Quilts.........

Recently I worked on some sewing/quilting projects.  The wallhanging above was from a kit a friend gave me. It's got many small pieces in the center, applied wool flowers, it's 15" x 18". I machine quilted it, some stitch in the ditch, free motion around the flowers, diamond window pane in the borders. I am not a quilter - this size is around my limit.  I'm interested in exploring tiny quilting so this has gotten me started. For tiny quilting I'm planning much smaller than this. Adding it to my very long to-do list.

I finished the 4 placemats I had started a couple months ago - I just did simple quilting on them. I had enough of some fabrics to make some serged napkins. 

 This turkey wall hanging was made from a quilt kit gifted from another friend. It's fused applique with crazy free motion quilting. As I said the quilting part is not my thing but I manage. I put a hanging sleeve on the back but it may end up being a table centerpiece around Thanksgiving - undecided as of yet. 

Also on the quilting front I took my king size spider web quilt to Stitched on Second for long arm quilting - it should be ready in a few weeks. 

I'm finally getting back to the loom. I wound a towel warp on the back beam the other day, threaded heddles and sleyed the reed yesterday.  But have other things on the calendar the next few days so will get back to it soon. 

 

All in an afternoon............

 Last month in my zoom (ASG) sewing guild meeting one of my fellow members showed a number of mini-quilt wall hangings she had made over the years. Most involved objects attached to the mini-quilt. Immediately the wheels started turning and I thought of this cute knitting 'goddess' that had been hanging in my studio for several years. I went through my fabric stash and found 4 different satins and a silk, just small bits of each. It's hard to see the woven patterns on the border and binding but they are satin and are different. I learned to have patience sewing with slippery, fraying fabrics but all turned out well in the end. I'm hoping the ribbon the 'goddess' is hanging from holds up over time......I did put some dots of glue on the knot to keep it from coming undone. Did you notice I'm using an old metal knitting needle for a hanger?  This was a very fun project. I'll be looking at little 'things' differently now wondering if they could be made into a small quilted wall hanging. 

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the Olympics, I've been dvr'ing all the curling and watching it here and there speeding through the commercials. I am not a sports person but I got hooked on curling several years ago and it hasn't let up. It's a little bit of an overload right now but I need to get my fill as there's very little curling to be found on tv the rest of the time. While some will be watching the Super Bowl I'll be watching curling, doesn't matter to me which country is playing............my favorites so far were the Italian doubles team who won gold in doubles, she especially was incredible. 

In progress.......

 Why in the world do some photos taken with my phone turn out sideways when uploaded to the blog??? It looked fine on my computer so I was sure it would be fine here.  Anyhow, just turn your head to the right to see it the correct way. 

Anyhow, this is what I've been working on the past couple of days - a small wallhanging. I bought this pattern and the fabric for it probably around 10 years ago. After making the sheep wallhanging kit that had been hanging around for years I decided to do another project that's been taking up shelf space.  This was really fun. All the fabrics were fused to the white background using fusible web. The black lines are fusible bias binding that comes on a roll, I had 2 sizes - 1/8" and 1/4".  Next up is machine quilting but it will have to wait until I buy some spray quilt adhesive, so I don't have to put pins in it...........and I need to start packing up much of the house in preparation for new floors and painting. Not looking forward to packing up stuff and emptying closets but it will look so nice once it's all done. We're doing everything except the master bedroom and bathroom at this time......holding off on those as we're going to gut that bathroom and totally redo it. 

It's pumpkin time......

I'm very excited that my pumpkin wallhanging long arm quilting was done in time for pumpkin time. As soon as I picked it up I sewed the binding and hanging sleeve on. This will eventually look better once we paint the walls a light gray.  I get to enjoy this quilt until it's time for a christmas/holiday quilt which my husband's cousin made for us a few years ago. (This pattern is called Mini Pumpkins by Some Kind of Wonderful - I made mine much bigger than the original pattern)

And here's my pumpkin table runner finished.  This was a manageable size for me to quilt on my sewing machine. The pumpkin wallhanging is on the wall at the end of where this table is. (This pattern is Punkin' Patch Runner by Bonnie K Hunter of Quiltville) 

I have gotten a little more time at the sewing machine to work on some small holiday gifts for family and friends but I can't show those yet.  I'm almost finished with our holiday cards too. 

Pumpkins.......

 The pumpkin piecing is done. It turned out to be around 48" x 66".  Next up is to call the long arm quilter to get it to her for quilting. I'm happy to say it should be hanging on the 'quilt wall' this autumn. Before I start on any other projects at the sewing machine I really need to get my machine in to my  Bernina shop for maintenance, it's way overdue because of covid restrictions........guess they apply to sewing machines too. 

Sideways pumpkins

 Here's my new quilting project although one has to turn their head to see it correctly.  I have this problem when I upload pictures to blogger from my phone but never from my camera so this is a first........and it's irritating.  Anyhow, these are pieced white/gray pumpkins and orange pumpkins on a dark gray print background. I learned something new with this project, how to sew concave and convex shapes to get curves. I'm coming down the homestretch on making the blocks, then it will be time to sew them all together. My goal is to get it to a long arm quilter quickly as she has a 8 week backlog.  My other goal is to hang this on the big wall opposite the dining room table this fall. Right now the barn quilt is hanging there. Another goal is to eventually have 4-5 quilts to exchange out in that spot during the year......that will take a while and I'll be working on other projects before that happens.  

This and that..........

We had a great long weekend on the coast other than just running over to check on the cottage and mow the lawn - it was wonderful. We spent time with vaccinated friends who camped over there. We did something we had never done before - rented a polaris rzr to ride the Oregon Dunes. Our friends have done it before and loved it so after 29 years of living in Oregon we finally did it.  Very fun and a bit a lot scary as the dunes are tall and have drop offs that we sped straight down as that was the only choice at that point. There were roll bars, we were helmeted and belted in our 2 person rzr so other than possibly rolling the thing we were safe. 

Speaking of the coast after getting back I decided to make two small wall quilts out of cross stitches that will go perfectly at the beach cottage. I love these sandpipers. I usually frame cross stitch pieces and actually have several sitting here stretched over foam core waiting for me to feel safe enough (covid) to get them framed. 

And here are some funny otters for my otter wall in the hallway over there. I didn't take a picture of the backside but for hanging I did the corner triangles and cut a dowel to fit across the top back.

And a few roses in my yard - they have gone crazy, there are hundreds blooming with hundreds more buds on my 16 rose bushes.  The breeze kept coming up so most of my pix didn't turn out but here are a few. 

I can't remember the name of this one, isn't it interesting how the petals are so close together?  If I weren't so lazy at the moment I'd go outside and check my tag on it.  Many of the bushes were here when we bought this house three years ago so I don't know what they are but this is one I bought to fill in an empty spot. 

This one is interesting too with the white & dark pink but a bit of yellow in the center. 

I cut my rose bushes back quite a bit in February but they're already way taller than me and huge. They obviously love that side of the yard. 

 

More time at the machine

 I made another quilted table runner and 4 placemats from two of the kits from Jordan's that I bought sometime early last year.  These are holiday themed.  I love them.  I'm wishing when I bought these kits and other ones in my last post that I bought matching fabric to make napkins. I don't know if they'd have any left in the shop but when they open back up I'll check, if not I can make solid color napkins.

Also on the shelf was a small wall quilt kit I bought at a quilt show last year. It was a very fast sew and fun, immediate gratification. I'm not sure where it will hang, beach cottage is small, can't think of a wall right now but I'm sure I'll find one.  The photo on the front of  the package showed the outer border in a blue fabric that looked like water ripples. I was dismayed to find this turtle fabric as it doesn't really go with the whales but in the end it's ok, not a choice I would have made but it's fine. The hanging is only around 16" by 22".

Now on to a new project.  Think I'll take a break from the sewing machine and move on to winding a towel warp.