Kinda Finished Friday

If I didn't have to go to work I would have finished this quilt. Tomorrow I could finish the cross-hatch quilting, cut the binding and sew it on but we are going to Memphis for the day. So here is the kinda finish for this Friday....

This was at the half-way point.

Here is the finished top.

Can you see the over/under woven effect?

It was fun figuring out how to sew it in pieces.

Close ups of the personalized blocks.

More blocks...

Top corner...

Other side...

Soon I will share the real finish. 

I love all these hand-drawn blocks. 

The butterflies, dragonflies, hummingbirds, and cats are my favorites from a couple of Laurel Burch lines. So glad I get to keep this one.

Best part - all of it worked. I planned, sketched, figured, cut and sewed. AND IT WORKED!

My Quilty Secrets

I read a post from another quilter who listed her 10 quilty secrets. I don't know if I have ten or more but here are some that have been perking around in my brain since reading her blog.
1. I love trimming the excess fabric and batting after machine quilting the layers together. It is so rewarding to see the almost finished quilt revealed.
2. I hate unpinning all the pins used to baste the layers together. Ugh. My fingers hurt from pinching open and closing all those pins.
3. I will never quilt a large quilt. I will send it to a long arm quilter.
4. I like the look of all the free motion quilting but I will probably never do it myself.
5. I hate to appliqué. I avoid patterns that have appliqué.

6. I like my quilts loosely quilted, not densely quilted. I go for snuggly not cardboard stiff.
7. I like piecing tops and designing pieced tops. I even like making pieced backs. But quilting, not so much.
8. I like bright colors-like you couldn't figure that out from looking at my quilts! ;-)
9. I think calling soft colors or muted tones 'low volume' is weird. Seems like the wrong term to use.
10. Sometimes an idea for a quilt gets in my brain and I have to draw it in my chart paper journal.
11. I don't get people who just keep making the same pattern over and over, sometimes in different colors but still the same pattern. I have made lots of giant nine patch baby blankets but just because they are quick and I am giving them away.
12. My favorite kind of quilt is a sampler. If I was the judge at a quilt show, that's what I would pick-and no appliqué!

Hat and PJs for a little boy

Last week end I bought this fabric because I know a little two-year-old boy who is crazy about the movie Cars. Yesterday I cut out the pattern pieces and after supper I started sewing. 

The PJs took less than 30 minutes to make. I zigzagged the outside edges of each unfinished piece before sewing the pieces together. When the weather gets cooler he will enjoy wearing these snuggly flannel PJ bottoms.

The hat took an hour to put together. Turning it took about 10 minutes and resulted in a wrinkled hat. 

This morning I ironed out the wrinkles and top stitched around the brim to hold the lining in place. I hope he likes his Cars bucket hat. It is one of a kind just like my sweet grandson.

Half finish-woven words

This is the bottom half of a quilt I'm calling Woven Words. There will be two more rows and two borders. The vertical sashing is a stripy print with hummingbirds, dragonflies, and butterflies. The cross pieces are butterflies. The next row will be little triangles on aqua. Can't wait to see how it looks finished. 

Accidental Landscape & Pink Elephant Quilt

This little landscape is almost finished. I took a class and bought the book. Easy and fun. Need to finish quilting, sew on the back and corner holders.

Made this pink and gray baby quilt for a family who just adopted a baby girl.

I have had the fabric for a long time but everyone I knew had baby boys.

Finally, a baby girl. Hope she enjoys the book that inspired the fabric.

Zippy Purple Enchantment

Finished this quick little lap quilt yesterday. Took the idea from the Missouri Star Quilt Company's zipper quilt and made a few changes of my own. 

Used a layer cake from Connecting Threads in the Isle of Enchantment line. Added a navy solid from Robert Kaufmann. The backing is purple chenille.

 It took 19 'slices' to make the four columns. Each 10" x 10" piece was cut in half. One 5" x 10" section was saved for the border and the other was cut into four 2.5" X 5" pieces. A solid navy 2.5" square was sewn to each rectangle and the rectangles were randomly sewn into columns. 

Each column has 19 stacked rectangles with the solid square alternating sides. Five 2.5" WOF strips were cut from the navy and used to join the columns. Two more 2.5" WOF navy strips were added to the top and bottom. The 5" x 10" reserved sections were sewn together by color and added as the border.

Here is the finished quilt. I quilted down the navy strips and down the centers of each column in a wavy line. I used variegated green thread from Connecting Threads. The finished size is 44" x 50".

 The back is soft, fuzzy chenille. I bought 1.5 yards and sewed it without a binding. I put right sides together and sewed around the edge leaving an opening about 8" for turning. After turning I stitched the opening closed and top stitched about 3/8" from edge. The ridges of the chenille are going across the width and my quilting is going down the length.

 I don't know what happened to the photo below. I took all the pictures at the same time and this was the last one I took. It looks like the purple back is glowing.  Any ideas photo experts?

If you want to make a similar quilt, here are the fabric requirements: 19 10"x10" squares, 1 yard of solid fabric, 1.5 yards of chenille for backing.

This quilt was made for a friend who is adopting another little girl from China. Shh! Don't tell. It's a surprise.

I finished all the borders and the backing for the Ramblin' Rose Meets Jamestown king quilt. I put it on the living room floor to pin bast it and the size of it really hit me. I folded it up and called a long arm quilter. She said she could do it, so I took it over to her. I just don't see me doing a good job on something that big on my trusty little sewing machine.

On to the next project!

Roman Fabric Adventure

Just had to share some photos from our Roman holiday last week. Usually I research the location and have a long list of places I think we will enjoy visiting. This year I didn't have much time to figure out what to see but I did look into fabric shops in Rome. I found one blog describing this shop and found the shop's website. Below are some shots my husband took while I shopped.

The shop is on the first floor, what we call the second floor here in the USA. As you can see there is LOTS of fabric. I didn't count the rooms but there are at least 5 rooms with fabric stacked from the floor to the ceiling.

The windows were open to let in the breeze. It was a warm day.

I asked for the 100% cotton and was directed to the last room. We walked past all this fabulousness.

Here I am in the cotton room. I had my own personal fabric cutter. It was hard to choose from all the wonderful patterns and colors. I had read on someone's blog that they only took cash but my cutter said they took credit cards, too. That led to more cutting. I asked for fabric 'Made in Italy' and 100% cotton. I was pleased with the weight. Some was quilting quality and some was lighter. I got cuts of 1/2 meter. Most of it was 55" or wider.

Here are some of the other guys who are ready to cut fabric for customers. All of the cutters were men. The fabric included every type from silk, satin, oxford cloth, and suiting.

Here is the bag with the name of the shop.

We were surprised to find tea towel fabric-100% cotton and made in Italy. I plan to make tea towels for presents. I've never seen any in the stores here.

Here are the pieces I bought. The red with aqua is a little more than a meter long and the other pieces are half meter.

A closer look.

Daughter has suggested that I make a skirt for her out of the red/aqua. 

These two pieces are Liberty of London. I know they aren't made in Italy but when I get a chance to buy some Liberty, I can't pass it up. One day I will make something with all of this but for now I am enjoying looking at each piece and pondering how best to use each one.

If you go to Rome, check out Bassetti Tessuti. Their website is www.fratellibassetti.com. The store is on Victor Emmanuel across from a park. They do take cash or credit cards and they speak English.