Basket Sew Sampler quilt

 My 2017 Basket Sew Sampler quilt top is finished!  The pattern is from the 2017 Sew Sampler boxes from Fat Quarter Shop.  In 2017, I made 5 of the blocks, you can see them here.  I guess life happened, and I never finished the other 7 blocks.  The baskets are designed by Lori Holt.  My solid colored fabric collection isn't very big, mostly fat quarters or from leftover projects.  I decided to make the baskets out of solids and use different background fabrics for each block.  I made the 10 1/2" blocks, the quilt finishes at 56 1/2" X 71".  The quilt called for about 2 l/2 yards for the background.  I'm using fabric from my stash, and I don't have too many pieces that large.  Luckily, I found this Heather Bailey fabric from her Nicey Jame line and It adds a lot of sunshine!  It feels so good to see my stash slowly get smaller...

My friend took this photo of me in my sewing room, showing off the quilt.  I used a Michael Miller fabric for the inner border.  This quilt was a hip replacement recovery quilt, lol!  I still can't bend over to pin the quilt and prepare it for machine quilting. That time will come soon.

Thanks for much for following along!

Love & Stitches quilt along

 I just finished week 3 of this quilt along.

I'm finding it easy to keep up, the hearts are big and are fun to sew!

I think the pattern is so cheery and modern.

Megan Collins has the cutest rainbow quilt that I'm going to make,

you can find it on Etsy here.

I completed all my curved piecing, it was not difficult at all!

Now I won't be shy to try other patterns with curved piecing.

I followed this great tutorial 

by Jackie Kunkel of Canton Village Works.

I had to trim each piece down to size.

I'm making a throw size, so I need 20 hearts, 40 pieced curves.

I got my hearts all sewn together!

By the way, my background is Kona Snow and I had exactly enough in my stash to cut all the pieces,

 leaving only a few scraps that I threw away.

This is the order that I like my hearts.

Do you think I should make any changes?

Oops, I just saw 2 navy hearts on the same row!

I had to place each piece on the floor with a "reacher", a tool that is very handy for people who can't bend over, lol!

I'll see you again next week :)

Sewcialites

I'm keeping up to date on my blocks.

It's more fun that way, you can see how everyone else is doing too.

I showed you this block a few weeks ago, you can see it here.

This is week 2, Loyal by Lisa Bongean.

It was really easy.

Block 3, I didn't remember to square up my blocks and looks how much extra was hanging over the edge!

 

I took the blocks apart with my nifty seam ripper and squared up the blocks.

Now it fits perfectly!

Block 3 is Affection by Brigitte Heitland.

It went together really well, just had to square up all the half square triangles.

 

Block 4 is Spirited by Vanessa Goertzean.

I decided to use two fabrics for this block to make it more interesting.

Look at this cute layout I found on the internet!

Some people are so creative!

I love this one too!

Thanks for following along and have a great week!

Half Yard Jam

Have you heard of the Fat Quarter Shop?  It's an online quilt shop.

Kimberly and Kevin Jolly are the owners, and Kimberly has a YouTube video every Friday morning.  It's full of new pattern releases, sew alongs, new fabric lines and so much more!  I love watching it.

They contacted me and asked if I would like to make a quilt for their release of "Half Yard Jam" pattern in the Short Cut quilt series.  I said of course! and was able to choose any half yard bundle they had in stock.  Boy, was that fun!!!  I love anything to do with Little Red Riding Hood, so I chose "Little Red in the Woods" by Jill Howarth for Riley Blake.  I'm going to add this quilt to my "grandchildren pile".

It's really big, 90" square.  Did I mention that this quilt pattern is free on their blog, Jolly Jabber?

 

First, I cut all the strips.

There were two red pieces, but I decided to leave them out and just have these three main colors in the quilt.

Something else I did that was a little different, was that I kept each category in their color family instead of making the quilt totally scrappy.

Here's a look at the finished top, with three different color sections.

I think it still looks scrappy, but in a nonconventional way.

Here's a shot of my son Addison helping me out.

He's a police officer for the city of Phoenix, scary I know!!!

He only lives 5 minutes away, and I knew it was his day off, so I asked him to come over and help me pin my quilt to the batting and the back.

I was huffing and puffing and sweating bullets, so it was a huge relief to have him take over.

It was even a little difficult for him, lol!

Here's the finished quilt on our fake grass in the backyard.

That's what we do in Arizona, 

but it's still pretty and soft and very green!

Just don't walk on it in the heat of the summer 

or you'll burn your feet off!!!

Here's the back of the quilt, 

which is pieced with mostly Lori Holt fabric.

I forgot to mention that I bound the quilt with red.

I know that one of my grand daughters will love this quilt :)

Here is where you can find the free pattern.

This is where you can find the quilt kit.

Thank you Fat Quarter Shop! ❤️

Love & Stitches quilt along

 I saw this quilt along advertised on Instagram, and loved the quilt!  It has a modern flair to it and I love the bright, happy colors. 

My friend Nedra helped me choose the fabrics from my Cotton and Steel collection.  I've been dying for a quilt pattern to use my pretty fabrics.  The hearts are really big on the pattern, and there is curved sewing around the hearts.  I've never done curved quilting, but I sure have in garment construction.

The first week is choosing fabrics, and the second week will be cutting out the pattern pieces.

Follow @megancollins_a if you're interested in quilting along.

There is a giveaway every week :)

An update on my total hip replacement surgery, it went really well!  I barely feel any pain, such a contrast to before surgery.  I have my two week checkup with the surgeon on Thursday and will begin taking Ibrance again, the chemotherapy pill.  I'm really looking forward to walking and skipping and exercising and dancing again :)

Awesome Ocean finished!

 I worked really hard on this quilt, knowing that there would be times that I had to put it away, and let life take over.  After all, we can't quilt 24/7, right?  Well, maybe we can!

I quilted the quilt very densely, using a vertical line with my walking foot.  The lines were free motion and I would purposely go into the previous line a little bit to give the quilting a "movement" look.

My favorite sections are the pinks and oranges, 

and the teals and greens.

You can see a little bit of the teal minky on the back.

Even with all the dense quilting, the minky still feels really soft.

I made a label with an extra block that I had.

I know that Lucy will love this quilt!!!

I had my hip surgery and am not feeling as much pain as I was before, which is great!  I'll be using a walker for a couple of weeks and can twist my body or bend down.  I'm at the mercy of my caretakers, lol! My husband is doing an excellent job of taking care of me, and so are my kids :)

Sewcialites quilt along

Who else is sewing along with the Sewcialites quilt along, sponsored by the Fat Quarter Shop?

They will release a block every Friday until June 25.  There are 18 designers, each of them have created two blocks.  This is my color page, not sure what color I'll make the border half square triangles yet.

 

These are the Bonnie and Camille fabrics I've selected.  Most of these are from older fabric lines, I don't think I've ever made a quilt with just their fabrics before!  

Kimberly Jolly will show us how to create the block on her You Tube video every Friday morning.  I don't ever watch it live, I just watch it when I can.  I learned a few extra tips about pressing your blocks when I watched her tutorial this time.

When I trim my half square triangles, I find it quicker and easier to just trim them with scissors.

I proceeded to match up each half square triangle to their matching square and realized that they didn't match in size.  I don't always trim my blocks but I did this time!

I have a lot of Omnigrid rulers that I bought at JoAnn's with a coupon but am slowly buying some creative grid rulers which I like so much better!

Now they match perfectly!

My points are pretty good if I don't say so myself :)

When I make my quarter square triangles, I love these half inch rulers.  I use my Frixion pen and trace a line on each side of the ruler which I sew using a chain stitch. The Frixion ink disapears when you iron it.

Speaking of irons, this Reliable iron is my absolute favorite!  It's a little hard on the pocket book but well worth the investment.

I keep my Alpha Bitties in this cute metal tin.

I have six sets of the Alpha Bitties and there's still room for more.

Here's my 9 1/2" finished block, it's called Harmony and is designed by Lissa Alexander.

I think it will be fun making a block every week and seeing everyone's designs.  It will be like a virtual quilting bee.