Odd Girl Out

I don’t know if any of you remember the hot pink quilt top I started in September last year, and how much trouble I was having with deciding on a border.  So, I put it away for awhile.
Then about a month ago, I was reading a magazine article by Kaffe Fasset, and I knew right then and there I wanted one of his fabrics for the border on this quilt!
Well, a couple of weekends ago, I found the perfect border fabric, and I actually got it applied to the quilt!
I just love it!
I think I’ll put a cozy pink flannel on the back, and use Winline’s 100% Bamboo batting.  I haven’t auditioned any specific thread colors yet, the quilting design might influence that decision.
Now I have to figure out how to quilt it.  I know a pantograph that would look great on it, but this year I’m really wanting to focus on improving my free motion skills, and this is a perfect opportunity since it’s not designated for any specific person or event.  Got any suggestions for me?

T-shirt Quilt

Last weekend I worked on a customer's first quilting project, a T-shirt quilt.  Her mom brought it to me and said they weren’t sure how to finish it.  It's about 50" X 50" and is really cute; she made it out of her company shirts.
The biggest problem was that she had not stabilized any of the T-shirts.  They were simply cut out to show the logo and sewn together, and then she added some raw edge applique patches in some of the open areas.  She sure took on a challenge for her first project using those stretchy fabrics!  AllPeopleQuilt.com has a great tutorial on how to make a T-shirt quilt, and well worth signing up for the site.
Because the fabric wasn't stabilized, and therefore the seams weren't flat, I decided that a double layer of high loft polyester batting would probably help the situation....and I was right!  OK, maybe 2 layers was a bit overkill, but I had absolutely no tension issues!!  :-)
The initial design objective was an overall meander, but as I was working, I thought that a bit of highlighting was called for so I outlined the patches and logos.  Overall, I'm very pleased with how it has turned out.

Pink and White with Satin

I tried a new technique using a satin blanket binding over Christmas break.

This is a purchased panel that used fleece, flannel and minkee in the top.  I added high loft fleece and quilted it with a freehand flower design, using a flannel back that matched one of the patches in the top.

Since I’d never used the satin before, and wanted a mitered corner like my traditional quilts, I went to YouTube!  I found a very clear and easy video on the ExpertVillage that explained the process.

Since the time that this project was completed, I saw a PBS Sewing with Nancy show that demonstrated how to sew the corners down and miter them all at the same time.  I really liked the technique because the corners turned out crisp.  I haven’t found the video online, but if I will keep my eye out for it.

Even though my project turned out really cute, I wish I’d seen Nancy’s technique before I’d finished mine!  My corners were left open, which bothered me, but I couldn’t figure a way to close them without making the seams obvious, so I just decided to let it go, which was hard for me to do!

I don’t usually like high loft batting, but it worked really well to fill in the fullness that the different fabrics created, and gave the blanket a lot of weight.  It will be perfect for tummy time!

Cathie’s Square in a Square

I’ve been remiss in posting some of the projects I’ve worked on in the past 3 months.

This is a quilt done by Cathie, one of my favorite customers.  She is a woman after my heart and worries way too much about whether her points match…!

I love quilting her projects because they lay flat, are square and such a work of art.

I love the pattern on this one; it’s matches the colors perfectly, too!  You can’t even see the quilting, though, which is kinda cool….

New Training Video!

I got a new training video, PajamaQuilter Rethreaded, about freehand machine quilting techniques, from Dawn Ramirez, the Pajama Quilter, in the mail a couple of days ago.  You’d think I would have ripped it open, huh?  Nope, it’s still sitting on the love seat, waiting for me to have some free time!

I found out Dawn was having a sale from a blog post by Mary Johnson at MaryQuilts.com and decided to splurge a little on it, as I’ve seen some really nice quilting on some charity quilts that she’s done, and she swears by this DVD.

I’m taking the dogs to the groomer, I’ve got a sew day tomorrow, and I need to see about getting some shoes repaired and return a pair.  I’m thinking I won’t be viewing the DVD tomorrow, either!

If you haven’t discovered MaryQuilts.com, please visit her site.  Not only does she offer free scrap patterns, she runs another site called Heart Strings Quilt Project which makes string quilts for charitable organizations.

Rulers! Rulers! Rulers!

Last weekend, while I was sick, my husband helped me organize the rulers in my sewing room by mounting all of the hardware.  All I had to do was tell him where everything should go!

I bought two wall hangers for my longarm rulers from Simply Renee called Clip it Up.  They were initially designed for scrapbooking, but when I saw a photo on one of my quilting Yahoo chat groups where they had been used to organize the rulers, and immediately when I went to the site and discovered they were 50% off!  So of course I got two!

The first step was to take everything off the wall.  Boy, did I get a reality check on how many rulers I actually own!

Deciding where I want anything hung on the wall, especially when it involves putting a hole in the drywall, is an absolute chore, and it takes me forever to decide!  DH always says “I can fix it if you don’t like it there'” but I never change my mind and pull them out.

Once he mounted the first one, I hung the nested circle set, and it took all of 10 seconds to decide to mount the second one right next to it.

I decided to move another hanging ruler organizer that was mounted over the sewing machine over to the cutting table area, too.  Then he installed several hooks in various places for those miscellaneous items, and now I have a place for everything.  He even suggested that the larger rulers get hung on the wall in the stairwell, since I don’t use them that often and they’d be out of the way.  What a great idea!

I love that I can now see all my rulers!

My goal, besides getting everything off the floor, is to remember to practice with the longarm rulers so I will be more comfortable offering them as an option for my customer quilts.

I can even see all of the specialty cutting rulers for piecing that I have, too, and maybe I won’t keep searching for yet another method to make my half square triangles!  Maybe I’ll even start that spectacular quilt I’ve been planning.

Bonnie Hunter’s Orca Bay Mystery dilemma

Have you all seen the new mystery quilt that Bonnie Hunter is running again this year?  I want to participate, but I’m stuck on my colors!   I love brights, but they don’t go with anything in my house; DH sort of over-ruled that idea! Ha!

So, we have all of the earth colors and I’m still trying to figure out what I can pull together that will work in the living room, and will be a quilt he’ll actually use.  All of this indecision, and the third step is already posted!

…not to mention that I need to make a Bronco quilt for a customer before Christmas, and complete 2 other small customer quilts!