Toy Sewing Machine quilt

 I told you a couple of weeks ago that I was working on Lori Holt's "toy sewing machine" quilt.  I thought there were only 25 blocks, but there are 30! I'm currently sewing the extra 5 and have 3 more to go.

There will be scrappy background sashing between the rows, with cornerstones between them, and a border. 

I'm so excited to finish up this quilt, I think it's really cute!

Here's a little tease of my Strawberry Jam quilt that I'll be able to show you soon! 🍓🍓🍓

Thanks for following me, see you next week!

Red, Whire and Blue quilt

 Hi Everyone!

I finished my red, white and blue quilt using criss cross star blocks from Lori Holt's Scrappiness is Happiness book.  It was a fun block, because your star points float on the background and they don't have to be "perfect". I used the picnic setting which can be found in Lori's Farm Girl Vintage book. 

Here is our Farm Girl quilt group, we had a criss cross block exchange. Shirley (holding her quilt)  won first place, we all had a chance to vote.

I was really surprised to come in second!

I only used my scraps for this quilt.

On the back, I used some extra stars that didn't fit on the quilt.

I always try and add a label.  This label is from a subscription I had to Sweetwater, they printed my name on them.

Thanks for following along, I have a really pretty quilt to show you next week :)

Riley Blake Design Block Challenge

 I just can't refuse a "sew along"!  Lori Holt designed the first block called Daisy Chain and that just melted my heart ❤️ 

I'm tempted to make a whole quilt out of this block, it's 10" square.

I changed my color scheme.  I'm still going to use Tasha Noel fabric but it won't be as scrappy.  With my previous blocks, I just chose the Tasha Noel prints and colors that I thought would look good in the block.  Now, I chose 5 colors, 2 prints of each.  

(The polka dot isn't Tasha Noel, don't know if I'll use it yet)

I think it will have a much more uniform look.  

This is my previous Sweetheart block, when I just chose cute colors :)

This is my current block with the new color scheme, 

a selection of five colors.

This is the leaf block which I totally love and may still use...

This is my new leaf block which I love also!

Block #4 is the tulip block.

Here are all four of my blocks with the new color scheme, just 5 colors.  I love Tasha Noel fabric and I know this quilt will be so pretty when it's finished.  The background I'm using is called pink posy by Lori Holt.

Happy Quilting everyone ❤️❤️❤️

Baby Chick quilt

 This is a quilt I have been wanting to make for a long time.  The pattern is found in Lori Holt's book, Farm Girl Vintage.  In the book this quilt has pink borders, but I wanted to make it in blues so that there would be some blue quilts in my grandchildren pile.

Funny story.....I had all the chick's little legs drawn on the fabric with a frixion pen, ready to embroider.  I was going to take the hand embroidery project with me to my son's house but decided to leave it in the car.  It was a hot Phoenix Sumer day.  That evening when I was home, I sat in front of the TV to embroider the chick's legs and the frixion pen had disappeared!!!  The pen markings are supposed to disappear when you iron them and apparently the Phoenix heat works the same magic! LOL!

I have a grandchild in mind for this quilt, but they're in the middle of the 15, so who knows what will happen.

I really enjoyed machine quilting this one, it went very smoothly.

Pretty little swirls like a soft wind in the chicken coop.

Finally, here is the label I made.  I used to hand embroider all my labels but I think a permanent fabric pen does the trick also.

The choosing of the quilts will be on Wednesday, November 24.

I've asked my son to photograph/video the entire thing and edit it to maybe 10 minutes.  I'm so excited for the event!  I've worked really diligently to have 27 quilts for 15 grandchildren to choose  from. My vision is that I will have a trunk show, telling the story about each quilt.  Each child will have a list of all 27 quilts, in alphabetical order.  They can write notes or mark their favorite ones.  Then the oldest (Bridger 16) will choose the quilt.  If they want to see a couple again, we could do that.  They will keep choosing one until everyone is happy, hopefully...

Actually, I'm the one who needs to be happy, lol!  It's been a year and a half to have all these quilts ready for this day.  It has been a labor of love.  I have thought of different grandchildren as I sewed, wondering if a particular one would like the quilt I was sewing at the time.

I'm hoping to be able to share the video here on my blog.

Thanks for following and have a great week!

Silo Barn quilt

 I've made so many barns and silo barns from Lori Holt's "Farm Girl Vintage" book.  I made a quilt out of the "Quilty Barn" block, which you can see here.

June 1, 2015, I made the Silo Barn quilt, which you can see here and in the photo below.

 The Fat Quarter Shop and Lori are having a sew along called the "Quilty Barn" qal.  I knew this would be a great opportunity for me to get my little quilt out of the closet and machine quilt it, finally!!!

I machine quilted the quilt with a wavy stitch on my sewing machine.

This is the quickest sew along I've ever done!!! LOL

I backed the quilt with some chicken fabric which wasn't quite wide enough, so I added some apple fabric on the side.  

Chickens eat apple, right?  Chickens live in barns, right?

This quilt will be going in my grandchildren pile, it's #26.  I'm just making one more... That will be 27 quilts for 15 grandchildren to choose from.  I think that's a pretty good selection :)

My Best Friends qal

 I was able to quilt and bind my Best Friends quilt which I absolutely love! There are four blocks in this quilt. Economy, log cabin, courthouse steps and pineapple. Each of the blocks are 6”, so the quilt finishes at 48.5” square. The quilt pattern is available at Fat Quarter's blog, Jolly Jabber.  It's free!

I fussy cut the centers of all the economy blocks, I love doing that!  I did a straight line machine quilting,  a l/2" apart.  I used a scrappy binding too.

For the backing of the quilt, I used 6 half yard pieces of one of Lori Holt's older fabric lines.  It's called Flower Patch.

I think this fabric is beautiful and I'm so happy I was able to showcase it on the back of this quilt.

This quilt is going into the grandchildren pile :)

Red Sampler quilt along

 I haven't shown you my Red Sampler blocks in a while.  They are from the Red Sampler quilt along designed and hosted by Lori Holt from Bee in my Bonnet blog and she's also on YouTube.

I watched Lori's YouTube video about her red sampler quilt along recently and was able to do the house block and the snowflake block the week before she posted them, but forgot to take a photo.  This is the third block from last week.

I only had fat quarters half yard pieces of some of Lori's red fabrics and I'm quickly running out of some of the prints. I love the leaf pattern below, it looks a lot like the Canadian maple leaf.

I don't know why some of this block is cut off in the photo...

I've gone through four different fat quarters of red and white gingham!

I've always wanted to make a red and white quilt.  It's amazing how much fabric it takes to make a 12" block too!  

Here are all the blocks I've made to date, on my design wall.  I have an extra 12" and also a 6" block, oops!  I'm sure I'll be able to use them somewhere.  I still have to add all the sashing around each block.  

Have a fun Quilty week :)

Sunshowers quilt finished!

I finished my Sunshowers quilt, yay!  I sure enjoyed sewing this quilt.  I used to save American Jane fabric when I first began quilting over ten years ago.  The American Jane fabric I used are from six different lines.  Happy Campers, Wee Play, Recess, Peas and Carrots, Snippets and Punctuation.  I didn't write down the fabric lines in chronological order.  I sure wish I had bought more of some of those old lines.  The yellow I used in my rainbows isn't American Jane but everything else is.  I enjoyed machine quilting, I quilted clouds in the background and echoed them as well.  

I love making the quilt label.  I used to embroider the information, but now I just use a Sewline permanent pen.  I may still embroider some labels, but I'm trying to crank out the quilts right now and I'm not going to take the time.  The backing fabric and label are both designed by Lori Holt.  Her creativity has brought me a lot of happiness!

Bringing Home the Christmas Tree

I always loved the quilt "Bringing Home the Christmas Tree" but never thought that I would make it.  One of our daughter's family always go to the mountains every Thanksgiving, to cut down their Christmas tree.  Every year their tree is bigger and more majestic than the year before! 

 Last Christmas their car got stuck in the snow.  When they were pushed and pulled out of their predicament, their car started sliding backwards on the ice!  They have enough adventures about their escapades to write a book, so I felt it was my duty to make a quilt for them. Shhhhhhhh......it's a surprise!

"Bringing Home the Christmas Tree" can be found in the book "Vintage Christmas" by Lori Holt.  I want to make every single project in that book, and there are many!

 

I love personalizing things, so I had the great idea to sew their photos into the quilt.  Their mini van is black, so I made a black car.  A month ago, they traded in their van for a white SUV. Nooooo!!!! I felt like saying, you have to keep the black van because I made a quilt about it!  Just kidding, it will be a quilt to bring back many wonderful memories.

I thought the other cars would look naked without people or critters peeking out of the windows.  I perused my fabric stash and this is what I found....some cute bears that wandered into a car.

A squirrel in the backseat, because why not?

It's Christmas time so why not include Mr. & Mrs. Claus!

Here's a vintage looking Santa waving, I just couldn't resist him!

I even machine quilted the quilt myself!  

I quilted a swirl motif and my swirls are getting so much better. Practice really does make perfect!

I used a Christmas fabric for the back that has lots of Christmas songs in the text.  The black is a little distressed in areas, which gives it an interesting look.

Thanks so much for being interested in my quilting stories :)

 

Red Sampler quilt along

 I saw that Lori Holt was having a quilt along, and I was all in!

Lori's creations are just too cute to pass up, no matter how many projects I have in the works.

Here is the link to her blog if you want to check her out.

I pulled out my red fabrics and went to town, creating these fun blocks.  I admired them, photographed them and.......I was ready to post week one on Instagram, when.....

I'm sure you see it!!!!

😩😩😩

I sewed the third row upside down!  It won't be a big deal to unpick and resew, but why didn't I see it??? 😂😂😂

I also made a mess of the flying geese block and I'll redo it. 

 I think I'll use my flying geese paper for it this time :)

Here's week two, sewn like a charm!  I really enjoy sewing the 12" blocks, but sometimes the 6" blocks are a little tricky because of all the small pieces.

Are you making Lori's Red Sampler quilt?

Lori Holt quilt retreat

My friend Natalie flew in from Sacramento, California, and we went to a Lori Holt retreat in Phoenix!

My friend Pam was there too, she used to be a member of our 

Farm Girl Chicks.

Lori showed us her beautiful "crazy quilt" table runner.

She had the best crazy quilt paper to make the table runner too.

You can find all of her fabric and notions at fat quarter shop.

I was able to share my grandson's Eagle quilt which I'll have ready to give to him at Christmas :)

Funny story!

My 12 year old grand daughter Kennedy texted me that she looked at my blog and saw Bridger's quilt.

She loved it and promised she wouldn't tell anyone :)

Isn't that the sweetest?

Lori always designs a block for her retreats, 

and a quilt to go with the block.

She designed an egg block to go with 

our mama hen, roosting roosters and baby chicks.

This is the quilt she designed for us,

Farm Fresh Eggs.

It's so cute, can hardly wait to make it!!!

I have a lot of Christmas sewing, 

so it will have to wait until the new year.

Here is Lori's lovely "peep" Rosana, showing the back.

I really want to get some of this fabric!

No, I NEED to get some of this fabric...

Lori had an apron exchange too, and posed with all of us.

Lori and her peeps wrote down names in duplicate of the Farm Girl blocks, enough to have double of everyone exchanging aprons.

Someone would call a block name and the corresponding block would raise their hand, and they would exchange aprons.

My apron went to Julie, and hers to me.

I received a beautiful vintage apron, with organza.

Lori told the quit shop owner that she only likes a group of 25.

The greedy quilt shop owner (loooooong story....) 

packed 63 of us in the room.

We were like a chicken coop! (Ha ha!)

 I only sewed this little 3 l/2" strawberry and cut out 3 blocks.

We did a lot of visiting :)

 It was great to see my Instagram friend Anette at the retreat.

Natalie and I had to have our photo taken with Lori!

Lori and I go way back, I took 3 quilt classes from her, when I made Thanksgiving Dinner, 

Comforts of Home and Paperdoll appliqué quilts.

Lori is so talented, we had the best time learning from her and getting tips.

Lori is also nice, generous and so much more!

I took this photo to show you all the gifts she gave us.

I'm so excited to try them all out.

 We had the best time visiting and learning from Lori.