Shouldn't start anything more !!!

I really don't need to start any more projects and below is the proof!!! I also have a few I didn't even take pictures of including:

Double Irish Chain King Size
Alyssa's I-Spy Quilt still needs quilted and bound.   http://mudpotter.blogspot.com/2009/04/i-spy-alyssa.html
A very old log cabin I started a very long time ago!
and probably some others - and then there is these:


A 4-patch posies that I tried and just didn't care for - but will finish it.
This one is further along than it shows - but you get the idea.  I ended up using the gold for the sashing, but once I got this all together - it just doesn't talk to me.  This is the first try at 4-patch posie and I need to improve on the fabric selections.  This just doesn't give enough definition of the different blocks for me.  I've loved other people's results so I just need to keep trying.

These are 6" 4-patches that I've used as leaders and enders as I worked on other projects. I now have 70+ of them so plenty enough to make a throw for the car or the couch. This is all stash busting material - either left over from another project, scraps, or old fabric that I really just need to use up. The green fabric is very old.....I used to have curtains made in this fabric. It almost has a wood grain to it.

7 1/2" denim squares that I'm adding stars to. I have 45 of these finished and if I mix them with some plain denim, could have a healthy sized quilt!

There are 36 of these 6" squares - using up little bits of fabric that are too small for anything else.  I'm not making much of a dent in the box that holds those little bits though....I'm going to have to keep working on them.  I think they breed during the night or when I'm not looking!!

I thought I'd do something like the top photo of 4-patches, but they just don't look right on point.  I'll probably just do them in a regular setting.

This is the boxes that hold the "Morning Star" in progress.  While I have a plenty of the nickel blocks for this quilt, the little sashing pieces are taking me forever to get done.  To the left of the upper box is 100 in those 2 stacks, but I figured I will need close to 240 to make the size I'm wanting for a full size bed.  You can see some of the sashing in progress in the middle of the top box, and those waiting their corners to the right.

Have you ever thought of computer keyboard boxes for organizing your projects?  They are fabulous and don't take up much room.....thank goodness!!



This is my latest 'start'.  It's a Dresden Plate quilt that will have 3 different sizes of Plates.  The large one is made out of 7 1/2" blades (have 4), the middle size is out of 4 1/2" blades (have 7) and the small ones are 2 1/2" blades (have 7).  I have no idea how I'm going to put them all together, but I fell in love with the Kansas Troubles Butterfly Garden and these are all out of one layer cake.  I still have 42 nickels left out of the layer cake and haven't even cut into the Jelly Roll!!! 

Oh my - just thought of two more- but they're gifts - so I can't show them here yet....so the UFO count is 13!!

Dresden Plate from Butterfly Garden

I didn't really need another quilting project, but I did need something portable that I could work on when I was away from my sewing machine and had free time.  I just hate sitting doing nothing - whether is watching a TV show or movie (drives the DH crazy) or traveling in a car, or just sitting waiting on an appointment etc...

I've been intrigued with a couple of quilt blocks.  One is the Grandmother's Flower Garden and the other was the Dresden Plate.  I love that both of these are fairly old designs, made by our grandmothers and before.  I recently purchased a Layer Cake and Jelly Roll of the Kansas Troubles Butterfly Garden that was on special online and while I was at it I ordered the easy Dresden Plate ruler from http://missouriquiltco.com/shop/.

I got the order so quick - and when I did I just loved the fabric.  It is so soft and wonderful and the colors are just what I'm drawn to.  I just found out that the designer of this fabric lives only about an hour away from me!
Anyway - I couldn't wait to tear open the Layer Cake and see what I could do with it.

I cut each of the 40 pieces in 1/2 then one of those pieces in 1/2 again - ending up with 40 5"X10" pieces, and 80 5" square nickels.  Then I took each of the 5"X10" pieces and cut 2 7 1/2" Dresden plate blades  for 80 blades.   Today I'm putting the blades together and making 4 large plates.  I'm having so much fun!
Click on the pictures to make them larger. 

And now there are 4!  These went surprisingly fast for me.  I started at a landmark...on the above one it was the upper and lower light blade, then I just worked my way around chain sewing picking up the next piece as I went.  The background pieces are 20" square.

I haven't decided yet how I will put them together in a quilt, but I'm looking for a smaller Dresden plate that maybe doesn't have as many pieces to put between them and separate them out somehow.  I would welcome any suggestions or ideas.  I still have nickels and a Jelly Roll in this fabric to work with.

Day & Night baby quilt delivered

Our first grandson is here!  Even though I was counting on him waiting till my birthday to be born and be my birthday buddy, we're thrilled that Brian Thomas has made his appearance on the 17th and everything is going great.  I just got pictures of him with his quilt that I made him.

I put minky fabric on the back to make it super soft then hand quilted it.  I still have to quilt in the big stitch mode, but that worked out just fine for this quilt. 

The Day & Night pattern gives you 3 quilts in one.  The main quilt above, and 2 smaller quilts with the leftover pieces after you've cut the first pattern.  I made DGD a quilt for her dolly to match her little brother's quilt.  Here she decided that little B needed to cover up - so she went and got her dolly blanket to put over him.  I think this is just adorable!! 

The baby quilt has warm and white batting.  The dolly quilt has no batting. 

Fractured Sky

Close-up of sky:

There was questions about how I created the sky for this quilt.  I got the idea from a method shown on You tube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYkIh_fsyiE
Cut out several 14" x 14" pieces out of 4 different fabrics for the sky and stacked them up together.  Then I cut an off kilter line across those squares. 

*Take on piece off the right side stack and put it on the bottom of that stack.  Take these two stacks to the sewing machine and start sewing the top piece from each stack back together and press the seams.    Stack them all together again and make another cut.  (Repeat from * until you get the look you want.)

In the end, I ended up adding little scraps here and there, cutting some of the 'fractured blocks into strips, and just played around till I was happy with all the chunks on the design wall.  Then I sewed them up and attached them to the rows of mountiain fabrics.

While this method isn't something I'll likely do again real soon, I like the effect it gave to the sky over the original piece of all sky fabric.

(Click on any of these pictures to view them in a large size.)

Virginia Quilt fabric is now a Quilt Top

     The fabric we bought nearly 2 years ago is finally made into a quilt top!!  I don't know yet how I will have it quilted, or if I will do that myself either by hand or machine, but at least I've got it this far.  My original post about these fabrics was back at:  http://mudpotter.blogspot.com/2008/07/these-are-prints-dh-and-i-picked-up.html
     May of 2009 when hubby and I drove to Virginia to meet the new grand-daughter, we were very impressed with the endless mountains.  Once in Virginia we found a quilt shop and began picking out fabrics to commemorate our trip.  All of the greens/browns in the main part of the quilt were bought in that Virginia quilt shop.  Since then I found the border print that I knew would be perfect for finishing off the frame of the quilt.  One of the blue sky fabrics was also purchase at that quilt shop, but I've since added a couple of others so I could create the broken, chopped up sky that I wanted to do.
     I learned several things with this quilt.  I learned that the ruler that I thought was a true 60 degree triangle really wasn't and I had to be careful about how I placed them in the quilt.  I didn't realize this at first and forgot a couple times along the way, so had to take out several seams before I got it right.  I also learned that the overall look of the inspiration quilt wouldn't be achieved because it incorporated a lot more lights intermixed with the darks to give the effect it had.   I also learned that sewing when my shoulders hurt or I was just tired wasn't usually very productive.
     We specifically picked out one fabric with the little white flowers, because we kept seeing lots of little white flowers along the roadside.   If you click on the above picture, you can see the larger version of the above picture.

I-Spy Finished and Delivered

This is the quilt started by on http://mudpotter.blogspot.com/2009/04/i-spy-hannah.html

DD# 2 let me know it got to the birthday girl on time with these pictures and comments.

"I-Spy" quilt from Grandma Schmitz.(That's me!) If you look closely, you will notice that each square has a match - this is so she can play games. She has already decided her favorite squares are the ELEPHANTS!

 

She seems to be looking it over pretty good.

Within a few minutes, she wanted her babies to share the blanket with her. 

 

Then we wrapped the babies (and bear) up. The Winnie the Pooh fabric is on the back of the quilt. It is beautiful and soft!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HANNAH KAY!!! 

Brittney's quilt for Alyssa

My Granddaughter Brittney has been wanting to make a quilt for her little sister for a while now.  We've even had the fabric bought for a couple of months.  We've had the darndest time getting a sewing machine for Britt to work on the project at home, or getting her over to G&G's to work on it.

The other day, Britt's little sis Alyssa was at the store with her Mom and spotted this Sponge Bob fabric.  She was actually hugging the bolt of fabric till her Mom bought her some to hold for herself!  When I heard this, I had to tell her that was the exact same fabric Britt had picked out.

 

Here's another view - Alyssa had just been woke up from her nap and it was a little hard getting a good picture of the both of them.

And matching dolly quilt

Here's another shot of the new baby quilt top - along with the complimentary dolly quilt. Granddaughter will have a new quilt for her doll when Mommy and Daddy have the new little brother wrapped up in his quilt!!

Now I 'just' have to get them quilted, put the binding on, and get them to Virginia in time for the baby's arrival. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

New Baby Quilt

I've got a new grand-baby coming, and I got busy making a quilt for him! While DD#2 was home for Christmas she approved the new quilt pattern I'd gotten and wanted to try from Quilt in a Day called Day and Night.

She picked out the colors, and I got to pick out the fabric. You can see in the close-up below that the blue / black fabric looks almost like water, and I think the yellow / gold secondary fabric compliments it nicely. I've even got the binding all ready for when it comes back from the quilter.

While both of these fabrics came from the nearby Wally World - they are both very nice fabrics that worked up really nicely. I know some quilters wouldn't dream of putting 'cheap' fabric in a quilt, this pre-washed very nicely, sewed up just great, and it just doesn't make sense to me to spend $8-$10 for Quilt Shop fabric when you really can find good quality material like these for so much less. I figured with the 5 yards I bought for this and an upcoming project, I saved a good $25 - $30!!


I will agree that not all the fabrics found at discount stores are quilt quality, if you look closely, buy smart and check it by pre-washing and evaluating the fabric along the way, you can make some good smart decisions when it comes to buying fabric.

I'm heading back to the sewing room to work on the second project for this fabric. Stay tuned!!!

Christmas Tree Wall Hanging

Once again I saw something on someone's blog, maybe it was a pattern, or someone's picture on a quilting board, but I saved a picture of a primitive Christmas tree that I really liked. I I kept thinking about it - and the other day I decided I wanted to make it - NOW!! I'm impulsive like that..... to the right is the inspiration piece.



I discovered it was a tree in a Leisure Arts book of wall hangings. Since I didn't have time to get the book and get the wall hanging done, I decided to do my own style.

This is 30 X 11 inches. I first took a 26 X 7 inch piece of muslin and layered it over batting and muslin backing. I then sewed down 2.5 inch strips of the border fabric, flipping and pressing each piece in turn. This secured all 3 layers together.
Next I picked out several green pieces of scrap and applied Wonder-Under to each of the wrong sides. With a pair of scissors I cut random 'layers' of each and began layering them on the top. I also had a piece of tone on tone brown that I used for the trunk and bits in between the branch layers. I found a bit of gold to use for the star.


Once I had everything where I wanted them, I removed the paper backing of the fusible and fused it all down.


Simple and quick zig-zag machine quilting secured the pieces and accented the edges. My machine skipped and wandered in a couple of places but I left it - adding to the prim look of the piece.



I used gold metalic thread around the star.
Two bias strips of the border fabric were used in the upper corners of the back so it could hang easily.
Binding was cut and applied and it was finished!

Though I like how it turned out - I want to change it up some too. I think I might make a companion piece or two with some of the remaining pieces....maybe try to get closer to the inspiration piece.  Those will have to wait for now though....I've put off cleaning the house too long already!!

I couldn't help myself when I noticed all the small scraps of the above project - so I began cutting them into little pie shaped pieces and assembled them on another panel of muslin, fused, satin stitched them down and echo quilted them for this cute little mini forest.  It became a gift to my twin.