Quilts – Page 3 – Kelly's Kwilts

Yet another finish!

I actually quilted this yesterday, but finished putting it together today. I’m very happy to get another item off my PhD Challenge list. I have 1 more item that I’d like to see if I can finish today, if I can then I can have the hubby put my machine on the frame and I can play with learning how to use the laser and the pantograph. If it works I have a BUNCH of quilts on the PhD list that can be done with a pantograph. I have a job for a client that has to be done before I can play though, but I’m planning on doing that tomorrow!

I didn’t come up with this idea on my own, I found it on Kim’s Blog. I made a change to it and rotated the blocks in the center, just because I liked it that way better. I used my Accuquilt Go to cut all the squares and triangles on this and it was so fast to cut everything out! I have lots of scraps left, and I have a few ideas of what I can do with them. I just want to finish some other projects before I start a new one! Since I didn’t feel like making a lot of these blocks (they finish at 24″ x 24″) I decided to make it into a pillow. I just need to get to JoAnn’s to buy a pillow form.

Updates to the blog

I’ve been working on fixing some issues today with the blog and decided to make a few additional changes. I’ve created pages for Finishes for 2010 and the Guild PhD Challenge. This will clean up the sidebar a little bit. Also I finally determined what was causing the problems with the posts not showing on the main page, it was a plugin I had installed to randomly show pictures. Got rid of that and all the posts show up again! I’ll have to see if I can find another plugin that does the same thing but doesn’t break everything else!

Batik Lap Quilt Finished!

I have finally finished the batik lap quilt. Since there were so many squares on this quilt I didn’t know how to quilt it. After a lot of pondering, I decided to print out a different design from my Quilting Designs software. I have volume 1 and 2 – but I do want all the rest! I had to pick 49 different designs from the software and it was not easy! Once I had all the designs picked out I printed each one on Floriani Stitch-n-Wash stabilizer, pinned it to the block I wanted it on and stitched away. Because I had so many designs from each category I pulled them into EQ and decided where each was going to be placed before I started stitching anything. This allowed me to play with placement and EQ7! It took me a couple weeks of serious work, but I finally got all 49 quilted. Once I got the binding on and washed it I found that the Stitch-n-wash was “stuck” under the quilting but all the rest was washed away. This resulted in me sitting for nights on end with tweezers and a lint roller picking the pieces out of my quilting. I didn’t mind so much since it meant I could easily sit in my husband’s office on the couch and talk to him while I worked on it. I’m glad that it’s completed and I can finally mark that one off the list!

When will I learn?

Ok, first off I need to make a correction to my last post. The “Love” block that I completed is by McKenna Ryan – NOT Ryan McKenna! I don’t know why I didn’t double check that before I posted!

I’ve almost completed the quilt top for the shower, I just need to decide if I’m appliqueing his name or doing it on my embroidery machine. I just can’t make a decision! I’ve got scrappy stars top made, I just need to decide on fabric for the back. It’s going to be a 24″ x 24″ pillow (once I buy the pillow form). I need to do some simple quilting to make it look more like a star before I can put the whole thing together, but it’s another item off my PhD list!

I’m teaching another set of classes at the Amherst Public Library at the end of August. They’ve recently setup a computer lab, so this might become a regular gig for me!

So to better explain todays post title, I was working on putting the borders on the tumbler quilt top and my machine was making some weird noises. So since I needed to refill bobbins anyway I decided to take the plate off and see if something was caught. To my surprise it’s been awhile since I’ve cleaned under the plate!!!! Once I got it all cleaned out and put back together it is running better and sounds wonderful!

I also have a small cross stitch picture that I finished recently for one of my husband’s employees that got married on Friday. I seem to make these for everyone we know that gets married, it’s personal, quick, inexpensive (if you can get the frames on sale) and I love making things for people!

I’ll be back later with another post, I finished the batik lap quilt!!!

New Finishes

I’ve been working on lots of different projects at the same time. I’ve quilted the batik lap quilt but still need to do some finish work on it before it’s considered complete. I took a day and completed the Ryan McKenna Love block that I’ve had sitting here for at least a year if not more. And I’ve been working on a quilt for the baby shower that will have enough blocks for everyone to write something to the baby. I’m not planning on quilting it until after the shower, it’s easier to write on the blocks if there is no batting in the way. Learned that after the quilt I made for Diane last year. I’m trying hard to get as many quilts completed before the baby is born that I can, I doubt I’ll have time to work on anything after he’s born 🙂 I officially have 5 out of 15 items from my PhD list completed. I’m hoping to get quite a few more done, especially since most of them just need to be quilted!

Yesterday I received the fabric I ordered from ebay to finish the tumbler quilt. I think Kimmie wants it and I’m planning on using the pantograph I have for the quilt frame to quilt it. This one wasn’t on my PhD list, but it’s another finish!

A Finish!!!

I finally finished something! I joined the guild’s PhD challenge and decided to work on something from the list last week. I finished the tumbler table runner that has been a finished top for well over a year. I’m not very good with free motion quilting so I decided to practice and meandered the table runner. It’s not too bad, but I had some tension issues at the beginning. It doesn’t look too bad actually 🙂

Tumbler Quilt

Well it only took me a couple of hours in front of the tv last night to cut out all the tumbler pieces. It was pretty easy! I just lined up the 5″ mark with the edge of the strip and it cut it to 2.5″ across the bottom of the piece. When it’s all put together it will be a finished 2″ tumbler. I found that EQ doesn’t calculate the way I thought it did. When I originally designed it, I was basing it on the yardage. Well, that wasn’t quite correct. I got a lot more blocks out of the strips that I thought I would since every time I cut it was the side of the next block. I had almost NO waste! I just redesigned it to match the number of blocks I have and the center layout is now 39″ x 52″. Now that I’ve finished lunch, I can start working on putting the blocks together!!!!!

Jelly Rolls

Ok, I know I don’t need to be starting ANOTHER project, but I’ve been trying to figure out what to do with this jelly roll I bought a while ago. I’ve looked at many, many books and just haven’t found a pattern that I liked. I was thinking about it while I was out today, because I was listening to a podcast and she was talking about heart themed projects for Valentine’s Day. I’ve FINALLY decided on the project! I’m going to cut these strips into tumbler shapes and put it all together randomly. The blocks will use the full 2.5″ height so I should be able to use just about everything in the jelly roll. I have a template, but it’s for 2″ tumblers which was just too small. Below is the EQ drawing – no, it’s not colored correctly!

So anyway, now that I decided what I was going to do, I needed to figure out how big this was going to end up being and figure out the layout – how many rows and how many in each row? Off to EQ to try and figure it out! But I needed to know how much yardage there was in the jelly roll to make sure I was making it a realistic size. I could not find the yardage ANYWHERE on the web! So I finally decided to calculate it out myself! I know there is 36″ in a yard and these are 2.5″ strips. You can fit 14.4 strips in a yard of fabric. Most jelly rolls are 40 strips of fabric, so I can figure that there’s about 2.75 yards in my jelly roll. This made it easy for me to determine the right layout in EQ since it tells me how many yards of the fabric I need! The center of the quilt is 42 x 32 and I need 528 tumblers to make this quilt. Now to cut them all out!!!

The good news is that I also have a tub FULL of 2.5″ strips cut from old projects that I can make a totally scrappy one too! But first to use the jelly roll!!!!

BOM’s

*sigh* I wasn’t planning on adding any more block of the months (BOMs) to my open projects. At least not right away. But of course, one blog links me to another blog and they are doing The Quilt Show 2010 BOM – Star Crazy. So I started thinking about what fabric I had in my stash that I could use. So, I decided to use my Moda Marbles collection that I started last year. I might not have enough to do the entire quilt, in fact I might need to get background fabric, but I’m hoping I’ll be able to use as much stash as possible! I have the first months blocks completed – I just don’t understand how you can be so careful cutting, sewing, pressing, etc and still not have the blocks come out the right size! My blocks almost NEVER come out the right size, but I always fix it later!

The Quilt Show 2010 Star Crazy BOM - Month 1

I also completed another block in my Dear Jane quilt. I just keep chugging along! I’m not sure I like how this one turned out, I think I picked the wrong fabric for it. I might redo it later, we’ll see.

Happy New Year!

Well, it’s a new year and I’ve already completed a quilt top! 🙂 I wanted to sew today, but didn’t feel like working on a UFO (Unfinished Object) so I decided to do something new. I found a pattern for a quilter’s sudoku quilt that I had kept from a magazine subscription request that came in the mail and decided it’d be quick and perfect for today! Another plus was that the block size was 4.5″ square and I had that die for my Accuquilt Go! It was so nice and quick to cut the blocks out with the Go – and they are so much more accurate! There was a small pile of waste, but I cut out 81 blocks in less than an hour out of 9 fabrics! It went together pretty quickly, just had to pay close attention to where each block went.

Scraps after using Accuquilt Go to cut out 81 blocks

I can now finally post pictures of all the Xmas presents I made this year. I started working on these in September and was working until a few days before Xmas to get them framed. Luckily my mom helped me get them done (thanks Mom!).

Georgia and Brennan are my niece and nephew in Florida – theirs had to be completed first since they had to be shipped. I couldn’t find a frame the right size, so I had to finish hers differently.

My sister is a teacher at a day care, so hers was an easy choice. The rest are for my cousin’s little girl, my sister’s best friends little girl and my best friends little girl.

I also made some items for my father-in-law and his wife, and when my mom saw the banner, I had to make one for her – along with the hot pad trivet I made her. Oh and I can’t forget the only quilt I made for a present this year for Angela – our friend in Wisconsin that owns a bakery. The white fabric has little cupcakes on it and the backing is all coffee cups.

Happy New Year!