Well, it is all quilted now.

I think I will go with the green I used for the vines for the binding.

Tomorrow's job--square it up and add the binding.

Happy snipping, stitching, and quilting!

Moving right along

I have completed the quilting on the inside rings of the double wedding ring quilt. I have also completed echo quilting around the border applique. 

Now to decide how to fill the border.

Happy snipping, stitching, and quilting!

Moving right along!

I have been able to quilt a little each night on the Double Wedding Ring quilt. I am moving right along.

I have one whole row completed. I have really improved in my free motion quilt over the years, but I still have a ways to go.

If I can keep my memento up, I will finish a lot sooner than I thought. Well, off to work for me.

Happy snipping, stitching, and quilting.

Sleet Day?

When I was growing up, we very seldom missed school because of snow. In fact, there were many winters that we didn't have any snow.

More recently, when we moved in our current home, 10 years ago, we may have snow once or maybe twice during each winter. Believe me, I remember because our driveway is very  persnickety in snow and ice. Or maybe I should say getting in and out of the driveway is very persnickety.

Anyway, in recent years, we seem to be getting 3 and even 4 winter storms consisting mostly of ice. Anyway, another day out of school for me. Now, our last day will be June 2.

What are my plans for this cold, cold day? Hopefully, to get the borders sewn on the double wedding ring quilt. Hopefully, I will get it sandwiched also. I always use the floor to do this, and I can really tell my age, when I am getting up and down.

Larry is off to work. He called and said the roads are a sheet of ice. He is driving a huge SUV (Excursion) which makes me feel a little better. I know 4-wheel drive does not help in the ice, but I feel he will be a little safer in a big vehicle if he slides off the road.

What are your plans? Hope you take some time to visit Judy for Design Wall Monday.

Happy snipping, stitching, and quilting. 

It's coming right along . . .

Just a quick update.

Two borders complete. Working on the third one. I just love how this is turning out. I'm linking with Judy's Design Wall Monday.

Happy snipping, stitching, and quilting.

Weekend Update

We were out of school on Friday and will be again on Monday for Winter Break. That's kind of funny seeing as we have missed about 5 days for snow.

I spent Friday morning picking up the house and thoroughly cleaning the kitchen. That left me free to sew all afternoon.

Update on "For His Glory".  When I began this quilt, I had a hard time deciding if I wanted to make it in all blacks, whites, and grays or make it a scrappy colorful quilt. I decided on the blacks, grays, and whites and made 10 blocks. Then I decided that while I was making the blocks, I would also make a colorful one to give to the Catholic School I worked at for 10 years to use in a fund raiser. Each year, the school holds a Mardi Gras celebration with dinner, dancing, and a silent and live auction to raise money. There is no way I could get it ready for this years' Mardi Gras,  but I'll have a whole year to complete it.

Anyway, I now have 10 blocks completed for each quilt.

Now, I am going to put those aside and get Kelsey's Double Wedding Ring Quilt back out. I really needed to decide on the applique border for this quilt that I started last year.

The center top was completed and then laid aside due to my indecisiveness. So, about a week ago, I saw this border
  
 

at Quiltsalott and decided that is what I wanted. Janet is definitely my applique inspiration.

When I made Becca's double wedding ring quilt,

I used Janet's quilt as inspiration.  One of these days, I am going to have to make me one just like this.

Happy snipping, stitching, and quilting.

Changing Gears

I've been sewing a little most evenings and have a few more block completed.

I am going to put these blocks away for a bit in order to work on Kelsey's Double Wedding Ring quilt. The center is complete and would be ready to go but I am going to add a wide appliqued border. I am not happy with the arrangement of the daisy flowers and I am searching the web for ideas.

 I found this arrangement that I really like. I'm going to see if I can get it to work out. I'll have to see how the big flowers will work with oranges instead of yellow.



Not sure how I will go about making them. I may try layering. And I am having a hard time matching greens for the leaves. Some are too light, some are too dark.

The whole feel of Kelsey's quilt is different from the one I made for Craig and Becca (much less formal) so I didn't want to use roses.

Although, if I ever make one for myself, it will be very similar to this one with the roses and red and green color scheme.

A New Project

has been started. I guess that is okay because I did just finish one of my UFO's.

I just love those stars. I'll try to post a close up in a couple of days. They fabric is batiks I had left over from the fat quarter bundle I purchased for Kelsey's Double Wedding Ring Quilt. Which I need to get back to after school ends (Thursday) to cut out and design the border. All blocks are complete.

And if you look closely at the picture below, you may be able to see the  double rainbow. Well, falling asleep as I type.

Happy snipping, stitching, and quilting. 

Yippee!!!

Late Saturday evening, I was able to get the rows to the double wedding ring top together. It is now a flimsy.

I have cut out a few flowers to lay out on the border to get a look at them. I know these are the simple style flowers I will use. They are kind of like a daisy and will have a black or yellow center circle added. I am planning to keep it simple. I may just leave them as floating daisies or I may add a cording for a vine.

It is definitely a work in progress.

Happy snipping, stitching, and quilting!

Snow Day

That was a movie, wasn't it?

I hit the sewing room about 10:00 and didn't look back. I re-arranged the double wedding melons into the pattern I liked. I had to do that before I could start sewing the middle part in.

As of about 8:00 this evening I had 2 1/2 rows sewed together.

I am just loving how it is turning out. If you ever make a double wedding ring quilt, don't stop at one. It takes one to learn on and the second to enjoy the process. I can't believe how much easier the this one is to get together than the first one. It seems to be going so quickly. Even the middle. I think I may have done a better job at following directions this time.

Well, I guess it will be back to school for a day, Then a lazy weekend, I hope.

Happy snipping, stitching, and quilting!

Look

what I pulled out to work on. It seemed to be calling.

I actually have over half of the melons made. These are just put up to see how many I had completed and how many more I need. If I am figuring correctly, I only need 24 more. Then the hard part will be trying to decide how to put them together to get the look I want. I do believe I may make Kelsey help me.

I have also already drawn out part of the applique pattern I am going to use. Unfortunately, I can not remember what it looks like. I do know I wanted it to be different from Becca's. Then when I make one for myself, I plan to use a new totally different design for it too.

Like most of you, I have big plans. But unfortunately, I'm not getting around to a lot yet this year. A little on the lazy side, I guess.

Happy snipping, stitcing, and quilting. 

It's a finish

I finally finished the baby quilt for my great niece. It was really very simple but I just couldn't get into making it.

I'm not sure what I am going to work on next. I really need to finish something. I'm still not sure what I want to do with the star quilt. I know I'm putting a white sashing but I can't decide how wide. I really want the quilt to be a king size but I can't picture what kind or how many borders to add. Any ideas?

I will probably work a bit on the double wedding ring I have started using the batiks. Putting the white pieces in (with no pleats) is so meticulous that I tire of it quickly so I only do a few at a time.

Hapy Valentine's Day.

Happy snipping, stitching, and quilting. 

A Quick Update

I have been pretty busy all week but not a lot of progress to share.

I have several pieces put together for the double wedding ring quilt.

I have more than these made but took them off of the design wall before I took a picture.

I spent most evenings last week hand quilting on the star quilt. I have 1/3 of the two blocks I am now working on left to do and 2 more whole blocks. Then a couple of rows of sashing and the outside border.

Today I pulled out some Christmas fabric that I had ordered a couple of years ago with a certain quilt in mind. I was able to get most of the top put together. It is a simple four-patch with sashing and I will add some applique poinsettia's sprinkled within it. I'll have pictures later.

Happy snipping, stitching, and quilting.

Sometimes it's the little things

that make the most difference.

Advice for anyone making a double wedding ring quilt or any other quilt with small templates. Two things that are a must.

Sandpaper on the back of your templates and a small rotating cutting mat.

I just used sandpaper from the garage and used double-sided scotch tape. Oh my, what a difference. I don't know why I didn't do this on the last double wedding ring quilt that I did. So far the templates have been slip free.

And look at this clean sewing table. Oh my, I can't remember how long it has been since it has been so uncluttered.

Happy snipping, stitching, and quilting!

What a day!!!!

I was up by 6 am, which had Larry totally baffled. He can't understand how anyone would want to get up that early if they didn't have to. But I took my time having my morning coffee and then started laundry and had the kitchen cleaned and was out the door by 9 am.

I started out at Mama's Log House where I couldn't resist this fat quarter bundle of batiks.

Then I went to the Belle Point Quilter's Guild Quilt Show at the Convention Center. It was small but nice for our area. This is the first year I have attended. Usually, it is already past the date by the time I hear about it.

These were some of my favorites. Just quick takes with my phone.

I really wish I would have entered Becca's Double Wedding Ring Quilt. There was nothing even close to it there. Beautiful quilts but nothing like the entries that people post from the really big quilt shows.

The fabric I purchased is for a double wedding ring quilt for Kelsey. I am doing an applique border but it will be different from Becca's. I am thinking on the lines of something like this.

I'll have to work on how to make it go down the sides of the quilt. But I am also looking at a couple of other designs also. So, who knows.

What a great day! (But I didn't get groceries like I planned because the stores were just too crowded.)

Happy snipping, stitching, and quilting!

Fall Quilt Festival

I look forward to the time each spring and fall that Amy of Amy's Creative Side hosts the Quilt Festival. I created a new "pride and joy" this year so that is what I am showing.

The story behind the quilt . . .

My daughter-in-law (newly engaged at the time) told me that she wanted me to make her a double wedding ring quilt. She wanted to challenge me, I guess. Well, I knew the exact quilt I wanted to make. Janet at Quiltsalot was making the perfect double wedding ring quilt. So I emailed her and asked if there was a pattern. She explained that she drew it off herself from a different quilt she had seen. So I then asked her if she minded if I used the applique on her quilt to look off of to draw a pattern. She said she didn't mind, so the work began.

First I drew off a pattern. Then I began sewing the blocks. Even though I had purchased the templates and had a pattern to follow, I still made mistakes putting the blocks together and had to rip out several times.

 I began the quilt on January and had all of the blocks pieced and on the design wall before May 1.

I did embroidery the names and dates on before I sewed all of the blocks together. 

After all of the blocks were machine pieced and sewn together, I began working on the applique. First, I traced one side of applique onto the background fabric. I then kind of blocked the sides off in halves and focused on 1/8 of the border at a time.

The picture below was posted here on September 19. 

After I machine appliqued all the flowers and stems on, I decided that since some flowers had several layers, I would cut away the backing fabric from behind the applique.

Then I laid the applique border on the floor and pinned the quilt top to the applique. I ended up pressing the edge of the quilt under 1/4 inch and straight stitching it onto the applique border. Next came the batting and backing. I decided to use a sheet so that I did not have to worry about piecing the back.

Then the quilting began. I knew exactly how I wanted to quilt the double wedding ring quilt blocks so that didn't take very long.

I guess you could say that the quilting on the applique border evolved as I went along. I began by quilting around the applique. Then I decided I needed a dense filler to help take in the extra fabric where the border stretched a little as I appliqued and quilted. (Not sure I want to show this next picture.)

You can definitely see how puffy the border is after I outlined the applique. So the small stippling just kind of developed out of necessity to ease in the fabric.

It was a long process and took me the better part of a year. I began in January, 2011 and finished putting the labels on the quilt on September 30. The wedding was October 1. You can see the happy couple with it in my header.

What I learned . . .

I learned a lot while I made this quilt and I will make another one, maybe two. The next time, I will have the border divided into fourths and will only work with 1/4 of the border at one time. This time, I had the whole border sewn together and had to lug it around as I appliqued. I think the pulling and tugging caused the fabric to stretch some.

For the applique, I used only a few pattern pieces and they were overlapped quite a bit. I may add a few more pieces so that they do not over lap as much. I would still cut away the backing fabric from behind the applique to take away some of the thickness.

Happy snipping, stitching, and quilting!

Design Wall Monday -- Double Wedding Ring Quilt

There is absolutely nothing on my design wall right now. I finished the double wedding ring on Thursday evening and gave it to my daughter-in-law Friday night at the rehearsal dinner. I haven't decided what I am going to start finish next.

You can see more photos of the completed quilt here.

To do list:

Quilt the "Tree Time" quilt

Complete the "Eagle's Wings" top

Finish the "Poinsettia Quilt" blocks

 Quilt the "Snowflake Quilt"

Make more of these blocks

Oh, and I have another star quilt top in browns that is pieced but needs a border to be ready to sandwich and quilt. I can't find a picture of it right now.

But I guess my next project needs to be a baby quilt for my nephew's new baby boy. This is the first child born on my side of the family in 4 or 5 years.

Stop by Judy's for Design Wall Monday.

Happy snipping, stitching, and quilting.