Mama's quilts...

My mom taught me to sew when I was just a kid.  I don't think she even realized she was teaching me anything, you see, I learned quite a lot by just watching her.  She is a master seamstress.  She worked at a children's clothing factory and made a lot of my clothes.  When I got older, she would make me Halloween costumes and a few dresses for choir performances.  She would be lost in these patterns, just sewing away, while I would (probably annoyingly) ask question after question.  What do these marks mean?  What about these arrows?  The grain goes which way?  Wait.  What's the "grain" again?

She was SO patient with me and very sweetly answered every single one of my questions, no matter how annoying I must have been or how busy she was with whatever project she was working on. 

I learned so much from watching and asking questions, by the time I was a senior in high school and taking a home economics class, I was the one the boys all came to offering to pay ME to finish their sewing projects for a good grade.  I didn't do it because I was too busy doing extra projects for extra credit. I was my favorite part of that class.

When I got married and had babies, I made curtains and pillows, clothes...I was never much into the "quilting" thing.  Not just because it looked hard (it did), but well, you know...

that was for "grandmas".

When I caught the bug 5 years ago, I just KNEW she would love it, too.  She hadn't sewn in a very long time and when we talked about it, she would say, "That seems hard." or "I wish I had time, but I don't."

Well, this past December, she announced that she was ready to make her first quilt and asked me if I could teach her a few basics.  I can't begin to describe how excited I was!  I couldn't WAIT to go fabric shopping and get her started!  The photo above was her first "practice" block. She didn't just wanna do straight seams, squares, triangles...she wanted to do something fun.  So she made a Dresden Plate.  She started her first quilt on Dec. 18, one week before Christmas.  She finished it about 2 weeks later.

Her 2nd quilt was finished about another week later.

 

 

She has already finished several more...6 or 7?  I don't know, I'm losing count now. She is quilting them herself on my machine and seems to love every step of the quilting process. 

She is HOOKED.  I'm so proud of her, I can hardly stand it. 

 

 

Snow days...

 

Remember I mentioned 3 snow days?  Yeah.  I got this top done, too.

I thought I might keep this one for myself, but I think I've decided this one needs to be a birthday present for a close friend...shhhhhh! Don't tell her!  Her birthday isn't until July, so I have some time to get it quilted and bound.  I think I'll put it aside for now and work on my first king-sized quilt for my guest bedroom.  We will have missionary guests coming at the end of March so wish me luck!

I've got my mojo back...

Got the binding on this today...between haircuts. We've had snow and ice the last 3 days and I had enough cancellations today to do some sewing.

I made this quilt top...well, I don't even remember how long ago. 2 years? 3? 

I finished it for an auction that our Missions team is having at church on Sunday.

I THINK I used "Happy" by Me and My Sister designs.  I do remember that I made it from part of a layer cake.  It measures approx. 48x56 and was made with HSTs.

I used this one to practice some new free-motion designs.

And then while I was putting on the binding, my pretty brand new iron (I hadn't even had time to get adhesive on it yet!) DIED.

So, I improvised...

 

with my flat iron. Luckily, it worked.

 

Baby boy quilt

 

Just got this one delivered tonight.  Baby boy isn't due for a couple more months, so this is definitely a first for me.

Super soft minky for the back.  A fun loopy free-motion quilting design.

I used a half of a Pure jelly roll and some neutral tan for background.

The inspiration for this pattern came from Jaybird quilts hexagon QAL.

It was really fun to make.

 

 

Rewind to 2012

2 years ago, my sweet husband (who is extremely supportive of my quilting) bought me a Gracie Start-Right frame and a Juki TL98Q.

I was so nervous to "play" with my new toy so I thought, I'll just use a quilt top that I don't really care that much for and then it won't matter if the quilting is bad, right?

I just THOUGHT I didn't care for this one.  It had been hidden in a closet for, oh I don't know, 2 years or so?

So I put it on the frame and gave it a go...turns out, quilting was all this baby needed to find new life!  I love it!  AND I love my Gracie and Juki...of course, I love hubby, too.

This was another top that I had tucked away, not because I didn't like it, but because I made it with nobody particular in mind.  Then a co-worker had a baby girl. I used this tutorial for the blocks and it was SUPER fun and SUPER easy to make.



In April 2012, a very close sweet friend turned the big 5-OH and I knew I just HAD to make her a quilt for her birthday.  Her favorite color is blue and I found this pretty blue and purple peacock fabric that was just perfect for her.  The pattern is called Winding Ways.  It was my first time to make, quilt, and bind scalloped edges and it was actually pretty fun.

In July, our Pastor and his wife celebrated 20 years of being at our church and my gift to them was this quilt.  Each block has the name of a Sunday School class machine-embroidered in the middle and then I went around to each class to have as many people as possible to sign the blocks.

There was more in 2012...

Another day...

A break from quilting...

My sweet mother-in-love is having a birthday on Monday. I made her this. It's the best thing EVER! It's a purse organizer :)

A must-have for any girl who changes purses often and likes to keep things extremely organized. I LOVE mine and I know she'll love it, too. 

It has a clear ID window and credit card slots, a zipper pocket for change and a slot for bills/checks, pen loops and lots of pockets for phone, keys...whatever we girls like to carry with us!

I got the pattern from Studio Kat Designs. They have some of the cutest purses and organizers of all sizes. I have bought several patterns and just love them all!

And the winner of the "Worst Blogger" award is...

So, yeah, um...it's only been about 2 1/2 years since my last post. Imagine my surprise when I typed in the address and found that I still HAVE a blog. I have no good excuse. I could say my life is just very busy. Or, you know, I DO work a regular day job. Well, I do. But the truth is, I simply lost my quilty mojo for awhile there. I mean, it was GONE. And I couldn't seem to find it anywhere!

It WAS an eventful year. We had a wedding and a grandchild born last year. Another grown child decided it was time to live on her own and, luckily, only moved about 2 blocks from us, but still...

My mother-in-love moved from Michigan to Ok and lived with us for a few months before getting a place of her own. My father lost his battle with cancer and passed away a week before his 64th birthday.

I DID do SOME sewing through all of that. As I have for the past 3 years, I made a quilt for our Missions Conference at church.

Also, one of my hair clients asked me to make a t-shirt quilt as a graduation gift for her grand-daughter.

And remember I said we had a wedding?

As I have been searching for these quilt pics, I found some 2012 quilts that I made but never posted about...you know, because I'm the worst blogger.

I'll try again tomorrow :) 

 

Calling all "wannabe" quilters...

Hello friends and followers, I would love to welcome you to a Wantobe Quilters Campaign over here...http://www.stashmanicure.blogspot.com/

They are having quilting supplies to giveaway 5x a week for 12 weeks.

Supplies that will have you quilting before you know it...From sewing machines to irons, to die cutters, to mats, to rotary cutters, sewing baskets, scissors, batting, needles, rolled sewing machine bags, patterns, books, magazines...everything you could imagine to assist you in being a NEW Quilter.

Even if you are already part of this community you can win quilting stuff too...Tuesday and Thursday are days for us.

All you have to do is send me an email (stylin.master@yahoo.com) with your name and phone number and email sew I can submit this to the organizer, because if you win anything I can win something too.

All you have to do is be my follower and a follower over at http://www.stashmanicure.blogspot.com/...

That is all!  There are over 49 sponsors involved.

I am pretty excited to be part of this, sew should you.

I love being a QUILTER!

 

(p.s.  you will not be eligible to win anything if you do not register with a blogger where you see this message.)

I still had some questions regarding just how this campaign was going to work and I found a post over here at Stitchin' By the Lake that answered all of my questions and probably some of yours, too.  So click on her link and if you still have any questions, feel free to leave me a comment and if I don't know the answer,
I'LL FIND IT!

What I've been up to...

A few of these...

A couple of these...

Some of these...

But mostly, I've done a whole lot of work on this...

This is just the bumper.  I also made a dust ruffle, and a ruffled pillow for sweet baby Breanna.  I've been working on this set for about 3 months now...my "real" job totally cramps my quilty style ;)
Here's the whole thing all put together...

I wish the crown hadn't turned out so blurry.  It really is spectacular!  The only things I can take credit for are the dust ruffle, bumper and pillow.  Breanna's mom did all the rest.  Isn't it beautiful?! 

I know it's been awhile since I've updated my blog, and the only excuse I have is that I had missed WAY too many deadlines and have too many projects "hanging over my head" so to speak.  The truth is, I didn't want the friends waiting for those projects to be finished to see everytime I was side-tracked by something else.  Please tell me I'm not the only one!
I have 1 quilt top to finish and send to the long-armer for quilting and I will officially be "caught up" on those projects...Yay!  I hope that blogging about it will maybe help me to keep this motivation that I'm feeling right now.  I will keep going and make my goal to finish that top TOMORROW!

Quilt for Missions

Finished up the quilting on this one today.  My usual meandering.  I decided not to add a border.  I kinda like it like this.  Just needs binding and it will be all ready for the conference.  It measures approx. 66"x86"...almost a twin, but not quite. 

I've had some questions about how I am able to quilt on my domestic sewing machine.  I've posted before about my Flynn Frame, but today I had hubby shoot a short video actually showing how I do it.

It was taken with my phone so the quality's not the best, but trust me, I've been snowed-in all week (originally posted in Feb) and have also taken the week off from make-up.  You don't wanna see me in HD right now.  I had already quilted as far across the quilt as I could with the throat space I have on my machine.  So in this shot you can see that I have removed the middle rod and turned the frame around to continue quilting down the rest of the quilt.

Cabin fever

The guys ventured out today, but not for a good or fun reason...

We got a call this morning that some pipes in the ceiling at church had burst.  Nobody knows when it actually happened, but most likely, it happened a couple of days ago.  The damage is pretty extensive.  The entire south wing of the building was flooded.  In the top pic, you can see the classroom where the break occurred. 
While the guys have been busy at the church, Aimee and I have beaten our cabin fever the best way we know how...

Aimee is working on the quilt for her bed (her first bed-sized quilt) and I'm working on my missions quilt.

I'm about half-way done with the quilting.
And you'll never guess what else!...
More snow.  That's right.  We got another 2" today.  You know, because we needed more snow.
I'm so grateful for electricity right now.  So, since tomorrow will probably be yet another snow day, I will hopefully get the other half done.  And, of course, I'll post pics when it's all finished :)

Memory quilts

I'd like to introduce you to an incredible little girl.  Her name is Haley and you can read more about her story here.  In May of 2009, I made my first memory quilt.  It was for my daughter as a graduation gift.  I posted pics of it on Facebook and was contacted by Haley's mama (who I went to high school with).  She still had all of Haley's clothes and thought it would be cool to have a quilt made from them.


This is just SOME of her clothes.

But before I could make one for her mama, she thought it would be cool if she could give one to Haley's grandfather and aunt (her dad and sister).  So, last Christmas, these are what I made...

Using the same quilt-as-you-go method that I had used to make Kylie's quilt I made these 2 small lap-sized (or wall hanging) quilts. I was still very new to quilting, but these were fun to make and I was looking forward to making another one for Haley's mama.  I thought it didn't seem fair that she wouldn't get to keep these first 2 quilts, so I thought it might be cool for them (mostly for Haley's little sis) to have something they could cuddle with until the 3rd quilt was made.  So, using one of Haley's sweatshirts,

I made these...

This was one of Haley's favorite quotes.

It took her quite a few months to bring me more of Haley's clothes to make this last quilt,

but that was ok because it took me another few months to get it made. This time, I wanted to make it the traditional way...you know, make a top, then layer and quilt it as one big quilt.  We were going for a large lap size to maybe a twin.  I had finally figured out how to install longer rods on my Flynn frame and THOUGHT I wanted to try and quilt it myself.  Here it is all loaded on the frame and ready to go...

I don't know if any of you have ever wondered, but just in case you have, THIS is what "un-quilting" looks like...

And it's NOT fun.
I thought I had practiced enough on other quilts, but apparently not.  It was not good.  It took me about 5 days and I can't tell you how many hours to un-pick all those stitches.  So I called my friend Christie and begged for her help.  She let me bring it over and also let me help her load it onto her long-arm frame so that she could quilt it the way it was meant to be quilted.  And I am SO glad she did!  It turned out beautiful and was finished just in time to be included in their Christmas holiday...a whole year after the first 2.

Displayed on a king-sized bed

That block above the picture of Haley is the shirt she was wearing in the picture.  So many memories in all of these quilts.  And I am so glad her mama trusted me to make these priceless treasures for her and her family.

Follow the link to read about Haley's brave battle and to learn more about Cystic Fibrosis and how you might be able to help find a cure for this terrible disease.