March Giveaway!

The second to last giveaway for now.  Wow!

I have a fat quarter bundle (8 fat quarters) with a coordinating Italian alphabet panel from the Michael Miller line "Alfabeto Italiano."

So many options with that panel!!!  Quilts, pillows, bean bags to toss, coasters....

So leave me a note at the bottom to enter yourself.  Due to personal time constraints only one entry per person.  Sorry!  Hopefully I can make it more fun next time, but I have so many projects going and I need to barrel through them so I can start work on making the Quilt-Along quilt, take pictures, and begin writing blog posts.

I will announce a winner on March 7th!  :)  Good luck!!!

Happy Crafting!

Happy 1st Birthday!

My niece is turning the be ONE in a few days and I have been frantically working on finishing up a little doll quilt for her.  According to her parents she has quite the affinity for baby dolls so we got her a little pack 'n play for them and I made a sweet vintage inspired doll quilt to go with it.

I went with a modern pattern on the front, dropping one of the sections of the diamond away from the center points.  All of the fabrics are vintage inspired.  There are some sweet little flower prints, a Pez print, little socks, some farm animals, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, and Little Red Riding Hood.  I coordinated those with some a pretty gold solid.  

I also ventured into hand quilting for the first time, and while I adore the effect it gives the quilt I will not be racing to do that again.  My fingers are very tired and sore, but it was so worth the effort I think.  Really adds to that sweet vintage feel I was going for.

 The back is a darling Sandy Klop (she also did the Pez Print) nursery rhyme/fairy tale print.  Very appropriate for a little one.  And what a fun way to be able to sit down with mom and dad as she gets older and they can say the rhymes and stories to go with the pictures!

This was a quilt of many firsts.  Not only did I hand quilt, but I also machine stitched the binding on.  I thought since this is meant to be a child's play toy that it needed to really be on there nice and tight.  I used some left over 2 1/2" wide binding from my Mom's Christmas quilt.  It went on very fast and easily, but I did learn a couple of things.

1)  As with hand stitching the binding to the backing I prefer a tight 2 1/4".  It just looks more uniform to be on the back and front.  After stitching this down and looking at the back, I certainly didn't miss any areas, but I did notice spots were I had pulled the binding tighter thus giving a slight wave effect on the back.  It's not awful, but not as perfect as it would have been had I hand stitched it.

2)  I need to get a stitch in the ditch acu-feed foot for my new machine.  That would make staying right up against the edge of the binding much easier and even faster than it already was.

I will definitely try machine stitching the binding again though.  :)  I also noticed that my new machine does not like going through thick seams.  It either tries to pull off in a different direction or makes me pull really hard on the fabric to get it through.  Luckily this isn't something I often encounter, but I'll have to ask at the shop about ways to help work around that.  Going slower, or trying to go really fast certainly wasn't helping, and adjusting the presser foot pressure didn't seem to do much either.  Anyway, this ended up in some slightly mismatched seams in the piecing process.  :(  But, it's still really cute.

I hope she likes it, or at the very least grows into liking it.  Now it's off to the wash so I can get it in the mail tomorrow!

(Oh, and I didn't forget about my sweetie pie of a nephew either.  There's a little superhero pillowcase tucked in that package for him as well.)

Happy crafting!

An Act of Progress

So many projects...so little time.  But, at least I'm making progress.  :)

First up...I have 2 new Farmer's Wife blocks that I have completed.  I'm loving the color scheme that I have going on.  A bit of a scrappy feel, but there are colors in all of my blocks that have a commonality/coordinating aspect in some way.

I don't know if you noticed or not, that that first block is hanging on some darling Divine Twine.  (Yeah, that's what it's called.), but I added it to my "recently" installed shelving.  I plan to decorate all of my shelves with garlands and little quilt blocks that are in progress for quilts...such as my Farmer's Wife blocks.  :)  Nice inspiration as I'm sitting there working.

I'm loving my pretty spool pictures, Anne of Green Gables up there at the top, my yarn and knitting needles in a milk pitcher, stacks of fabric that are in piles for specific projects for the most part.  Little vintage touches here and there, a little leaf from a tree at The World Trade Center that means  A LOT to me.  Jars of buttons and a basket of lovely trims.  I think I'm going to sand and spray paint those giant spools on the top shelf.  They're antiques so it kind of pains me to do so, but they just seem to suck the color out of that dark corner even more so.  So, I'll probably do the circular ends in pretty colors, and the spokes in cream.  See my cute little Farmer's Wife blocks there on the middle shelf?  I hope to fill all of the shelves with those.  Note to self - buy more mini clothes pins!

Right now I'm working on a sweet little doll quilt for a very special little soon to be one year old.  :)  This is my first go at hand-quilting/hand-stitching/primitive stitching/top stitching (it seems to depend on who you are talking to).

Once I finish this and get it sent off in the mail I am setting to work on those pesky curtains.  The fabric continues to taunt me from that right corner by my desk.  Have I mentioned I've had it since last April?  : /

Happy crafting!!!

A Quilt for Kylar

The crib quilt is done, and is being sent off to it's new home tomorrow.  I hope Kylar has some fun times playing on and cuddling with her quilt in years to come.  The backing is a solid black (dotted) minky.  I'm really happy with the stripe for the binding.  I kept the quilting simple because I think it works so much better with a minky backing.

My new machine quilted beautifully and the walking foot worked!  This sounds weird, but with this new machine I have learned that my old walking foot didn't work properly on my old machine.  So glad I made the switch.

Now I have a couple of small gifts I'm working on for my niece and nephew.  I have one more Farmer's Wife block completed and then I NEED to complete the curtains for the main part of our house.  Phew!

Happy crafting!

A Little Something for Me

I decided to make more time for sewing for myself this year.  I want to get back to when sewing was fun and leisurely and not something that always had a pressing deadline.  It's not as fun when you're a slave to it.

Enter the Farmer's Wife Quilt Sampler.  It's a big deal in quilty blog land lately.  And some of the OKC Modern Quilt Guild girls are doing it with me. We have a flickr group and everything.  I'll have to share the link later so you can see everyone's lovely work.

For now, I have 2 blocks done.  They came together relatively quickly.  I'm hoping to make these into my guest room bed quilt.  This will take a while!  lol  The blocks are about 6" square each.

#2 - Autumn Tints

#32 - Farmer's Daughter

Back to Work

Hope you had a Happy Valentine's Day!  We did!!!  :)

Now my new machine and I are back at work finishing up a quilt.

Out with the old...

Some of you may recall that I got a new machine in 2011.  It was a Husqvarna Viking Sapphire 875Q.  I had picked it after much research and deliberation.  Really it was down to two different machines...that one and the Janome Horizon.  I had been leaning toward the Janome, but after some internet surfing I discovered there was not a dealer remotely close to me.  Like not even within an hour's drive.  So, I went for the second choice...but, the dealer was really great and local even.

The first year was good.  I won't say great.  The Sapphire and I had our disagreements.  It had an issue with always saying there was thread caught under the plate (apparently a common thing in these machines).  But, I saw it as a quirk and not much more than a minor annoyance.  As I came closer to my 1 year maintenance date more started to go wrong...free motion quilting became something I dreaded with the top thread popping constantly.  And no amount of tension change, needle change, bobbin change, settings change was fixing it.  The "new" dealer I have in Oklahoma tried to blame it on me...when I explained to her that this wasn't my first "rodeo" she then tried to blame the thread.  The same thread I've been using since I began sewing and never had problems with before.

So, it went in for cleaning.  More dealer unpleasantness occured...blah blah blah.  I got it back with a note saying I needed to lower the feed dogs.  Ummm...yeah...I know that.  Well, I never got around to checking to see if that was the problem because I started to have a whole host of other issues arise.  Poor tension on top and bottom no matter what I tried on all decorative stitching and even on some utility stitches.  Basically the only good stitch I got was a straight one.  I was so upset that my husband even checked to see if it was my machine (serial #).

I was fed up.  The dealer wanted to send my machine back to Stillwater to have it refixed for free.  Ummm...no.  I wanted to see that repair person and find out why it was worse than it was before.  So, I got an appointment to do so.  In the meantime I got antsy and more frustrated as now this expensive machine was sitting on my floor useless...while my simple little Brother machine was creating more beautiful stitching than my Sapphire had in ages.

Thus began the search for a new machine.  I want a relationship with my dealer.  I want them to know me and what I need out of my machine.  I want it repaired in town so I can talk to the repair person if I need to.

First I checked out the Bernina 820:

Beautiful isn't it?  It was in person too...

NQA: Chain Piecing

Hey there, Newbie Quilt-Alongers!

I was working on a quilt and wanted to share a nice little tip for your future quilting project.  People often mention to me how time intensive a finished quilt looks.  And while I won't lie...they do take a lot of time there are some things you can do to make your quilt come together faster.  Enter chain piecing:

Chain piecing is when you sew piece after piece in a row without cutting your thread in between.  As you can see in the picture above between each stitched fabric pair there is a "chain" of thread connecting it to the next one.  (There is an arrow pointing to one of the chains.)  This saves time so you don't have to keep cutting and restarting.  And in the initial piecing of a quilt no backstitching is necessary.  So, after you have your big ol' chain done you can sit in front of the TV and trim the threads away so you have a nice stack of pieced fabric ready for pressing.  :)

BWR Giveaway Winner

The winner of the BWR (Black, White and Red) FatQuarter Bundle is:

I want to give a special thank you to Jennifer for sharing my giveaway with so many people!  Many thanks, Jennifer - an e-mail is headed your way.  Please get in touch with me in the next 3 days or I will draw a new name.  :)

I also wanted to say y'all have WAY more exciting romantic date night ideas than I do.  I'm more in line with Jennifer B.'s comment about watching my husband clean!  lol

But, I guess that's what happens to you when you have two toddlers in your house.  I'd rather relax on my couch than do anything most nights.

Keep checking back for Newbie Quilt-Along updates...chain piecing will be discussed next.

And another giveaway will take place at the end of February...so keep your eyes peeled for that!

Happy Crafting!
-Amanda-