Finished Sail Boat Quilt!

I must say that it is not easy to quilt when a sweet cat is wanting to sleep on the quilt.  Pippi is so adorable it was hard to make her move!  LOL

 I think this sailboat quilt was the hardest quilt I have made yet!  For some reason I have a lot of pieces left over from those million pinwheels I made.

 This is what I did with my one extra block, I really like it - it looks like one ship sailing by itself - LOL

 I took the pictures at the gazebo in the town square.

I used the backing for the binding, I was trying to keep it simple.

  I just made simple lines going horizontally and eyed it.  Vertically I put lines through the middle and on each side of the pinwheels, I wanted to keep the boats simple.  I put an x in each corner.

I got the pattern from the book Sugar Sack Quilts by Glenna Hailey.  I love this book, it has a lot of history on sugar sacks and a lot of beautiful patterns.  I obviously just used a lot of scraps for my quilt.

I am so glad to be finished with this quilt!  This week I need to make a block for an online quilting bee, a BOM and a pin cushion for a pin cushion swap, then I can get back to my string quilt and my scrappy trip around the world quilt.

This was my goal for this month http://missyscakesandaprons.blogspot.com/2013/12/almost-finished.html , I am so glad I finished it!

You know you are living in a small town when:
you drop your friend off and her goat tries to crawl in your car,
you then go to Wal-Mart and there is a baby goat in somebody's small car sitting in the parking lot.  LOL  We could hear it and kept looking around until we saw it.

I love small town life!

Missy in Missouri

Quilting the Sailboat Quilt

I've been busy quilting the Sailboat Quilt.  I spray basted it, boy do I love the spray basting over the pin basting.  I had mentioned to my step mom how it hurt my knees to walk on the floor basting my quilts and she gave me some knee pads.  Wow, what a difference they make!

 I am quilting it on my Singer 16, whom I refer to as my big old lady since she is an industrial treadle and 129 years old!

 I was going to FMQ tiny wavy lines straight across, but my FMQ foot must still be packed somewhere, I looked for an hour and could not find it.  That's okay, my walking foot fits her just fine.  I'm just sewing crooked lines across and will stitch in the ditch down the sashing going the other way.  I don't want "squares" on the sailboats.  I love working on this machine!

I promised myself not to stress about the quilting on these next couple of quilts I am quilting since I want to finish both of them quickly.

I don't need to wear my quilting gloves to sew with a walking foot, but I prefer it and they keep my hands warm as an added bonus!  Somebody chewed the edge of one of them.  I'm going to blame Pippi since she has a bit of history of chewing things.

What kind of machine do you like to do your quilting on?  BTW, I learned how to quilt on my Janome but prefer my treadle.

Missy

A finished top

I have a finished top finally!

I took like ten pictures to get one decent enough to use, even waited over an hour for the sun to move, tried blocking windows and everything.  I'm not sure if you can tell in the picture, but the red "spots" are actually sailboats.
The borders are on and today I will baste it.  I would have basted it yesterday but wanted to sweep and mop my kitchen floors first.  In my normal klutzy fashion, I was walking through a doorway and hit my middle knuckle so hard on the door jamb, that I had to wait hours before sweeping and mopping.  Then of course I had to wait for the floors to completely dry.  I also had to find the painter's tape, after searching through umpteen canisters and several boxes, I found it in a clear jar sitting on  my sewing machine cabinet!
My goal is to get as much of this quilted as much as possible this week, unfortunately the sewing room is in the sun room which is freezing right now. (It was -2 when I woke up this morning) Hopefully it will warm up later.  At least I will have my quilters gloves on to keep my hands warm.
I'm thinking of doing straight two inch lines, I just need to see how even my blocks are first because I want the lines to match up with the sashing.
I have one extra block, I'm thinking of writing the quilt label on it in the white area and putting it on the back of the quilt.  What do you think?
I am using a blue and white striped sheet for the back.

I have my hand crank set up in the living room.  I have been working on my string blocks in there in the evening when Chris is home, this way we are in the same room(and it's warmer in there after the sun goes down).  When I get it done, I can pack away my Christmas quilt and have another throw for the living room.
What is on your design wall this week?
Missy

Almost finished!

I am almost finished with my nephew's baby quilt, he was born July 21!  I just followed the directions on the pattern and this quilt is huge for a baby, especially since I still have the borders to put on!  I sewed up the borders yesterday, but did not take a picture yet.  My goal for this month is to get this thing quilted!  I've been working on it since I think May?

 My hand crank that I use for small piecing is a Redhead 66 or Redeye, depending on who you ask, but since I'm a redhead I'll call her a redhead!  Did you know the feet on this machine, and probably some other vintage feet, are a 1/4 inch on the left side?

 As you can see, I normally put a piece of tape on the right side to mark my 1/4 inch seam, but when doing a HST, the tape is covered, so the left side of the foot is a perfect guide!

 It is perfect for sewing my half square triangles since I don't have 1/4 inch foot for her since she is a back clamper.  I really would like some feet for her, so if anyone has any, maybe we can work out a deal!

 Have you ever heard of Marshall's Dry Good store in Batesville, AR?  My friends at the quilt retreat in Greenville, TX told me about it.  We stopped on our way home from visiting my stepmom in AR.  I got a lot of fabric to build my stash.  The orange and blue was $1 a yard!  The rest $2.99 a yd.  Of course I had to get the penguins and the cute houses with cats.

 These batiks were $2.99 a yard!  Except the yellow at top was $1.  The dollar fabric has some defects in them, but are perfect for quilting!  I got 1/2 a yard of each but the bottom I got a whole yard.

 I also got some great neutrals!  My stash is sorely lacking in that department.  The white on white and the alphabet were $1, then I got two tans, a brown and a grey (even though it looks blue in the picture)

 Can you see the alphabet on it?

My last three were more "expensive", $3.99 for the peanuts and $4.99 for the carrots and Brussels sprouts.  They are for a jar block exchange I am participating in later this year.  I've been wanting to make one so when a group I'm a part (treadleon.net) of said they wanted to do one I jumped in!

I'm going to have fun using this material this year, I'll have to stop there the next time I drive to my step mom's again!

Do you have a goal to finish this month?

Missy

August Finishes

I have not finished as much as I would have liked this month.  Between house hunting and packing, I have not had much time for quilting or blogging!

I did meet my goal for the sailboat quilt, I got all of my pinwheel sashings done!

Twenty strips of four pinwheels.  They are wonky and need to be trimmed down though.
I finished half of my bottom sashing which is "waves", so I made them all blue.

I need 15 strips of eight HST.
Pippi photo bombed my photo shoot.

I have the rest already in order waiting to be sewn together, I love using clothespins!

My math is terrible because I have a lot of HST left over and now need a project for them!

 Oreo kept jumping up and trying to grab my camera as I was trying to take pictures, it took 10 tries!  Maybe he was trying to play fetch with it?

 I got about a quarter to half of my Great Granny Square quilted.  I had to stop one day and clean the machine, which I should have done before using it!

I'm making loose flowers and butterflies in the blocks.

I have a lot of work to do so I better get off of this computer!

What have you been up to?

Have a blessed day!
Missy

July Finishes!

Can you believe it?  I met all of my goals and am so happy!  Here is my post with all of my goals from the beginning of the month:  http://missyscakesandaprons.blogspot.com/2013/07/july-goals.html

Today I finished the basting on my great granny square quilt.  I want to start quilting it now, but I have a baby shower this weekend and I need to make the cake tomorrow and since I am hosting the shower I doubt I will have time to start playing until next week!  LOL  I used Elmer's glue on the backing and I'm not happy with the puckers, the top I used spray basting which turned out great, so I'll use that from now on!  It was funny to see the cats shaking their feet after walking on the adhesive!  LOL

Pippi and Custard

I finished all 12 of my sailboat blocks last week.

And third, I finished my denim rag quilt!  I did make a mistake on it though, I was not thinking and did not back stitch my blocks, which I guess you should do since I had to go back and resew some "holes" after I washed it.  Lesson learned!

Muffin

Cupcake

I am just so proud of myself for finishing all of my goals for this month and there is still five days left!

Did you meet your goals this month?

Missy

Pinwheels

I've been making a lot of pinwheels!  For my sailboat quilt I had to cut 220 white squares and 220 red or blue squares, all of them 2 1/2 inches.  With these squares I made half square triangle units, and with these I will make 80 pinwheels, the rest will be "waves" under the boats, this will be the sashing.  It's easy, but a lot of work!
I can't use a 1/4 inch foot on my hand crank, which is a Singer Redhead or Red Eye 66.  I have my 1/4 inch seam allowance marked, so it is not usually an issue, but the way I am making my HS (short for half square) units, I draw a line from corner to corner, per the pattern directions, then sew a 1/4 inch on each side from the line.  This is hard to do with out a 1/4 foot unless you draw line a 1/4 inch on both sides of the line.  Well, it seems that the left side of the foot, is a 1/4 inch from the needle to the left side of the foot which gives me a perfect 1/4 inch seam!  Yeah!

I just went through and sewed all of my squares (off and on) and then sat down and cut the middle of the squares.  Then I would iron them open.  Next, I wanted to go ahead and make some pinwheels, so in order to chain stitch them I am sewing the top of the pinwheel and then sewed the bottom of the pinwheel.  When I cut my strips, I did it two at a time so I would still have a whole pinwheel, top and bottom, on one string when it was time to sew them together.

Then I iron them open and sew the top and bottom together.

Meanwhile, I have tins to put my WIP in.  With so many squares, it can get monotonous, so I've been hopping around, doing the different steps at different times.

The left side are my cut squares before ironing, the right side is after ironing and the finished pinwheels, the bag on top are ones I messed up and I accidently cut a whole row white too short so I need to re-cut that strip and sew those squares together..
These are the ones left that still need to be sewn on one side of the line.  Not many!

These are the ones that have been sewn and are waiting to be cut, like I said a lot of work!

Here are the finished pinwheels!  The first picture has 11 and this picture has 10, so that makes 21 finished!  Only 69 more pinwheels to go and 15 units of waves to go!  (I'm trying to be optimistic!)

I have to leave you with a cute picture of Cupcake.  I've never seen a cat that moves as much as she does in her sleep!

So far I have tried three different methods for pinwheels, I think I like this one the best.
What is your favorite method for pinwheels?

Missy

"16  For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:
17  Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
18  Wherefore comfort one another with these words."

I Thessalonians 4 16-18