December Design Wall

I'm pretty sure I just wrote the first

Design Wall post for November last week,

Didn't I??

Yet here we are...in the last month of 2014!

Over the past few days,

in between cooking and cleaning,

I finished the inside part of the

VCU t-shirt quilt for my older daughter.

It is a wild quilt, but I'm pleased with how it turned out.

Tomorrow I hope to get the fabric for the borders.

I held off, not knowing what colors I would want to use for each border.

I did use quite a few of her shirts.

Using the graph paper method made it a lot easier

to put this top together.

It's doubtful that I will get this quilted before Christmas,

but will take it to my LAQ right after the holidays.

One more gift almost finished!

Please visit Patchwork Times to see what others are creating.

Happy Quilting!!

Knitting Friday

Today is my family's Thanksgiving Day.

My oldest daughter and my goddaughter

both had to work  yesterday,

so someone would have missed out on dinner.

Since I wasn't cooking yesterday,

I was able to knit!

This pair of socks is finished.

They look funny... and really, really small,

but they will fit my sister.

I love using this yarn, but wish it had more on the skein.

 It's Schoppel Ambiente, color 2184... really soft and

lovely to knit.

My oldest daughter asked for new Maryland socks

for Christmas. (My youngest daughter is a Maryland grad.)

I decided to try my hand at knitting with two different color yarns.

I knitted the ribbing changing the color with every row

and didn't make a tangles mess at all!

I'm going to knit the body in black and add the red for

the heels and toes.

She has really tiny feet (size 1!!), so these shouldn't take long.

Please visit Patchwork Times to see what

others are knitting.

Happy Friday!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Recycled Clothing Quilt Week

I've noticed a theme this week...

Yesterday I posted the finish of the quilt top made from

Recycled Men's shirts.

Today I am working on a t-shirt quilt for my daugther.

I enjoyed making the men's shirt quilt much more!

This quilt is going to be WILD!!

I've cut all of the shirts and added stabilizer to the backs.

This way they won't stretch!

I'm using graph paper to help me know how large to cut the

fill in pieces.

 

One section is sewn together.

I'm not loving it, but will let it sit for a while before

deciding to change anything.

I'm hoping it will be a Christmas gift for my oldest daughter.

The top should be finished, but probably not the quilting.

Happy Quilting!

Thanksgiving Week Design Wall

Well, the church craft fair is behind me

and it was a huge success.

Thank you for all of your kind thoughts and words

and for those who visited and went home with little treasures!

On Saturday night, I came home and just sat and stitched

binding down,

Soooo....

I have a finish!

My "Shirt Top" quilt!

I love this quilt!

(It is straight.... just a problem with the person hanging it on the Design Wall!)

:)

This is the quilt made from 7 recycled men's shirts.

The top cost me $15 to make and I used solid red on the back,

which I bought on sale for almost half price!

I was planning on using the left-over shirt fabric for the binding,

but really like the solid red. It gives it a little extra

pop of color.

The Swirling design for the quilting just adds to the fun of this quilt.

I used the pattern on this blog to make this quilt.

There will be more of these in my future!

Fun and easy to make.

Please visit Patchwork Times to see what others are creating.

Happy Quilting!

Knitting Friday

It's Friday again and I do have some

knitting progress to share.

I have been finishing up things for

my church's craft fair,

but found some time to knit while waiting for

my daughter, etc.

This yarn that I am working with

knits up so quickly and is so soft.

My only complaint is that the skeins are a bit on the 

skimpy side.

Thankfully my sister has little feet,

so I don't need to make the socks as big.

For some reason this sock looks funny....

I would be able to wear it,

stretching it a bit,

so it will fit my sister just fine.

 

The yarn is Schoppel Ambiente, color 2184

and is wonderful to work with, but you will

need two skeins for a larger sock.

Please visit Patchwork Times to see what others are knitting.

Happy Friday!

It's Friday!

And that means the

Craft Fair at my church is tomorrow!

I belong to St. Matthew's Episcopal Church

in Richmond, VA

and tomorrow we are having our first

Giving Tree Craft Fair

in conjunction with the American Sewing Guild's Craft Fair,

also being held at St. Matthew's.

If you live in the Richmond area,

please come by and see what has been

created for this event.

The church is on

1101 Forest Avenue

Richmond, VA 23229

and the craft fair will be held from 9-3pm.

I tagged my items and have most of them packed up to take.

It's amazing how much room is in my

"Hidey Hole" now that the fair items are not in there!

It doesn't seem like much when all of the items are

piled on the floor!

 

My army of Frogs is waiting to sooth an achy spot!

 

I love the spool topper...

I think I see another one in my future-

for ME!!

 

Lots of quilted goodies.

 

Here are some of the ornaments I've made.

The yoyos are sewn together in 9ft. lengths

to be used as garland.

The funds raised by the craft fair will benefit

the priests' discretionary funds to help those in need.

Wish us luck!

Happy Quilting everyone!

Design Wall Monday- Santa Edition!

I am so excited to have this quilt finished

AND

Just in time for Christmas.

I started appliqueing the wool Santas back in January

and loved picking the wool,

stitching the pieces down

and creating each Classic Santa.

(Pattern is by Sue Garman.)

Back in September I took it to my LAQ

and last week I got the call....

It was finished!

I raced over to pick it up and started making the binding.

There are a few tweeks that need to be made,

but I am so happy with this quilt.

It's hanging from my stairs, so it is not flush against the wall.

Hence... the wave.

Here's a photo using my Design Floor.

At first I was hesitant about quilting it with a grid

(my LAQ said it needed to be done because of the weight of the wool),

but it worked out well.

They are all so unique!

Now that it has been quilted,

I need to do a little outline stitch around the beard on the

one with the walking stick.

His beard is lost in the background.

I think the one on the bottom is my favorite...

The "John Travolta" Santa!

(Yes... I disco danced my way through the early 80's!)

The label needs to be made and I will put the names of 

each Santa and their country of origin on the label.

This has been a really fun quilt to make!

Please visit Patchwork Times to see what others are creating.

Happy Quilting!!

Friendship Block

I have mentioned before that I belong to a

History of Quilting Club

and love being a part of this.

This past session we were asked to make a

Friendship Block.

We were given the pattern to follow,

but we could put anything we wanted in the

5" square in the middle....

a quote, a verse, embroidery...

whatever.

Then at our last meeting we would exchange them with each other.

Here is my block...

I had just gotten the book with this felted rose pattern and decided to make mine a 

Christmas Block.

 

I really was pleased with how this turned out in the end.

Yesterday was our exchange day.

It was exciting to see what everyone did with their blocks.

I'll be sharing the other blocks soon and what we decided to do with them all.

Happy Quilting!

Another One Back....

 ...from my Long Arm Quilter.

I am so excited with how this quilt turned out!

I don't design many quilts myself,

but will tweak and change a pattern and make it my own.

Sometimes I just make the pattern as it is....

and change the color scheme to my taste.

This quilt I had had in my head for a while

and wondered if it would move from my head to a quilt.

This is made from Kaffe Fasset's stripes and polka dot fabrics.

One of his shot cottons is used in the border.

 

I love the colors and brightness in this quilt,

and how the HST's go from tiny to big from the center out.

The quilting gives it more movement and

calms the angles a bit.

 

I was going to use the green for the binding,

but it's telling me it wants a striped binding.

Green stripes.

It's time to play with the fabric!

:)

Happy quilting!!

We Need These Today!

These warm wool socks, I mean!

The cold weather has arrived with a vengence,

so it's time to pull out our hand knit socks.

This week I finished the second pair for my daughter

to give to her best friends for Christmas.

YAY!

I love this yarn and wish I hadn't lost the tag that came with it.

I didn't buy it where I live, so can't go back to the  yarn shop.

It's so soft and was nice to work with and I love the colors!

It's interesting how the colors fell in the cuff and then became

random in the body of the socks.

Next on my needles...

 

More Socks! :)

This yarn is a lot of fun to work with as well.

It's Schoppel Ambiente color 2184

and is soooo soft!

I am making these a bit shorter... I'm afraid I'm going to 

run out of yarn.  

Please visit Patchwork Times to see what others are

knitting to keep themselves or their loved ones warm!

Happy Friday!

Let's Make Ornaments!

Yesterday I finished up another batch of ornaments for

my church's Bazaar and thought I would share

making these ornaments with you.

These go together so quickly!

I started with two 6" squares of fabric, right sides together

 and a 5 1/2" circle.

 

Trace the circle onto one square.

Stitch on the traced line all around the circle.

Make a slit in the fabric you want as the "petals" on the top of the

ornament, going about 1/2" from the edge toward the center.

I made my slits about 2" long.

 

Turn inside out through the slit.

I used a knitting needle to push the edges of the circle out.

Press the circle flat.

 

Fold the circle in half, making sure the slit is 

along this fold.

Mark fold line with pins.

Open up the circle and fold in half again

so the pins come together at the top.

Place pins in this fold.

 

Open up circle, leaving pins in the circle.

Fold the edges in to meet at the pins and secure with more pins.

(The slit is on the bottom circle at this point.)

All of the "petals" are folded and pinned.

Next, fold the square in half and in half again and press.

(I forgot to take photos of this step while making the ornaments.)

This will give you and "x" in the middle for the next step.

 

Turn the square over and fold the points back to the middle,

placing the tip in center of the square at the "x" you ironed into the square.

(You can see the slit in the section that has not been folded back.)

 

Once all sides are folded back and pinned,

hand stitch the points together to secure.

 

Do not stitch through to the back.

Add a button in the center and the hanger 

and

Voila!!

These go together so quickly,

are great use of scraps 

and are so cute!

 

 

The finished size is about 2 3/4" square.

This is what the back of the ornament looks like.

Have fun with these

and

Happy Quilting!