Quilting the Daisy Chain

Hi Friends!

Confession time: I have two, maybe weird but I think totally normal, habits.

The first is, if I really want to sew but there is something that is more important to get done (for example, taxes) I won't sew anything until I get the more important task done.

Second, if I do have a big task in front of me (like, say, quilting) I have a hard time doing it until I have wrapped my head around how I am going to get it done.

Both of those little quirks dominated this past week.

We were on Spring Break and I was pretty determined to get at least two things done (while our roof was being replaced): finish our taxes and quilt my Daisy Chain quilt.

The taxes got done without many problems (thank you, 2009 self, for keeping the closing documents from the house we bought-life was so much easier because of that!), and I wasn't going to start quilting until it got done. The only problem was I couldn't figure out the particulars about actually quilting my Daisy Chain.

For those of you who are non-quilters, all the work I have done up to this point has just been piecing all the fabric together into a pattern-this particular pattern is called Daisy Chain; the quilting part doesn't start until the quilt top is completed and it is layered with a bottom piece of fabric and batting in between the two. The quilting is the design that you sew to attach all three layers together and form a nice little quilt.

You can see all three layers here: the bottom layer of fabric (wrong side up), the batting, and the quilt top. 

Getting to the actual quilting part requires pinning all three layers together and, frankly, it's my least favorite step. I suppose if I was doing a small quilt it wouldn't be a big deal, but I have to lay everything down on my floor of my living room and get down on my hands and knees to pin the whole thing.

To be honest, I was putting off the pinning part; instead, I worked on my son's Christmas stocking for a few days. It was actually kind of nice to take a break from the sewing machine and focus on my first love, counted cross stitch.

Where I am at now.

Where I was the last time I wrote about the stocking.

But soon, I got back to the quilt. I decided to do a cross hatch design which is a pretty fancy way of saying I'm going to put diagonal lines all over it. It's taken me about three days to do the first half of all the diagonals which I think is pretty good time. I'm going to bury all my threads and then start on the second half of the quilting.

I decided to not quilt the crosses in the Daisy Chain, but I am thinking of doing a stitch-in-the-ditch (or "outlining" them) to make them pop. I'll see how it looks when I am done. 

Any questions you have about making a quilt?

Happy Sewing!

Kate

Daisy Chain (part 3)

Hello Friends!

I just returned home earlier this week from two weeks in AZ with my family. We had so much fun: the kids were able to play with their cousins, we went to parks, we saw plays, we rode trains and carousels! Whew! I am beat! We left 95 degree weather and it is about 50 degrees right now and I am loving it (albeit, I have a couple of sweaters on today!).

I had the good sense to bring my Daisy Chain blocks with me and Mom watched the kids for me while I just put my nose to the grindstone and pieced all the blocks together. She sews with a Pfaff Quilt Expressions 2048 and it was a DREAM to use!


The quilt top came out great! I laid it out on a twin bed and decided not to add additional borders and will go ahead and quilt as is.

Mom also let me go through her fabric stash which was pretty much like Christmas for me! I almost borrowed another bag from her so I could take more fabric.

Oh happy day!

We also went to a few quilting stores and we tried out the BabyLock: Sashiko machine. It only does one stitch but that stitch makes your quilt look hand quilted. It was so easy to use and did beautiful work! Mom and I were very impressed but, sadly, I was unable to walk away with one. Totally bummed.

All in all, we had a great trip! Next week is Spring Break and I am hoping to get this Daisy Chain quilted during the week!

Happy Sewing!

Kate

Daisy Chain part 2

Hi!

It's Monday! We don't have school today and it's been kind of awesome. I've been sewing my tail off these past few days (it helped that it rained cats and dogs yesterday), trying to get all the blocks done for the Daisy Chain quilt.

If you follow me on Instagram or Facebook , you may have seen the more day-to-day stuff I have been doing.

A single block

Four blocks together

About 1/3 of the way done

Half way done

I just got all 48 blocks done this afternoon and was able to lay them out while the kiddos were "napping" (laying in their beds doing their best not to sleep). 

All laid out and nowhere to go!

Once I have the blocks sewn together I'm going to lay it out on my nieces bed to see if it is big enough and how much, if any, of a border I need to put around it. I'm hoping that if it hangs well, I can just leave it "as is" and bind it with a scrappy binding. I think that would give it a nice, modern finish.

I'm already starting to think about how I am going to quilt it (I'm thinking cross hatch) and what I am going to do for a back. 

With all of these blocks and having to lay them out on my living room floor I am starting to think I need to make a design wall for my sewing room. Anybody have one that was easy to make and not super expensive? I'd love to hear what all of you quilters use! 

I hope your week goes well! 

Kate

Daisy Chain Quilt

Hi Friends!

I'm gonna be honest with you: I am having a hard time sitting down and blogging. It's not that I'm not doing any sewing/crafting (I've been working furiously on this latest quilt), I just feel like everything I write is so boring! Hopefully, that is just me. I'll work on blogging more and posting more pics on social media.

The next pick in the Lottery was to make my niece a quilt for her bed. In 2103, I made her sister one and now it is her turn.  When she came and visited me last summer, I had two jelly rolls of fabric she could choose from; either a '30's reproduction fabric or another roll with lots of cherries, blues and greens. I was almost certain she was going to choose the cherry roll but she opted for the 1930's reproduction and I'm glad she did. I was able to use the cherry roll to make my first charity quilt and while I have been sorting through this roll for her and picking sewing the pieces together to make the blocks I realized this is probably more suited for her.  She's going to be 10 soon and while this fabric still has a "little girl" feel to it, with the addition of the black and mustard yellow fabrics I feel that it is still going to be cool for her as she becomes a teenager and not feel like a "baby" quilt.

Lots of happy colors and prints!

I also had her pick what kind of pattern she wanted and she chose the same Daisy Chain pattern I used to make my daughter's quilt for her bed (also with 30's reproduction fabric). It's not often that I do the same pattern twice (for quilting or cross stitch) but I remember having fun making this quilt originally and am happy to be doing it again.

I'm using the book Jelly Roll Quilts by Pam and Nicky Lintott again. I've made about three of their patterns and I really like how they lay out the directions to the quilt, use lots of pictures and give multiple fabric ideas for the same pattern. I also thought it was pretty cool when I emailed them a question they emailed me back within a day or two. I highly recommend this book!

So at this point I have all the pieces ready to make blocks!

Go do your craft, I'm gonna!

Kate

Remember, you can always join in on more fun by following me on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter!

Finished Denim Quilt!

Hi! How are ya? Miss me?

Sorry. My folks were in town and when they are here I try to spend as much time with them as possible.

I finished the Denim Quilt and attached it to the back of the Ugly Quilt and somehow they are both just absolutely beautiful together. It's unreal.

Here it is, all finished.

As you can see, I added a few details of my own; I patched some of the holes in the jeans with some scraps and was even able to fussy cut out one of the back pockets to add into the overall pattern. I also added the pink half-square triangle border.  It was originally on the ugly quilt:

But I wanted the the quilt top to be larger, so I added it to the denim side and I think it's a pretty addition.

I could have spent maybe 10 more minutes lining up the borders so all the triangles kind of matched at the corners but....let's face it, I'm lazy. 

so lazy

I'm not sure what kind of witchcraft occurred, but somehow the back doesn't look so bad anymore.

If you would like to make this denim quilt, remember you can get the pattern from Alicia over at Lucy's Quilts. 

This quilt was close to 10 years old and I'm glad to have it out of my laundry basket of WIPs!! I'm already looking forward to my next project!

Happy Sewing!

Kate

Don't forget, you can always follow along (and hear about how I keep on stabbing myself underneath my thumbnail) on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter! 

The Ugly Duckling of Quilts

Hi Everybody!

I've been plugging away on the backing of my ugly quilt and, frankly, I'm going to have to stop calling it ugly pretty soon because the backing I am making for it is awesome. Just awesome.

The pattern is not mine but it can be found over at Lucy's Quilts! You have to email Alicia asking for the pattern and she asks that you make a small donation in her name to Lutheran World Relief but it is  well worth it! I'm already thinking about the next quilt I am going to make out of this pattern!

Here's where I am at with my version of the quilt.

As you can see it has a stained glass window effect to it. I have a few details that I am adding to make it my own but I am having a great time working on it. I'm hoping to have it all pieced together by the end of the weekend. 

It's going to be too pretty to be the back of a quilt so it will definitely be the quilt top for my picnic quilt. 

What's everybody else working on this weekend? 

Have a Happy Friday!

Kate

Don't forget you can always follow along with more fun by following me on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook!

Two Quilts Done!

I finally finished my sister's quilt! I'm very happy with it.

I wasn't sure if she was going to hang it in her house or actually use it as a blanket so I added these little triangles in the corner. She can easily put in a dowel and hang this if that is what she so desires.

Making these triangles makes it so much easier to hang!

The longest part was the hand quilting around the border but I like how I followed the pattern. I tried some other templates on my machine and they were just too intricate for my expertise level as well as my machine capabilities. Of course, about three days after I was done I found a pattern that would have been perfect and I would have been able to do on my machine but....I'll just tuck that away in the ol' brain box for some other quilt. Besides, it was kind of nice to do it by hand.

I did learn something with this quilt. For some reason I made my binding only 1 1/2" wide and it was something of a pain in the rear end to fold it over and attach.              

The binding is way too small!

The final product:

Lap quilt or easily a wall hanging

                   

This other quilt is one that my mom started twenty-something years ago and it was supposed to go to my younger brother. But since procrastination/distraction/avoidance are hereditary (!) my mom didn't finish this until this past February when she brought it up to my house to complete. She and my dad came up for three weeks-'cause, you know, the ideal time to come to the Pacific Northwest is February/March. Anyway, she finished quilting it. She had originally tried to hand quilt it but it was causing her too much pain in her hands so she used a quilting template found here. It seemed to work pretty well for her.

Twin sized!

3' binding-much easier to work with!

Nice and easy quilting!

She wasn't able to finish the binding before she left so I told her I would finish that for her. Once I finished my sister's quilt, I was able to finish that one, too.



Makes me happy to have both of these quilts off my sewing table.

What next?

Gotta pull something from the lottery!

Beginnings!

Hi there!

So what's this blog about? Well, it's a couple of things but to explain it I have to give you a little background about myself.

My name is Kate and I'm a married stay-at-home-mom (like 98% of all other bloggers out there it seems!). Before marriage and children there was sewing. I've been sewing in one shape or another since before the age of 10. My first and greatest love is counted cross stitch. I've made countless cross stitch projects: from Christmas ornaments and stockings, to samplers I made in my teens that still hang in my mom's kitchen, to landscape scenes. I love it. I always have a cross stitch project going, usually more than one, and many more on deck.

About seven years ago I lived across the street from a quilt shop. I lived about 30 minutes from work and didn't know anybody in this small town so I thought I would take a beginners quilting class. We made a table runner. Did I mention I didn't own a sewing machine at the time? I didn't? Well, I made the runner by hand. Thankfully my parents bought me a sewing machine the following Christmas and I've never looked back. I've made quilts for children, wall hangings, quilts for dollies and queen sized quilts.

In the last year or so I've tried my hand at other sewing crafts such as this and this They both came out really well, in my humble opinion. Here's how they looked when I was done:

I also knit and crochet but other than scarves and lap blankets I've never gotten into either one of those sewing arts.

So why all the background info? Well, over the years I've accumulated many things-quilt kits, cross stitch kits, and patterns that will all be done "someday." Plus many, many, MANY, projects that have been started and never completed. Now with Pinterest there are SO many other ideas that are just begging me to complete as well. That table runner I made in the quilting class, I never finished it!

So my mom was visiting this past June and we were going through all of the projects and I was telling her I was feeling overwhelmed with what to do next. She suggested, in her infinte wisdom, that I assign every project a number and then draw a number and that's the project I do next. I thought I would chronicle this journey in blog form-because my mom, sister and the three other random people on the internet might enjoy reading about this. There's no real deadline a la Julie and Julia, but ideally I would like to complete a project a month (hahahahahahaha!).

On top of all of the sewing projects there are quite a few crafting projects I have my heart set on doing. Most of these involve painting small pieces of furniture, like shelves and whatnot, to the insane idea of repainting and re-tiling my kitchen table (more on that later).

In addition to these many projects I have planned I have a family and home to care for and a giant garden that has to be maintained or we will quickly be overrun with blackberry bushes and trailing buttercups. I shudder to think what would happen if we gave up on it for more than a few weeks: we'd probably machete our way out. But I digress......


Right now I am in the midst of an ancient looking map of the world counted cross stitch. My goal is to work on that while I get this blog up and running and in the next few posts give some general information about what I will be working on for the foreseeable future. Here's where I am on that front:

You can find it here, if you are interested in working on it yourself.


For now I have listed all of projects and put them in a jar to be picked from but I think I need a bigger jar - if only to get my hand in and not just pick from the top. Once I finish this map, I'll let the lottery decide my next assignment!