May Goal Accomplished

So happy that I finished my May goal.  Let's forget the fact that it was April's goal as well for a Lovely Month Of Finishes.  I actually finished two quilts last night!  I was very happy with getting them done and they way they both turned out.

My goal was my X and Plus quilt and I started this one back in the beginning of 2013 and it has been on my Quarterly Goals and few monthly goals since then.  But no more she is done and I love it.

I started this quilt out as my first swap on Flickr.  That was fun to sew up blocks and then get that many back in the mail in someone else's fabric.  I think my scraps are not as fun, nice, or cool as someone else's so this was perfect.  It mixes it up and I love all the different fabrics in it.  I then made the rest of the blocks and from the looks of this quilt I definitely like orange!

I had pulled a 3 different bindings and I had orange in my head and the Lotta Jansdotter's trees was the perfect color to me for the binding and then 3 other "judges"agreed with me.  Poor Sam was the only one who liked the blue and we were all in agreement that the red one I picked didn't work.  So I went with orange much to his dismay.  This was also the first time I used 2 1/4" binding and it worked out really well.

As for the back I used up stash in my never ending quest to use more fabric.  (It doesn't seem to be working).I quilted this on the my new Juki.  I love it however, there was a problem with the walking foot and a new one is being sent.  It was making awful noises and would even jam up.  Very frustrating! My friend has this machine and I borrowed hers, that one worked perfect!  So I know it is not user error.  There are a few things to learn on a new machine!

I did three lines through diagonally on each of the blocks.  This quilt is so soft and can't wait to use it.

This is also the one that I had ripped some lines of stitching out and the back came out as one of the best ever!  I am so happy I did that.  (that is some really old vintage fabric on the back).

I am linking up today at Crazy Mom Quilts, Whoo Whoo it's Friday, Lovely Month of Finishes at Sew Bittersweet Designs and this one is also on Q-2 Goals so linking up at The Littlest Thistle when the time comes.

Thanks for reading and hope you have a wonderful weekend which includes some sewing!

WIP - Wednesday

I have been doing some sewing on my new Juki and taking her out for a test drive.  For the record I love this machine. It sews beautifully and is pretty easy to operate.  I will be working on that post on another day.

I did travel with the Juki up to the cottage and pulled it out to get a few things done.  I put it on the dining room table but it was nice out and we ate outside so no need to back it up.  There really isn't a lot of time to sew when we are there so not sure that I will do this very often but it was nice to be able to get something done.  Yep that is the hubby making dinner while I sewed!  I did make dinner the night before.

The quilt under the needle is a charity quilt that I did finish FMQ and now I just need to get the binding done and a few pictures of it.  The Juki FMQ is fantastic!  I still have some practice to do but I can tell the difference.

Definite progress on the X and + quilt.  This has been my goal for the last two months and I am going to finishit.  I had this pinned and started straight stitching on it but it was not working out well.  My issue was how the quilt was basted.  So I actually ripped out 3 and half rows of stitching and unpinned it.  I have never done that before!  But it took me less than 45 minutes to unpin and rip.  I am much happier now that I did that.  Sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and learn from our mistakes.  I was not happy with it and then read Crazy Mom Quilts blog post on basting.  I kinda did it like her but not really. When I taped it to the floor I would start in the corners and I did not tape as much or in that same order.  I don't know if it was just this quilt that seemed so bad or what but I decided I wasn't that far into it and I would redo it.

So now I am almost done!  I have less than 1/4 of it to stitch.  I am still trying to figure out if the walking foot is really that loud or if there is something wrong.  I am testing a few more things to see.  It sews fine just sounds bad sometimes!  Just can't figure out the why it sounds like that.  I am really happy that I unstitched.  I am sure I will have a tuck or pucker but it was way better the first few lines I sewed previously.

Mostly this weekend I spring cleaned the cottage and did all of the gardens.  There are a few of them.  But the quilts airing out were pretty!  I made all of them but the small blue and yellow one.  My mom made me that one.  This picture was taken prior to that garden getting cleaned up!

On the agenda for this week is finish up the quilting and get the two bindings done!  I am determined to not go into the weekend with them lingering.  It is suppose to be another beautiful weekend here so our hope is to spend a lot of time outside and on the water!

Linking up to WIP Wednesday, Let's Bee Social and NTT.

The Winner is....

The winner of the patterns is...

 

JayardiMay 16, 2014 at 7:32 AM

• • • Thank you for sharing!

I have sen Jayardi an email so I will get this in the mail on Monday!

True Random Number Generator Min: Max: Result: 80 Powered by RANDOM.ORG

 

Thanks everyone and hope you had fun during the giveaway! 

Progress

First I want to say welcome to all the new followers so glad that you decided to follow along and thanks to the ones that are still around!  Lots of comments on the giveaway day here and I know have a list of books to check out to read.  Thank you!

I just have not been gettting as much sewing time as I would like so glad that I did this and I finished up the two blocks I needed for the X and + quilt.

I added them to the whole quilt top so now we are ready!  I also pieced up a back with stash I had.  I can tell you that I really wanted to buy a new back at the Quilt Shop on their sale room fabric - all of it $5.99 a yard.  But I refrained found something that worked and reminded myself there will be another sale with more pretty fabric.  Now I just need to baste it up this weekend.  Not sure yet how I will quilt it but I am thinking it will be straight lines.

Then I was also able to sew the rows together on my stitch and flip quilt that I started in Paducah for my niece in Jacquie Gering's class.  Once it was up can you see the gap in the J.  I didn't like that at all.

So I pinned in a piece to see if that was better.  It is!  So I have a little bit of unstitching to finish this one but I like it better with an extra piece so it will all good!

Sorry about the dark photos it was late (at least for me) I sewed till 10!  I need to do that more often you really can accomplish quite a bit of things when you just sew for a bits of time.

Linking up to NTT, Let's Bee Social, Link a Finish Friday, Can I get a Whoo Whoo and Crazy Mom Quilts.

Sew Mama Sew Giveaway

That time of year again when I spend as much time possible trying to win awesome things from other bloggers on Sew Mama Sews Giveaway Day. An added bonus is finding new to me blogs that have lots of fun things and inspiration to check out.  So I am doing a giveaway as well although a little late than most of the other posts!  I had so much fun the last time reading all those comments I don't want to miss out this year.

So I have giving away 6 American Jane Patterns.

Here are the details:

• US entries only
• Giveaway will be open till Friday May 16th at 5 pm
• I will announce the winner and email them by May 18th.  If I can't contact you, you can't win
• So to enter leave me a comment anything will do, but if you need a topic how about a good book you recently finished?
• Any follower new or old gets a second entry just tell me how you follow me

That's it!  I hope you look around and stay or come back and visit when you have more time.  I have been mainly working on using some stash this year so lots of scrap quilts and more charity sewing this year.  Enjoy your blog hopping and good luck to you!

Kids Quilt Finish

Not sure why but just haven't gotten around to writing up the post on this quilt finish.  The pattern is the from Fat Quarter Shop.

This is left over fabric from my other Kid's Quilt.  There is still a little left that I plan on using up.  At least this yellow is gone!  It was a little bright for me but it is cheerful.  This was a fun and fast finish and I am sure will be loved by someone.

I quilted meandering squares because I just love that freemotion design and thought it went well with the design of the quilt.  (I can't wait to try this on the new machine!  I did a little test on the Juki and it seems to stop on a dime.)  

This one has a more turn to life colors out on the deck and you can see on the one of the back - there was still snow on the ground.  Well thank goodness that is gone.

Not sure yet where they will be donating but I am hoping to gather a few more for donation to make room for the others I am making as well.  Well I am donating this one to hurricane Sandy Survivors through the Hands 2 Help.  There are lots of quilts getting linked up to help others in need.  

I am linking up to Crazy Mom Quilts, Can I Get a Whoo Whoo.

Hoping I can a new finish this weekend.  Also Happy Mother's Day to anyone who will be celebrating.   

May's Goal and some WIP updates

So April was a bust on finishing my April goal for the Lovely Month of Finishes.  But also for anything on my Q2 list as well.  So May means some serious time at the sewing machine and since it is getting nicer out (well, hopefully around here)  means more time outside.  So let's hope for the best!

So once again I putting the X and + quilt on the list to get done.  I have made some serious progress at least since last month.  The quilt is together and I only have 2 blocks left to make!  No border and I need to find a back this week in my stash.  So it is going to be done much sooner than later and this one will be the goal for May.

I did make some progress on my Stitch and Flip and all of the rows are together. Now for press and final assembly.

I was hoping my new machine would be here on Wednesday but only the new sewing table.  Still need to wait on that and I so wanted this week. This is worse than Christmas!  I am so anxious to have it! Oh well more time to get a few more things done.

I am linking up to Sew Bittersweet Designs - I really want to finish this one!  Also linking up to WIP Wednesdays, Let's Bee Social, and NTT.  I got it covered this week!

Class time at Paducah

I have to say I was really glad that I took a class in Paducah.  I thought just roaming around for one more day would have been too much and then everything because even more appealing. Who knows I may have come home with a vacuum cleaner too!

Thursday was an all day class with Jacquie Gering and it was very informative and I learned a lot.  I am not a big fan of improve.  I love it but have a really hard time letting go.  I follow a pattern even if it is loosely and I can mock up a block but just sewing triangles on and put them up on the design wall - no that is not how I sew.  

When I take a class I really want to be able to step out of the box, learn something and hopefully want to do it again.  This class was just plain fun too!  It was really quick sewing and every one's in class was looking great.

I had decided that I was going to go low volume background and purple since I wanted to make a jumbo pillow for my niece Julie and this was really killing two birds with one stone.  So I started out with the J.  The other two circles was my friend Laurie.  We were sharing the design wall.

I then added some random dots and one circle.  I just thought it looked pretty!  I am betting that she will like it.  I was able to get 4 rows sewn together and the others are stacked and ready to go.  Not quite sure yet on how I will quilt it but it is fun so far.  The background was a Botanics and it was perfect for this.

Here are some others from class, I did not make any of these but wanted to show my other sewing mates what the possibilities were.

Another letter, I had taken photos before lunch too and this one had the design wall fall down and the picture came to the rescue!   It is a little confusing to know which way those triangles are suppose to go!

I think most people working with the squares were working in 4.5 inches but one ladies scraps were smaller so here block was 3.5 inches.

I loved how this one has different colors around the circles.

This lady was sitting next to me and loved her fabrics.  The grunge background was really great.  I don't think that this picture does it justice.

She worked on getting this one to spiral out with radiating color - pretty cool!

Turns out that Jacquie was staying in our same hotel across the hall from me.  I don't know she might think I was stalking her!  That was pretty funny so one night we shared our wine and we hung out in the lobby.

Overall great class - lots of fun and I can't wait to finish mine up.  Linking up to Let's Bee Sewcial, NTT.

In class were sewing on a Bernina Sewing Machine 750.  That machine was a little too complicated for me and it kept getting that little birds nest of threads.  But boy was that baby quiet!  We also had this little Steam Cordless Panasonic iron and that was awesome.  I did not go back to see how much there were at the show but have looked them up on Amazon.  That might need to go on the Christmas list!

Another long post but wanted to be able to look back and remember what happened!  So thank you if you are still reading this!  This weekend I have sewing on my brain so hoping I can get somethings done!