Modern Instabee - September

I really love this book, it's well layed out and easy to follow.

The quilt patterns are divided into beginner, confident beginner and intermediate.

The blocks are easy and pretty quick which is great for a quilting bee.

This month, our hive member Kate, chose a block named "Bluebell's Cabin", and requested 2 blocks.

See the fabric strip with the bee and the honeycomb?

Kate sent everyone 2 strips of the honeycomb fabric.

To some she sent the blue and green combo and to others she sent a pink and purple combo.

We were to choose the rest of our fabrics to match those colors.

She also sent us all the center blocks, so I chose the background strips to match.

Here's my second block, each one is 12 l/2" unfinished. 

I also made a little signature block.

It's my turn next month, I can hardly wait!

Kate is using these blocks to make a quilt for her young daughter.

Mini Medallion - September

This Mini Medallion Quilt Along has been so much fun!

I look forward to it every month.

This is the fourth month, the third border, with 2 months left.

Chrissy Lux from Sew Lux Fabric has designed this mini medallion as a guest on the blog Clover and Violet.

Here are my 4 orange fabrics for the snowballs.

It took me a while to cut out all the pieces I needed.

96 - l l/2" squares from my text background fabric!

First step, add a gray border, easy!

Drew a diagonal line on all 96 squares, watched the movie "Sabrina", so it took me a little longer than it should have to draw all my lines :)

Sewed all the squares onto all 24 squares, by chain stitching.

Quite a thick stack, a lot of sewing :)

A great big pile of scraps, unfortunately they're too little to use.

Success!

My mini medallion, after the fourth month.

I wonder what Chrissy will design the next two months!

I have always wanted to make a quilt with text for the background.

I may have overdone it a little, but I still like the look :)

Quilty Update

Recently, I posted about some gifts that I made for special people :)

I made a "sweet and simple" table runner which was a part of Lori Holt's "Scrappy Summer Sew Along".

I made the table runner for my daughter in law, Mabulane.

She had recently bought a hall table and thought it needed color to perk it up, hence the table runner :)

She sent me a photo of her table runner in its new home.
I love the way she decorates!

One of my cute little 3 l/2 year old grand daughters has a cute little white dresser in her room.

It also looked kind of lonely and needed some color, specifically pink!!!

Here is the post of the table runner I made for Neo.

Here's the table runner's new home.

Then I made the Layer Cake Lemonade Quilt from Lori Holt's line of fabric, "Millie's Closet", for my mother in law who is undergoing chemotherapy treatments for lymphoma.

Glenda is so brave, and she is a survivor!!!

She survived breast cancer when she was in her early thirties, and was recently cancer free from lymphoma for over 5 years.  

 The lymphoma came back, but we are sure she can beat it because she has lots of faith and lots of determination!

My father in law sent me this photo on Monday, of Glenda at her third chemotherapy treatment, snuggling in the quilt I made her :)

It's the best feeling to know that my quilts have all gone to homes that appreciate them :) 

What more could a quilter ask for?

More fabric? Ha ha!!!

Apple-Icious

I love this book, there are so many projects I want to make!

I decided to make the Apple-icious quilt and these are the fabrics I've pulled for it.

I'm currently cutting my squares, and working on other projects as well.

I knew that I had to get this started or I may never get to it!

I was looking for a sample of the quilt to show you, and found it on "A Little Bit Biased", you can see it here.

My favorite apples are pink and yellow, but the most colorful are the red ones.

I may have too many pinks and yellows, but I'll see how they look all laid out next to each other.

To be continued.....

Table runner

When I was visiting my son and his family, I noticed that my grand daughter could use a table runner on her bedroom dresser which was white and needed some color.

I have the cutest pattern made out of a charm pack, or 5" squares.

Every other charm square is cut in half to create a piece 2 l/2" X 5".

Pink is my grand daughter Neo's favorite color, so I chose the "prettiest pinks" for this project.

My little 3 l/2 year old darling loves princesses, so I added this fabric onto each end along with some jumbo rick rack.

I sashed the charms with Kona white and began quilting.

I straight stitch quilted l/4" inside of each square and rectangle.

I used a wavy stitch in the middle of the white sashing.

Once I finished quilting, I used Clover clips and hand stitched the binding, one of my favorite part of the quilting process.

I enjoy sitting and hand stitching.

My table runner is finished, yay!!!

This binding was left over from my paper doll quilt that I finished last summer.

This is the back of the table runner that I pieced.

On each end is fabric with princess dresses and crowns.

The table runner is reversible for a different look.

 All tied up with a bow and sent in the mail :)
Now onto another project I promised another grand daughter.

Handmade Birthday Club 2014

I belong to the Handmade Birthday Club.

I saw it advertised on Instagram and joined right away because it sounded like so much fun!

There are 12 people in each group, and every month, you make something handmade for the birthday person.

I received this gift for my birthday.
Jennifer made me the most beautiful clutch, and enclosed delicious chocolates, some cute notecards and colorful gel pens!
It was so exciting to get her parcel in the mail :)

A pretty clutch like this has been on my "to do" list.

The pouch is nice and wide, and it's padded.

The lining is so pretty and so is the workmanship!

I have to think of something special to use this pretty clutch for.
The clutch was designed by Diane Stanley, you might be able to find the pattern on her blog, here.

Coin Quilt

My daughter Lindsay made this pretty coin quilt for her best friend and I offered to quilt it for her.

I laid it on the floor and pinned it before I quilted it.

The light on my machine is really bright!

Since the quilt is "scrappy", I thought the binding would look pretty scrappy as well.

I think the finished quilt looks really cozy :)

 Here's a closeup of all the pretty scrappy fabrics.

Do you recognize any that you have in your stash?

As I sewed, some of the fabrics took me back to the time when my daughter and I went to quilt shops together.

I quilted l/4" inside each side of the vertical sashing.

I quilted a wavy stitch down the center and across each of the horizontal rectangles.

This is my favorite place to photograph my finished quilts, on the tree in our backyard.

I love the back, and Lindsay put some coins at the bottom too.

 The quilt's in the mail, Lindsay will be excited to see it :)