Friday, January 26, 2018

Tuesday, January 23, 2018

My Finished Hawaiian Quilt


When I took this one off the frame and laid it on the floor to look at it, I almost cried.  It looked so beautiful.  I think it is one of my favorites. 


This piece is hand appliqued throughout. The quilting is traditional for Hawaiian quilts except that I did it on the machine instead of by hand.


A good friend wanted to buy it when she saw it finished. I gave it to her after asking her what she would do with it.  She said she would look at it.




Friday, January 19, 2018

It's Amazing What Quilting Can Do


This is my dahlia quilt finished.  It is one of the worst pieced quilts that I have ever done.  It had all kinds of hills and valleys in it.  But now it's quilted and of course it has puckers but it does look pretty nice despite those peaks.  It came out much better than I thought it would.



Since it's pink and their "favorite" aunt grows dahlia's, I decided to give it to my granddaughters.  I thought they could use it as a baby quilt, but they really like it and their mom hung it up for them on their wall.


I used a freezer paper method.  It didn't make a complete circle with 16 sections, so I added a 17th.  I still had lots of problems, so I added a nice center circle.




I should have also looked for a tutorial for the border, but of course I did that after I had started and just went on with my wonky method.


Aren't they sweet?



Thursday, January 18, 2018

Elaine's Quilt

She embroiders on silky fabrics and I  quilt on them for her. This one is flamingos and palm trees.



I kept it pretty simple to not take away from her embroidery.


Wednesday, January 17, 2018

Dear Jane DEF

I'm almost halfway done with the Dear Jane center.  That sounds really nice.
Here are the most recent pics.
As that row lays on the floor.


This quilt requires some steadiness.  Even if it's slow, it keeps coming along.



This is part of the most recent grouping I finished.


More of the same.


Wednesday, January 10, 2018

New Mixed Quilt Start

I pin a lot of quilts.  I go to those pins for ideas to make for a new quilt.  This is a copy of one of them with some changes. The original is a Jo Morton quilt called Emma's Courtyard.  Mine will copy the same kind of plan, but the applique and some of the squares will be different.  It is such a pretty quilt. If mine comes out looking almost as good I will be happy.
This is one of the applique blocks getting started.


These are the 4" star blocks.  A few of them at least. I found a flying geese tutorial with no waste.  It is the best one I have ever done for flying geese.  They have come out very well.


And these are the 1" when finished half square triangles.  I need lots of  them.  I also found a tutorial with a tube method that I will use for these.



Tuesday, January 9, 2018

Baby Knit Sweaters

These are a couple of sweaters I knit for a couple of my grandbabies.  Asher likes green, so he has a green sweater and hat.


The buttons make for easy putting on.


Cables are fun to knit.  It keeps the sweater from being boring.
I used a Knitpicks washable wool and a Sirdar pattern that I really like.


And here is the hat to go with it. I wanted it to match the sweater so I came up with my own version using a couple of different patterns as my base.


I bought a pom-pom maker that is very easy to use and enjoy making lots of pom-poms for hats.



This is a very easy and cute sweater that I made for Melanie.  She has yet to grow into it. 


I used a very, very soft yarn from Hobby Lobby.  My concern is if it will hold up through washings without losing shape. Hmmm....
I love this pattern though and will keep using it.




Monday, January 8, 2018

Hill and Valley Dahlia


 This is one small quilt that is a flop.  But my granddaughters love it.  It is a dahlia that I paper pieced.  Once I did the 16 strips they didn't come together so I did another strip.  They came together but with lots of bumps.  The girls still love it.  So it will become a baby doll blanket if I can make it look decent after quilting.
I did the border the hard way and then looked online and found easier and better ways to do it.  Rule #1.  Look online first before starting a project and see if there are better ways to do things.
So enjoy and laugh.