice to have a small quilt for silent auction. 

So that is all I have to report from my little corner of the world. 

Happy Stitching!

Accuquilt Go Give Away

Karen over at Sew Many Ways is having a give away of a Accuquilt Go.  You did read the correctly, she is giving one away.  It is fun portable system to die cut fabric.  If you don't know what a Accuquilt Go is check out the website.  Now that you know and you want one, go to Karen's blog and enter her give away. 

Karen has also started some tutorials on projects to make with fabric that you have cut on the Accuquilt Go.  She is a very talented gal.  If you don't follow her blog you will be impressed with her ideas she comes up with for her series of articles called Tool Time Tuesdays. 
Have fun and may the best gal win!

Will's Stocking

There is nothing better than a phone call from a shop where you have left something to be finished and finding out that the item is in.  I had such a call on Tuesday while I was at work.  Of course this shop doesn't have evening hours so I had to wait until today to pick it up. 

So I waited for the shop to open and drove my self over there to pick it up. 

Will's Stocking Finished 8.14.10

So here it is, you have watched grow week by week.  I'm very happy with the finished project.  I have taken all of my stocking to the same shop to be finished since the very first one I made in 1990.  Attic Needlework  I'm not sure if it is the same person since the beginning but I have never had any complaints. 

Kierra's & Will's Stockings together.

This this stocking is for Kierra's husband I sent Kierra's stocking with the stitching so she can match fabric weight.  Here is a picture of the two stockings together.  Kierra's has a green background and Will's red so they look great together. 

The designer of the stockings is Mary Beale, this link takes you to the stocking samplers.  I have made #2 for Richard, #3 Krystal, #4 Kinsen, # 5 Will, #6 Klint, #7 Mary, and #9 Kierra.

At Christmas I'll post pictures of all the stockings.

Quilting Update

So for tonight's Update I decided to show you all my blocks I have completed so far on my Farmer's Wife Sampler. I have a total of 65 blocks completed.  They are just arranged in the order they were completed.  So I will have a lot of fun re-arranging them in a pleasing manner. 
If you are wondering how I made this picture, it's really high tech.  I have all my blocks in an Yahoo photo album, I clicked on rearrange photos and it makes one large page out of the album.  I then took a screen shot of the web page, saved it as a .jpg file and here it is all for your viewing pleasure.  The software I use for screen shots is called Snagit.  I use it at work to my handouts and tip sheets.  I liked it so much I purchased it to use at home for my quilting handouts.  Not that I have taught many quilting classes lately.
This week I made three blocks, they are on the bottom right hand side.
Take Care and Happy Stitching