John Deere Quilted Memory Wall Hanging

My latest completion is a John Deere themed memory quilt - its a rather "big" wall hanging measuring at 40x36" but still really cute.

The sashing was fabric supplied by the client and was initially intended for the backing fabric. When I went shopping for sashing, I found this great John Deere tractor fabric and we agreed to use it for the backing.

But my choice to make the wall hanging a little bigger - almost backfired on me. :(








In the end, I was able to keep all her items including a pair of socks, a knitted cap and the little cap the baby Brantley wore in the hospital. The exposed tabs were made from the same sashing and binding fabric. 

Let's Hear it for the Boys!!

So after making all those girl quilts... I figured the boys can't be left out and made a few for the little boys that might need a little donation quilt. My first stop was for some Disney inspiration with some Mickey Mouse!

But this time, after suggestions from another lady from the Project Linus group, to keep the quilting a bit more simple and larger. I guess the tighter quilting makes for a stiffer quilt. Now with cotton batting, I would have to agree but the poly-batting is so "fluffy" that even the tighter quilting doesn't seem to make the quilt feel stiff. I am sure the little one will love it nonetheless.

And aside from my son's quilt, I have not made many boy themed quilts. It was a happy change to work with only blue fabrics.

Keeping up with the Jones's!

How do you keep up? And donation quilts for Project Linus

I always wonder how these other bloggers can keep up with their projects, family, Facebook and clients. Then I also have classes and now work study. This year I was qualified for work study and while I am happy to reduce my student loans... it is very time consuming. Everything has suffered - my grades, my housework, and my sewing.

But I still was able to get a few things done this year and I am happy with most of them. Before school started up this year - I was able to join the Project Linus quilting group where we get together monthly and share our projects and collect all our donation quilts. They are a great bunch of ladies. If you want to read more about the Project Linus, click here. It is a great organization!!

While I was only able to attend one meeting before classes started, I still collected some fabric and even made a few donation quilts. All the quilts are approximately 40x50 with a simple design and poly-batting that was donated to the group for this purpose:

For some variety, I decided to do a combination of FMQing designs with the solid fabrics. It came out pretty cool - but I hated working with the poly-batting. I think I'll spray baste in the future.

End of the Year Teacher's Gift

My daughter has been trying to use the sewing machine for years now. I have always let her use the "spare" machine but she hated the old blue Kenmore because it required self-threading and a vertical bobbin.

Here is her quilt she made with my Brother SE400 and a 1/4 quilting foot. She made all the rows and I only corrected a "few" that I felt might fall apart after just a few washes. Much self-control was necessary to not fix all of them. Thankfully, I had my own project in the works that ate up the majority of my time.

Thankfully after it was all put together and quilted, you really cannot see all the little wobbly squares.
Finished size was approx 50x50

Using my embroidery machine, we left a little message for Miss Keyser!!

Well, just a few months ago I upgraded to a larger straight stitch machine. This allowed me the freedom to practice more free-motion-quilting on larger quilts. Here you can see my older Brother SE400 and my new-to-me Brother Nouvelle Q1500s. You can see the considerable difference in the throat space and I certainly love it. The only two drawbacks I have noticed since using it for some months now are: no bobbin sensor and no zigzag stitch.

The zigzag stitch is important to me because I am so frugal and save all my left over bits of batting. When piecing these leftover pieces, I have taken out the smaller machine. However, I have successfully used the Heat and Press Batting Together for two of my most recent quilts. The Heat and Press is actually faster than the sewing machine method and I have been informed that it is less likely to show in my quilting. So far so good!!

Now the bobbin sensor is a much loved feature of my sewing/embroidery machine. And I must say, I quilted many a line without any bobbin thread on my latest project. :(  When I am sewing along and watching Netflix, I am not as in-tune with my machine and I just don't hear that its empty. I'll try to do better in the future. 

Lastly, I know I have been terribly neglectful of my blog but it is time consuming and just not high on the priority list. However, I do have a little to say about my new found passion and will try and drop by and share it with you. Thanks for sticking with me.

For more of my completed projects, you can find them at www.facebook.com/KatsBags.

OK --- I got to business and made a few blocks.

*Phew* those tiny pieces were NO FUN! And it is harder to use assembly-line style sewing. But I was able to get 4 or 5 done at a time. There will have to be some 90 blocks for the whole duvet cover, 45 dark gray and 45 light gray. Hopefully, it continues to go smoothly.

Here is what I have so far and the pictures don't show them in the best possible light. I think it will look better when its all done. ;)

a few blocks finished up...

So I will continue to work on them and see how they all come out!! Keep you updated.

Getting over my fears

I had purchased the fabric almost 2 weeks ago and I have not even completely unfolded it from the store. LOL -- I wanted to make a quilt that I saw in a magazine. The author to the pattern talks about her quilt in detail here. She called it Tango and used a beautiful line with black, gray, white and tangerine. Well, Mr. Kat loves the colors and pattern also.

[Image source:  Quilt Trends Magazine]

The magazine only calls for the throw size quilt -- so I will have to do some math to make the blocks for a queen size duvet cover. YES - you read that correctly. I am planning on make a quilted duvet cover. And after more contemplation, I will quilt it with regular cotton batting so we can use it as a regular quilt when it is not so cold. :)

I am writing this post hoping that it will influence me to start working on it. But I have never done anything like this and it is intimidating. But I normally make a "proto-type" block before cutting into my nice fabric. This way I can have a visual representative and it makes the math easier to figure out, too.

Wish me luck, ladies! 

Here are our fabric choices!!

Hoo! Hoo! Loves you!!

I was really excited to read on Facebook a couple months back that my friend was pregnant. She has one little girl through invetro over 10 years ago and this one is a little miracle baby. I wanted to make something for the baby but we did not know the sex yet. Also, she has a love for all things "owl" because she associates them with the passing of her father.

As my tribute to her new miracle and to provide her with a connection with her father who cannot be here to see the little one - I decided to make an owl themed quilt. I saw a few examples on line and began designing my own version. The original owls has dark big eyes that seemed a little ominous - so I opted for cuter owls that I could give a bit more personality.

While communicating with her husband, I was informed that they had not decorated the baby's room yet but that they were going to find out the sex within a month. YIKES!!! I needed to get cracking. I got all my fabrics together and put my plan in action. I can tell you that I made just a "few" too many of the squares. After making a queen size quilt - it was hard to estimate what I needed to do for a crib size. :)

But it came out great and I really loved it. Even my LO wanted to use it. Obviously needed to make him his own. *hehehe*

 I loved how it came out and you can see that I had to put all those extra squares on the back. So, it is actually two quilts in one.

The happy owner was very delighted to get her package and I was glad that I was able to keep it a secret the whole time. The quilt has attracted more interest from others wanting the same thing. The squares are just stitched-in-the-ditch.