Busy, Busy, Busy!

I've been very busy in my garden and at work, I'm not having quite as much 'quilt' time and I don't like it! If I want to buy more fabric I have to work, so I guess it's all okay, except when I get home at around 9, and I'm just too tired to do anything but go to bed.

Believe it or not, I got Best of Show at the Red Willow County Fair again. I'm really surprised at this, I thought other quilts were better, but I guess that's the way it goes sometimes. This quilt is really impressive with all of the embroidery on it, and my piecing was very good, but my longarming was just okay on this one. I'm still happy to see it hanging up with the Big Ribbon on it though. Below are the other quilts I entered.

In my opinion this quilt I made for Emersyn's 1st birthday was much more deserving of the Best of Show Ribbon....Lots of curved seams and I thought the long arm quilting was better on it too, but who am I to say?!

This Kansas Troubles Log Cabin quilt was the second one like this I made....this was pieced right before my mom went in the nursing home...I would make a block and she would cut out the flower to put in the center and iron it on...I would then blanket stitch around each one...My sister Barb has the other one I made. This quilt has a lot of sentimental value since mom and I worked on this one together.










This is my 2011 Calendar quilt that I just finished quilting...This is a very fun
quilt and I love to just look at all of the fabrics in it...I added a strip for every day of the year, and used the fabric that I was using that day. I did a bunch of embroidery on it too.








My latest fun project...Farm Girl Vintage Book by Lori Holt...these are 12" finished blocks, you also can make them 6" if you wish. I've been making the 12" and will probably do them smaller also. This is just plain fun to do.

Some of my wool projects that I've started...only 4 more months to  finish the Summer Gathering BOM quilt, and I'm just waiting for the next block to come in the mail... the ones on the top represent a month....May will be up next for me. The snow man table topper was purchased for 75% off and that made me very happy! I'll have it done in a few days.

My hexie quilt is growing daily...I love working on this.


In the last week, I've frozen 30 bags of corn, made 39 pints of salsa, made cranberry hot pepper jelly, strawberry mango hot pepper jelly, Peach mango jam and Peach Rum jam...Yummy! I'm on a jelly making tear right now...who knows how many jars I'll end up with by the end of the summer!

Happy Quilting,
Kris

My Longarm and I!

I've been encouraged about using my longarm the last few weeks...I've been watching You Tube videos/tutorials on free motion longarm quilting every morning when I take my walk and I think some of it is starting to sink in! So I decided it's time to just 'go for it' and get that longarm a stitchin....I've been having fun! This is the wool table topper that came from Kim Diehl's book 'Simple Appeal'...I enjoyed quilting it, and experimenting as I went along.

Karmon's table runner all done! I did a geometric pattern on this one which I think I will do on the baby quilt for my new grandson when he's born. It's also a circle quilt. I'm happy with how this one turned out.

This is 'Snow Days', a pattern by CrabApple Hill...I've had this top done for a few years, but just never have gotten it quilted before now, hopefully it will turn out good enough to enter in the county fair.

January and February  from Buttermilk Basin...these are shown in the pattern as small wall hangings and one for every month...I think I'm going to put them all together and make a large wall hanging/small quilt. I think I'll embroider under each one of them, the month they represent.

 The 9th block in the 'Summer Gatherings' wool quilt by Lisa Bonjean....This is fun! Only 5 more months to go until it's finished...
Happy Quilting!
Kris

Sewing for Baby Weekend

I decided that this weekend would be the time to get a bunch of stuff made for the upcoming baby shower this coming weekend in St. Joseph Missouri, (that will be a long drive for going down on Saturday and coming home on Sunday.) I'm looking forward to seeing Lesley and Emersyn though! It's hard to believe the baby is due in about 6 weeks...I'm wondering where the time has gone. 
So far I've made 3 blankets , 3 crocheted caps and 3 burp pads...so not too bad....the quilt is almost done but again, I can't do anything with it until I know the baby's name....I'm thinking it won't get done till after the baby is born. I've let my 'stash' of baby things dwindle and I really need to get some extras made...So I've decided that this week before work, baby items would be my sewing projects. I'd like to get several boy and girl things made to just have on hand.
Happy Quilting
Kris

I WILL FINISH more UFOs!!! (and I really do mean it!)

Circles! And Set-in Seams to Boot

My daughter Lesley wanted a circle quilt for my grandson who will be  born the end of July, so I started researching the best way to go about doing this. I was debating between appliqueing and set-in seams, and I really didn’t want to applique a whole bunch of circles. I found a tutorial and that began my journey with the circle quilt, the baby quilt is done and waiting for the baby’s name to be stitched on…and since I don’t know the name yet, it will just have to wait a bit longer. I just finished piecing a circle table runner for my daughter Karmon…she picked out the colors…I had fun making all different size circles…it’s getting easier and easier to do. Now to figure out what to quilt on this! That seems to be my stumbling block right now. This picture does not do it justice...the colors are much brighter in real life.

Here is part of the circle baby quilt and my Wool Block of the month from Primitive Gatherings, I’ve got 8 of the wool blocks done and I’m now working on the four patch block that goes between the wool blocks. I love the colors in this quilt!

 
Three of the latest wool blocks I've done. 

 

The hexies are coming along pretty well, I’ve got all of the purple ones made, I just need to get them sewn on to the quilt. Again, another decision to make…what color hexies for the next row?

 My favorite fabric for the moment…American Jane by Sandy Klop for moda…Most of it is out of print and hard to find…But I’ve been on a mission and I’ve accumulated quite a bit of it. This pile of fabric puts a smile on my face! I love to get it out and just play with it…I’ve started to worry about my fabric hoarding tendencies…and I’m serious about that! Serious that is,  about the hoarding and all of the fabric ‘petting’. I LOVE my fabric.

My new favorite book: Farm Girl Vintage by Lori Holt. I love the fabric used in this book and I love the patterns. I've been looking at it every night and getting ideas. It was worth the $30 just to look at it! Thanks for thinking of me Regina and Jamie from Stitch up a Storm in Norton Kansas. Those girls know what I like! 

Still plugging away on my mom's civil war quilt...I've only got 32 more of these 6 inch Hovering Hawk blocks to make for two of the borders...So I'm more than half done with these. I know my mom will be smiling down from heaven when this one gets done! I can hear her asking me if I've been working on it and how much I've gotten done on it...Well, mom it's almost done.

Happy Quilting

Kris

Obsessed with Hexies!

Ok….I will admit that I tend to be a bit OCD….I’ve started working on my Hexie quilt again and I just can’t seem to put it down, it goes everywhere with me. Oh well, I’m having a wonderful time with it! I have no idea how big it will end up being…it’s about a yard across so far. These are very small 1/2” hexies, the flower’s finished size is about 2 5/8” across…lots of work and very slow growth in the size of this quilt…It will be worth it when it’s done! Anyway that’s what I keep telling myself. So…what color do you think the next row should be?

My ‘Love Covers’ embroidered blocks are all done….This didn’t take me long at all, 14 small blocks and 12 large blocks. I have all of the fabric collected to finish this, I’ve put it all away and will get this done another day! Very happy with how these blocks turned out.

And here are the ‘rejected’ circle blocks that were my practice pieces…I’ve decided it would be a nice table runner…it’s on the longarm right now and I’m stumped on what to quilt on it….Hopefully something will come to me.

This is the circle quilt for my soon to be born grandson….I will add white borders and put his name on it… I can’t do much more until I know what his name will be. I really didn’t think it would be this easy to do set-in circles, but it didn’t take long at all. Very happy with this one!

These are a few of my purchases while I was in Iowa with my sisters; the wool pattern is one I’ve wanted for years. It’s funny how when on vacation I’ll buy things I normally wouldn’t buy any other time because I think they’re too expensive…I guess I tend to splurge a bit when I’m in another town. I have a big plan for the fabric…I’m trying to hold off on starting on it though. I really need to finish a few other quilts first! My vow to get my UFOs done is starting to blow away in the wind….I’m straying off the straight and narrow path! I think I might need some kind of an intervention…Help!

Here I am with 3 of my sisters…Val wasn’t able to be with us because of some school obligations. We sure missed her, but we had a wonderful time together. I would do it again in a heartbeat.  I love you Susie, Barb, Val and Wendy! And as our theme song goes….’Sisters, Sisters, nothing can come between sisters’! Except maybe some Quilting! Just kidding!

Happy Quilting!

Kris

Long-arming, Embroidery and Circle Blocks

I bought an embroidered/pieced/colored quilt pattern a couple of weeks ago called ‘Love Covers’ by Tricia Cobbs. It’s got quite a bit of embroidery and very bright colors, I like the Scripture in the embroidery so I was drawn to it…..I’ve got all 12 of the large blocks embroidered and have 2 done of the 14 small blocks….You also use Crayola crayons to color in the blocks…It’s been fun so far…I’ve got quite a bit of bright colored fabric collected to get started on piecing the blocks…Fun!

My Prairie Rose BOM by Jo Morton is done! It’s quilted and off the frame now. While I was quilting it I thought I was doing a horrible job and was kind of in the dumps about it, but now that it’s off the frame I really like it. Now I only need to add the binding and it’s completely done!

Here are my Wool Spring Gathering BOMs from Primitive Gatherings…the top one is the latest one and the center block will go between all of the wool blocks….I’ve done 6 of them now.

This is the start of my grandson’s quilt…He is due July 29th, and my daughter wanted a circle quilt….It’s really not too hard to do…I found a tutorial on-line done by Dale Fleming and it really makes sewing the circles easy…I did not want to applique them so I thought I’d give this a try. My circles get better with each one I do.

Happy Quilting

Kris