Leaders and Enders

I first learned about Leaders and Enders here, on Lori's blog.

If you're interested, read the whole post and click her link as well.

She has lots of info....

Here is my leader, the block before the tulip block, under the presser foot.

I organized most of my scraps like Lori suggested, into strips and squares.

You can see my fabric bins here.

This is the little container I found in my office that I can use for the l l/2" scraps for some courthouse steps blocks.

The center square is 2 l/2", surrounded by 6 - 1 l/2" strips in varying lengths.

After I sewed part of the tulip block I would have cut the thread and pressed the block. 

Instead of cutting the thread, I sewed another strip to the courthouse block which will be the ender.  

Then I was able to cut the tulip block off of the chain and take it to the ironing board. 

Jodi from Pleasant Home also posted about how she has organized her scraps like Lori and is also sewing leaders and enders.

This method of sewing saves so much thread, I hope you try it :)

I still have more scraps to organize, I'll get it done eventually!

Quilty Fun Sew Along, Week 12

Week 12 is the tulip block on the Quilty Fun Sew Along.

When we lived in Utah, our house had a lot of tulips in the front yard, along the walkway.

Each spring, I would take my children's photo in front of the tulips.

It was amazing to see how much they grew each year :)

The tulips were red and yellow, so those are the colors I chose for my blocks.

I love the skinny stems, just like a real tulip!

Finished!

The tulips didn't take much time to make, especially since there were just two of them :)

Tee Shirt Quilt WIP

Sometimes I run out of ideas when I'm designing a quilt, it's almost like a stupor of thought.

I think about the quilt while I'm doing other things, like sleeping, 

ha ha!

The creative juices finally started to flow and I was able to draw the design on graph paper, 4 pages taped together.

I laid out the blocks in the order I wanted them, with some of the more meaningful tee shirt blocks in the center.

This is a more close up view.

I love the game day shirt, the principal tried to get it banned but it was too late, they were already printed and sold and the students were wearing them.

The girl who designed them was heartbroken so I'm glad they stayed :)

I was able to get the whole center section sashed.  Yeah!

I bought some BYU fabric at JoAnn fabrics in California.

There are a few sections in the quilt that I am adding the BYU fabric.

The navy and gray tee shirt is from Hollister.

One of Sean's girlfriends gave it to him, so it's appropriate that I include the logo :)

Remember this beanie from my last post here?

Look how wonderful the block looks!!!

The Cougar and the logo are satin stitch appliqued.

I cut along the outside of the satin stitch and simply top stitched on the inside of the satin stitch.

Super easy!

Now the soccer jersey, you know how silky and stretchy that fabric is.....and the number is rubber ironed on.

I traced the number and with a light box, traced it onto red fabric and I'm going to needle turn applique it.

I have a white number to applique onto navy as well.

That's it for now, stay tuned for more.....

Quilty Fun Sew Along, Week 11

This week I'm making the snowball block in the Quilty Fun Sew Along.
If you want to find out more about this quilt along, click the button to the right of my blog.

I've never made this block before, it's been on my list for a while.

One of the best parts of making a quilt is choosing a color scheme.

I cut out a lot of white squares!

This is my little snowball block before the edges are turned out and pressed.

These two blocks look so different, but one is just trimmed and the other one isn't.

A pile of trimmings, too little to use for anything.

This is my pile of freshly pressed snowball blocks.

My finished snowball blocks, all waiting to be organized into the Quiltty Fun Sampler.

See you next week :)

Be Mine

I always update my chalkboard according to the season.

This is my Valentine's Day design.

I have a lot of fun with my chalkboard :)

Tee shirt quilt in the works...

My son Sean, is serving a 2 year church mission in Brazil.

Before he left, when he was packing up his things, he carefully chose some shirts for me to make him a quilt.

There are about 30 in this basket.

Sean will be home on April 17 (yippee!) so I am busily trying to get his quilt top made.

This isn't a shirt, it's a beanie!

Sean has wanted to go to BYU since he was 7 years old :)

I might just stitch these "badges" onto fabric.

I squared this tee shirt graphic into a 12 l/2" square.

A good way to get the most of a graphic is to cut just inside of the sleeve seam.

This is Sean's soccer shirt, it was a big part of his life for many years.

I'm going to cut out both of the emblems and maybe sew them onto a piece of fabric.

I was going to cut out the number, but realized that the under armor fabric wouldn't be very good in a quilt, even with a stabilizer.

I put the soccer jersey onto my light box,

put paper on top and traced the number.

The next step will be buying some Kona red and appliqueing the numbers onto Kona white.

This was Sean's high school uniform shirt.  I have 5 of these!

This shirt is a WIP, and I'll show you the progress as I go.

The blocks aren't all the same size, so there will be some quilting blocks to fill in the empty spaces.

Thanks for stopping by!

Bonus from the North State River Run quilt shop hop!

Last September, I went to the North State River Run Shop Hop.

I didn't know who would be interested in going with me, so I went alone.....Lol!

All my quilting friends live out of state :)

It was a two day experience, I blogged about the first day here,

and the second day here.
 The next month, I received a phone call from Debbie, telling me that I won a $100 gift certificate to her shop in Paradise!

How exciting!!!

She has an online shop which can be found here.

Out of all the 15?  quilt shops that I went to, I remembered Debbie.

She had loads of personality, and her store's theme was Hallowe'en.

My husband and I went to the Redwood Forest last weekend, and stayed in Eureka.

Paradise was an hour out of the way, but going that direction, was a great excuse to redeem the gift certificate I won.

Debbie has mostly Civil War reporduction and 30's fabrics at her shop.

I chose these goodies!

5 yards of Kona slate, and 5 yards of American Jane (abc's), and two other prints.

What a cute selvage :)

Did I ever tell you that I have a small collection of American Jane fabric?

This will make a great back to a future quilt.

I'll save the selvage for a project, and add the rest to my collection.

Thank you so much Debbie, fellow quilters are the best!!!