Kathy's Quilting Blog: October 2015

Friday, October 30, 2015

Scrap Dance Table Runner -- A Friday Finish!

I'm excited to post that I am finished with my Scrap Dance Mystery QA table runner. I haven't taken many pictures of quilts in trees yet, but I really like this one. You can read more about this fun quilt along at From My Carolina Home.

This item is available for sale in my Etsy Shop!

I longarm quilted it with the design called Loopys. It's a template board from Circle Lord.

It fits perfectly on a table the size of a picnic table.

Something that I learned with this project is that I couldn't go wrong with blues! I love the scrappy blues. It gives this table runner such a country look. I also used 2.5" finished blocks vs. the 2" finished blocks in the pattern. It measures 15.5" wide by 72.5".

I'm linking my finish up with Richard and Tanya Quilts -- Link-A-Finish Friday. Check out what everybody else finished this week!

Thursday, October 29, 2015

Grand Illusion Update!

I finished my Grand Illusion quilt top this morning around 5:20am. There's no way I'm going outside in the dark, in the sleeting rain to get a photo. Here it is on my living room floor.

For some reason my borders were one block short on each side. Could my seam allowance be off that much? I just threw the extra blocks that I had as sub assemblies in almost at the end of each row. My corners don't have the perfect little star point frames like the original pattern, but it works for me. This quilt is soooooo scrappy! I can't even tell where the blocks are sometimes while sitting on the couch. That's okay. It's a beautiful pattern, Bonnie Hunter!

I have a feeling that Bonnie is waiting until Halloween to announce her spooky 2015 Mystery. Will it be in purple, green, black and orange? We'll have to wait and see. Paint cards will be flying off the shelves at our local hardware stores! I can't wait!!! The anticipation is building! I've been sorting my scraps by colors!!! Will there be strings? What will the difficulty level be??? Oh My!

All I know is that I'm excited that this quilt has made it to the flimsy stage! I haven't decided how I will quilt it yet.

This was a FREE mystery quilt by Bonnie Hunter of Quiltville in 2014. You can now purchase the digital download from Bonnie's online store here.

Wednesday, October 28, 2015

WIP Wednesday

I'm still being really productive here. This is what happened this week:

I got my Pat Sloan Vacation Time 2015 Mystery Quilt top finished! Now I'm working on a funky pieced back.

I quilted my Scrap Dance QA table runner. Hoping for a Friday Finish. I quilted it with Circle Lord Loopys.

I finished this quilt little mystery quilt. It was a mystery with Lori at Humble Quilts. I ordered a special longarm template to use to quilt it from R&S. I buy some of their boards from time to time.

I finished longarm quilting this dinosaur quilt for a customer. It turned out great! I used my Circle Lord Jesters template for the quilting.

I finished longarm quilting this pink elephant quilt for a customer. I quilted it with Circle Lord Cosmos.

My little helper is helping me lay out blocks for my Grand Illusion quilt (2014 Mystery quilt by Bonnie Hunter at Quiltville). Each year I hope to have the previous year's quilt done before the new one starts. It starts the day after Thanksgiving. I was a little worried about the finish of this top because I lost the border instructions. I decided to just do a standard border... BUT while working on a pieced back for my Pat Sloan 2015 Mystery quilt I was looking for orphan blocks for the back of it. Low and behold I FOUND all the border pieces!!! I did the sub units but did not sew them together. They are now all together. I just need to put them on the top! Woot woot!

My friend, Julianne, has been cheering me on to finish this. She is patiently waiting to have hers longarmed. I was just going to longarm hers and ship it to her in California, but she wants a picture of both of our quilts together. Oh the pressure!!! ((((HUGS, Girlfriend!)))) I know she's doing this for my own good so that I don't just have another WIP sitting in the box...

I'm so excited that I knocked out FIVE of the projects I just put on my sidebar. Wow, I didn't think that would motivate me, but it did.

I'm linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced today http://www.freshlypieced.com/

New Projects This Week

Pieces Still Need to be Cut & Sewn

1. Underpants Project

2. Digging up Bones (Owen's dinosaur quilt)

3. Rock Island Campfire Quilt

4. Picadilly Circle

5. ...And Sew On BOM at Quiet Play (one block to go)

6. Fortune Teller (RSC14 started -- need blocks each month)

7. Spring Sampler Series at Cora's Quilts (added to the maroon blocks)

8. Challenge at FabricsNQuilts. mystery quilt (starts July 15, 2015!)

9. That Quirky Scrap QA with Leila at Sewn (I finally found those four patches I did!)

10. Love Laugh Quilt Christmas Improv QA

11. Classic Meets Modern BOM

12. Mod Mod QA (turning this one into a baby quilt)

13. Super Mario QA

14. Grand Illusion -- Bonnie Hunter Mystery Quilt 2014

15, Sew Sweet Simplicity BOM (made from shirt scraps)

16. Kite Girl (RSC14) Need one more red block and sashing made

17. Charm Square Sampler QA by Modern Tradition Quilts

18. Cabins at the Lake (from Fons & Porter Magazine) (only one house block complete.

21. Slabs with White Rectangle (RSC14 started -- need blocks each month)

22. Little Houses

23. Spools (Leader & Ender project with Bonnie Hunter)

Blocks Still Need to be Made

1. NY Beauty

2. RSC15 Sawtooth Star Sampler & alternate blocks

3. Scrap Crystals

4. Sweet Simplicity BOM made with shirtings

5. Finding Nemo Scrappy Trip quilt

6. MSBHQAL (Molli Sparkles Broken Herringbone Quilt Along) (making into a table topper)

7. Drunkard's Path Variation baby quilt

8. Bluepatch Mystery Quilt
9. Amanda Murphy Designs (ugly fabric quilt)

Blocks are made but need to be sewn together (and/or some sashing)

1. Block Swap Adventure Orange/Yellow Sampler (2011-2012)

2. Leah Day Building Blocks QA -- making into a baby quilt
3. Orange/Blue Fish Blocks (that I won)
4. Split Stars (blocks won from Block Lotto; October, 2012)
5. African Violet baby quilt (Block Lotto inspired)
6. December 2014 Block Lotto Big O blocks that I won 12.31.14!
7. We Can Do It Skill Builder Sampler

8. Sonja's Windows string quilt

9. Block Swap Adventure (2013) Churn Dash Blocks

10. The School Bell Has Rung sampler at laugh yourself into Stitches.

11. Orca Bay

Quilts back needs to be made (tops are done)

1. Celtic Solstice (Bonnie Hunter Mystery 2013)

2. Surround Stars Pillow (one big block is here somewhere. It will be a pillow when I find it.)

3. Spangled Stars QA

4. Humble Quilts Mystery Mini (waiting on quilting templates to arrive Fed Ex.)

5. Pat Sloan 2015 BOM -- Vacation Time (almost done with this back!)

Ready to longarm

1. Little Letters QA Quilt (A RSC14 project)
2. Customer's Grand Illusion quilt (Julianne)
3. Customer's Flower Sampler quilt (Lisa)

4. Customer's Christmas quilt (Lisa)

5. Customer's Pineapple Quilt (Sue)

6. Customer's Blue and Brown Log Cabin Quilt (Sue)

7. Customer's baby quilt (Lisa)

Quilted, needs binding

1. Scrap Dance Mystery

Completed this week:

1. Customer's Elephant Quilt (Suzie) -- on the frame

2. Customer's Dinosaur Quilt (Suzie)

56 -- Current WIPS

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Another customer order complete!

Yesterday I finished longarm quilting this dinosaur quilt for a customer. Whohoo! She will pick it up this afternoon. Sorry you can't view the whole thing at once. I'm a little nervous when a quilt has an off white or white back! You get the gist of it.

I quilted it with the Circle Lord template called Jesters.

I really like having that little list of priorities on my sidebar. I've been crossing them off one by one since I put it there! :)

I'm linking my finish up with Richard and Tanya Quilts -- Link-A-Finish Friday. Check out what everybody else finished this week!

Monday, October 26, 2015

Dinosaurs on the Frame

Here's what I'm working on today for a customer. It's a dinosaur quilt. Fussy cut dinosaurs, fussy cut words, fussy cut bones... and just think, this is one of this person's first quilts!

I'm quilting it with Circle Lord Jesters template. This template has now paid for itself. Whohoo!

Sunday, October 25, 2015

Country Roads Mystery Mini Quilt at Humble Quilts

Here's a cute mini that I've been working on here and there. Finally it's a finished top. It's called Country Roads which is a Mystery Mini by Lori at Humble Quilts. I chose a different color scheme than what Lori did.

I'm linking up on Lori's blog here for the linky party. Hope I win! There's some cute cheddar fat quarters and a Living with Little Quilts book up for grabs. But there are a lot of contenders that participated in this QA. Check them out! Lots of little inspiration! I now have a fun (actually two) little quilt(s).

Last year around this time I enjoyed a little quilt along by Lori at Humble Quilts. It was this quilt called Cascadia.

Lori's mini mysteries are a fun warm-up for the big Bonnie Hunter Mystery the day after Thanksgiving.

Saturday, October 24, 2015

Pat Sloan's Vacation Time Mystery 2015 RSC15

Pat Sloan had another fun mystery QA this year. It's called Vacation Time. You can see other participants' quilts and quilt tops on Pat Sloan's blog here.

My plan for my quilt was to just use scraps. Each month I used the color of the month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2015 (RSC15) for the main color and then the RSC15 color for the previous month for the background color. What a gorgeous Ohio fall day for this evening photo.

I arranged the blocks in the same way that Pat Sloan did for her finished layout. (I don't like trying to figure out where each block needs to go by myself.) I threw caution to the wind and didn't worry about where the colors would end. I didn't put on my special decoder glasses (that came with one of my kid's toys) to check for value.

When I got to the first border, I picked something out of the Christmas print bin (because of the red/green color contrast.) I LOVE how the stripes in the 1" border seems to pull things together. I did add an additional 3.5" border of another fabric that could not be sorted by color. I added this border because I longarm the quilts myself and I am not a fan of 1" borders on the edge.

My plan is to quilt it with a Circle Lord giant template (not decided yet). I'm actually considering using my Birdy template just because it's new and I need practice using it. Not sure yet...

But then I thought the Birdy quilting may be just a little too much and am highly considering Circle Lord Loopys:

I'm linking up with Angela and the RSC15 group here.

Friday, October 23, 2015

Finish-It-Up Friday -- Customer's Pink Elephant Quilt

Here's a quilt I longarmed for a customer. This is one of the first quilts she ever made! Look at those points matching!!! Look at those fussy-cut elephants!!! I quilted it for her using my Circle Lord Cosmos template.

The Cosmos quilting pattern looked so sweet on this little girl quilt.

I tried to get the best indoor shots that I could. Sorry, I'm afraid of WHITE quilts. I didn't think I could take this one outside for a clothesline shot.

I'm linking my finish up with Richard and Tanya Quilts -- Link-A-Finish Friday. Check out what everybody else finished this week!

Thursday, October 22, 2015

Grand Illusion with my Helper

My friend, Julianne, of Quilting with Calicos, sent me her Grand Illusion quilt MONTHS ago to longarm for her. I couldn't do it at the time because of the cold temperatures where my longarm is... I better get to is soon while it is still fall. But then she reminded me to get a picture of her Grand Illusion next to my Grand Illusion... Well, I don't think she realized that I didn't even have all of my blocks made yet... I don't even think I have the border instructions for Grand Illusion... I'll need to figure those out or make due with something else.

My helper is helping lay out Grand Illusion (2014 Mystery Quilt with Bonnie Hunter at Quiltville Quips & Snips.

Hopefully I'll get the top made so that I can get a photo of Julianne's quilt and my quilt together on the clothesline. Scheduled delay...

Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Scrap Dance QA on the Frame

It was fun to sew along with the Scrap Dance Mystery QA at From My Carolina Home. I decided to make a table runner. I used 3" (2.5" finished) squares vs. the 2.5" (2" finished) squares in the pattern. I love my country blues. I loaded it on the frame. I am quilting it with the Circle Lord Loopys template board.

WIP Wednesday 10.21.15

I'm happy to say there's a whole lot of quilting going on around here!!! Finally. This week I had FOUR, yes FOUR finishes!! Woot! Woot! Let's get to it...

I finished the longarm quilting and binding on these two Ohio State quilts for a customer. They had been a twenty-year old WIP for her. I quilted the one on the left with the Circle Lord Jesters template. For the one on the right I used the Circle Lord Egyptian Eye template.

I finished repairing this antique quilt and replaced the binding. This quilt just makes me happy. It was for the same customer that made the two OSU quilts above.

I longarm quilted this sky blue/scrappy quilt for a different customer. I quilted it with the Circle Lord Cosmos template. I think it turned out great. I know she will like it.

I made all of these blocks for the RSC15. They are for my Pat Sloan Vacation Time 2015 Mystery quilt. Brown is the color for this month. Orange was the color last month.

I made a few more blocks for the At Your Own Pace 100 Modern Blocks QA.

Since I had four finishes this week I took on two more customer quilts. Woop, woop! I will longarm quilt them. The customer will finish them. :)

Yes, she fussy cut all those squares for the elephants!!! Wow! These are two of her first quilts!

Here another quilt from the same new customer. More fussy cut dinosaurs and words and bones...