I finished getting the pieced border on today. Boy, I think I did more ripping than sewing. I had so much trouble figuring out what to do with the corners. I wanted to round the corner but the checkerboard design came out uneven. So I thought I would do strips but I didn't like the way it looked. Eventually I figured how to round the corner but not completely. I like it. I have to use a lint roller there is so much strings.

Close up of the bottom corner. See in looks like it is missing a corner 4 patch but if I had put one I would have had two dark colors right next to each other.

Picture of upper left corner. I like the checkerboard look but it was alot of work. I don't think I will do this too often. Now I need to decide on an outer border. Maybe green? What do you think? I'm liking it so far but it looks like a child's quilt not an adult quilt.

Til we meet again,
Terry

Here is what I have so far-quick look away-it may blind you. It is very a flourescent looking blue. It didn't look that bright when I was cutting it and trying it out on the board but it is. I am not redoing it.

I'm not finished sewing the sashing but I wanted to show you so far. The purple on the left is what I'm thinking of using with the 4-patch pieced border. It may be too dark. What do you think?

Til we meet again,
Terry

This is what I worked on today. Some old log cabin blocks I started a long time ago. I have 30 blocks. The blocks measure 6 inches finished. They don't look like regular log cabin blocks because I didn't follow the usual light and dark diagonal design. Which now presents a problem, sort of. I think I want to put sashing because the blocks are small and I want to make at least a lap size out of this. And I will also put some borders on it. I'm thinking of using the left over strips and making a pieced border. Not sure what yet but that will come later. Now I need to decide a color for the sashing. The blocks are very busy and the centers are all the same red fabric. I'm not sure what color would pull all of this together and I know that it is hard to decide with a picture instead of in person but HELP! What would you think? What color would you use? I'm thinking of making the sashing 2 or 2-1/2 inches wide and maybe using the same fabric as the sashing to place my border blocks in as if they were floating in this fabric.

I may make some four patch blocks or piano key or sawtooth. I'm not sure yet but I want to use up all the extra strips.

Here are two close ups of the blocks so you could get a better idea of the fabrics I used. They are very bright and scrappy and busy. I don't think a beige or tan color would look good. It would have to be a bright like the rest of the fabrics just not a busy one. Maybe even a solid or something that comes off as a solid. What do you think?

I'm glad to be done with these blocks. They have been hanging around at least 5 years or more. When I started them I had someone in mind for the quilt and this person is an adult. I still would like to give it to them but it has to be at least lap size.
Til we meet again,
Terry

Christmas cookies...

Thought you might like to see what my kitchen and dining room looked like at 8pm tonight. I was supposed to do this baking today while MY HONEY was at work but I didn't have any brown sugar and MY HONEY was going to the store after work. So after supper we started. The first pic is the sugar cookies. MY HONEY is learning how to roll to help me out. He did a great job (maybe I can convince him to do the whole thing next year, HA!)

Next we have the tin of gingerbread men. I did make those this afternoon because the dough was already made and in the fridge. I will bring all the cookies to my daughter's house for Christmas eve and my children along with the nieces and nephews will decorate them. They love to do this every year and will not let me forget it.

The last pic is the dining room table with some Chocolate Pecan Clusters (OH, so Good!) and some of the sugar cookies cooling. I already have the chocolate chip cookies boxed up in the tins you see there on the table.

Not really what I expected to do this evening. I thought I would be all done by now but that is the way it is. You gotta roll with the punches. At least now all the baking is just about done. Tomorrow I will mix up a double batch of icing and color it to bring with the cookies and make some fudge, easy. I'm ready for Christmas! How about you?

BTW, the little quilt you see kinda folded up on the table was made for me last year by my very best friend and I love it just as much now as I did then. Doesn't it look great? Thank you, friend.
Til we meet again,
Terry

Finally!

I finished a stack of customer quilts. You would swear they were huge quilts, but the biggest one was 40-ish" x 50-ish". Mrs. I called me tonight to ask if she could bring a stack (7 to be exact) by tomorrow. I am glad I am all caught up with the last batch. These new quilts will keep me from quilting my bed quilt but I am not sad about that. The sucker is huge and I'm not in the mood for such a big project.

I've been thinking about the Symphony Challenge and my uncle's quilt when I can't sleep. I don't have many new ideas so I think I will wash the Batiks I bought for Wil's quilt and get that cut when I get a chance. I feel like I have a few too many irons in the fire but I like the push it gives me.

I wish I had more to show and I hope it's not long before I have something more exciting to tell.

"Til we meet again,
Vanessa

I finished the big Christmas quilt!

This is a quilt for my sister in law for Christmas. Every year I make a quilt for one of my In-Laws. I hand pick the one I will make one for because I don't want repeats. At least not yet. I have been doing this since 2001 and some of the first ones I have made are almost worn out. It may be time to start over when I'm finished with everyone. HA! I'm glad they use them a lot.

Here is a close up of the quilting. I did my first pantograph on this quilt. I like how it came out. The name of the panto is "Popcorn" and I bought it through Willowleaf designs. I have to admit that I really disliked this quilt after I had the top made. It is a Turning Twenty design and it looked to me like I had thrown up on my design wall. I liked all the fabrics individually but together they just didn't seem to blend. But now that it is quilted I love it.

Now that I washed and dried it, it feels so soft and crinkly. I want to curl up under it. I always wash my quilts before I give them away. I rather be surprised and fix it than give it to someone and they be surprised. I think she will like it. It is her colors and she rides horses in competitions English style. That is why I put horses in it. I can't wait to see her open it for Christmas. I enjoy it as much as they do.

Now I am finished with all my handmade Christmas gifts except for the baked goods. I will do those when it gets closer to the big day!
Hope you enjoyed looking at my quilt!
Terry

I'm finished with this gift!

I made the binding today and had so much trouble with it. I wanted a wider binding so I cut out my double binding at 2-1/2 inches which made it 1-1/4 inches wide after folding. Then I sewed it at 3/8 inch seam instead of a 1/4 inch seam. I thought the bigger seam would allow more binding to show up on the front of the quilt and it would have worked but for some reason I didn't have enough to turn around to the back. It was not wide enough. I don't know why because all the measurements work out, but it just didn't fit. So I trimmed my seam allowance down all except the corners which could not be trimmed because it would leave a hole in the corner. Even then I only barely had enough to turn over to the back.

On top of all that trouble when I cut the bias strips and sewed them together the 45 degree seam was turned under on the wrong side on every other join. I had to rip it out and redo.
Then when I was making my join at the very end after the binding was sewed on I cut it too short and had to stretch and fiddle with it to get it to work. Boy! I have never had this much trouble with binding before. But I don't usually make bias binding. I needed it on this because I wanted the plaid to be on the bias. I choose this plaid because I thought the colors in it reflected the colors in the middle squares. Over all I like how it came out but I ended up with narrower binding than if I would have made it like normal with a 1/4 inch seam to begin with.

Oh well, it is done and I like the look of it. The person that gets it as a gift will never know the troubles I had. They will hopefully just love it the way it is.
Have a great day!
Terry

Guess what I'm working on...

Pantographs!
On Elizabeth's quilt, no less. And I'm having fun even though I have a tension headache and sore shoulders from the strain of trying to stay on the line. April was here and I decided to just try and load the pattern on the table. I really wasn't going to try it out. I was probably going to chicken out but you know April. She said do it and I did. Now I'm glad.




The design is called Popcorn. I can't remember at the moment who designed it but I like it. It is coming out pretty good.

This is the laser on the point where I need to start a new row. Hopefully tomorrow I can work on it again. It is not fast. Especially since this is my first time. I'm hoping to pick up speed as I get better at it.

Here is a close up taken with my camera set on Macro. April showed me how to use that setting on my camera. I can get a really good closeup without it being blurry. You can see that my stitches are not even. Some are big and some are small and tight. I am not moving with consistency. I had to speed my machine up to get a smaller stitch because I was having to move so slow and because of that I get small and big stitches. What do you think?

Now I need to start looking for other pantograph patterns or April says for me to draw my own. We will see. I'm so glad to have another tool under my belt to use on the frame.

Have a great day!
Terry

Working on gifts...

I finished the embroidery on the woolie gift and thread basted it for hand quilting. It won't be heavily quilted because I don't think it needs it and it is a Christmas gift so I need to finish it quickly. I can work on it in the evenings while hubby is watching TV.

The picture below is the third quilt I made out of twenty St. Jude fat quarters. This fabric has been in my stash a long time and I'm glad to be using it. This quilt will also be donated to a charity for children in need. This one was done using every last bit of the fabric I had left from the other two quilts (all except the small inner red border. I added that extra. I made the center first then did the red border. I had cut all the leftovers into 2x3-1/2" bricks and I was able to make a piano key type of border around it. It all went together really quick and easy. It again was so fun to work with basic shapes. Now I need to piece together a back and get it quilted along with the second one. This quilt measures 42x46. I debated whether I should add another border but decided it was good enough. What do you think? Should I make it bigger?

Have a great day!
Terry

This is what I'm working on now. The blocks are sewed together into rows. Now I just need to sew the rows together. I am not putting a border on this just binding. I like the look of that sometimes. It reminds me of the older quilts. They often didn't use borders. My theory is that it was a lot of trouble to hand sew on the long borders. Maybe this was the reason, maybe not. Anyway, I like the look and that is what I'm doing on this one.

It was so much fun just sewing squares together! I had forgotten how mindless this kind of sewing is. This is the 2nd quilt I get out of two packages of fatquarters. WOW! it is amazing how far a small amount of fabric can go. This will be donated to a charity our guild donates to called "Children in Need". The last batch of quilts were donated to the burn center at one of our hospitals.

Have a great day!
Terry

Here is my wool quilt. It looks very much like yours V. The border is pretty much the same but the applique's are different. We had so much fun working on this. It is totally wool except for the backing, that is flannel. There is no batting and it is tied instead of quilted. Also the edges are done with a buttonhole stitch. It will be hanging on my wall in the living room soon. I will hang it until Christmas.

I started work on the plaid table topper. When I get further along I will take a picture.

Have a great day!
Terry

Top Finished!

I'm all done with the top! Yay! What do you think? It went so fast! I am going to make another one because I had to cut my fat quarters in half and I can make the other one with the leftovers.
Terry

Babies in Need quilt

This is all the fabrics in my mini turning 20 quilt before I cut them.


After cutting...all stacked and ready to sew. I will show you the finished top later.
Terry