Retro Flower Quilt will be done this week!

Well, it’s true, the Retro Flower quilt for my daughter Lesley will be at her house this coming weekend. I just finished quilting it and have the binding on…just need to stitch it down now. This has taken me a couple of weeks to complete, I’ve done a little bit every day.The binding isn’t sewn on yet in this picture, it’s very colorful and made from 5 different fabrics. I’m anxious to get the hand stitching done on it.

A couple of close up pictures of the quilting, I feel like I did an okay job….I like the overall look of it, but I’ve got some minor little glitches. I’d say a good job for the first large quilt I’ve attempted to free motion quilt. I think I like the back side as well as the front!The second BOM from Primitive Gatherings…I am really having a wonderful time doing this quilt. I’m anxiously awaiting the June BOM! I love the wool, it’s so bright and colorful.

My hexagon flower quilt is growing! I try to sew a few on every day….I’m really liking it! This one I’m keeping for myself.

My birthday was Friday, I ended up working until  almost 9p.m. that day…..I was delivering bunches of flowers and Sherrie’s Berries to Moms for mother’s day. It was a stressful work week. I do love my job and am hoping it will calm down this coming week!

Off I go to get some binding sewn down!

Happy quilting! Kris

Free Motion Quilting is kinda fun!

My free motion skills are improving. I’ve got a long ways to go, but I’m having a great time practicing and learning as I go. I’ve decided that I will never be a FM quilter who uses stencils or follows a pattern. I’m just kind of the type of person who is going to ‘go with the flow’! It’s getting easier to just go with my instinct on what will work. I’m still not as neat as I’d like to be, but overall my quilts look pretty good, as long as you don’t look too closely. I hope with time, that will improve too.

I’m about a third done with Lesley’s Retro Flower quilt and I’m excited about how it looks, I think she’ll love it when it’s done.. This is what I’m doing in all of the flowers, I think I could do this in my sleep now!

This is the back of the quilt, I think it looks pretty good, and should look even better when it’s been washed a few times.I think Morris is just as bad as Wilber….they both like to lay on my quilts!

I’ve started sewing my hexie flowers together! I’m excited to get far enough along that I can start planning how I’m going to do the applique in the border of this one. It’s slow going doing all of that hand stitching, I try to sew a few together every morning before work and  also in the evenings when I come home from work.  So far I’m sewing 12 flowers in a row and we’ll have to see how big this will be when I put the white border on, I’d like this bigger than a wall hanging, but not huge either.

Happy Quilting! Kris

Hugs & Kisses quilt is completely done!

The Hugs & Kisses scrap quilt that I started from Lesley’s Retro Flower quilt is finished. I bound it last night while I was watching T.V…….actually I was watching my binding while the T.V. was on last night! I was just sitting there to keep my husband company.  I guess I’d give myself an 85% on my free motion quilting, it’s okay…nothing great, but nothing to be embarrassed of either. I felt like a learned a lot doing this one, and that’s a good thing. In the picture below I still need to cut some strings, so if you see some that’s why.

Before it got bound…..This quilt isn’t some of my best work in the piecing department, it’s hard to match up the whites in the diamond in the middle of the block…..I got to the point where I just wanted to get the quilt done, so I let some things slide by that I normally wouldn’t And here is the finished product. I used scraps for the binding too, that took much longer because of sewing little pieces together to get the binding long enough to go around the quilt. So overall, I’m very happy with the finished product. Now I feel like I’ve got the ‘mojo’ going so I can get the Retro Flower quilt done too!

I will say that a tutorial by Anne Fahl found on sewcalgal’s blog helped me in my free motion quilting. Every month for the year 2012 sewcalgal will have a guest teacher submit a free motion tutorial. I really enjoyed this month’s advice. It was very beneficial.

I also purchased the last BOM for my Aunt Grace’s Garden Party…it’s basically the fabric for the borders and binding. My sister Susi saw it and I think she really wants it, we’ll have to wait and see whose home it ends up in. Hopefully I’ll get it done real soon now. I also need to finish my Patriots in Petticoats BOM….just need to do borders to finish it too. I feel like I’m actually getting lots done lately, it’s a good feeling! Now if only I’d have that good feeling about cleaning my house too!

Happy quilting, Kris

Free motion quilting my Hugs & Kisses Scrap Quilt

Well, I’m ready to get started free motion quilting my Hugs & Kisses Scrap Quilt. As you will be able to see by the pictures….I’ve stuck true to my word and have made this truly a scrap quilt. The backing is not the most beautiful thing in the world, but I didn’t have to buy a piece of fabric for this! I spent probably around $15-$20 to finish the top, so overall not too bad. It measures around 65”x80….a good size for a throw to put on your couch.

I’ve been very busy this week with work, so my quilting has taken a backseat for a few days. I ended up working on Saturday, so I had a 6 day work week. Sunday is church, clean the FedEx building, buy groceries and then go to Small Group bible study. So as you can tell, I really didn’t have too much extra time this weekend! I’m feeling pretty good that I’ve gotten this far on this quilt.

As you can see this backing isn’t too pretty, but I did a bunch of digging through my tubs of fabric to find enough fabric in colors that would kind of match to get the job done….I think once it’s quilted it will look just fine. I think binding this in white would look the best, but white would just get too dirty, especially for the binding. I guess I’ll probably just use more scraps of anything left that’s big enough.

I’m just itching to get started quilting this….it will have to wait until this evening though. I’ll be posting pix of the finished quilt very soon!

Happy quilting! Kris

Free Motion Quilting…..trying to learn

Well, I have the day off today and I’m planning on going to Cambridge to pick up my mom and we are off to Arapahoe to visit my sister. I made stew, homemade dinner rolls and brownies to take to them since my sister is home this week with some health issues. I’m sure we’ll have a great time. I’m also taking the Kansas Troubles Log Cabin Quilt I made her. I finished binding it Sunday during the Super Bowl.

I’m ready to try my hand at Free Motion quilting a quilt I made for my mom….Snow Days…..it’s a lot of embroidery and quilt blocks combined. I blogged about it  a couple of weeks ago and also posted some pix. I’m not sure what I’ll end up doing on it, but I guess I’m ready to try. Now I need to get some Warm and Natural so I can tackle this quilt!

Here are a few pictures of a couple of the ‘throws’ my mom made, that I free motioned quilted for her. I am a beginner at this, and sometimes I can get very frustrated with how things turn out.

The quilts below are done with two   different  types of circles, I can do these okay since there is no rhyme or reason, the size of the circle doesn’t really matter and it’s pretty much ‘anything goes’. Overall, I like how these quilts look when completely done. I just need to keep practicing and hopefully it will get easier and easier!

Now it’s on to bigger and fancier stitches! Wish me luck….

Kris