a few friday photos

Hello! Just popping in to post a few pictures from this week.

 My helper, Sven. He is inspecting my work.

Shadows on my patchwork.

Thanks for stopping by! Have a great weekend!

throwback thursday

I thought it would be fun to post some pictures of my first few quilts.

I started quilting about 8 or 9 years ago. I already knew how to sew...curtains, crafty bits, and clothes, but I hadn't gotten into quilting until a friend at work got me interested. I am so glad she did! She provided encouragement and the basics and a new quilter was created!

My first three quilts were Christmas presents for different friends. You will have to excuse the photos...photography wasn't as important back then and these were photographed quickly, so I would have a record of them before I gave them to my friends.

This first quilt was named "Pinwheels of the Damned"...partly because the friends receiving it are Goth and partly because the fabric used was a cool Dia de los Muertos/sugar skulls pattern. It was quilted with a combination of running stitch and hand tying. I used the "quick turn" method for finishing (in stead of using a binding to finish it off).

The next quilt was a gift for another couple and was called "Spider Sushi Yum Yum!". It was named that because the main fabrics in the quilt are either of spiders (she loves them and owns a tarantula) or sushi (he is vegetarian and one of his specialties is making sushi). It was done in the Winning Hand Block and has an "Asian" feel to it. It was quilted with a combination of running stitch and hand tying. I used the "quick turn" method for finishing (in stead of using a binding to finish it off).

The third quilt was a lot of fun to make, with all the different fabrics. It was called "Bento Box of Happy" and was made with the Bento Box Block. It was quilted with a combination of running stitch and hand tying. I used the "quick turn" method for finishing (in stead of using a binding to finish it off). I love the fabrics I used in the borders (I still have a tiny bit of each one in my scraps box.)! The lingerie and bobby pins fabric were found first and served as the inspirations for the quilt--wanting something fun and feminine for the friend it was made for.

Thanks so much for stopping in and reading about my quilting firsts! Have a great day!

WIP Wednesday!

Joining in on the WIP fun today at Freshly Pieced!

I am in the midst of sandwiching and machine quilting the three baby quilts. I am doing a combination of straight line machine quilting and hand tying. I am using the same wool blend yarn on all three to further tie them together. The hand tying is more decorative in this case. Then I will bind the quilts, wash and dry them, and add a little hand embroidered tag to each one (letting the kiddos know their quilt was made with love by aunty Jeanne). :)

So, with out further ado, here are some pictures. Enjoy!

And this is one of the best investments I have made in quilting...curved safety pins! Love them! I am still figuring out the best way, for me and my space, to sandwich my quilts together. I have spray basted, pinned, and even hand stitched basting stitches. For these three quilts I used a combination of spray basting and pinning.

Thanks for stopping by! Have a great day!

some friday pretty

I don't have much to say today. Plugging away on a bunch of projects. I have quilts I need to finish, but I keep just wanting to embroider! So, I thought I would share a few photos of what I worked on for the last couple of nights.

This is a small (6.5in x 4.5in) sampler of crewel fill stitches. I am following along with Julie from Button, button. The following few pics are of the first fill pattern. I am using 3 colors of Appleton Wool. I changed the pattern slightly...instead of a french knot in every center, I alternated with crosses. My long "grid" stitches need a little work, but I really enjoyed stitching this first part and can't wait for the next installment.

I recently bought some strings of beads that were on clearance at Joann's because I fell in love with the colors and thought they would make a striking quilt. I opened a picture of the beads in Photoshop Elements and picked out the five colors to make a palette. Here is the photo I made from that.

Using my Kona cotton solids color card, these are the closest equivalents (in my mind) for the colors I pulled out of the picture (in order from top to bottom): Tulip; No close match to the pink; Coral (Lipstick might work if you are looking for more of a red); Turquoise (Lagoon would probably work too); and Bone or Pale Flesh for the cream. For the pink...I would probably try Cerise or Pomegranate. Either would be interesting choices. I really want to make something with these colors. I think I will look around for a closer match of the pink. Any suggestions, please feel free to share in the comments!

I also picked up some cheap-o variegated floss to play around with while practicing stitches. It is a "tie-dye" type variegation. I took a couple of photos...just because. Enjoy!

Thanks for stopping by! Have a great day!

WIP Wednesday!

Since this is my first Wednesday on the blog, I thought I would join in the fun of WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced!

Please forgive the first few photos...they are instagram photos from a couple of weeks ago. I am working on three baby quilts for my sister and her partner. They are expecting triplets! I still need to sandwich the quilts and do the actual quilting, but here are some snippets of the tops.

They are each a different pattern, but use a number of the same fabrics to tie them together. I also wanted them to be somewhat gender-neutral, since we don't know the sex of the babies yet. :)

This next quilt is a personal project. I decided to make myself a new couch quilt, for chilly Maine nights. I started out wanting to just piece scraps together, with no direction or pattern. Then I decided to start using up some orphan blocks I had on hand. I am loving the way it is coming along! I need to add another few rows to the top and then I can start the finishing process.

Thanks for stopping by. Have a great day!

some photos, as promised

I have been working on a few things this past weekend. Up first are some happy crocuses and a cheerful wheelbarrow from wild olive's Spring Stitching Club.

Then I worked on a sampler of stitches that I chose as I went along. I used some gingham fabric I have
had in my stash (for a long time) and some cheap floss I had picked up quite awhile ago. I figured these would be materials I could use up and not worry about the cost. I definitely need to keep practicing!

Finally, I started sewing my Liberty of London hexies together. I have an idea for a project and if all goes according to plan, I hope to post a tutorial of sorts. I made these hexies from scrap fabric my husband got me for Christmas and was planning to use them in another project--until I realized the project I wanted to use them in required 1.5 inch hexies (and these are 1 inch).

Thank you for looking! Have a great day!

embroidery in the air

I have been getting the embroidery itch lately! I have numerous cross stitch projects going, but for the last few days, I have been drawn towards embroidery.

I purchased Jessica Marquez's hand embroidery class on Craftsy, watched it in its entirety and got the bug to make samplers! I really enjoyed her class and having each stitch illustrated clearly through video was such a great a help. I definitely recommend it to any beginners (and anyone else wanting a refresher course). I also waited until the class went on sale. :)

Another great embroidery website I found with lots of video stitch tutorials is Mary Corbet's Needle 'N Thread. I am still on the look out for inspiring and fun embroidery websites/blogs. Feel free to share any suggestions in the comments. I also follow &Stitches; feeling stitchy; hey porkchop! (co-founder of Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery-love them!); wild olive (I am currently signed up for her Spring Stitching Club); Button, button; Carina's Craftblog; and Mr X Stitch.

I thought I would put up a few pictures of what I have been working on, but I just realized I don't have a way to access my pictures at the moment. So I will be back tomorrow (or later today) to post some pics!

Have a great day everybody!