Month: January 2013

A Dear Jane Finish!

No, I didn’t finish my Dear Jane quilt.  But I did finish my Dear Jane Siggie Quilt!  It was really nice seeing the piles of blocks before dinner.  I was really concerned that I was missing 2 of the siggie blocks so I sent a note to the group this morning and found that there were most likely only 48 sent to us.  I’m thrilled!  Unfortunately I had to change the design just a little, one less column and 1 extra row, but I was able to use all the 9-patches I had already started.  I used the Bonnie Hunter method of joining the blocks into rows and I have to say that sewing them together was so easy!  I didn’t have to worry about getting blocks in the wrong place.  I had hubby hold it up so I could get a picture, I think something might be wrong with my camera because the picture is a little blurry, but I might have been trying to take the picture too fast.  I just know it’s done and I’m almost ready for the meeting tomorrow!  Just need to do a sign up sheet and start working on the details.

Blocks waiting to be sewn into rows
Top half completed
Completed Quilt!

So Excited!

I saw this on someone’s blog and pinned it on Pinterest so I could find it later.  I told hubby recently that I wanted to make one because my ironing board SUCKS and is probably 20 years old (inherited it when hubby and his brother moved out of the apartment).  He was in my office the other day and we talked about it and he asked me if I could just put it on top of my Super Satchel Cubes.  I have my printer on top of the 2 sets (2 on top of each other) that I have now so we had said we’d order more next month after he gets paid.  I went looking at prices from the 2 stores I know sell them and found out that Joann’s has a sale going on and they were 40% off!  So I ordered them yesterday, using a free shipping coupon from the iPhone app, and they should be here in a week or so.  Then we’ll just need to get the plywood and batting and I’ll be all set with a new ironing station and a bunch more storage!  Which is fine since I wanted to get some more storage boxes anyway, I love the ArtBin Storage boxes.  It might also help me get some stuff off my sewing table and put away!

Dear Jane Siggie Quilt Update

Chain Pieced 9 PatchI have to say that I’m loving working on this quilt.  Over the weekend I started cutting the strips for around the siggie blocks and started putting those together, after I cut them all down to 5″.  I’m doing a lot of chain piecing on this quilt because it makes it so much faster!  On the siggie blocks I put the top piece on (1.25″ x 5″) all of the blocks.  Then after pressing I added the next side (1.25″ x 5.75″) – log cabin style.  I have the 3rd side cut out already and I’m planning on adding that this afternoon while Alex naps.  I hope to cut out the 6.5″ side and get that added on this afternoon too, it’ll depend on how long he naps.  Then I’ll need to cut out some more 2.5″ black squares with my Go to finish the alternate blocks.  Boy are those easy to chain piece too!  I saw on Bonnie Hunter’s site once how she will sew together the first 2 blocks in each row, leave them connected together then add the next piece on.  Then everything for 1 block is together.  I was flying through those blocks this weekend!  I have 15 done and 34 to go as soon as I get the black cut out.  I really want this done before Thursdays meeting.  If I get enough done I’ll be back later, if not tomorrow!

Blog Change & Dear Jane Siggies

Well, I think I have everything working properly now, if you find anything that seems broken please let me know!  Hubby and I decided to move the blog to a server hosted at home instead of on Godaddy in order to save a little money.  Just took a little time to get everything working the way I wanted it.

2013-01-04 15.34.52_1Dear Jane siggie quilt I decided to finally start working on putting together my Dear Jane Siggie quilt and see if I could get the top put together before the next guild meeting.  Thinking about seeing if there is any interest in a block exchange in the guild and I wanted to have this done so I could use it as an example of a siggie quilt.  Doesn’t need to be quilted, just put together!  Other option would be like the one I did with the Quilting Stash Yahoo Group in 2009 (still not quilted!)  Still in discussions with the guild president so we’ll see what happens in the next week.  In the mean time I am going to see if I can at least get the top finished.  I have all the colored squares picked out and I have some of the black ones ready to go.  I am hoping to get the rest of the squares cut out this weekend and be able to start working on the strips around the siggie blocks.  I will be cutting all the siggie blocks down to 4.5″ and then adding the strips to make them 6″ finished like the 9 patches.  I think it looks pretty good, the image doesn’t show the scrappiness of the quilt, I didn’t feel like taking the time to color everything differently.
I’ll be back tomorrow with an update on my newest cross stitch project, time to shut the computer off and get to work on it!

Hexi Wreath Ornament

I follow a blog for hexi’s and they posted this last month.  In my spare time – ha ha ha ha – I pulled some green 2.5″ squares and whipped up a wreath.  I couldn’t decide which way I wanted to put the front and back together, I ended up putting together the front pieces, then the back pieces and stitching them together with the ribbon in between.  It didn’t take too long and I ended up with a cute ornament for the tree.  I might work on putting these together throughout the year so I have them next year for presents.  Oh who am I kidding?  I’ll end up waiting until the last minute and do them all the week before I need them!

Hexie Ornament

Christmas Presents

I can finally post about the Christmas presents I made this year!  Unfortunately I am missing a picture of the table runner I made my mom, I’ll have to get one next time I’m over their house.  I had bought a charm pack years ago (don’t even remember how long ago it was) when we were shopping and the colors were perfect for her living room.  It sat here for a long time because I couldn’t decide what pattern to use.  I was going to use my small tumbler die to make it, but I wasn’t going to have enough charms to make it big enough and of course it is now discontinued.  Once I found out the dimensions of her table (thanks to a call to dad) I designed it in EQ to be 9 squares across and 4 rows.  I just needed a little extra on the sides.  After a few web searches I found a shop in Ohio that had yardage of one of the fabrics in the pack.  I ordered enough to use for the pieces on the front, the backing and the binding.  It only took me a couple of days to get it all done and she loves it.

Kimmie's Quilt

I decided I needed to finish the tumbler quilt for Kimmie for Christmas.  I had bought 2 of the coordinating fabrics on ebay in 2010 and put the borders on, it just needed to be quilted.  The plan was to do it on the frame, but I have a problem with tension on the back that I just didn’t have time to figure out so I used the frame to pin it and then quilted it on my machine in my office.  Took me a couple of days to get it quilted, thank goodness for grandparents taking Alex!  It allowed me to spend more time working on it. Got the binding sewed on by hand in just 2 days, even took it to my parents to work on it when my great aunt came to town.  Kimmie loves it and was super excited when she opened it.  She’s only been waiting for 2 years to get it!  I forgot to get a picture before I wrapped it or when she opened it, but she posted one on Facebook that I grabbed until I can take a better one.

I started working on some cross stitch pictures for my cousins twins, but I was running out of time and really needed to get the quilt done so I decided to put those on hold and finish them for the twins birthdays in June.

Angela's Xmas Present 2012

 

I did make a present for our friend Angela that has a bakery in Wisconsin.  I saw the pattern in the 123 Stitch ad and just had to get it.  It only took me 13 days to finish it back in September, mostly working on it at night after Alex went to bed.  It is almost all backstitch and went really fast.  She loved it, I’m not sure if she’s hanging it at home or at the bakery.

Stitch a Long

I’ve decided to join a Stitch a Long that Terry is doing using this pattern from the Moda Bake Shop.  I have so many 2.5″ squares already cut that it’ll be easy to pull out what I need.  Alex and I stopped at Joann’s last night and I picked up 4 yards of Kona Black for the background (I can use it on other projects if I bought too much!).  I will only need to cut the long strips with the rotary cutter, I can get the black 2.5″ squares with my Accuquilt Go.  I’m really loving the die that cuts 9 2.5″ squares at once!  Comes in very handy for lots of projects!  I’ll be back later, I have lots of other things to update you on!