Goodbye 2013, Hello 2014!

I guess I did create some quilts and other projects this year.

Pond Pillow

Koi Pond Quilt

Baby Wrenly Fleece

Tote and Queen of Hearts Purse

Orphan Baby Quilt

Make It Right Challenge Quilt

Elephants on Parade Quilt

Layers of Life and Love Quilt

Mug Rug Central

I also posted a few popular tutorials this year on basting with boards:

Board Basting with Pins Tutorial

Board Basting with Spray Adhesive

Hello 2014 - Here is to more creations and tutorials!

Linking up with Lily's Quilts for Fresh Sewing Day January!

Color Me Quilty!

Pat

Fresh Sewing Day November

This fall is flying by, it's November already! How did that happen??? Wasn't it just August? Anyway, I did finish a BIG project in October, my Layers quilt. I have to say that this was a labor of love and by far my biggest project. It took a month to quilt the blocks and a month to quilt the borders. I'm pretty pleased with the way it turned out. I entered this quilt in the Fall 2013 Blogger's Quilt Festival over at Amy's Creative Side in the home machine quilted category. Voting starts today and I would LOVE it if you voting for my quilt.

The front and back of Stratified Layers of Life and Love

I have also been working on Christmas with my mug rug collection.

I'm making mug rugs for Christmas presents. I need to make about a dozen of these little cuties and of course I need to bind five of these. I still have time.

Last night I finished FMQ the last two mug rugs I had pieced.

This one is for my boss. I work at New York Chiropractic College in the division of Institutional Quality and Assessment. We do a lot of measuring and crunching data. I thought this was appropriate.

Can you see IQA quilted in to the mug rug?

I'm linking up with Lynne over at Lily's Quilts for Fresh Sewing Day and with Leah Day at The Free Motion Quilting Project for FMQ Friday.

Color Me Quilty!

Pat

Fall 2013 Blogger's Quilt Festival

I love  Amy's Blogger's Quilt Festival, I've participated every time since Fall 2011. It is a wonderful opportunity to share, not only beautiful quilts, but the stories behind them.

For this Festival, I'm going to share my Stratified Layers of Life and Love quilt. It truly is a quilt from my heart.

Front

This quilt was made for my step-daughter and her new husband - their wedding quilt. It is meant to warm a relationship that has had some good times and some rocky times. Being a step-mom of grown a woman is not easy, nor do I expect it's easy being a step-daughter when you've lost your real mother and would like her there to share important moments in your life. But life has layers and different compartments that build up and make new connections. It is those layers and connections that give dimension, complexity and richness to life.

Love the second time around is never the same as  first love, but that doesn't mean it's not as good. This is second marriage for both my step-daughter and her new husband. They each have two wonderful kids that add layers of warmth to their new family, coming from different sides, touching new places in their hearts.

Love reaches even into the corners and borders of your life.

My step-daughter is a director of a local library and orange is her favorite color. I thought is fitting to use text fabric and multiple shades of orange for the back. Blue is my son-in-laws favorite color.

Even from the back, the love shines through!

It is my hope that my step-daughter and her new husband will feel loved when they sleep under this quilt. The inspiration and passion for this quilt deign was entirely drawn from both of them.

This is a queen sized quilt, assembled using QAYG (quilt as you go) methods, pieced and quilted with Aurifil thread and Quilters Dream Puff batting. It was quilted on a domestic machine, Pfaff QE 4.0.

I am entering this quilt into the home machine quilted category. 

Please follow the link to see and read about the other quilts in the Fall 2013 Blogger's Quilt  Festival at Amy's Creative Side

Color Me Quilty!

Pat

Mug Rug Central

After finishing my last quilt, I decided that I needed to work on something just a wee bit less massive. So I decided to start making some Mug Rug/Trivets for Christmas gifts. So this is my first attempt at a Mug Rug.

Finished size is 7 1/2" x 11 1/2".  Is that too BIG???

 I used a layer of Insul-Bright and a layer of Warm and White batting. I was thinking that it could be used as a trivet, if the recipient preferred.

The back

I used some scraps from my last quilt (Stratified Layers of Life and Love). I even had just enough of the faux piped biding that I used in the quilt to go around this little Mug Rug.

 I figured I get a mug at the dollar store and make some peanut brittle or fudge to go with this for Christmas presents. I think that works.

Color Me Quilty!

Pat

WIP Wednesday

I love it when I can cross stuff off my WIP list. As I said I would last week, my Layers quilt is complete! Click here to see the final pictures.

Since my last quilt was so intricate, I decided to pick up working on my Grandma's quilt.

 When I was taking this picture, I realized that I hadn't shared my new little Mighty Bright light. I picked it up at Keepsake the other week and it really does help. The lighting in my sewing room never seem bright enough, but this little light that sticks on the side of my machine does the trick (at least for sewing). I still would like better light for cutting and pressing.

Here are this week's stats:
In-process: (3)
Express Your Love
Grandma's Quilt
Charming Squares Quilt
 
New projects: (0)

Finished (1)
Layers quilt

I'm linking up with  Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday!

 

Color Me Quilty!

Pat

Stratified Layers of Life and Love

 It took me a month to quilt the blocks and join them with the sashing. It took another month to add the borders and quilt them. But all in all, I think the final product was worth the time.

 I literally went through miles of Aurifil thread. I really love this thread. It's thin, but strong and goes through my machine wonderfully. I love that I can change the end of the spool so that the thread can come off it the other direction.

There is new spool of off-white thread on the right side is because the first spool is completely use. I think if I had used just one color I would have gone through four or more spools. I think my husband has figured out that I horde Aurifil thread more than fabric. Although he's not complaining too much, this is his favorite quilt to date.

 I spent a lot of time going through lots and lots of Leah Day's FMQ fills. It was a blast using so many of them.

The quilt is a generous queen size and I used Quilters Dream Puff batting. It was constructed using QAYG (quilt-as-you-go) methods and faux piped binding. You can see tutorials for these techniques on my tutorial page.

I'm linking up today with Richard and Tanya Quilts for Finish Friday, Quokka Quilts for TGIFF and The Free-Motion Quilting Project for FMQ Friday.


Color Me Quilty!

Pat

My Last WIP for Layers

This will be the last week that my Layers quilt is on my WIP list!!!!!  I am so close to finishing this monster sized quilt. It's trimmed and the binding is made. I just have to sew the binding on and down.

I think I made a good choice to do a scrappy binding with faux piping in navy. I'm not looking forward to trying to sew this on to the large queen sized quilt, but when it's done, so is the quilt. Yahoo!

Here are this week's stats:
In-process: (4)
Express Your Love
Layers quilt
Grandma's Quilt
Charming Squares Quilt
 
New projects: (0)

Finished (0)


I'm linking up with  Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday!

 

Color Me Quilty!

Pat

WIPping On Some Binding

Oh yes, it's WIP Wednesday and I'm still working on my Layers quilt. At least this week I'm done with the quilting and working on the binding. I'm planning on a Faux Piped Binding with scrappy orange outer binding and navy piping.

The front

The back

Miles of binding to make!

I may be a bit quiet for the next few days, I'm off to visit my friend Kate in New Hampshire.

Here are this week's stats:
In-process: (4)
Express Your Love
Layers quilt
Grandma's Quilt
Charming Squares Quilt
 
New projects: (0)

Finished (0)


I'm linking up with  Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday!

 

Color Me Quilty!

Pat