Dear Jane - L13

I just finished L13 in my Dear Jane quilt!  It seems like a fairly easy block, but it took me several hours to complete.  Oh well, I guess hand applique takes time.  I'm really pleased with how this one turned out.  I've got 39 blocks done now.  Maybe I'll try to knock another one out this weekend so I'll have an even 40!

Dear Jane - J12



I just felt like sewing yesterday, so I pulled out my Dear Jane box and chose a block to work on.  I decided I wanted to do one with a little applique, and this one fit the bill.  I have to start working on the applique blocks or else they will all be left for the end.  I think it came out pretty good.  Now to decide on the next block...

Design Wall Monday 10/08/12

On my Design Board today is a Dear Jane block - J12.  I'm easing my way into doing some applique blocks.  I hand appliqued the basket handle and the rest was foundation pieced.  I use the starch method of applique so this tiny bit took a while to prep.  I should probably prep a few at a time to make it worth the trouble of pulling out all of those supplies!  Oh well, live and learn.  This block will probably be completed in minutes, so I'll post shortly with the finished product!

Be sure to check out Judy L's blog to see what everyone else is working on today!

Design Boards

I've been slacking off on the sewing front lately.  But class has started again, so I'm gearing up to work on some new projects.  I recently made some design boards as gifts using Lori Holt's tutorial and I think they came out great!  The only thing I did differently was to make them a little bigger.  Lori's were 10" x 10", and I made mine 15" x 15".  It was very challenging because I haven't used my glue gun for about 15 years!  I was amazed that I was able to even find it!  I made 6 last weekend and 2 today.  I meant to take a picture of the stack I had last week, but I forgot and gave them all away first.  I had one more foam board and I really wanted one for myself, so I made two more (I can get two out of one foam board).  I think they're great!  Thanks to Lori Holt of Bee In My Bonnet for another great tutorial!

Mystery Mondays is back!

Mystery Mondays has started again on Sherri Falls' Little Bits of This and That blog!  This will be the fourth mystery quilt along she's done, and I've participated in two of them.  You can see them here and here.  My friend Lori and I do them together and it's great fun to see how different they turn out with different fabrics.  The steps are posted on her website every Monday.  They are short and easily accomplished in the week.  In fact, I usually get them done during my Monday night quilt class.  Let's see if I can keep up with these and the others that I am thinking of doing!  I love all of the quilt alongs these days, but the problem is that I want to do them all!  Oh well, I guess that makes me a typical quilter!

Design Wall Monday 09/10/12

Here's my completed Great Granny Quilt.  It's tough to post a quilt with a white background onto a white blog!  It was slightly dark when I took the picture, so I used the color auto-correct to brighten it up a little.  Oh well, you get the picture (literally).  I really need to work on photographing my quilts straight!  I should probably re-take the photo below.

Here is my Swoon wall hanging.  I tried out all kinds of pieced borders in EQ, but they all took away from the center.  I decided to go simple.  I ran out of the purple in the star, so the narrow border is actually a different fabric.  I like how it turned out!  Now I need to decide how to quilt it.  But that probably won't happen for a while.

Be sure to check out Judy L's blog to see what everyone else is working on today!

Design Wall Monday 09/03/12

 

I'm almost finished with the Great Granny quilt top.  Above is where I am at the moment.  I have two side borders on and I need to add the top and bottom.  I really didn't want to piece the white border strips, and the center was just slightly wider than the width of my background fabric, so I decided to add corner blocks.  I made a square in a square block that I think fits well with the center design.

Here I'm attaching the borders.  I'll have it done by the end of the day!  I already want to make another one in different colors.  I'd love to make one with bright batiks and a black background.  But I'll have to leave that for another day.  Too many other projects on the worktable!

Be sure to check out Judy L's blog to see what everyone else is working on!

Design Wall Monday 08/20/12

I accomplished my goal for this weekend and got the last of the Great Granny blocks done!  All nine are finished now.  You can see them all on my Flickr page here.  Most of the blocks are made of scraps from a couple of similar Jelly Rolls that I had.  I pulled the fabrics for two of the blocks out of my stash, and those two definitely look different from the rest, but I think they will be fine when they are mixed in.  But on the bonus side - everything for this quilt came from my stash!!

I'm excited to put them all together in a quilt.  I have no idea how I will quilt it.  I may just have it quilted for me at my lqs so I can have it actually finished and not in a pile while I try to decide what to do.

Be sure to check out Judy L's blog to see what everyone else is working on today!

Design Wall Monday 08/13/12

Two more Great Granny blocks completed!  I actually did what I said I should do and made a few kits so I could sew them whenever I had a few spare moments.  I usually don't listen to myself when I have ideas like that, so score one for me!  This brings my block tally to seven.  Just two more and I can start putting them together.  I only have one more kit made.  I wanted to look at the first eight together to determine what colors the last block should have.  Several look very similar, so I want to make sure none of them stand out too much.

I lost the daylight yesterday, so I don't have a picture of the Design Wall with all of the blocks.  Hopefully soon!

Be sure to check out Judy L's blog to see what is on everyone else's Design Walls today!

Design Wall Monday 08/06/12

I guess I really like these Great Granny Square blocks!  I now have five blocks finished.  My goal now is to make nine and finish it as a small square quilt.  I would really like to make it bigger, but time is short, and I'd like to finish it this summer!  Maybe I'll try making little "kits" for each block.  Then there won't be so much time wasted with my terrible indecision when it comes to choosing colors.  I like that idea!  Then maybe I'll sew a bit each night after work and make some significant progress.  If you are looking for the block tutorial, you can find it on Lori Holt's blog here.  This picture of my "Design Wall" is not the greatest, but you can see better pictures of each block on my Flickr page here. 

Be sure to check out Judy L's blog to see what is on everyone else's Design Walls today!

Deign Wall Monday 07/30/12

I have the Great Granny Along blocks on my Design Wall again this week.  I was only able to make one more block (on the left).  I tend to agonize over color placement when I make blocks like this.  There is a huge pile of assorted Jelly Roll strips on my table, but I can't seem to decide on what I like.  It's all essentially scraps - leftover fabric from other projects - so I should just start putting them together, and if I don't like how they turn out, they go into the orphan block pile.  I need to be a lot more free when I do my piecing.  I'd certainly get a lot more finished!

Be sure to check out Judy L's blog and see what is on everyone's Design Walls today!

Design Wall Monday 07/23/12

I'm kind of all over the place with my projects this summer.  I see so many things online that I want to try and usually never do.  Now I seem to be trying everything and not finishing much!  Above is what is on my Design Wall today.  I've been seeing the granny square blocks on lots of blogs and made a mental note that I wanted to try it out.  Then I saw Lori @ Bee in my Bonnet and Jodi @ Pleasant Home (sorry - links not working today) were hosting a Great Granny Quilt Along with a tutorial and lots of inspiration.  I had a free afternoon, so I decided to make one.  I used leftover fabric from a Jelly Roll (except for the brown).  It went together perfectly. The edges are on the bias, so I'll have to be careful not to handle it too much.  I did starch it before I squared it up - I think I'll be fine.  This will be a great scrap buster if I keep up with them!

Be sure to check out Judy L's newly remodeled blog to see what is on everyone else's Design Walls today!

Dear Jane - F7

As I was looking in my Dear Jane box (to steal some fabric for another project), I found this block that I had sewn back in June, but never squared up.  A few minutes later I had a finished block! :)  It is made from a really interesting scrap of green fabric that my mom had given me.  I love the print - I wish I had a bigger piece!  The scrap was so small that I thought I might not have enough to make a DJ block, but as it turns out, I have about half of the piece left.  These blocks really do take the smallest bits of fabric!  And after all that, I didn't end up taking fabric from the DJ box.  I found another piece that worked for what I wanted to make.

Design Wall Monday 07/09/12

I finally did some sewing this weekend!  My friend Lori hosted a two-day sewing "retreat" at her beautiful home on Friday and Saturday.  She was a wonderful hostess all around and served us a fabulous lunch each day. I decided to make the Swoon block that I've seen all over the blogs.  I needed to make a mini quilt to protect the top of a short speaker we bought recently, so it wouldn't get scratched.  I scaled down the block and made it 12" finished (shown below).  I finished that one on Friday and liked it so much that I decided to make a larger version finishing at 20" on Saturday (shown above).  The bigger one is still on my Design Wall, as I am not sure if I want to add something to it - maybe a pieced border.  I only had fat quarters of the two prints, so I may not be able to do that as I don't have much fabric left over.  On Sunday, I quilted and bound the 12" block.  It is shown below in its place of honor on top of a speaker.

Be sure to check out Judy L's blog to see what is on everyone's Design Walls today!

Happy 4th 2012!