A near finish and a finish...

Greetings!  I have some quilting progress pics and a finish to show you!  The first is a near finish on my scrappy quilt!  Here it is without the borders.  It is HUGE!!!  I scaled it up from 6 inch squares to 10 inch while leaving the same number of squares - 54 in all!  With the 2 borders now added - one thinner red border and then a wider border of gorgeous blue butterfly fabric with a touch of red in it (I think it's from the Papillion line) it is now just a couple inches shy of a king size quilt!!!

 A close up of some of the pinwheels and checkerboard blocks.

Here you can see how large it is layed out on my living floor - this is our whole living room (and downstairs living space beside the dining room, where I have commandeered the table and our eat-in kitchen, thank goodness for that!)   For about 1 week,  I had to have my children (and dogs - with less success) tip-toe around the squares until I could get the rows sewn together!  They were good sports!  (Excuse the vacuum in the upper right hand corner of the pic - we have NO closets downstairs and I didn't even notice it was in the pic until now!!)

 I am SO pleased with how it's turned out.  It now has the borders and has been beautifully quilted by Olga my teacher, quilter and friend.  I am in the process of hand sewing on the binding now.  I hope to have pics of a completely finished quilt soon!

Next up is a table runner that I made for a dear friend of mine that will be moving to just south of Boston at the end of this week.  They will be living right near the water and a month ago I found this fun nautical fabric.

 I pretty much made up this pattern using the above scrappy quilt as a guide.  I love how it turned out!!

 The back - love this boat fabric.  I wish them the best of luck in their new home but will miss them terribly!!!

So, that's it for now!!!  I've started a lattice quilt (pretty purples and pinks with white sashing) and I've been sewing some skirts and I'm itching to sew a cute tote bag...  I hope to have some more finished things to show you soon! 

Have a great day and thanks for visiting!!

Meredith

Continuing to quilt!

Still quilting away and loving it!  I made this summery green, black and white table topper from a pattern from a weekly email from allpeoplequilt.com  It's the first piecing I've done completely on my own.  It's being quilted right now and I hope to get it back tomorrow so I can stitch on the binding.  As soon as I put it on the floor my 16 year old pooch, Chance, decided it looked like a pretty good dog quilt!

The fabrics below are ones that I am using in the quilt I'm working on now.  It's the Pinwheels on Point quilt from the Sew Scrappy magazine.  My friend, Tina, that I met in quilting class, and I begged :-) our teacher to teach us another quilt and we were able to talk her into going with us to a fabulous quilting store - Pennington Quilt Works and lunch!.  Heaven on Earth!!  I could not believe the amount of gorgeous fabrics and amazing quilts on display!  We literally spent hours in the store picking out our fabric (yes, it's supposed to be a scrappy quilt but since we've both only made 3 quilts now we don't have a ton of scraps yet - I can see how you build up quite a scrap stash quickly though!)  We had a quick, yummy lunch before heading home.  We have SO much fun together!  We are meeting once a week and chat and quilt and chat some more... 

This new quilt has pinwheels (hence the name ;-)  and yesterday they were kicking my patootie!  I'm hoping to get some more solid time working on the quilt today as it seems like once I get into a groove the pinwheels will move along more quickly,  I need to have 28 more finished by tomorrow!

We've had a nice Spring - a lot of time spent at lacrosse for my son which we all enjoyed.  My oldest daughter and I ran/walked in our 1st 5k this past weekend and it was challenging and fun.  The girls dance recitals are Father's Day weekend.  And, we are into the wind down of school - 2 more weeks until summer vacation begins.  We are all ready!!!  Here are a couple pics of my wonderful family who are kindly tolerating my taking over of the dining table with my fabric and sewing machine!!!

 Mother's Day -

Thank you for visiting!

Meredith

A little obsessed right now...

I am a little obsessed right now...with anything quilting or sewing related...  I made another quilt top.  I love this color combo as much as the first one and I love the math/geometry involved (crazy - because I have NEVER been a lover of anything mathatical!!)   I was about 2 inches too short of my border fabric so at the suggestion of my teacher I improvised and used some of the star fabric to make up the difference.  I love how this turned out!

My first quilt is now being long-armed by my teacher and on Friday she'll show us how to bind it.  I'm still debating on whether to do this one by hand or have her do it for me.  I want to learn but I also want to keep going on learning the piecing part...  Decisions, decisions...   I bought the Quilts and More Summer 2012 issue while we were at Sam's this afternoon.  I am DROOLING over "Mixed Berries" Quilt by Kimberly Walus.  I love the colors and this seems like a good first quilt for me tackle truly on my own.  This maybe require a trip to a "real" quilting store though as I'm not sure the big craft store where I've been buying my fabrics will have exactly what I'm looking for for this project.

I've also picked up a pattern and fabric to make a purse (mind you I've never sewn from a pattern before so this will be interesting!)  And, I've downloaded instructions on how to make simple skirts for my girls...  I have a big list of things to buy at the craft store tomorrow...

So, a little obsessed, as I've said...  I haven't even thought of picking up my cross stitch in over a month (SO strange!) but I'm loving this for now and going with it...  I may have to re-name this blog though...

Thanks for visiting!

Meredith

I'm hooked...

Well...I absolutely LOVE quilting!!!!  Here is a picture of my 8 stars which I brought to class last Friday and then the stars sewn together.  Next week we learn how to add borders and make our quilt sandwich.

I love this quilt.  I love this springy/summery feel of the white background and pretty colors.  However, without understanding color theory at all - I realized last Friday that while the white is very nice, in order to make the white really "pop" there is going to need to be some super quilting...and, that isn't taught in the class!  Infact, I can't seem to find any classes that teach the actual quilting part of quilting...  So, our teacher has offered to long-arm my quilt and the other woman's quilt in the class and then she will add on a 4th class on teach us how to bind the quilt together.

So, because I want to learn how to make an entire quilt myself I decided to start another one (yes, I'm hooked on quilting already!)  This time I chose a completely different color palate and my background fabric has a subtle design in it which I hope will be very forgiving as I teach myself how to hand quilt.  Eventually, I'd like to learn on a machine but I think that is going to mean I need to buy a new machine...and I don't want to do that yet.  Right now I am using my Great Grandmother's portable Singer machine - it is fabulous to use but I'm not sure it will quilt easily through the quilt sandwich.  It's also not very big so I'm not sure that these smaller quilts will even fit on it.

Here's my new fabric...

 

I really love both of these quilts.  They are the same pattern but are going to look so different because of the colors!  I am going to start attending a local Quilt Guild that my teacher belongs to.  It sounds like a wonderful way to meet other Quilters and a great way to learn how to make different kind of quilts.  Thank you for visiting and as always, for all the inspiration you give me!!! 

Meredith

1st Quilting Class

Greetings!! After wanting to learn to quilt for MANY years...today I took my first quilting class - Start to Quilt. It took me 4 hours but I made a 9 patch (I think that's what it's called) block. I LOVED it! I obviously need to work on cutting and sewing straight lines...I'm hoping to make another one of these in the next week before I forget what I did! (Although, the kids are on Spring Break all next week so that may be wishful thinking until they're back in school...)
I am taking a class on 3 Fridays in April to make a Star Baby Quilt. There will be 3 hours of class each Friday and homework (I'm now anticipating spending A LOT of time on homework after seeing how long this took me to make!) Since I have no more babies at home I have chosen 8 pretty, springy fabrics to use. (I am using the 2 I used in the block above and 6 others prints. The background will be a pretty creamy white.) I am looking forward to this class and hoping I can learn to stitch straight in preparation for it in the next 2 weeks :-) Thanks for visiting!

Meredith

Dare to dream...

Well, at least I'll own a stitched Beach Cottage!! I love this design - it's been in my pile of "to-do's" for a few years now and I decided it was time to stitch it up. I love the fabric, the colors and I love the waves!!! I can't wait to stitch them - they look so fun and inviting. I have to pick up the Weeks Dye Work for the trees from my local cross stitch store later today. It's more of a needlepoint store but she does sell some charts, DMC, some over-dyed thread and linen and is able to order me what she doesn't have so I really appreciate that!

Country Cottage Needleworks "Beach House" * 32 count Light Mocha Linen
Recommended DMC, Crescent Colors and Weeks Dye Works

The last time I was up at the needlepoint store I also picked up these two chart. I am looking forward to getting started on them. I have admired MANY Blackbird Design projects for a while now but have never stitched any. I also want to continue with adding to my stitched Christmas Ornaments. I haven't stitched any this year yet so I need to get to it in March!

In other cross stitch news I am very excited to be teaching the twelve 9 year olds in my daughter's Brownie Troop how to cross stitch in April. I will be leading them in a sewing Try-it and have decided that a bookmark will be a good place for them to start. If anyone knows of any free bookmark charts or motifs that 9 year olds girls would enjoy stitching please let me know. I want to keep it pretty simple since, with the exception of my daugher, none of them have stitched before. Thanks!

I am also (finally!) taking my first sewing (machine) class this Friday! I am SO excited as I have been wanting to do this for sew (ha, ha) long! My husband and kids gave me the lessons for Christmas and I signed up for the 1st one for this week. After this very introductory class I can then take classes for clothing, drapery or quilting!! I'm thinking clothing first but we'll see :-)

Thank you for visiting and for inspiring my stitching and soon-to-be sewing in MANY ways!!

XO, Meredith

Just in the Nick of time...barely...

Hello and Happy Holidays! How is it December 6th already?!?! I have been stitching away and have finished up 4 ornaments for this year (just in the last 2 days!) so far (I have 1 more in the works, but time is running short now!) First up though, I wanted to show you some of my favorite stitched Christmas decorations - our Christmas Stockings. I started stitching each family member one of these the 1st year that Patrick and I got married. I have stitched them for my husband and I, our children, my parents, my Great Nana, and my sister and her family. The tradition is as each new baby is born they get their stocking for their first Christmas. Here are my families 5's stockings. I send the stitching off to a friend of mine in Kentucky and she whips up these beautiful stockings for me. They are so special to me and I look forward to hanging them with care every year.
I use a Santa Alphabet for the name and border the name with trees, M & P (my husband and I) and the year the stocking was made.

And, of course, the kids LOVE to see these filled with goodies on Christmas morning!

On the ornament front, I made 2 of the Merry Skaters from LHN. I LOVE this design.

One will stay with me and one will be a gift. (Here is the back.)

Another beautiful LHN Ornament. I love the crystal snowflakes on this and the not-so-traditional Christmas colors. (And, since I actually saw a BIG black bear about 1.5 miles from my house this summer, I think this a fabulous ornament for our tree! :-)

The back....

One more LHN - another favorite design! I tried to make the twig frame for it but didn't have much luck. Still, I like how this finishing turned out. I may have to stitch another one of these in the future and try the twig frame again...

Hope you all are well and enjoying this Christmas season with your family and friends! Thanks for visiting!!

Meredith