Mystery Quilt

In quilt guild I participated in a mystery quilt challenge. They gave us one part a month to do and at the end they showed us how to put them together.

We started with this triangle. 

We had to make 4 of them.  This went on for a few months of making randle strips of squares and appliquing cherries. 

Finally they showed us this:

They had gotten permission from the makers to share it with quilt guild and break it into pieces. 

My quilt ended up like this:

In the end they invited the makers of the pattern to come judge our quilts. They had never done anything like that before. I learned a lot about appliqué and what judges look for when they evaluate a quilt. Needless to say I ended up in fourth place (of 4 quilts.) but I think I come to an important conclusion. My style is a lot different than the other ladies in quilt guild. I like the simplicity of my quilt. There quilts were very busy to me. They were very cutsie. But on the other hand thier quilts were very well made. They definitely have superior quilting skills.  

I want to improve my skills. So I am going to find one quilting technique that I really enjoy doing, and work hard on that so that I can master that technique. Instead of bouncing around from technique to technique. So that is my plan. We will see where it takes me. 

Scrap Wreaths

I saw something like this on Pinterest a while ago. I saw the wreath frame in the store and bought it on a whim a few months ago. It's been on my list of projects I wanted to do for a while. 

So I finally made on last week.

I loved the way it turned out so much! The next day I bought more wreath frames and I have made one a day for the last few days. 

They are so fun to make. I have ideas for 3 or so more! I am going to sell them at the next boutique I am participating in. Then I will probably add them to my Etsy shop!

Blue Strip Pieced Scrap Quilt

 I have huge tote full of scraps. I think I will be making more of these this year. Enjoy!

This quilt is available in my etsy shop here.

First Wool Project

One of my New Years resolutions was to do a project with wool. Santa gave me a tiny project to get me started.

It was really easy and super cute!

Now I want to do another!

Parent Christmas Quilt

Each year I have been making a quilt for one of my sets of parents. This year was the fourth and final one. 

My dad and Verna are very outdoorsy. They love being at their properties and working on their projects. So for them I made an Irish Chain quilt in green. I found a pattern for the trees that I liked but after I bought it I found out it involved buying a specific template. I thought that was useless so I created my own pattern.

I don't have enough floor space so I borrowed the gym at the local church and pinned the layers together while the kids ran around. 

 I embroidered the trees on by hand and machine quilted the whole quilt on my domestic machine.

During the process I found out what happens when you sew over a safety pin. Not so good. But I was lucky. It didn't even break the needle! But it definitely needed changing after that!

Here is the finished product! I love how it turned out! I need to make another one!

I think Dad and Verna enjoyed it too! Merry Christmas!

Same blocks, different quilt.

It's amazing how the same blocks can be arranged in different ways and make so many different quilts. Here is one example. 

I made 16 string pieced blocks. They all have a cream stripe down the middle with a dark strip on one side of the cream. The rest is just random blues. 

I started out with this layout. It's so cool looking. Like an optical illusion, but it makes me dizzy. 

Then I tried zig zags (bottom two rows) and little squares on point (top two rows).

I know there is probably hundreds more ways to arrange them. This is just three of the ways I tried. Now I need to decide on one!

Christmas Present Table Runner

One of the Christmas presents I made was a table runner for my mom and step dad. I made them a quilt for last Christmas and they are scared to use it. So I made them this so they could use it and not feel bad. 

I took a class on appliqué at Quilt Fest so I used my newly acquired skills to make 20 sunflowers and leaves to add to this table runner. I learned about an awesome basting glue and how to make perfect circles with freezer paper. 

It took quite a few nights of hand sewing in front of the TV. 

Kind of weird picture but they loved it. I promptly spilled something on it to break it in!