A Finished Quilt Top

 Hi Everyone!

I hope you are all staying safe.  Thankfully, we are (hubby, me, and our cat).

For good and bad, I've had a lot of time on my hands.  The bad part is that means no work is coming in - the joys of owning a trophy shop when all the events are cancelled.  The good part is that I've had time to work on and even finish projects!

This first one is the Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt, Frolic.  I have the top finished!  I had nearly given up hope, but I pushed through and got it completed.  It won't be quilted for awhile because that's a whole different project.

Here's the finished top:

This one definitely took the most time, for me, of the mystery quilts that I've done.  Work on my quilting studio took precedence.  

As you might guess, this was taken in my new space!  The cutting table is a temporary one and I need new flooring, but it's mostly done.

Happy Stitching!

Stacy

A Couple of Quilts

Hey Everyone!

These aren't recent finishes but ones I realized that I'd never photographed.

First up, we have a scrappy Log Cabin quilt.  The measurements are all approximate because it's been washed quite a few times. :-)

Set 6 blocks x 7 blocks.  Finished block size:  7½".  Red border is 3" and blue border is 5½".  This was machine pieced and hand quilted.

The hand-quilting was done in vertical rows using a stencil.  I don't know what the name of the stencil is as I lent it to my sister and she still has it.  It's a floral-vine type design.

The second quilt is a happy block.  That's not an official name, it's just what the group I was in called it.  I did this one as an exchange* with an online group I used to belong to.  My theme was blue & white, so the centers are all blue fabrics and the borders are all white fabrics.  Looking at the quilt that might not seem to hold true - when I washed it, one of the blues bled and some of the whites soaked it up.  :-)

There are 2 different sized blocks in this quilt.  It is laid out with a 5 block x 6 block center then bordered with the larger blocks.  I used sashing and cornerstones to make the overall dimensions of the smaller blocks fit inside the larger border blocks.

My sister and I both quilted this on a Handi-quilter longarm that I had rented time on at a now-closed shop in Olympia, WA.  I'd do one block, then she'd do one, and so on.  It was great because it meant neither one of us was standing for too long and we finished this top and another within 6 hours.  It was the first quilt either of us longarmed, so I didn't care what it looked like, I just wanted us to get comfortable with the machine.  We went old-school on it - as in grade school.  Like those random drawings we used to do and then fill in the spaces with different colors.

I decided to keep the binding scrappy as well.

 * Here's how the exchange worked:

For the quilt's center blocks, I sent (6) 3½" squares (blue) to the people in my group.  Usually 5 other people.  They kept one of the squares for themselves.  They put 2½" borders (white) on my squares and mailed them back to me.  The color choices were only for my quilt.  The other members sent random colored squares to me that I put borders on and mailed them back.

For the bigger, border blocks, the centers (blue) were 6" and also got 2½" borders added.

Happy Stitching!

Stacy

Ooh, mail call and Rotation update.

I just got a HUGE envelope in the mail!  Seriously, it was ginormous!  I know that's not a word but it gets the point across!  hehehe

 I had placed an order with The Stencil Company for some quilting stencils.  I have to say that they were great to deal with!

One of the stencils that I wanted was on back-order and they emailed me promptly to let me know and to give me options on how I wanted to proceed...I decided to wait for them all together.

I got a bunch of 5" stencils for a Christmas quilt top so that now I can work on quilting it.  The quilt is 10 blocks x 10 blocks and I got 12 different stencils so that there will be a bit more randomness in the finished quilt.  The stencils that I got for this quilt are:

• Angel
• Bells/Holly
• Candy Canes
• Holly Berry
• Ornament #2
• Ornament #3
• Poinsettia
• Santa
• Snowflake #3
• Snowflake #4
• Snowman
• Continuous Holly

For the borders, I got a 6" star border stencil.

I also bought two stencils for a Bullseye quilt top that I have.  The borders will be done in a continuous loop pattern and the bulk of the quilt top will have a rose stipple pattern.

I was planning to start on the Christmas quilt as soon as I finish the String Block quilt I'm so close to being done with.  Now I'm thinking that I'll do the Bullseye quilt first since it's more of a lap quilt/wallhanging size.  The Christmas quilt is quite large - I think it's about 120" square.

Rotation update:


The Randomizer app I have chose La Belle Dame Sans Merci from HAED as my next project.  I made a start on it last night.  Now I'm on page 9 of the pattern which puts me on the first page of the second row!  That bright spot by the horse's head is near the bottom of this page.  


Happy Stitching!!


Stacy

Recent Quilts

Thanks to my joining a great online quilt group, I've really been quilting up a storm lately. For anyone interested, the group is StashBuilders and you can find them at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StashBuilders/

StashBuilders organizes quite a few swaps, a couple in which I have participated. The first one that I did was a Happy Block swap.

Those participating are divided into groups of 4 or 5 people. I chose some fabric, cut it into 4" squares (centers) and then mailed 6 squares to each person in my group. As each person received my centers, they kept 1 square for themselves and then sewed 2½" borders around the remaining 5 centers. The now bordered centers (Happy Blocks) were then mailed back to me for me to keep. In the mean time, I was receiving centers from the other group participants; putting borders on 5 of them and then mailing them back to their owners.

Here is a picture of my Happy Blocks quilt. It's in a hoop while I hand quilt it. I'm doing a heart stencil in the center of each block and then just quilting in the seam lines around the entire block.

The second swap that I joined was a String Block swap. I signed up to do 2 sets of 6½" blocks. Each set consists of 12 blocks. The theme for this one was purple & green. When I had my sets done, I sent them to the swap hostess along with a self-addressed, stamped envelope. She kept the blocks until all the blocks from each participant had arrived. Then she mixed them up and sent each member the same number of blocks that they contributed. The blocks that I received back were not my own but done by a mix of other members.

Here is my finished String Quilt. I have it hanging at the top of the stairs in my craft room. I machine quilted it in a grid so that there is a 3x3 grid going through each square. I hate doing binding, and due to the style of the quilt, I thought a Prairie Point edging would be appropriate.

Currently, I am receiving blocks from another Happy Block swap. I've already finished and sent all the centers from other members, I'm just waiting for mine to arrive home.

While I'm waiting, I couldn't resist starting another quilt. See? I'm addicted to quilting too. I saw this pattern in these fabrics at the Quilt & Sewing Expo I attended in November 2007 in Puyallup, Washington. As soon as I saw it, I went directly to the lady running the booth, pointed and said "Where do I get the pattern?". It took me awhile to get the same fabrics but God Bless Ebay!!

The pattern is from Strip Delight - 10 Fabulous Quilts from 'Jelly Roll' 2 1/2" Strips - #5321 . The pattern is named for the fabric line called Decadent Victorian (from Moda).

Here is the main body of the top laid out on my quilt design wall in my craft room.