A WINNER AND A FINISH!!

DH drew for the winner to my giveaway and Marsha at Grandma's Quilts won!  Enjoy!  Thanks to everyone who participated and for all the lovely comments that you sent.

Gone to Texas is finished !!  Yea!!  Inside pictures aren't the best, but it is too big to hang on the fence and hold up - 82" square.  Pattern is published in the Gone to Texas  by Betsy Chutchian.  I love this book.  It contains excerpts from her great-great grandmother's journal from mid 1800 along with 12 quilt patterns.  The journal is wonderful and so touching in parts.  I would recommend the book to you for just the journal excerpts.  I'm so glad Betsy came to my guild meeting!

 Quilted on my DSM (domestic sewing machine) with Baptist fans.  It was hard to stay on the lines, so I'm not sure I will machine quilt this pattern again.

Friday I'm going on a quilting retreat with my guild!!  It has been a long time since I've gone on one, so I am really looking forward to it.

KEEPING BUSY

One morning I needed to do something easy, so I was looking through some boxes and saw the leftover pieces of charm squares from when I made my tumbler quilts.  I decided to sew the pieces together randomly and make a table runner and I got the top finished.

Another finish is "Amy's Choice" quilt from my Jo Morton class last year.  It's 22" square and the blocks in the middle finish at 3".

I even put on a label!

Some time in the past I bought this book of iron-on labels, but it wasn't until last November that I decided that I needed to get all my quilts labeled.   (I couldn't get this picture to go in straight - sorry).

 I had forgotten that I had the book, but came across it in my sewing closet.  You can iron on the same design more than once.  These are some of the ones that I haven't sewn onto quilts yet.  At first I embroidered on them and the one on the left has some embroidery.  But then I got the idea to use a colored gel pen.  I decided to finish the one on the left with the pen - a lot easier!  The others were done with gel pens too.  It's kind of fun!

Some labels have a blank to put in the name of the quilt and some don't.  I find it hard to come up with a name, so I usually use the name given by the designer.

This weekend I'm going to finish quilting Gone to Texas and maybe even bind it.  Yea!

Don't forget to comment if you want to get in my drawing (see last post).  I will be drawing a name on Feb. 29 at noon.

2 SMALL QUILTS AND A GIVEAWAY!!!

I put aside my quilting for a few days, but plan to finish quilting Gone to Texas within the week.  I wanted to make a couple small table toppers for my Etsy shop.  I love sawtooth stars and have made numerous of these little 4 star runners.

I thought I would try something different on this one.

Right before Christmas I reached my 300th post!  I decided to wait until after Christmas to have my giveaway because of all the busyness of the season, plus we were going on a trip, etc.

I will be giving away these 4 fat quarters of reproduction fabric.  They are some of my favorites!

I will also giveaway this pincushion that I made out of wool and stuffed with crushed walnut shells.  The FQs and the pincushion will go to one lucky winner (the table topper quilts are NOT included).  All you have to do is leave a comment.  At noon on February 29, I will draw.

I have enjoyed blogging and have met so many wonderful friends - some in person and some just over the internet.  I've learned so much from other quilters and I want to thank all of you that have inspired me and left sweet comments.  I'm still amazed when I get a comment from the other side of the world!

So, be sure to leave a comment for the giveaway!

STARTING TO QUILT ON GONE TO TEXAS

It doesn't look like it is a good time for me to use my friends quilting machine to quilt the Gone to Texas quilt, so I have started doing the quilting on my own machine.  I decided to quilt in the "Baptist Fan" design.  I wasn't sure how to do it, but I found a long arm quilter on Youtube doing it, so that helped.  She had some circle templates.  I made some half circle templates out of cardboard.

I started marking the archs with a chalk marker, but that didn't show up very well.  Then I remembered I had a hera marker, so I used that.

Here is the hera marker and the first template.

I am marking the first line.

I'm marking the second line.

I mark 4 lines with the templates.

Here you can see the indent left by the hera marker.

 After sewing the first 4 lines of the fan, I just "eyeball" the last line.  I mark one fan at a time, quilt it, then mark another one.  This is how it looks so far.  I have done about 1/3 of the quilt and I hope I'll be able to finish it on my machine

Happy quilting!

FREE MOTION QUILTING CHALLENGE FOR FEBRUARY

First of all, here are the last two Civil war blocks!!!  I'm glad that I stuck with it and finished all 53 blocks (there are 53 because that is the number of Saturdays during the year).

I decided to join the Free Motion Quilting Challenge (FMQ) hosted by SewCalGal during the whole year.  I participated in one last year and that helped me so much, but I know I still have a lot to learn and that practice makes perfect.  I was gone for just about all of January, so I didn't do that one (maybe I'll do it later), but I decided to get the one for February done right away.  February's tutorial is by Diane Gaudynski and her quilting is amazing.  It's still not too late for you to join if you are interested.

I didn't use good quilting thread on the first part of this and that part of it didn't look too good, so I changed the thread and it really helped a lot.  I'm also practicing some other FMQ designs as I will be quilting the Gone to Texas quilt soon - possibly next week.  Thanks for visiting!

Pink Lemonade all Finished

I finished my pink lemonade quilt and hung it in my entry hall, which has pink wall paper.

I even put a label on it!!  I've never put a label on this quick before.  I was thinking about hand quilting it, but I knew if I did, it would be a long time before I even got to it.  So I just went ahead and machine quilted.

It was a fun project to work on.  Now, hoping to finish some larger quilts...

PINK LEMONADE and Trip Projects

I finished the Pink Lemonade top yesterday and took this picture so I could link to Lori's blog.  Thanks, Lori, for the quilt along!  This was a fun quilt to make.

As you know, while we were on our trip, I had my sewing machine with me.  Since the 5th wheel is a lot bigger than our former camper, I decided to bring extra fabric and projects "just in case" I had time to work on them.  Am I glad that I did!  I had 10 extra days due to the truck transmission going out, so I sewed and sewed and sewed.  Until I almost got sick of sewing!

Last summer when Beth took me on a shop hop in the Chicago suburbs, I saw a log cabin quilt that I really loved.  Eventually, I started making some blocks and they are addicting.  I made about 26 before the trip and took some 1" strips with me.  Now I have a total of 92 blocks that finish at 4 3/4".  These are some of them on my design wall.

I decided to participate in the Temecula Quilt Co. mystery quilt and the top is finished.

One thing I threw into the camper is my basket of 1 1/2" strips that I use to make postage doll quilts. I got started on those one day and made 3 little quilts.

I started hand quilting this one.  

I finished the Gone to Texas quilt top.  After adding an additional row and two borders, it measures about 84" square.

I hand quilted this little courthouse steps that I made for my Jo Morton class.  The piecing isn't very good, but I like it anyway.

I ironed on these applique pieces for the center of this Oak Leaves and Turkey Feathers quilt by Jan Patek.  I have been wanting to do something like this for a long time.  I'm going to machine applique these on.

This is going to be a pincushion from the Primitive Quilts and Projects magazine, Winter 2011.  I really like that magazine.  These are ready to stuff and sew together.

My next priority will be to quilt the Gone to Texas quilt.  The Thread Head quilt along blocks are ready to be put together for a king size quilt.  I also need to finish a couple civil war blocks and get those put together.  I should get some large quilts finished this year, since all the blocks are ready.  Plus other things that I want to do.  I think it will be another busy year!