Celebrating Another Finish ~ A Real Whopper!

This baby is 84" x 105" and weighs 8 lbs! This quilt had to be quilted in 3 sections to manage the sheer weight of it, 2 rows, 1 row and then the last 2 rows. Hefting this quilt around from the ironing board and sewing machine gave me quite a workout. In order to put the binding on I placed a table to the left of me to hold the weight and prevent dragging while stitching.

This quilt is for my oldest grandson Tyler. So please allow me to share a bit about him ~ a proud grandma! Today Tyler is in his second year of college and is on the Dean's list at East Carolina University. He grew up with baseball beginning in grade school and all throughout middle and high school. He was on a college showcase team for several years which meant he traveled to various states every weekend during baseball seaon to play ball. Through all this he maintained very high grades in school which I find a bit amazing! He is quiet and soft-spoken and quite respectful! He has 2 brothers which he is very good with most of the time but can be quite a tease! Can't make him out to be too perfect!

 



Each frame which there is 3 of them around each 15" block, has been ditched stitched. The shirts have been quilted with a meandering stitch. I love the shadow boxing on this quilt!

Letters and numbers have been stitched around. Each shirt has thread matching the color of the shirt so the back is quite colorful too. The back is gray Kona Cotton.




 

This is Caleb's baseball t-shirt quilt, the first t-shirt quilt I made. I thought it might be fun to see both quilts together.  Only one more to to go for my youngest grandson, Parker.










 

Parker is looking at the camera, Caleb is to the right of him and Tyler is at the end of the table.







 

 Linking up with:

Sew Many Ways - Sew Darn Crafty

Stitch by Stitch Anything Goes Monday

  Linky Tuesday at Freemotion at the River
You're Going to Love it Tuesday
Fabric Tuesday at Quilt Story 
Sew Fresh Quilts: Let's Bee Social
My Quilt Infatuation: Needle and Thread Thursday 
Crazy Mom Quilts
TGIFF at Mila + Cuatro
Link a Friday Finish
Can I Get a Whoop Whoop!
 

Thank you for visiting and wishing you a great sewing or quilting day!

Happy Quilting QAL; Scrap-A-Palooza; Bloom Project; Sandwiching, Happy Valentines Day

Happy Quilting - QAL
Yesterday morning beginning at 4:30 a.m. - Yep for real! It has become the normal wake-up time in our household, and until 8:30 p.m. last evening I cut fabric. My neck keeps cracking today having used those muscles for rotary cutting pressing down for such a long period of time. I am happy as can be though having a good leaping start on a couple QALs I have wanted to participate in. Better late than never - right?

The first is Happy Quilting's Star Light Star Bright Quilt-A-Long. I am so excited about this project. If this is the first you have heard of this QAL I suggest you go take a peek at her place. Melissa has done such a fantastic job of designing, planning and writing the instructions that have been revealed as of date. Cutting the fabric per her instructions was a breeze! This is an image of the Star Light Star Bright quilt! Can you hear my heart going pitter patter? Click on the button on the left to learn more about the Star Light Star Bright Quilt-A-Long.

Scrumptious cut and ready to be sewn!

Scrumptious by Moda - Spring time happiness!

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I Scrap-A-Palooza


I am equally excited about participating in Quilting is More Fun Than Housework/Cynthia Brunz's I Scrap-A-Palooza Challenge. In my humble opinion she is equal to being called Queen of Scrap Quilting as Bonnie Hunter. Cynthia's take is more on the modern slant vs. Bonnie's being more traditional. Cynthia has assisted me (via her blog messages) in reducing my scraps and old stash into some nice quilts. Her quilts are creative, some sophisticated, some cheerful, colorful and fun. She has a great organizational system, something that is needed when scrap quilting.

As I was reviewing the stages of Scrap-A-Palooza she suggested giving your project a title, something I rarely do. So since we are coming upon Valentine's Day I have titled my quilt Modern Celebration of Valentine's Day. I knew I had some fabric with hearts, and red and pink fabric. Now with my creative brain being motivated and spurred you can see the results. It looks great on my design wall! I will let it sit a couple of days to make sure I shouldn't move around a block or find an alternative fabric from one that might look like it is sticking out like sore thumb. I am leaning towards using white strip sashing. I have a couple of other fabrics with hearts that might work as well.

Electric Quilt did the work for me. :) Cynthia has a good method for planning, sizing your quilt and the math to go along with it if you don't have a quilt design software program.

This was a first to cut out 2 quilts in one day for me! Can you believe me when I say I was tired by days end? It was a good day!

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Bloom Project

Both Star Light and Star Bright are quilts on my Bloom Project lists. So I am forging ahead.

Other participants have said:  Paula is set to finish 2 of her quilty projects In February. Yeah for Paula! Marsha states she is working away already! Bea says, I am looking forward to finishing some of my UFOs :)."  Marge says, "I think that will definitely help me to stay focused, and as you say, save on the budget by sticking to projects already in mind."

Anyone interested in learning more about the Bloom Project can click on the button located on the right side top of my blog and read all about it. February 28th is the new deadline date.

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Sandwiching a Quilt Sharon Schambers Method

Weather conditions interrupted the spray basting of the final section of the baseball quilt. It is being quilted in 3 sections. In order to continue I chose to sandwich the quilt using Sharon Schamber's method. See the pictures below of the process:

Baseball t-shirt/jersey quilt is now completely quilted. Left to do is sewing the last section together and binding. This will be a February finish. Looking forward to giving it to my grandson and the reveal of the finished quilt.

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Happy Valentine's Day

For about a month I have been scavenging around to find a small tote that I made with a paper pieced heart and bow. I happened to come across it this morning when sorting and organizing scraps for the I Scrap-A-Palooza challenge. Yippee! just in time to share with everyone with the holiday coming on us! The other blocks below were made several years ago for a block swap. Thought I would send some Valentines Day love since it is this coming Friday.

Linking up with:

Sew Many Ways . . . Sew Darn Crafty
Anything Goes Monday 
Free Motion by the River
Fabric Tuesday at Quilt Story
Sew Cute at Blossom Heart Quilts 
WIP Wednesday at freshly pieced
WIP Wednesday at Esther's Blog
Let's Bee Social at Sew Fresh Quilts

Thank you for visiting and wishing you a great sewing or quilting day! I love hearing from each one of you!

Progress and Follow Along

It is so nice to find a bit of time to blog and quilt! Miss all my blogging friends! Thank you to all who sent emails wondering if I was doing okay hoping that I wasn't sick.

January means meeting all those tax deadlines and closing the books for all my accounting clients. I am seeing the end of the rainbow of finishing these tasks. You know the old adage all work makes "Jack" a dull boy! Today Joanie needed to play!

Read to the bottom for learn more about the Bloom Project.





At Christmastime I had all the blocks made for the pictured baseball t-shirt quilt. Currently, they are in 3 sections for freemotion quilting with 2 sections having 2 rows sewn together and the center section being 1 row. I have two more blocks to quilt on the bottom section that will complete the first section with two more sections left to quilt.

As you can see I am not using pins to baste. I am having excellent results using basting spray.The difference this time around is using a lighter amount of spray which now my needle is not collecting sticky stuff and snapping my thread. This was taking a step of faith since I am meandering free motion quilting. If I had to rethread the needle and start again this would have created many beginning and ends and increase my frustration levels. So a big sigh of relief!

Take note that on the backside the backing is taunt with no creases. Admittedly this took several attempts to achieve which now I have a plan for the remaining sections on how to make it more efficient and quicker to sandwich the front, batting and backing.

When sandwiching the remaining sections I will begin with spray basting both sides of the batting. Next I will have my backing taped to the floor to assure that it is taunt and lay the batting over the backing or possibly get out my boards and sandwich it Sharon Schamber's tabletop method. Finally to complete the sandwich I will lay the top section on the batting.

After free motion quilting each section I will then sew the sections together. I am not quilting to the edge allowing enough room to seam the blocks together. I will hand sew the seams on the backside. I am thinking about using a light weight double side fusible Heat N Bond to secure the seams and for easier hand stitching.

The fun part to making this quilt thus far was showing a picture of it to my grandson at Christmastime. He wanted to know how long it would take me to finish in his quiet-like demeanor. I told him probably another month knowing January was a busy month for me. He seemed a bit disappointed that it would take a month. I mentioned it to my son that I showed a picture of the baseball t-shirt/jersey quilt to Tyler. Ty, my son, said he was quite excited about it! Okay we are talking about a teenage boy who typically doesn't say much who happened to mention this to his dad! This is amazing to me and I am quite delighted he is looking forward to receiving it with anticipation. - Isn't that the best part about making a quilt for someone?

2014 Project UFO and NewFo

Creative individuals love to create new projects! Common thread with most quilters, knitters and etc. is that we collect unfinished projects.  We want to finish them but easily we become enthusiastic about starting a new one.

Does this describe you? 

 

If so, here is a follow along to help you to bloom what you have started and and will begin!

 Interested?

Read more about here.

Grab the button here for the challenge here.

So come on and be encouraged and to do the same for others who want to complete those existing UFOs, and at the same time create new ones for 2014.


Linking up with:  

 
 




Thank you for visiting and wishing you a great sewing or quilting day!

Great Progress This Weekend on a New Quilt

Twenty Blocks Stabilized!
It was so much easier the second time around. What was different?

I purchased a 15 1/2 " x 15 1/2" ruler. This simple ruler assisted me in making more exacting square blocks. It also helped me center the numbers and names. Before stabilizing I centered the ruler to the front or back of the shirt. With the rotary cutter I sliced slits about 1/2 inch away from the top and sides.  Next I was able to place the non-woven sheer weight fusible interfacing so the the top matched the top slit and the interfacing edges fit equally within the side slits. I pressed the fusible interfacing with a dry iron. The fusible interfacing was initially cut 17" x 17." Now with the fusible interfacing fused to the shirt I was able to center the 15 1/2" x 15 1/2" ruler and rotary cut around the square.

On my design board are the blocks for the first row. I am so happy how they came out! Each block has 3 frames, the first is Kona Cotton Ash, the second frame is Kona Cotton Red and the third row is the frame creating the shadow using both Kona Cotton Ash and Black. Each block is 21" x 21."

This baseball t-shirt quilt is for my oldest grandson, Tyler. When he saw the one I made for Caleb he asked his dad, Do you think she would make one for me?" Well you know I was sucker for that even though I had already intended to make him one. Funny the boys call me "Granny J." Sounds old doesn't it? But it is a title of endearment to me.

Tyler is in his second year of college and doing quite well being on the Dean's List. Baseball didn't work out for him in college for various reasons. He played ball all through elementary, middle and high school. He was a darn good player where scouts were paying attention to him. He played on college showcase baseball teams.

My son Ty created and established the non-profit organization "Rebels" as you can see across one of the blocks above.  By word of mouth the organization grew because parents heard how the coaches were interested in perfecting each team members area of talent. No screaming was permitted! I have several t-shirts in my own wardrobe with "Rebels" adorned across it. I am proud to wear them!

This quilt is going to size out to 84" x 105", a nice size quilt wouldn't you say?

I had planned on adding sashing but with the large blocks this would make it humongous!  This was one time I was grateful for my design board where I noticed that the shadows would show well with the adjacent blocks being Ash and would help show off the shadowing.

I am contemplating quilting it in segments, possibly by rows. Caleb's quilt was such a back breaker free motion quilting it on my domestic machine because of the weight and size. I can't fathom the idea of doing it again. Ditch stitching in the frames and free motion quilting the centers and outlining the numbers and letters should be a sufficient amount of quilting.

My lamp makes a perfect place to hold all the strips for the frames.

My weekend was completed with more happiness when by surprise opening up my client's mail finding a gift for me from a short-term missionary. She had traveled to Italy to immerse herself in Italian language school. It is the most beautiful oriental silk scarf with variegated shades of red. I had to wear it to church this morning. It was perfect as it was quite chilly this morning.

Linking up with:



   

Thanks for visiting! I hope you have been inspired!