Projects I worked on in 2012

Projects I worked on in 2012

Originally uploaded by Q_uilted T_hrifted

I did it. I made a mosaic at Big Huge Labs via Flickr Toys. These are the projects I have worked on off and on throughout the year…and previous years for that matter.

The Spiderweb quilt top was finished in the last few months. I love this quilt so much. It is a lot of fun to work on it. I have the backing fabric already and want to make a row of spiderwebs to add to the back. I was thinking of doing it in 3 different sizes and even drafted the templates. We’ll see what happens.

The Trip Around the World quilt I would have liked to have finished for my mom for Christmas. I threw my back out on the  19th and that put a slow down on everything in my life. I have all the pieces cut and ready to finish but still am setting in the blocks by hand. It’s coming along. I am thinking of flannel for the back so she can have it as a lap quilt in her lounge chair.

The Grandmother’s Flower Garden block. I picked these pieces up at the thrift store. I have never really  paper pieced and hand sewn pieces together so this was a first for me. I have a quilt that needs repair but the hexagon size is not the same. I did borrow a ruler from Sharyn in my quilt group and will work with it.

The Scrappy Bargello is hanging in my laundry room and I cut pieces for it as I work on other projects. I took it outside this summer for a photo shoot and made some progress on it. It was so fun to see it outside in the day light.

The Nine-Patch String piece is our Tuesday Quilters project for 2012. I love how it is coming together.

The Musical Ninepatch is for my niece Leah. I need to sew the sides on the front. I am almost done with the pieces back. If I set aside a few days I would have the two sides done.

The Sunflower quilt is my design and my pride and joy. I started this as a Crazy Quilt Revisited project with Jude Hill. I am alternating crazy quilt blocks with 49 patches.

Rosie the Robot is part of the Add A Border Group and was so fun to do.

String Pieced diamonds was started back in the 70s. I do a diamond here and there. This will be a life long project. I have more diamonds to sew together but other projects always come first.

Coin quilt/Calendar quilt uses up itty bitty pieces. I will blog more about this in a separate post. It will be a journal of quilts projects and fabrics when it is finished.

Ileene’s heart quilt was started this year. She and I work on it together. One of these days we will get it finished.

The Ragged Egg quilt made some progress this year. The blocks were finished and this year I sewed on the sashing strips. I want to put a scalloped border around this one. I most likely will not pick it up again until it gets closer to Easter.

Red and Blue quilt is something I have wanted to do for a while and this year I just got it started. Just Do It. I will continue when the mood hits me.

Sunflower quilt. This block had the petals pinned to it for years. I took some time this year to sew the petals on and get the pins off the thing. I LOOOOVVVVEEEEEEE how it turned out.

Low Volume quilt was started this year. I like the idea of having all soft colors.

Christmas Star is a table runner for my sister in Chicago. I am almost done. Almost! I need to find my metallic thread. If I know where is was it would be done (Organization)

Mary Ann’s Triple Irish Chain did not make it into this collage. I have worked on it off and on this year. It is a constant work in progress because I keep cutting 1 1/2 inch

strips and blocks as I work on other projects.

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String Piece Diamond Quilt

String piece quilting has always fascinated me even back in the late 70s early 80s!

We’ve had a sick house since two weeks ago and not much energy to do anything. I dumped out a bag of scraps and sorted them by color.

I have this diamond String Piece quilt I started back in the 70s. It moves around my studio.

I make a square here and there and the quilt is slowly evolving.

I got the idea from a picture in a magazine.  It was a fashion magazine with the quilt hanging in the background. I know I cut it out and it is in a 3 ring binder some where. When I find it I will scan it in the computer and add it to the post. This is where the quilt is at …. as of March 2009.

A year or so ago I decided to square
off one side and the bottom of the
quilt so I had a direction to work in.
I did not know about foundation
piecing at the time so the earlier
diamonds do not have fabric
behind them. The newer ones that I
am doing are on a cloth foundation.
I find that worn out pillow cases are
so thin and soft they are perfect for
this.  I like the idea of using what is
around.

A String piece diamond quilt is a great way to use up small scraps of fabric.  I don’t want too many rules in this quilt.

Gingham fabric was some of the first fabrics I ever worked with. Note the red and blue fabrics above are typical and from the 70s when this quilt was started.

I started by

using a

plain white

sheet for

the  background.

I have made diamonds that represent other quilt projects I have made over the years. You will see an example of this below.

Here is another diamond that is definitely one of the first I made.

For a while in the mid to late 80s I lived with my father.

I have a sister from his second marriage/divorce that is 17 years
younger than I am. She was living with
her mother at the time.
There was a bag of scrap fabric in the
basement of my dad’s house.
He had made Tori a doll house and
her mom had given her a bag of scraps
to make doll clothes with.
I used some of those scraps for these
diamonds. The little piece of yellow on
the end was the cutest piece with hearts
on it. I didn’t think of fussy cutting
at that time otherwise I would have
had a string with a better view of
the hearts.

It’s been a tough couple years. Our younger son was born a premie. He came home from the hospital in September 2001  weighing 3lb 6ox. He was so little.

I had developed HELLP syndrome and became allergic to the fetus. I was going into a coma and they had to take him quickly (within 20 minutes of getting to the hospital). Luckily he was healthy other than needing to develop more. It took a week for him to get the oxygen tubes off and they just blew air from the machine in front of his face….so many memories.

He came home and of course could not go straight into a daycare…like my older son. 3 weeks old and I was back to work. With the younger one he needed to have a shot for the Respiratory Virus through the winter. I guess premies are more suseptible to get the virus than other babies. I stayed home almost a year.

It’s funny because he started crawling at 11 months and two weeks later I had a neighbor who ran an in home daycare start taking care of him. Within another two weeks he was walking. All he needed was to see those other toddlers moving around and off he went.  When I think back to when his older brother was that age….started walking when he was 9 months old. He did everything early, fast and well. He still does.

I worked for a year. During that time my Mr lost his job through outsourcing of his department to another country. There was a lot of that going on in 2002-2005.

Took a few months for him to land a new job. Unfortunately that one lasted about a year due to downsizing.  Then a few months until another job.  A company was developing a night shift crisis line.  That lasted 6 months.  Oh my goodness. Now we are in a recession with unemployment worse than it has ever been.

This is what my Mr does when he takes a break from the job search process.  Takes shots of birds eating in the back yard.

He also has named the squirrel that frequently raids the bird seed Chester.

I have rarely purchased quilt fabric in bulk. 2-3 yards at one time. I really have not made a complete
quilt out of brand new fabric. Luckily I like scrap quilts. So now in my life when I can not justify
purchasing large amounts of fabric I am using up the bags of scraps that I have. I also do have my quilt

group on every other Tuesday. They know I love working with 1 1/2 in strips of fabric and will

occasionally bring me a bag of their cut offs/left overs.  A few of them only buy enough fabric for the
project they are working on and use it completely getting rid of any remaining fabric. They do not
start a new project until they have completely finished the first. Most of them then send their completed
quilt tops off to a machine quilter to have the quilting done. I believe it is a minimum $100.oo to send
a quilt to have machine quilted. That won’t be in my budget for some time. I also have a number of quilt
tops that are finished but need to be quilted.  I’m in no hurry. I hope I will be around for awhile.

Sunday I found myself working with pink. Subconsciously maybe I am beginning to

think of Easter. In actuality it came from one of the piles I had sorted.

It was just there!

The diamonds don’t match up and I didn’t care or even think too much about it at that time.

Now I am using a foundation that should make precision better….but do I want that??? I was starting to worry that one side of the quilt would be a lot longer than the other.  I am hoping I can still correct this.

A pink diamond that was already in the quilt.

This diamond was made shortly after the Signature Block Wall Quilt I wrote about in a previous post.

I am back to working with what I have in the house. Which believe me is a lot. It is nice to have found Flickr and WordPress and can spend some time writing about the projects and do something that feels creative.

Christmas Quilt Project

Christmas Quilt Project

Originally uploaded by Q_uilted T_hrifted

I don’t want the season to be over…

The Tuesday quilt group I am in is having our annual retreat this weekend. I am not going this year due/do to a little one at home and daddy just getting off the night shift. So I sewed this entire day at home!

Sometimes I think to myself “how many unfinished quilt projects can I work on in one day?”

The project above is my second go at this quilt. The first one was started in 2003 and given to Barb in my Tuesday quilting group as a Christmas present. I did not take a picture of it. We meet in each other’s homes so hopefully at some time I will be able to.

I came across this before Christmas and started the star pattern around the 6×6 patch. It then got buried behind all the boxes of Christmas ornaments and decorations. I reached back to my cutting table….which is still hidden and got it this morning. I still have my trees up but they really “should” come down tomorrow. I finished another 6×6 patch today.

I started my day out by sewing some of my 1 1/2 inch squares for my Triple Irish Chain.

I have so many sewn one of these days I have to count them. I have one quilt top done for my niece Erica. I hope to finish a second one for her younger sister.

I then sewed some strips for the scrappy bargello I am working on.

WIP

As I was sewing my bobbin thread ran out. I pulled out the bobbin and found I had spun white thread over a partially filled bobbin of green. I figured since it was green I may as well use it up!!! The tric was to find green thread for the top of the machine. I then remembered I had made some garland out of red and green spools of thread and bits of fabric. Since I had the green thread I sewed some of the scrappy bargello strips. The red and green ones you see above with the green thread. I then grabbed a foundation for the string pieced diamond and sewed the green fabric with the green thread. Then for fun I sewed a section of the stacked coins…of course green fabric on a white strip. I also sewed the red and green strips together for the Christmas Star block above. In the end I used up all the green bobbin thread.

I then filled it with white thread… and figured I may as well try one more project before I get so exhausted I can’t think straight.

Do You notice what is wrong with this picture?

The bulb is burned out that shines over the presser foot.

Can you guess how long it has been out?

I think it has been over a year……… sad. I did buy a bulb……but where did I put it?

Since I am Q_uilted T_hrifted! I wanted to show two thrifted items I purchased this holiday season.

Purchased the owl and the angel for 69 cents each. The owl still had the original tag on it at $4.99

I would say that was a bargain.

The last two projects I don’t think you have seen yet.

Christmas Doll Quilt for Charity

I saw this quilt on Flickr and decided to make it to give away for Christmas. The Tuesday Quilt group I am in decided this year we would buy a doll and make a quilt to donate. We will be taking them over to the location in February so I have a little time. I thought I was ready to trim down the sides and realized when I went to look at the original quilt that it needs another border. I had to use the seam ripper and open up all the seams so I can add to it. It took me a while to find a seam ripper and then of course within minutes I found another.

The other work in progress I added to today is a 4-patch design. The upper left block is red in each 4 patch. I have no idea how this is going to turn out but…..I’m going for it.

To end the night I just want to share with you two bears I made back in the 70s. I use them to hold my needles.

The one on the left has rust stains on him. He has aged…just like me!

“how many unfinished quilt projects can I work on in one day?” Today it was 8!