A Finish!

Yay! I finally have a finish! And yes, it's the ATBP quilt. This was the first time it stopped raining and was slightly less windy in about 5 days, so I just took advantage of that. Not the best pictures, but who really cares?

 I seriously LOVE this backing!! And I used Aurifil thread to quilt it. It's one of their "reactive" colors, so no chlorine bleach (as if). After all the breakage from the 50 wt thread, I used a 40 wt and I must admit that I've had a much more pleasant experience with the heavier thread. And the color matches perfectly!! Now to up my game in FMQ and we'll be good.

Seriously with my camera and the colors! The middle picture is the most accurate. This quilt finished at 72"x72". Just great for a lap quilt! Now on to other piles of beautiful fabric just waiting to be sliced, diced, and put back together.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!
-Jenn

My oldest WIP

I'm not sure when I made this quilt top.  I don't know if Kirsten was even born yet!  I knew NOTHING about quilting.  This truly is a scrap quilt.  90% of the fabric is leftover from making my sister's or daughter's clothes.  When I pulled it out to make a quilt sandwich I found so many problems.  Then I remembered why I had never finished it.  I pieced the borders, so silly!  I didn't own a rotary cutter and mat so the squares are not even.  I even found holes in the piecing. Most of the fabric is a poly cotton blend, heehee. There are yellow stains that I thought were from aging.  Actually, that is a funny story.  It's yellow spray paint.  My MIL was planning a visit to our little condo and I wanted to stencil yellow sunflowers on the walls, don't laugh, it was the 90's.  I was standing on the high chair, I didn't own a ladder and could not afford one. I pulled something out of the closet and a can of yellow spray paint fell out and hit the high chair.  You know those warnings on spray paint bottles about not puncturing them. Well, it's true, don't do it.  That can went flying through the air, bouncing off the walls, spraying a lovely fine mist all over everything until the can was completely empty.  A FULL CAN!  Man I wish I had a picture. Usually when I tell people this story they say, "don't you know you are not supposed to store spray paint in your house".  Well, no! Anyway, here it is in all it's glory.  I am so happy that it I finally finished!

What was I thinking with that purple and blue row?  I wish I had used a vintage sheet for the back, but alas I did not!

Miss you lovelies,

Jenni

Joyce's Quilt

I finished Joyce's quilt, but I had a problem.  Without thinking about it I drew lines, one inch squares, on the sashing with a pencil to FMQ.  Come to find out pencil does not come out of 100% cotton.  So I sprayed it with spray' n' wash and washed it again, it didn't come out.  Then I researched how to get pencil out of fabric.  They said to erase it.  I tried it, about 20% came out.  Then I took a toothbrush and some Biz and I scrubbed every inch.  It worked, thank goodness.  I LOVE this quilt!  I love the colors, esp. the background fabric.  I love the quilting, I tried something new, flower power by the Inbox Jaunt. I love the pattern, log cabin, I will be using this pattern again.  I love the binding, Calliope by riley blake.  It's the first time I have used binding that is from a different line than the rest of the quilt.  I am proud of myself, I am not confident in mixing different fabric lines.  The rest of the quilt is Figtree, Mirabelle and Avalon.  I learn so much every time I make a quilt.  I really enjoyed making this quilt.  I enjoyed the process more than ever.

Goodnight lovelies,

Jenni

Callee's finished quilt

I am so happy to report that Callee is cancer free.  What a sweet blessing!  She had her last radiation treatment two weeks ago and last week her sweet Brinlee was sealed to their family forever.  (I wish I had a picture).  I had forgotten to put up the pictures of the finished quilt.  I have been working on a ton of stuff but have really neglected our blog since I found instagram!

Have a fabulous day, lovelies!

Jenni

A WIP Quadry

Granted this isn't too "difficult" a situation, but still, who hasn't been in a state of uncertainty, or perplexed at just how they should go about quilted a finished, basted top? Of course, before the era of the Juki (let's now refer to it as Juki-bc...uh oh, I hope that's not blasphemous, maybe we should go with preFMQ...?) I would've just straight-line stitched it. I straight-line stitched everything (ok, I did hand quilt on occasion). And I loved it! But now? Well the whole world is open to free motion possibility!! Oh, the days before possibility! So, how would you quilt this? Pearle cotton on the negative space echoing the geese? Straight-line? Loops? Someone be brilliant and help me out :) I'll love you forever, I promise. Okay, I probably like you for always. 

Yeah, it's been folded for almost a week....

This quilt should probably have it's own day in the sun, except it's been so windy for so long (that whole "sweeping down the plains" thing), that this morning was the only calm moment to take a decent (and I use the term decent loosely) picture. You may remember this fabric from this post almost HOLY CRA... *sigh* like a year ago. In good news, I revamped it and it's done :) yaaay

Can you see the spot where I totally forgot to quilt??

Guess what?! I found a local MODERN quilt shop in Tulsa!! It's called the Owl and Drum and is close enough to my son's physical therapy place that I may end up spending hundreds of dollars there... So good and bad. While exploring the first time, I picked up most of these fabrics, then added a few from my stash. 

 And then that became this. 

And I'm not sure I love it.... 

Thanks to the encouragement of a couple of instagramers (mine is @jennrperkins) I'll be adding some aqua blocks to mellow out the yellow. Which is screaming hello to you. The yseams have been something awful, and I still have 43 blocks to go. Now is when I wish I knew how to paper piece, had this pattern in paper piecing, and my printer worked. But, since I don't have/know any of that, it's good, old tradition for me. 

Linking up with Lee of Freshly Pieced and Sew Fresh Quilts 

Thanks for coming this way-

Jenn

Finishing It Up

To WIN one of these fabulous bundles, go here!  THE DRAW IS TOMORROW!

I got to spend a day with Jenni this week and I met Baby Tucker!  My girls were wild for him, and so was I.  He is a fat-faced nugget of love.  

Today I'm hoping to finish up a quilt I made for him.  I'm hand sewing the binding, and I'm not quite done yet.

I used a paper pieced pattern from Kristy at Quiet Play.  It's in her Craftsy shop.  I'm no expert in paper-piecing, so this pattern stretched me. I made some glaring errors, but I love the results anyway.  I KNOW that the points don't match up, but you can only unpick and re-stitch so many times before you stop caring.  Blue rocket- I'm looking at you.

Which one of these is not like the others? (hint: it's the yellow one. Whoops!)  

I first saw this pattern at Snips Snippets.  She used the Rocket Launch Club in white to fussy cut little astronauts.  I loved the idea so much I blatantly copied it.  The prints are all from Sarah Jane's Children at Play.  

Linking up with Amanda Jean.

XOXO-Pinspots

Penny Patch

I completely forgot to post pictures of my finished Penny Patch!! After all, I waited to quilt the thing until I got my Juki :)

So here's a few pics. It's already been delivered to my mom, who loved it, but then asked if she could have the quilt that I'm in the process of making.... Umm...no, as much as I love you mom.

 I FMQ the entire thing with chrysanthemums (Rachel's tutorial, might as well go all Rachel). Man, that takes a LOT of bobbins! Just sayin'. 

Linked up with the other Penny Patch Finishes

An old WIP finished

I started these pinwheels a long time ago and finally got around to making a quilt with them.  It's not my favorite but I learned a lot. I really need to square up my blocks even if it takes FOREVER.  I couldn't decide on what color to use for the quilting, I now know I don't like green. I like neutral colors best.  Small quilts go together so fast and are such a nice gift, even if they aren't my favorite colors.

Tyson's quilt

I finished Tyson's quilt.  I'm happy with it.  I wish I had used heat and bond featherweight rather than wonder under.  The wonder under is so thick and bulky.  But this is how we learn, right? Trial and error.  Can you see how well my garden is growing? Have you noticed how many quilters also garden, and have a cat. It makes me laugh, the cat thing. I think I'll start taking pictures of Jack laying all over my quilts, except that I have trained him to stay away!
I embroidered my tag this time. It looked so great until I washed it. So next time I will leave a lot more space between quilting and the embroidery.
Happy Sunday I hope you all enjoyed conference much as me!

Catch UP

I know I've been a little MIA on the blog. No biggie, right?  I know you're all waiting with baited breath for my quilty news!  ha ha.   I've neglected bloglovin', too and there are 342 blog posts to read.  Ugh!

 I do have a few finishes to report. (since Christmas!)

 

I love this pattern from Charise Creates. These darling hot pads made great teacher gifts. They were so much fun to whip up!  I also became obsessed with finding the vine flower print from Sweet Broderie because of her sample. Isn't it fab? No luck in finding it yet.

I finished Amelia's dolly quilt and cradle pad a few days before Christmas. I measured the pad to be the same size as the cradle, but I should have made it an inch larger. I didn't think about the batting 'shrinking' it, whoops!

Two baby showers last month required two baby quilts. The boy one is a copy cat of something I saw somewhere on the interwebs. If you know where, tell me so I can give credit! I looooove how it turned out.

The turquoise strips were from one piece of fabric that was divided into six sections from selvage to selvage.  Each section was printed a darker turquoise than the last.  I bought it a few years ago and now I can't remember who made it, dang it! I also added a strip of a textured Moda turquoise (the tweed from Mod Century) just for visual interest.

The girl quilt is from the pennant pieces I cut out ages ago. It uses a favorite Alexander Henry print on the back, from Monkey Bizness.  The binding is a sweet Benartex floral I got in the bargain basement of a craft store in Rexburg with Jenni.  Jenni, did you get any of it?

Currently I am working on that Lotta Confetti Quilt, playing around with a layout and trying to decide what I like best.   Off Center? Bordered on all sides?  Or just one or two?  Any suggestions?

Soon I'll be starting a quilt for Jenni's new grandson!  He's coming to stay next month and I can't wait to kiss all over that sweet baby neck!

XOXO- Pinspot