Quilts and more Quilts

Good Morning Everyone! 

I have decided to do a post every once in awhile of a list of quilts and other crafts that I would like to try this year.  Of course some of them I may tweak to suit me better, or some of them may be my own ideas.  But I hope that maybe they help to inspire you like they have me!!
I would love to make at least 1 block of these quilts, just to try it.  By the end of the year I may end up with a whole bunch of pillows or 1 very large quilt with a bunch of different squares .  I guess we shall see.
1. Dexter’s Quilt
2. Dresden Plate
3. Bowtie
4. Sun kissed squares
5. Auntie’s Diamonds

I hope you check those out, they truly are beautiful quilts!!  Now onto something I have waited months to show you!  I made this quilt for my Mother-in-law for Christmas several months ago.
                                           
Her favorite color is purple, can you tell?  The next picture is horrible, I forgot to take a photo of it after it was all quilted, but my honey did manage to take a photo of me and my sis-n-law snuggled up under it.  I cropped us out of it because she might hurt me if I posted her photo on here.
                                           
So, what do you think?  Well until next time…………..
Happy Crafting!!!

Tick Tock……

I can feel Christmas getting closer and closer and I seem to be getting farther and farther behind.  Does anyone else make a list of the things you MUST get done by a certain time and then find yourself constantly adding to that list?  If I could get my foot up far enough I would kick myself for adding to that list, but since I can’t I guess I better just keep sewing.
Remember me showing you this quilt top?  Well I finally got it basted and quilted and checked off the to do list.  What do yall think?
  

How fun is this?  I did not know I could tilt my photos!!  I think I found my new favorite thing!!

What do yall think about the green polka dotted back?  That’s a thrifted sheet!!!  Yep, yep it is and it worked perfectly I think for the color scheme of the quilt. I know my lines aren’t perfectly straight, but I think it turned out pretty good anyway.  I hope the next one will be better. 
I really need to perfect my basting method.  Any suggestions?  The fact that I have carpet all throughout my apartment and limited space does not help. 
Ok now onto the next thing I wanted to share.  Now that I’ve posted an up close and personal of the finished quilt, I have a question.  Do you see the sandy colored fabric in the above photos that creates the diamond shapes in the quilt?  Well I personally dyed all of that fabric with coffee and/or tea.  Do any of yall do that?
                                       
I save all of the coffee that is left in the coffee pot in the mornings and I use it to dye thrifted white sheets.   Yes you read that right, I do not buy white fabric from the fabric store and I also do not buy any type of tan fabric unless I have tried to achieve a certain color and have failed epically!  But I must say that doesn’t happen very often because I have learned that if I dye the fabric first with tea and it isn’t dark enough, I let it dry then stick it in a bowl like the above photo of very hot coffee and let it soak for about an hour that usually does the trick.  Oh and I must mention this method makes me feel like I’m doing something good for the environment because I’m only using coffee or tea to dye the fabric and I used something from a second hand store!

Speaking of thrifted sheets I wanted to show yall some of my stash.
                                
As you can see in the first photo, the second shelf isn’t as full as the top shelf.  The top shelf is 2 stacks deep and each stack is at least 7 sheets high.  The very front 2 stacks that are shorter than the others are pillow cases.  The second shelf is mostly solid colored sheets there are a few that you can’t see in this photo that are different shades of blue and purple (all thrifted).  Now the bottom shelf are our bath towels.  Is it a bad think when I have more vintage sheets that I do bath towels?  
I know I’ve probably babbled enough with this post, but I wanted to show you a sketch of the next quilt I am working on.  Keep an open mind because this is a very rough sketch and it gets worse because I had to take a picture of it because my scanner wasn’t cooperating.
                                     
And the last thing I wanted to share today is that my kindergartener had homework for the first time the other evening!!  He was so excited, but I don’t think that will last!
                                        

Show and tell and I need your help!

Hello Everyone!!

I hope everything in your neck of blogland is going well! I have been so BUSY, like busier that I thought I would be! 

I have been sewing my booty off over here!!  I haven’t been able to share very much of what I’ve been making for several reasons.  Some of what I’ve been working on has been Christmas presents and the others are Thank you gifts and well I don’t want to spoil the surprise.  I do need your help finding just the right fabric cleaner for older fabric though to get those yellow stains out of it.  I’ve heard there is such a cleaner, but I have no idea what it is or where to find it at.  So if you have any ideas please let me know.

 

Now onto what I can show you, I mentioned awhile back that that I had a new nephew!  So exciting I know, but anyway back to what I was saying.  I was suppose to have a quilt for him made before he was born and well Aunt Alley kind of fell off and didn’t get it done.  So this morning I got the quilt top all pieced together and the border put on and now it is ready to be basted, quilted and the binding put on.  This particular quilt pattern is called a wonky strings, it was so much fun to make!! 

      

So opinions please, and any opinions on how I should quilt it?  I actually really like it’s craziness and I definitely think it will keep Mr. Man comfy and warm!  So until next time……..

 

Happy Crafting!!!

It’s been so long

Good afternoon everyone!  I’m sorry it’s been so long since I’ve posted, but we have been so busy here with school starting and Christmas sewing that I haven’t had much of a chance to type anything up.

When we went on our vacation, I came home with some Dresden plates that my Grandmother made out of flour sacks about 40 years ago!  They are absolutely beautiful!!!  My Mom and I laid them out to see if I had enough to make a queen size quilt for my bed, and I DO!  Isn’t that exciting?  You know what is even more exciting?  There are enough of them to make matching pillow shams and I will still have a few left over, so 1 of these beauties is going to be made into something special for a special person I owe a very big Thank you to!!  I can’t tell you who, because I know she will probably read this and I don’t want to spoil the surprise, but I can show you how beautiful these are.  I hope you have a drool bucket because you are going to be in awe!  Oh and these are all hand stitched together by my grandmother!!

         

See I told you they were beautiful.  Ok wipe your mouth now.  Aren’t those prints lovely?  Well until next time…………………..

Happy Crafting!!!

Showing off Sunday

Good Afternoon!!

It's been a few days since I posted, but I have a great excuse.  I have been sewing my butt off!!  I actually have a plan to give everyone in our family/extended family a homemade gift this Christmas, SOOOO I have had to start early to make sure I can get it all done.  There are a few things that I have completed but have failed to take photos of yet.  But I did want to share with yall what I have managed to photograph.

I made a simple, but cute quilt for my youngest son that was inspired by this one.

Oh and LOOK I made my own tag for the quilt.  My hopes are that the quilts that I make my boys will be something that they keep forever and I want them to know when they got them.  I used my machine to attach the binding, I hope to hand stitch the binding on my next quilt, but I was trying to keep this one simple and quick.  So what do yall think?

Ok now onto the next thing I managed to take a photo of.  I made another phone case, this one was suppose to be mine, but a friend of mine saw it when it was done and wanted one just like it so to keep us from having matching cases I gave her this one.

I love how bright it turned out!!  So what have yall been up to?  Is anyone else starting on Christmas gifts already, or is it just me?  Well until next time.............

Happy Crafting!!!

Vintage Sheet Rag Quilt (quilt #3)

Good morning everyone!!

Well so far this has started out to be a much better Monday than last week!!  Everyone seems to be pretty much back to normal.  My oldest has a little cough, but no fever and no vomiting, so I can handle that!!  .

We had a very uneventful weekend here other than the horrible wind that blew through (yes pun intended).  I did however get to go to a few garage sales and I found a few really great things, I will share those with you later this week when I get a chance to take some photos.  I will say this though, a few of the things I found I have been looking for FOREVER!!!

Now onto what I wanted to share today, I am so excited about this I was afraid to post it because it is actually going to be a gift for someone's birthday, but she won't see this until after she has recieved it so I think I'm safe.  There are a few other things that will be included in the package with the quilt, but I will post those when I show you what I found at the garage sale.

I am very disapointed with how the photos came out, my honey was holding the quilt while I was taking the photos and our 2 year old was behind him pushing on his legs.  I think he moved everytime I tried to take another photo.  So please bare with me.  I used 5 different sheets for the front and I used 1 sheet for the back.  I tried to match all of the colors that were on the back to the colors on the front.  This is a very light weight quilt so that it can be used in the spring and summer months.  I love the spring colors and all of the flowers this was alot of fun to make, the bright colors and happy prints helped get me out of my winter blues.

The photo on the right is a close up of the material that the quilt is backed with.  When everyone was sick this is what I was working on.  I started it about 2 weeks ago and finished the quilting part before everyone started showing symptoms of having a stomache bug.  I did most of my cutting on the edges last week.  So... what do yall think?  How was you're weekend?  Until next time.....................

Happy Crafting!!!

Brrrr it's cold (Quilt #2 is finally finished)

to all my blog friends!!  I am so happy to say that even though it is 16 degrees (which is actually 8 degrees higher than we started) here today I had a very productive day. I feel I should tell you that I am not a cold weather person, there is a reason I have stayed in West Texas instead of moving to a colder place, but enough of that.  I finished Quilt #2!!!
I am so happy and so proud it turned out great!!!

There is just something about finishing a project that you know you put a lot of time and effort into and knowing that it will actually be used and around for years to come!!!

I have to say that this quilt was a learning experience and much different in the piecing together process than my rag quilt.  There are a lot of things that I will do differently next time, but I wouldn't change how I did this or how I put it together because I think it has a sort of charm to it.  Like I mentioned in my previous post about this quilt, the seams are not lined up and there is no color or pattern scheme because I used scraps.  I can't wait to start on quilt #3.  Oh and before I show you the beauty it's self, I must give credit where credit is due!!  My wonderful honey volunteered was asked to be my quilt holder while I took photos.  Thank you honey you are the best!!!  Now onto show and tell, aren't you excited or is it just me?

He wouldn't let me take a photo of his face, but I did manage to get his legs in the picture so that counts for something.

All those bright squares were just what I needed to get over these cold weather blues!!

I kept the quilting simple because I need to work on my basting a little bit more.  I tried a mini quilt I guess you could call it (as practice) and the back kept wrinkling up and bunching all over the place so I will try something different on my next quilt.

Some up close and personal photos of the quilting on the top of the quilt.  I couldn't be happier!!!

Now onto a little sharing just because I want to and because it was one of those moments I will hold onto forever as a mommy.  This evening when I was cooking dinner my oldest son asked me if he could help, I don't usually let him help me alot in the kitchen because I am so afraid he will get hurt.  But tonight I gave in because the times that he has helped me cook dinner he has been so excited and talked about it for days.  I guess I am not the only person that realized this was one of those special moments because my honey actually took some photos of us cooking together.  Now I don't know about yall, but as the mommy I'm usually the one taking photos of all those priceless moments and it's not very often that I'm in any of those photos.  Which is why these will be cherished FOREVER!!!

This has been a very long and picture heavy post so I guess I will call it quits for now, but I hope you and your family stay nice and warm tonight because..............

Quilt #2

First off Happy February!!!
I am still having issues with my camera, but I really hope to have it up and running by tomorrow. 

I still wanted to share something I've been working on the past couple of days, these aren't the best photos because I had to use my phone (and I don't have a high tech phone it's just a plain jane flip phone nothing special) so these aren't very high quality photos.  I tried to edit them a little bit so you could see them better but I'm not sure if that worked. 

This is a close up of the border around the quilt.

Now keep in mind this is only my second attempt at quilting and this one is very different than my first attempt (you can see it here).  There was no color scheme with this quilt, all of these squares were scrap pieces of fabric I had laying around.  Not all of the seams meet up, but I kinda like it that way because it's for a little boy and I wanted it to be kind of funky.  When I have finished it I will post better photos.  What do you think so far?  I wish I had better photos to share, the back is already on it, but I haven't finished quilting it yet.  I am so excited about it I love how it's turned out so far so I can't wait to share the finished product.  Until next time.........

Happy Crafting!!!

Vintage Sheet rag quilt

This is the first quilt I've ever made.  I have to say I am very proud of it considering it was a spur of the momment idea.  It's made completly out of thrift store vintage sheets and vintage aprons that belonged to my grandmother.  I finished the quilt around the 1st of December but I'm just now getting around to blogging about it.  I hope yall like it, I plan on making more quilts in the future maybe some more complicated ones considering this one was pretty easy.

Happy Crafting!!!!