Finish! Twin Baby Girl (2 of 2) aka Deja Vu!

I'm happy to report that twin baby girl quilt #2 is complete-- even with the label! And-- before the babies are born!  Win-win-win!

This quilt is the same as the earlier one, except I'm using a pink scrappy binding.  One of the fabrics in these quilts was from a fat quarter challenge with the Mad City Quilt Guild and we have the opportunity to display our challenge projects at Madison's newest quilt store, Blue Bar Quilts. So the grey bound version is living there for a few weeks until the new babies need it.

In other news, I got a new to me fancy camera!  I am not always pleased with my quilt pictures I get from my phone and point and shoot camera.  I had the opportunity to buy a used Canon Rebel body and then found a used kit lens at our local camera shop.  I barely know how to use it, but still did a bit of fooling around.  Here is Finn posing for me (actually, wondering what in the world I am doing and why am I not preparing his dinner!!!!) and it looks great on my computer monitor.  I want to see the difference when I print photos, because that is where I think my phone is really lacking.

xoxo

Kristin 

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Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts, Finish it up Friday. 

Finish! Twin Baby Girl Quilt (1 of 2)

I have a finished quilt to share!  This is one of two baby quilts that I'm making for a coworker, whose wife is pregnant with twins! Bot quilts are identical-- except for the bindings.  I did one in scrappy grey and one in scrappy pink.  That way, if there is a need to distinguish them, it can be done.  Here is the grey bound one.  The pink one is almost there (not quite!).

These are both goals I listed as part of the the Finish-A-Long for quarter 2 of 2017.  My original post is here.

Hopefully I will have the twin to this one finished and ready to share next week.  Right now, I have binding galore to work on.  In addition to these baby quilts, I have the pink/purple XO quilt and...

MY LION QUILT IS BACK!  I got it back from the quilter yesterday and it turned out FaBuLoUs!!!  Here is a teeny-tiny sneak peek:

xoxo,

Kristin

Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts and Finish it up Friday.

Quilting Saturday!

I'm working my UFO's right now and really trying to meet some of my Finsh-A-Long goals.  Last Saturday, I did a whirlwind 24 trip to my parent's house and used the long arm.  In that short time, I quilted 3 tops! (2 were baby sized, but still!!)

First up was to quilt the pink/purple XO quilt.  While testing out the machine outside of the quit, the tension was not cooperating.  It took over 1 hour of fussing to get everything sorted out.  Originally, I was going to do a pantograph, but because of my time constraints, I changed gears and decided to do a 'custom' loop-de-loo with a mum type flower in the grey centers.

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.  Quilting is something where the more time you spend doing it, the better you become.  And I have a lot of gaps between quilting tops, so I needed to brush off some rust. My mum flowers definitely evolved over the course of the quilting!! =O

Lunchtime was so yummy!!  My mom and I went to one of my favorite places-- Big Star Drive In!

Next up-- the twin baby Thousand Pyramid quilts.  I planned to load both quilts on the frame at once and do super simple wavy lines.  I scored some minky at Joanns for $6 a yard the day before!! It gives the quilt an amazing drape and the back just begs to be pet!

I **love** the texture of the wavy lines!!

Ta daaaaaa!

Now to select some binding and finish these quilts up!!

xoxo

Kristin

ps

Linking up with Sew Fresh Quilts - Let's Be Sewcial

Sunday Stash and Twins!

Thousands of Bolts has been my favorite online shop for many years now.  I love buying my Moda Bella Solids from them and I've gotten quite a bit of stash enhancements and backing fabrics.  In the last year or two, my purchases from them seem to have gotten a bit more frequent and this week, they sent me an email that I couldn't ignore!  They were selling Camelot Fabrics at crazy low prices-- I just surfed over to take a look at what they had and in the blink of an eye, I filled up my cart with all kinds of goodies!  All of these are Camelot, except for the little floral white print, that is Michael Miller.  I bought 1 yard cuts in the top photo, 4 yards of the grey (I have a plan for using that in a bold modern pattern that is lots of negative space).  And the last photo is a short cut and a fat quarter.  Not too shabby!

Yesterday was muggy and threatening rain.  The sky didn't open up and pour until late at night, but that didn't stop me from holing up in my sewing room and enjoying my Saturday sewing and crafting and ignoring any housework that needs to be done! =O

I joined a Pincushion Swap with Scrappy Girls Club and finished up 2 super adorable pincushions.  I'll hold off sharing photos until I send mine to my partner.

Next up was to work on the pink/grey thousand pyramid quilt that I started a few weeks ago.  I thought I could make two of these and give to separate friends that are having girls.  My plans for this quilt has changed, because I recently found out a different friend is having twin girls!!! How perfect to make this pair for the twins!  (I will need to figure something else out for the other babies!)

Originally I had all the triangles cut for one quilt.  After arranging the two-sies and four-sies on the design wall, it looked like it needed more variety with a bit less of the super light grey/whites.  Not a problem!  I cut triangles for quilt number two and put more emphasis into medium greys and few more black prints. 

Ta-Daaa!  I have a lot of the triangles sewn together.  What I discovered the first time I made this pattern, it helps to not sew up all the triangles, because it is easier to re-arrange for better placement when you have a few loose triangles. Here is my first attempt at a layout.  I'm sure after squinting that some will be move a bit.  I can't wait to zip together these rows and have tops ready to quilt!

xoxo
Kristin

Linking up with Molli Sparkles  Sunday Stash, Patchwork Times Design Wall Monday and Sew Fresh Quilt's Let's be Sewcial.

Finish-A-Long 2017

I've read about the Finish-A-Long for a while now and have followed many people that are participating.  Because I have several quilts that are either finished tops or not too far from finishing, I thought this might help motivate me to bring them to completion.  So-- I'm joining in on 2017 Quarter 2 Finish-A-Long!  Woo-hoo!

The rules are: I post a list of what I want to complete in Q2 to my blog this week and at the end of the quarter, if I've completed any of them, I post a summary and link it up to the Finsh-A-Long hosts.  Every finish qualifies for a prize!  It's worth saying again--Woo-hoo!

Here are my goals:

1- Lion Quilt: it's at the quilter's waiting for its turn.  I would love to get this back and have it bound by the end of the quarter.

2- Charity Chop Quilt:  The top and back are complete (Finally!!).  Can I find the time to quilt and bind this?

3- Pink Grey Triangle Baby Quilt x 2:  There are some babies in my world and I would like to complete 2 Thousand Pyramid quilts in pink/grey/black/white and gift these to friends.

4- Wonky Stars for Lutherdale: I would like to submit this quilt to the August Lutherdale Auction.  Can't do that without completing it!! =O

5- Elephant Parade-- this is where i get ambitious!! This top has been complete for a while.  Do I quilt it myself?  Or have it done by a professional?  It would be lovely to finish this up.

Oops!  I forgot an important top that I want to finish this quarter.  Editing to add the Pink/Purple XO top.

I'll be linking up with Jess at Elven Garden Quilts.  Wish me luck!!!

xoxo
Kristin

Spring has Sprung!

March in Wisconsin came in like a lion with a cold, snowy winter storm and most of the month has been chilly, windy and wet.  Yesterday was a much needed change!  It was nearly 60 degrees and mostly sunny-- positively delightful! (We won't mention that today is overcast with 50% chance of rain and the same forecast for a few days...)

I spent the beautiful spring day at Lutherdale attending the Gala Luncheon-- the event they host to thank all of the people that make and donate quilts to the August Quilt Auction fundraiser.  This is the third year I've attended and each time I've spoken to the group (184 people!!!) to explain the block we would like each person to make and send back to the camp.  This year's pattern is a variation of the Village quilt pattern. A few of us will return to camp in May to assemble the top (cannot wait!!)

Here is a picture from the stage:

After lunch (absolutely delicious!), they had a speaker from the Wisconsin Quilt Museum and she brought a trunk show of antique quilts.  The newest was 1945 and the oldest was early 1800's! 

In other news-- I started to hang mini quilts up in my sewing room.  This was part of the plan from day one, it just took a while!  I have a few more to hang but ran out of the command clear cord clip things I use to hang them.

And in sewing news-- I've been making slow progress on a pink/grey thousand pyramid quilt.  All of the triangles are sewed into pairs.  

I'm hoping that March can go out like a lamb.  I really enjoyed that sunny warm weather!

xoxo
Kristin

Linking up with Let's Be Social at Sew Fresh Quilts

National Quilting Day - 2017

Yesterday was National Quilting Day and I celebrated by spending most of the day in my sewing room.  Cleaning and errands be damned--I wanted to sew!!

I'm happy to share that I finished the improv back I've been working on for my Charity Chop Quilt,  I thought I had enough put together, but it needed 2 separate extensions.  I'm happy to report that this is now big enough and is 'done'!  

After finishing that up, I needed to focus on some tidying.  My sewing room was pretty much a disaster and thankfully, is in better shape now.  Along the way, I knocked over the boards that were holding the parts to my Goodnight Irene leader/ender quilt.  What better time to revisit this project than when it is spilled all over the floor?!? I have 36 16 patch blocks and 31 blue x blocks done.  I lined up the remaining blue squares with bright squares and have them next to my machine, ready to sew.  I would love nothing more than to have a finished top by the end of the year!  

A big goal of mine for the past few weeks was to assemble the top of the XO Pink/Purple quilt.  Last weekend, I finished sewing the blocks together and this weekend planned to border the quilt with a thin bit of grey and then a wider bit of pink.  But now that I'm at the point to put another border on, I'm not sure if it needs it.  Or should it be purple?  Borders are not fun, so I'm tempted to call this good and use either of these fabrics as the binding?  I'm open to hearing your opinions!

Lastly-- I can't make this much progress on UFO's without starting something new!  I loved the Green/Grey Thousand Pyramid quilt I did in January.  It was so quick and turned out super cute.  There are more babies being born all around me, so I decided to make another of the same pattern, but use pink instead of green.  Most of my triangles are cut and I'm itching to get this up on the design wall and start stitching!

xoxo

Kristin

ps

linking up with Sew Fresh Quilts and Patchwork Times