Quilting the Half-square Triangle Quilt

It is snowing in March in Alabama!

 

I have been quilting my niece's quilt.

 

It would have been finished a long time ago if I was not having so much trouble with the thread breaking. I did not have any problems when I was quilting the white fabric, but I have had all types of problems quilting the purple.

I have tried changing the needle and the thread.
I am not sure what the problem is. The only thing that seems to work is quilting slowly.
VERY SLOWLY!

 

It is not like I quilt fast as if I am racing, but if I quilt really slow I do not end up with this mess.



 

 

So When it does break, after each petal, today I look out the window at the snow and take a deep breath and start again.

Pink Lemonade Flimsies

So, I have had both of these finished for about a week. I just hadn't found the best time to photograph them. I wanted to take a picture of them with a winter look. If you know anything about the South you know that we get a storm that usually lasts for five minutes. Well that is about what happened. We had an ice storm, then another, then we missed snow by a county. By the time I could get to my camera AND the flimsies the everything melted!

 

This morning I woke up to find SNOW melting! I did not even know it was supposed to snow. I grabbed my camera and these beauties and it was go time. That would result in poor pictures. Perhaps when they are finished there will be much better pictures.

The fabrics and the patterns are the same, but there is a subtle difference between the two quilts. The difference is how many rows repeat. One quilt repeats every two while the other repeats every three rows. Hopefully that makes sense.

They are very bright and colorful.

 

Just the perfect colors for a couple of girls born in the hot summer.

 

The biggest differences between these two quilts will be the difference in backing. One will have the monkey fabric for the back and most likely the binding, while other should have the rest of the light pink, orange, green, and dark pink. We will see how much fabric I have left.

I am excited to have these finished and given to the girls, hopefully before they out grow them. Maybe there will be another snow when I finish them and then I can get more snowy bad pictures. Probably no more snow though, which is too bad. Snow is the best part of winter.

 

Caught Sewing

There I was minding my own business; sewing, pressing, and taking pictures as I went.
All of a sudden my husband comes in and picks up the camera.



At first I thought he was taking pictures of the blocks that I had laid out.



But it became apparent that he was taking pictures of ME!



Especially when he turned the camera on me like this.
Not the most flattering picture, but there is no need to be dressed in your best to sew. That is one of the perks!

Silly husband.

Hope you enjoy these crazy pictures!
Also, a baby flimsy (or two) will be unveiled soon.
I have been feeling very productive lately.

Pink Lemonade

I am making two quilts with the same material for two little girls who were born a couple of weeks apart. Born, people; these quilts are LATE!

I made and trimmed all of the blocks and started laying out them out.

My original plan was to make a split rail fence quilt.



Then I tried a pin wheel.



I then thought that I had these extra light pink strips that I originally planned to use in the blocks and wouldn't they look good in between some rows of the blocks like stacked coins?



hmm...what to do...

What would you do? Do you have some other ideas?

Mini Ironing Board

My wonderful husband saw me pinning pictures of TV dinner tables being turned into ironing board, and he heard me say how I though one would be nice.
I came home to find he had started to make a mini ironing board for me from scrap.
I helped finish it up and here it is. I really love it. It sits on the table beside my sewing machine. I don't have to go very far to press a block. Also I can hide stuff underneath it. You know, from myself ;)

 

I have had it about a month and prefer to use it over the ironing board because of the padding. I used an entire pack of crib sized batting for padding.
Today my husband said I should make a cover for the ironing board. That is in my long term plans.

Auburn Quilt Finish/ First 2013 Finish

First finish of 2013! The Auburn scrap quilt it complete! Woop woop!

 

 

I know a lady who will be so happy to have this quilt.

She knows that there is an Auburn project being worked on for her, but she does not know that it is a quilt or that it is this quilt.

 

I wasn't very excited about the quilting at first. It is my first attempt at making organic waves using my new walking foot. I put it to the side for a day and took it up again. I really started to like it after that. It looks really nice all over the quilt. Straight lines seem sort of boring now, but I still love them.
 

 

I also got to finally use my clips for their intended purpose. You know to hold the binding in place rather than using them to hang quilt tops on trees or gates for pictures. Which they are very handy doing. So, I see them being used for that purpose in the future when I cannot find a quilt model. hehe

 

It is a nice sized lap quilt at 51"x39"

Crazy

Yes, quilters are crazy. When we are a little stressed we go to pieces.
I am sure that you have all heard this by now, but it is still so funny AND so true. To help you understand how "crazy" we quilter are, I started looking for a few other "crazy" quilt blogs and I have found a few.

Crazy About Quilts

Crazy Mom Quilts (my favorite all time blog)

Crazy Old Ladies

I am sure that there are a LOT more crazy quilter out there. I just can't find them in a quick search. Also, you can't mention how crazy we are without mentioning crazy quilts.

Crazy Quilting International looks interesting.

Crazy Sticker loves crazy quilts

We may all be a little crazy and of course we come with strings attached.

If you are a crazy quilter (like me) embrace the crazy. It is so much more fun.

AU Scrap Quilt

I finished my Auburn quilt top.

I used many scraps from the Syracuse quilt.

 

If you live in Alabama you know that there are only two teams that matter. They are Auburn University and the University of Alabama.

FYI-I am a Nebraska fan.

 

This quilt is a gift for someone. I am sure that she does not read my blog, so we are safe.

I have been planning to make an AU quilt for said friend for about a year and decided that instead of purchasing all new fabric I would use what I had and just make it already.

 

I think it turned out very nice using the scraps. I did buy the darker AU fabric for this quilt because there was just not enough AU in the quilt and it needed some thing darker or blue or something. I think it really made it better.

I went in search of somewhere nice to take pictures of the quilt top. I think that this is a nice location. Since all the leaves have fallen off of the trees already, the holly (I think that is holly) tree worked great.
The wind was yet again trying to sabotage me.

I thought I would try a different location for pictures and stopped at this house. The front gate was the perfect size for my quilt. That house is so pretty I may have to take more pictures here. Maybe when I finish this quilt I will take it back to this house for a finished picture.

The wind was less a problem here, yay!

 

I am not far from finishing this quilt. I started quilting it and did not like the quilting so I put it to the side. Now I like the quilting, but the tension did not like me well. I may be pulling out quilting anyways :(.



Half-square triangle quilt

As promised, although a couple days late, here is the half-square triangle quilt.

This quilt is for my niece as a graduation present. She doesn't get on my blog, so I am sure that I am safe. I hope to finish it soon and get it to her, since she graduated in May.

 

 

I wanted to get a good picture of it. So I hung it in the tree. A cold front came through last night and it was windy. So, I had trouble getting a picture as you can probably see. I put it in one tree and it twisted and turned so, I moved it to another tree and turned it. It still twisted and turned a little so, I just got what I got. I hope to get a better picture when it is finished.

 

It is a square quilt, and I have not decided which side is the top. Which one do you like?

 

Also, I have not decided on a name yet. Any ideas?

half square triangles

I am making huge half square triangles. Well I started making them July 8. I kinda put everything on a back burner for awhile. I have been dabbling in sewing, but I am working my way back into sewing quilts. That sounds really strange.

Anyways, I am not dead, ha ha. I plan to finish the half square triangle quilt tomorrow, and soon I will show you what I have been up to. Quilty wise, the rest is boring.