Bags Bags and More Bags

I have been making tote bags again. Heather, at work, asked if I had any for sale. Well I had 2 partially made, they needed the binding at the top and their handles. I had many ready to make. So I made up 2 more bags and took them to work. Heather loved them. Another coworker saw them and wanted one. So I had Heather let him take one of hers and I said I would make another for her. I got sewing and actually made 8 more. I took them to work and sold all but one. Great! I have orders to make more. So I will be sewing this weekend.

Best of intentions

A quilt gone in another direction. I had intended to make the quilt above. I bought a batik jelly roll with nice rainbow colors. I sorted the colors in to warm and hot. Sewed them together. Cut them into strip and started to sew the strips together when I found that I sewed both of them with the slant going in the same direction. Arg !! I did not want to take out the seams. So I improvised. I cut triangles, sewed them together, cut more triangles and ended up with the following.

Not bad for a mistake. I added the plain border. It is about 38 by 58. A nice lap quilt. I have some leftover angle pieces that I cut into 2 1/2 in strips that I will use for the binding.

This will be the back. A really nice batik with great colors.

Another Quilt Finished - The Story Book Quilt

I finished the Story Book Quilt. It has been done for a long time, but I finished sewing the binding tonight. It is just 4 strips of fabric with sashing, but the bottom strip is the bottom of the ocean, the next strip is the surface, the next the beach and the last the air. I thought it would be a fun quilt to make up stories about the different parts and the animals that were in each part. So that is why I call it the Story Book Quilt.

The quilting is dragon flies. Really cute.

Pillows Finished

I finished the pillows. I took them with me to Cleveland. Got home tonight and put in the pillows. They look great. I quilted the front by just following the seam lines. I quilted the back with random stitching. Made a pocket with overlapping back.

Now I want to make more.

Hexagon Quilt Along

Joined the Hexalong quilt along, here. (Check side bar on my blog) I didn't know what they were going to look like. But I decided to use some batik jelly rolls, above, that I got at Wal-mart.

Sew 2 strips together. Use a 60 degree ruler to get triangles. Put 6 together. And WoW ! How cool is that!

I can't wait to sew them together and see the wonderful results, I hope.

Am I obsessed or What ! ! !

Here they are. The latest quilt tops that I have been working on. They are all rolled up and ready to go to the quilter. I have 4 others that I have to get the backing ready. Then they will get quilted.

Coin Quilt with Moda Birdie

Made with a Honey Bun

1st one made with a Jelly roll from Joann's

Story Book Quilt - I made 2, this is the second. I am sewing the binding on the 1st.

From my stash, fat quarters cut into charms, 8 different patterns.

Same fabric from above just layed out differently.

I am trying to use up my stash. Four of the tops that I have completed are from my stash. That is good.

I just love this. It is my latest obsession. I get immediate statisfaction and instant gratification. I see progress quickly. I am a blog lurker. I check out others stuff and say Oh, my I want one. When I buy fabric and decide on a design, I can get distracted and say 'Is this fabric worthy of this design? or is this one Better?' I just love it. I don't know why I was so indimidated by quilting. Maybe its cause I am older and wiser.

Twist on a Zig Zag

One of my goals is to make my stash smaller. I know that I will never not have one, but I just need to have less. This is one of the reasons that I wanted to start quilting. I used to make my own clothes. But then I got fat and nothing I made fit and I didn't want to learn to fit to the fat. So I stopped making clothes. I did make a lot of vests for a while, and I think that is one of the reasons I have so much fabric.

Looking through my stash, I found some teal/green/blue 1/8 yard cuts, that apparently I bought together. I got the idea for the zig zag quilt from Amanda Jean's site, Crazy Mom Quilts. I wanted to use these fabrics and go from light to dark. So I started preparing the fabric. It took a couple of weeks to get everything ironed and cut into 3" strips. Then I bought a light yellow batik to go with them. I started sewing the strips together and then ran out of the yellow. Off to the fabric store, oh darn! A couple more days went by and finally I got everything cut and sewed.

There are 18 different fabrics. I was able to get 12 cuts from each fabric. With some pieces I got more cuts, I will use them for something else. But the fabric colors blended so well together.

My original thought was to make each row the same color, with the yellow inbetween each color. But, then I slept on it and came up with a better idea. I like the fabrics because they blended so well together, so why not put one piece of each color in a row. I will get the blending on each row.

The green is on the left and the blue on the right with the lighter blending of the two in the middle. It looks really cool. Just the effect I wanted.

I pinned each row together and have each row piled on top of the previous and am in the middle of sewing them together.

Jamie, my son, asked me, "Who are you making all these quilts for?" I responded, "well the little ones will be for babies and grand neices and nehphew, but this one is up for grabs. You could have it." He resonded with, OK, but let's see what it looks like finished." It does look pretty cool!