2 Finished Tops

Churndash Family and Leaders and Enders #2

Before anything else, I want to give two thumbs up to two amazing local quilts shops here is South Western  Ontario.  Yestderday was a beautiful sunny day , and best of all a day off work, so what better to do than check out some quilt shops. 

The Quilt Corner in Simcoe was the first, one of my favourites.  Lots of selection, precuts, patterns ...you name it they have it!  And ....the prices and service will have you planning your next trip back as you head home. 

Next up was Quilt Junction in Waterford,  aptly named as it's located in an old train station.  Also a wonderful find, lots of eye candy to tempt and inspire you!  An added attraction to get you to make the drive to Waterford is the large Antique Market across the street.

Back to the Finishes:The first block for this one was a 12'  orphan block made about a year ago, white and light blue.  It wasn't inspiring me to make any more... until browsing through Lori Holt's "Farmgirl Vintage".

I was following her picnic setting in which she uses 6 and 12 " blocks for a 66 x 66" quilt.  A rectangular quilt closer to 50 x 70 was what I really preferred so I changed it up a bit and also mixed in 2-18" blocks and 2 elongated 6x12 churndash blocks.     

This next one was actually my first finish of the year, and the churndash, the second.  Here she is hiding behind the Churndash Family.

A leaders and enders project that started out like this:

and this:

but ended up as:

I have lots more of these little 9-patches from my 1.5 inch scraps ...but now I've also started making plus squares from my 2 inch scraps .

Tula Pink Sampler Finished !!

I'm so excited to have this one done and hanging on the wall in time for Christmas.  My Christmas present to me :)

It was started on in March and finished yesterday morning before work (Dec. 22).

It wasn't too hard quilting on my machine, just a lot of threads to bury!

My sewing room is downstairs, but when quilting a larger top I prefer to do it up here on the main floor on this extra table.  

When I'm not sewing in there, the sides of the table are down and it's just a little, old antique table in front of the window.

I have a large foam base around the machine to keep the quilt level with the machine, less pull from the weight of the quilt that way.  My husband just "carved" it out of a big styrofoam slab and covered it with heavy duty plastic.  It's not pretty, but it works like a charm!!

COUNTDOWN TO

CHRISTMAS

I've been thinking about making this since last Christmas when my future daughter-in-law asked if I could make them one.  After scouring through Pinterest I found this one with pretty clear instructions     here

I am happy with the finished product, only wish I had done all the numbers in white.  The red check doesn't stand out nearly as clearly as I thought.

Gifted and ready for it's first Christmas.

GRIDLOCK (48% )

As usual, I'm lagging way behind the current craze.  Better late than never.  Last March I injured my shoulder and was laid up for a few weeks.  Feeling sorry for myself, I splurged on a Tula Pink book.  I couldn't sew, but I could at least look and dream of a future project.

I was planning on doing all 100 blocks, 48 made  and plan changed.  It will make a great lap size quilt.    This one I will machine quilt.  I'm thinking of simple stitch in the ditch for the blocks, and a denser fmq of some sort in the borders and sashing.

Right now I do have a large quilt on which I'm doing all hand quilting , about halfway done.

The blue and gray blocks are from a BOM last year (Sugar Block Club) from StitcheryDickoryDock and the reds are from Tula Pink's book (except for the corner block, just a large hst). I just enlarged the Tula Pink blocks from 6" to 12".

A House Warming Gift

A simple, but fun and bright quilt using 2.5 inch squares and 6.5 inch squares.  I saw a similar one on pinterest (which I would love to link up to here but I can't find)  and fell in love with it, so made one to gift away.

This was a great project to use up some of my 2.5 inch squares as well as a variety of my leftover whites and off-whites.

My brother and sister-in-law have lots of grandchildren, so I figure this will come in handy at their house when family is over.  They just finished building a new home .... voila, a house warming gift.

I had hoped to hand quilt this one, but went with machine quilting....some free motion and some straight lines with the walking foot. The reason I couldn't hand quilt is that I used an Egyptian cotton sheet for the backing and it was very hard to push a needle though it.  The backing does feel lovely and smooth though!

54" x 66" (before shrinkage)

Linking up to:

Crazymomquilts.blogspot.ca
Quiltingismorefunthanhousework.blogspot.ca

A Finish !!!!

I'm amazed how lovely this quilt turned out, having used tons of not so pretty, little 1.5 inch squares.

While working on the nine patches, I kept thinking Britt would really like these colours.  So it has now been finished and gifted as a wedding present to Britt and Nick.

I stitched in the ditch in the main part of the quilt and hand quilted straight 

lines in the border.

I went with a white backing in keeping with the clean, bright feel of the front.

The extra wide white material was my one and only purchase, still trying to use what I have.

Just scraped by with my last bit of this for my binding... about 12" left of my binding leftover.  I used to cut binding strips at 2.5" but wasn't happy with the result.  Now I cut them at 2.25" with a much cleaner looking finish.

71.5" x 61" before washing

90-3" plus blocks

89-3" scrappy 9-patch blocks

A photo of the newlyweds, I couldn't resist:

My First Leaders and Enders Project

Well the top is done,  now trying to decide on a backing.   I wanted to do a Minky backing, but I'm pretty sure Minky only comes 60 inches wide .... about 10" too short for this job.

Since this picture, I've added a 4 inch white border all around to give it a more modern feel.

There's a fair amount of "ugly" scraps in those 9-patches, but the overall effect is not nearly so ugly :)