My Quilt Website Is Up!

It’s been in the works for a while, but I finally published my website!  I’ve made some t-shirt quilts for my family, and have  had such a positive response that I decided to make them for others, and have a job I love in the process 🙂

Go check it out!  And there’s still time to have one made for Christmas!  And it’s never to early to think about graduation gifts for May, so let me help you give a truly meaningful gift!

www.quiltedtees.com

Now I’m off to work on a new quilt from Pieces by Polly.  Her Nativity in the Trees quilt along has just begun, so join us for the fun!  

 

Starts and Finishes

It’s been a week of starts and finishes in my little quilting loft. That’s always a good week! And I learned something new, which adds more points to the mix 😉
I participated in the Hexies by Halves Quilt Along over at Pieces by Polly (link on the sidebar) and finished my Christmas Quilt, complete with candy cane stripe binding to match the table toppers I finished earlier:

front

back

We love it! I haven’t washed it yet, so I can’t wait to see it all wrinkly and cuddly!

I got a better picture putting it on the dining table 😉

I also finished a bag for my EPP. It was a challenge, to put it lightly, but I did learn a lot. I’m one of those who just dives into the unknown. It’s stitching. What’s the worse that can happen? Anyhoo, after three weeks of struggling with fabric I don’t know the name of (but it doesn’t ravel and doesn’t slide under the machine nicely) and fighting with that clear plastic stuff – ’cause I want to see what pieces I’m reaching for, and stitching and unstitching a zipper for the back pocket (had never done one of those), and racking my brain and looking at lots of blogs and pictures for design elements, since I was designing as I worked….it is all done! And I do LOVE it!

The front. See my little needle book attached?

And the best part is how it organizes my EPP…

And my needle book flips conveniently to the inside for easy access. I know – I’m brilliant 😉

So that’s two finishes this week! And today, I started my Secret Garden quilt from Amy Gibson‘s workshop on Craftsy.

What did I learn? The local quilt guild meeting was this week, and I learned how to make a fabric bowl/basket with cotton clothesline, strips of fabric, and my machine. I can’t wait to make one. Or ten. I think I’ll start with a Christmas one from the scraps of Christmas fabric left from all those recent Christmas projects 🙂 Maybe I’ll put my first tutorial here for that…anyone interested?

Lots of stitchy excitement!

It’s been an exciting week in my quilting world 🙂 My quilt guild has open stitching sessions on Fridays, and that’s when it started. I have not been able to go regularly since I joined in late February, and so I’m just now learning names to go with faces, and getting a sense of what types of projects some of the other ladies are likely to be working on. Usually, I take my little hexie bag along, and work on those, unless I have a quilt to bind, because I don’t really want to pack my sewing machine up and miss out on most of the conversation while I whir along! So I made a flower for my garden, and chatted with others who share my passion. It was fun.

I brought home some fabric the guild provides for making charity projects, and have a pillowcase, two neonatal incubator sheets, and two simple quilts now in the queue for August! I just have to find backing for the quilts, get batting, make sure I have thread in the right colors, and get to stitching! I am so glad the guild does monthly charity drops and gets fabric donations!

Other projects in the works are a Christmas coffee table runner to match a small table topper already completed,

a fall dining table hot mat (we like to dine family style, with all the dishes on the table to pass around),

and a Christmas quilt for our couch, which I’m making through the Pieces by Polly Quilt-Along.

I have also received the August block request from my partner for the Block Swap Adventure, and I’m very excited to choose the fabrics, make the block and send it around the globe to Australia to be included in a quilt someone will cherish. How cool is that? I’m anxious to see the results of my own block request, too: any star pattern in colors from Van Gogh’s “Starry Night”. I plan to request this block every month until I have enough for a quilt (haven’t decided on a size, yet) and I want to embroider each block with a notation of where it came from. I hope I have submissions from all over the world!

So much stitching to indulge myself in!