Panel to a Quilt Top

Back in November, when I attended our local Project Linus Day, there were many bins of donated fabric for us to choose from to make future Linus Blankets aka tied quilts.  Since I love the piecing part, my friend, Lenore chose quite a few panels for me.  Here is the first one that I designed with other fabrics she chose.

FROM THIS:

TO THIS:

Is it December already?

Farm Quilt  (54" square) before quilting & binding

The days are flying by.  At the end of November, I thought of something fun to make for a Christmas gift.
A Charm Quilt with 144 (5" squares) all from different fabrics.  It took a day to cut, a day to piece, a day to piece the back and a day to quilt and a day to sew on the binding.  The only problem is, it needs to be shipped to California.  The good news is, the quilt is complete except for a label.  To add to the challenge, I decided to make a book through Ancestry.com, which entailed going through all of my "old pictures" to find my relatives.  I found a couple of pictures from the 1860's but most of the old ones were from the early 1900's.  All the pictures I chose for the book needed to be scanned and saved, which I did yesterday.  In my mind, I thought it would be a quick morning project.  Wrong!  I took 2 quick breaks for lunch & dinner.
Thankfully, I was able to place my book order at 11:00 this evening.  Something tells me, the gifts may be late this year....   Anyone reading this, please don't tell  my relatives what they are getting for Christmas.

Both projects were "eye openers".  It let me know how disorganized my sewing room really is. 
The pictures are in worse shape.  Most of the people who can determine who are in the pictures have passed on.  Anyone out there that is interested in their ancestry, please ask your grandparents to look at the pictures and write down on the back who is who and the approximate date the picture was taken.   
  

Mystery Quilt Top Complete

Flowers made instead of Yo-yos

Picture of the fabrics used

Delighted to report that I have completed the Mystery Quilt top and I'm quite happy with the results.  As I was making the flowers, I had to laugh because I didn't want to spend the time making 40 yo-yos but what I made to replace the yo-yos probably took longer but it was something different to try.  I had just enough fabric to make all 3 borders.  My quilt top turned out to be 63" square.  I have no idea how I will quilt it.  I am just thrilled I can show a complete top in mid December at my Quilt Guild meeting.

Mystery Quilt Top completed  12-03-2013

 

 

Design Wall Monday

In late Spring, I decided to join in on the Mystery Quilt offered by our quilt guild.  Each month we were sent the next installment of instructions for "Flowers in the Garden of Life".  The title should have been the major clue in determining the fabrics to use but I chose not to purchase any more fabric but use what I had.  Of course, I did not have quite enough of all of the fabrics for what was recommended, so I decided to just make do as I went along.  My outside floral border helped me choose the fabrics for the rest of the quilt.  It was a fabric I had been holding on to for over 15 yrs., waiting for the perfect quilt.  The pattern states the Yo-yo flowers are to be placed around the vine.  Making 40 Yo-yos was not appealing to me and I was not sure that I would ever finish the quilt, so I plan to machine applique several different sizes of circles.  After I get the flowers sewn on, I will complete the borders.  The goal is to show the quilt top at our December Guild meeting. 

Be sure to check out what others are doing over at Patchwork Times.com

Mystery Quilt - November 2013

Bed Runner Complete

FRIENDSHIP CROSSING

This bed runner was made for my long time friend from 7th grade. As I was trying to decide what pattern to use, I came across the design shown above, called "Friendship Crossing" and I knew this would be the perfect design.
The outside border fabric was designed by Edyta Sitar of Laundry Basket Quilts for Moda Fabrics.  Edyta came to our state-wide Assembly Day of Guilds in July of this year.  She showed us over 100 quilts that she had created and quilted using all of her beautiful fabrics.

Quilt of Valor ready and waiting for final destination

 Quilt of Valor completed in October 2013.
The quilt pattern can be found on Judy Laquidara's Blog, Patchwork Times.com under "Free Patterns".  It is called QOV - Sit & Sew 2013.
Patchwork Times Free Patterns



Lorrie Brown from Monterey, TN did a beautiful job on the long arm quilting with lots of stars.  Lorrie sent an official QOV label, which can be purchased through the Spoonflower.com/shop
You need to search Quilt of Valor labels when you arrive at their site.

The matching pillowcase can be easily made using
Judy Woodmansee instructions as shown in her
YouTube: Making a Sausage Pillowcase with Judy

Flat Doll and clothing complete

Flat Doll and clothing completed 10-16-2013