Finished Quilt and a Win!

I finally finished my barn quilt.  I made the top in 2013.  I combined two quilt alongs from Bee in my Bonnet.  I finished it in September while living in TX and then moved to MO in October four years ago.  When one of the categories announced for our local quilt show was country homes I knew I needed to get this top quilted!

 Due to a few setbacks I did not start quilting it until last week.  I decided to just do wavy lines since I can't draw a straight line much less quilt one!  Of course I had lots of help quilting it on my treadle, a Singer 66 with Lotus decals.  It is 100 years old and a workhorse!

 I was sewing the binding on at the very last minute, washed it, dried it and took it right over to get it entered!

It was not a technical judging, area businesses hosted categories.  All names were hidden from the judges.  The country homes category was hosted by United Realty, who sold my house to me last year, and she picked my quilt!  She said it was a quilt she would want to put on her bed.  I got first place, I'm super excited!

 I also entered another old quilt from 2014.  You can read more about this quilt here:   http://missyscakesandaprons.blogspot.com/2014/08/cat-quilt-finished.html

I entered this quilt in the Wild about Animals category.  This was part of a block exchange and a friend made the center cross stitch section for me.  It also won first place in it's category!

They really liked the descriptions I wrote talking about my quilts.  That is training I got from writing blogs.  LOL  This one was held by Caryl Stillings of the Ava Art Guild because she wanted an animal theme.

The show prize money is a great blessing also.  I know my quilts would never win a "technical" challenge, but that's okay.  I would be totally stressed trying to make my quilts perfect.

If you live near Ava, MO, the quilt show is running until August 24 or 26, I can't remember.  It is free and being held at the Ava Art Guild Gallery.

I'll be sharing quilts by category all week!

Have you ever entered a quilt in a quilt show before?

Missy

Winner Announced

My sunflowers have been growing!

I have been trying to get my quilt finished.  I'm almost done!

 Since I can't quilt in a straight line I am making wavy lines.

And the winner of my giveaway is Kim from Lily Patch Quilts!  I have sent you an email!
Thank you to everyone who entered my giveaway!

Missy

Finished Tops!

Hello everybody!  I got back from my quilt retreat yesterday.  I had a blast!  I actually feel like I got something accomplished too.  On Friday we went to a great small quilt shop in Minneola, TX.  She had great prices on her fabric and I was able to get my border fabric for my Drunkard's path quilt.  I was originally going to use it for my binding, but after a group discussion, I went a totally different way and this is what we came up with.  I really like it.  I showed it to my husband and he told me I needed to keep this one.  LOL.  It's hard to tell in the picture but it has tiny red and yellow fruit on it.    I am in love with it!  Read about how I got these blocks here:  http://missyscakesandaprons.blogspot.com/2013/07/drunkards-path-blocks.html   I did not make all of those curved seams, my friend Pat did.  I just finished it after she gave me her her blocks.

Here is my other finish.  I'm not sure if you can see the border fabric very well, but it looks like the side of a red barn!  Margaret was nice enough to show me how to figure out how to make sure I had enough material for my borders.  I'll have to do it a couple of more times before I will feel confident enough to share it.

 I learned so much from this quilt!  You can go here to see my progress on my quilt.  http://missyscakesandaprons.blogspot.com/search/label/Barn%20Quilt

 Here is a list of all of the tutorials from Lori Holt at Bee in My Bonnet.  http://www.flickr.com/groups/2183559@N21/rules/  It has every tutorial listed and you will be able to see all of the blocks people have made using her tutorials.

I have to fold these tops up and will not be able to quilt them until after I move, but at least they are finished tops!  I also quilted my great granny square quilt all weekend, I'll need to finish it this week.

I have a lot more pictures to share with you from this weekend, I'll do that in another post!

I am going to extend my book giveaway through 9pm tomorrow night (Tuesday, Sept. 24), since I have been out of town and not reminded anyone.   So go enter for your chance to win, now!  http://missyscakesandaprons.blogspot.com/2013/09/unlimited-by-davis-bunn-book-review.html

Have a blessed day!

Missy


Luke 12:24  "Consider the ravens: for they neither sow nor reap; which neither have storehouse nor barn; and God feedeth them: how much more are ye better than the fowls?"

Barn update

I really have not gotten much done.  I had the flu last week, of all things!  I've been trying to get my house back in order after being sick for a week.  I have some regular sewing to do now, although I would rather quilt!  I did get some sewing done on my barns.

 I think laying the blocks out is the hardest thing!  You can't have two chickens next to each or two polka dots, and you have to try to distribute the light and dark sashing, etc,

 Cupcake was helping me as I laid the rows back down.  I got all of the rows sewn.  I then sewed the 1st and 2nd rows together, and then the 3rd and 4th rows together.  When I went to sew it all together, I realized I mixed up one of the rows and now I have to seam rip it or it won't be distributed right.  Ugh.

I just kind of threw it on the table until I could get back to it, so of course Muffin thought it was a new bed for him.  I had to move it.
I am moving this fall and really want to finish this quilt, but first I need to finish the baby quilt for my step nephew, and for Christmas my niece's great granny square quilt needs to be quilted and my nephew's rag quilt!  I need all three done by August so that I can send the last two to my mom and she can hold them until Christmas, this will make sure I don't lose them in a box somewhere!  My step brother's baby is due August 12, so his quilt needs to be done by then!

I guess I need to put my barns to the side for now.  Sigh!

Have a great day ya'll!

Missy

Last three barns and Feline Friday

I finished my last three barns!
First I cut all of my "wood" for each barn and sorted it to make sure I had all of the pieces I needed for each barn.

In these barns I have owls, cows and of course we needed more barn cats harvesting the cat nip!

Next, I built my frame to make sure everything was in the correct place before I nailed it together.

Then I nailed them all together, ripped the seams out of the ones messed up and resewed them!

The barns with the silos are a lot easier to make than the full barns!

This scrappy star pattern is from Bonnie Hunter, here is a link to the free pattern!

My first log cabin block!

Of course I have to include a couple of cute cat pictures.

Quilts are cat magnets!

Cindy from Retro Revival, did you get my email?  You won my giveaway!

Now all I have to do is sew all of my blocks together and I will have a finish!  Yeah!  My husband said now that I know how to build a barn, that I can build us a real one when we move!  LOL
Missy

Barn time!

I finished two more barns!  Custard wanted to model this block!  I like the silo with the black and white polka dots.

I got some new cat material!  My husband said calicoes are on sale at Hobby Lobby if I wanted to get some.  I was getting this cut and he commented that he thought I was getting some calicoes.  I explained to him I did, see the calico cats?  LOL  I love the one with the big pregnant tummy!

I did not have enough of the red chicken fabric for the window also, so I put French chickens in the window.  This barn has American chickens, which are short and fat and French chickens which are tall and skinny!  LOL

This is my cow barn.  My friend picked up the cow print at a yard sale for me.

She even found the small cows at the same yard sale!  What do you think of the red stripes?  I'm thinking I might need to do another red striped barn, to balance out the quilt.  I put some of the cat material in this block too.  I even have the moo material in the sashing on this block.

I am thinking of using this red material for my border.  It says cup of kindness and has teapots on it.  Do you think it is too busy?  It would need to be at least 3 inches wide to show the print.

I had made seven barns before I decided to also do the barn with silos. The quilt will have 12 blocks.   I was thinking of doing three more with silos, which would leave me with an extra block.  I could either put it on the back, or make a pillow with it, or leave it in and just change up the sashing to fit, then I would only need to make two more.  What would you do?  The block on the bottom is the odd ball sine it does not have a quilt block in it.

These are my options for the additional three barns.  I could use the first one with circles, but I do have two doors with that print.  I also have the black checked which was used on one roof.  There is also the black gingham that has only been used on one silo.  I would have used it on a roof, but just got it at a yard sale and had already made those blocks.    I could also do another cow print, although I will be putting that into the sashing also.  There is a black on black print underneath but I think it might be too dark?  Which three would you pick?

Tiger all stretched out.

Oreo matches!

Okay lots of questions!
1.  Do I make two or three more blocks with silos?  7 barns and 5 silos, or an even 6 of both?
2.  Do I use this red border?  If not I was thinking another (2 1/2 inches) small red border instead.
3.  Which material would you use for the last three (or maybe two) silos?

Thank you for the help!
Missy
If you follow my blog, don't forget to enter the giveaway!  Sat. is your last day to enter!
http://missyscakesandaprons.blogspot.com/2013/06/give-away-and-strawberries.html

Feline Friday and Quilt updates

Hello everybody!  It seems like the more I quilt the less blogging I do!  Actually what hold me up is having to edit every single picture, that gets irritating after a while.

I have new block to add to my quilt, it's a barn with quilt block in the barn door and a silo next to it!  I am going to make these for every other block, and since I need 12 blocks and have made 7 of the other, I have one extra block now!  I'll either make it a pillow or put it on the back, I'll have to decide which one.

I fixed the part around the windows on the upper left barn and added my sashing, I also added the borders and sashing on my first block which is the lower one with the French chickens.  I now have eight completed barn blocks!

I had to put this cat in the barn window, she is eating the cat nip seeds stored there!  Don't you love this chicken material?  A friend at the quilt retreat gave it to me and I have enough for one barn and hopefully to add to a quilt block in another barn.  Another friend gave me the cat material.

I finished none more blocks on my scrappy trip around the world quilt!  I needed to fix one which is why it is not  in the picture.

Can you believe how big Tiger is next to Oreo?

I have 34 completed but the rest are cut and ready for the final block making!  It should not take long to finish.  I'm trying to decide on my final layout.  I can do one of two things, I can either place it completely random, or have secondary patterns by taking blocks with key colors, like either the brown or gold, and grouping them together.  I'm thinking I like the idea of grouping them, what do yo think?  Can you see what I'm talking about in the picture?

I asked Muffin to pose, didn't he do a good job?

We have decide on a name for her!  Cupcake!

So we have Custard, Oreo and Cupcake!

Pippi was watching the kittens play while lounging in her cat bed!

What have you been up to this week?  I feel like I have three newborn babies in my house with these kittens!
Have a great weekend!
Missy

Barn Blocks

I am finally almost caught up on my barn blocks!  I now have seven done!  This week I am going to fix my mistake on the one block and I need to add the borders on both of the other two blocks.  I'm running out of room to make my blocks!  But that is a good problem!  I'll just have to start overlapping them as I hang them up!

The kittens like to help me quilt!  This week I've been using my Redhead 66 hand crank to make my blocks.

I think this is my favorite block with the maple leaf block.

I have a penguin in the window!  I love penguins and had to make sure there were penguins in this quilt somewhere!  Here are the directions for this block.  She also has a video tutorial for this one!

The pinwheels block was very easy to make!  I liked the way it turned out also.  Here are the directions for that one also.

This one has a cat in the window, you know I have to have some barn cats, I found this one cat in a scrap basket at the quilt retreat, and he is the same color as Tiger as you can tell by the paw!

Look at this great "moo" material I found at a thrift store for $2!  Please excuse the big fat cat in the picture!  Tiger wanted my attention!  LOL!

I did not get a close up of the one with yellow in it, I did not really like the way that block turned out, although I did like the bees in the window of this one!  It's the one at the top.  The door looks kind of like a beehive also.  Pippi was helping model in this picture.  Here are the directions for the sunflower block!

Lori Holt is making a second barn quilt that the blocks finish to the same size, but they have a silo on the side, so I think I will make the rest of my blocks with the silo to change up the quilt some.  The first block will come out this Wednesday.

I've also been working on my string blocks.  I'm just going to keep making them and after I make a quilt for myself, all of the left over blocks I'll give to my prayer quilt ministry at church.  I am cutting the muslin squares at nine inches.  So far I have 22 made!

What are you working on this week?
Missy
P.S. I found the perfect verse for my barns!
Luke 12:24  "Consider the ravens: for they neither sow nor reap; which neither have storehouse nor barn; and God feedeth them: how much more are ye better than the fowls?"