Sneak Peek at Michael Gideon's Quilt

Michael Gideon's Quilt

This week I am making a new baby quilt for my daughter's good friend who is expecting a little boy named Michael Gideon. Its made from the Quick Strippie pattern on Mary's Quilts HERE.
 

Quilting In Progress

This is a great quilt on which to practice free motion quilting. There are three different widths of strips. In the narrow beige muslin strip I am quilting a simple wavy line. In the three inch wide tan plaid there will be a small meander. In the six inch wide animal print strip, I'm practicing swirls.

Example of three different types of FMQ.
 

All of this fabric was pulled from my scraps and stash and I really like the way the plaid, muslin and animal print look together. Hopefully I can post the finished quilt in a few days.

A Small Quilt Finish - Louise

Louise

I finished that little bit of binding shown on yesterday's post and then put this small quilt on the table where our daughters' wedding portraits are displayed.

 

I like to name my quilts, but its hard to think of names for a small quilt like this. They finish up so fast that there's no time to bond with it, if you know what I mean!

So after pondering this for a while I decided I would name the small quilts I make after deceased or elderly loved ones or Biblical characters.  So this quilt is named Louise, after my mother's oldest sister.   I was named after Aunt Louise.  She died many years ago and I barely remember her.

WIP Wednesday

Happy First Day of Spring!  Here are some of my current projects in progress.



I have been venturing into the world of small quilts.  This one is the Scrap Squares Doll Quilt from Kathy Tracy's book, "The Civil War Sewing Circle".  I don't have any reproduction Civil War fabric, so I tried to find some in my scraps and stash that would work.

As you can see, I have a small section of binding to finish.  I decided to quilt it with diagonal lines with the walking foot on the sewing machine.  I'm out of practice with this type of quilting because I normally do all my quilting with the darning foot in a meander or swirl.  Whew!  I had a few problems, but in the end it turned out ok.

Below are quilts waiting to be quilted .  Underneath that stack of "wanna be Civil War reproduction fabric" is the folded up Jewel Box/Buckeye Beauty quilt waiting for its turn to be machine quilted.   

Of course it sits on top of the "Grandma Quilt" that has been in this spot waiting for me to finish its hand quilting of Baptist fans for what has now turned into years.  I really want to work on it, but the spirit is willing and the flesh is weak.

I put off doing the binding on the Disappearing Nine Patch for a few days.  If I can get the binding made and sewn on, it would make a good hand project to work on while watching basketball with hubby this weekend.  Its going to be very winter-like around here so snuggling under a quilt while sewing down the back of the binding, while its still cold weather, might just be a nice thing to do.

This post is linked to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced HERE.

Finished the FMQing, Ready to Bind

I finished that last little corner this morning. Now I need to find some suitable fabric for binding in my stash/scraps. The quilt is so scrappy that I might just need to use a solid, one color binding to help tone it down a bit.

I'll still be working on this one this weekend!

One Last Corner....

I will bind no quilt before its time....

Its been a big job to quilt this quilt! Because of its size I had to quilt a section all the way down the middle first, then start the back and forth quilting on each side.

I am almost done and looking forward to quilting a much smaller quilt next time!

Quilting and Life

In life and in quilting, if something doesn't seem quite right.... it probably isn't! Its a good idea to frequently look at the back of the quilt when free motion machine quilting. Its so much easier to fix if you catch it early.

 

 

I like to put some Bible verses on the wall above the machine to read in between quilting, or while a new bobbin is winding. This one is written down on a big index card. I hand wrote it in 2011 and had tucked it into one of my Bibles. I thought it would be a good way to sneak in a little Bible study or just for a little motivation and comfort.



Proverbs 31

This is just one small way to make my sewing area a pleasant place to be.

WIP Wednesday

This week I have two projects going on at the same time.

I am quilting the Disappearing 9 Patch and am almost half way through.  I need the pins in this quilt for pin basting the Jewel Box/Buckeye Beauty Quilt Top that has taken up temporary residence on the kitchen table.

Back to Quilting the D9P Quilt

Above the machine on the wall are a cute cat calendar and some favorite Bible verses.
 

On The Wall Above the Machine

I love to see the sunshine coming in this room in the late afternoon.  I will be happy to finish this pin basting, but I have to wait for the pins to be taken off the D9P!

Enjoying the Sunshine!

This post is linked to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.

Quilting With Children

I had a little helper over the weekend.   My 5 year old grandson came over and we had some good quality time together doing little boy things. And he wanted to help me with my quilting. So, we decided to make a quilt for his little stuffed "ducky"
.

 Ducky was not available for a picture.

He made the fabric selections and chose the quilting designs. When I was guiding the fabric under the sewing machine foot, he pushed the pedal. He was really good about following directions when I would say "go" or "STOP!" (Notice the exclamation mark after stop!) LOL

There are swirls, rocks, a heart and a fish quilting designs.

He also really enjoyed removing the clips from the quilt I am pin basting, so I could move the quilt over to pin another section. He really has strong little hands to be able to do this and was so proud when I commented on this.

I am reading a library book right now called, "The Five Love Languages of Children". One thing that really makes sense to me and which worked with my grandson, was to spend quality time with the child first. Then you can do your own project without them feeling left out.

So, to fill up his "love tank", I played with him, read to him, fed him and talked to him quite a bit before I worked on any quilting. Of course, being his Grandma, I stopped to pay him attention often!

Scrappy Progress

The Jewel Box/Buckeye Beauty quilt is progressing nicely.  I'm trying to think of name for it.

The top:

The back:

That's a sassy little stacked coins strip that was left over from a baby girl's quilt.  It was just the right size I needed.

Pin Basting:

I wish I knew how many different fabrics are in this quilt.  This quilt is made ENTIRELY from scraps.  Each block has 48 pieces and there are 30 blocks. 

to: MLJW - See some of your scraps above!

Sometimes I strip pieced.  Lots of times I just used 2 inch squares, which helps use up some tiny scraps.

Most of my basting pins are in the D9P quilt that is in the process of being machine quilted.  As I quilt, I remove pins.  Then I take those pins to the kitchen table and pin some more.  I've already pinned about half of it.

Happy Friday!