Love and Stitches quilt along, finished!

 I finished my Love & Stitches quilt and even quilted it myself!  I put in a lot of time this past week getting it done, and was even hand binding yesterday morning to post it on Instagram, to qualify for the Giveaway :)  I already won a giveaway though, so it might be greedy to hope for winning another one!  A free quilt subscription for 6 months or get a quilt machine quilted for free!

I machine quilted this quilt with a simple cross hatch pattern using my walking foot.  My sweet daughter in law got on the floor, taped the back and then smoothed the layers and pinned the whole "sandwich" together.  I knew I should have taken a photo!  I am blessed with her help a lot ❤️

It doesn't show up much, but I quilted in Aurifil 2426, a light pink.  I think it adds interest and a little texture.

The backing almost looks like little rainbows.  I have a quilt shop that I go to sometimes, where the fabric is all $6.99/yard.  A great place to find quilt backings.  I didn't quite have enough, so I sewed a strip of orange to the bottom.

I really love this quilt pattern!  It was fun as well as easy and the blocks are really big, so they go together very fast.  The quilt  measures 75" X 90", a twin size.

I bought Megan Collin's "Sunshowers" pattern and want to make it in January when the holiday rush is over.  I think it's really cute and it would be a great addition to my "grandchildren stack".  

Love & Stitches makes #10 out of 15.  When I have amassed 15 "unused quilts", I'm going to have each grandchild choose a quilt starting with the oldest and working down in age, for the most part.

I think it will be so exciting, to watch them pick their favorite.  I only have one masculine so far, I need a couple more.

I'm interested in making Elizabeth Hartman's Penguin Party.

I also really want to make Pen and Paper Designs "Ghost" quilt.

This is my friend Nedra, she made her quilt to match her tee shirt!  If I'm going to make this quilt masculine, I probably shouldn't make my ghosts pink and purple, though!

I also have about six or seven quilt tops that I haven't quilted yet.  I'll just keep adding to the stack until the oldest grandchildren come to visit.  You can bet that I'll take lots of photos!

Have a wonderful week and thanks for visiting my blog :)

Love and Stitches quilt along

 I finished my Love and Stitches quilt top!  Just imagine a 3 l/2" border in Kona snow, around the quilt below.

I loved this quilt along, the blocks are big and the quilt top went together very fast!  I mastered curved piecing too :) This is the second quilt top completed during my hip surgery recovery, lol!

You know how there are certain fabrics that you hoard, or are afraid to cut into, because you want them to be saved for the perfect project... Well, I have Heather Bailey, Amy Butler, Japanese prints, Tanja Noel, Aneela Hooey, American Jane and of course Lori Holt.

I cut into my beautiful Cotton & Steel fabrics for this quilt and just love the color scheme :)

I'm going to attempt to machine quilt my quilt top this week, just like the pattern.  I love a cross hatch design.

I was so fortunate to be selected to win the Week 5 giveaway!

Look at these gorgeous fat quarters!

They are very soft and silky :)

Thanks for following along :)

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 :)