I'm making progress on my Canna Blossom pin cushion. I have finished the hand embroidery.
I just need to turn it into a pin cushion. My Circle Play pin cushion is also waiting to become an actual pin cushion. Hopefully I will get some time to get both of these finished up soon.
If you want to see what it looked like before the embroidery click the following link: Canna Blossom before embroidery.
My mom pieced the top of this quilt and sent it to me to finish and donate to charity.
For the back I used this adorable elephant fabric.
To quilt it I used a few different rulers.
In addition to the two above, I also used a straight ruler for stitching in the ditch. I stitched in the ditch around all of the blocks first. Then I used Elvira to quilt the nine patch blocks.
The nine patches were made from 2 1/2" strips and Elvira is designed to quilt this pattern on 2" finished size pieces.
I used Chevy to quilt on the plain green squares.
I went from one side of the quilt to the other then came back to get the other side of each square. Then I turned the quilt and repeated the process so that every plain square got quilted the same from all four points. It created an interesting pattern on the plain squares.
It finishes at about 40" by 50". Here is the finished quilt again.
Do you use wool dryer balls in your dryer? I do. I really like them but occasionally they need a little repair work.
Over time they tend to fall apart, but it is really easy to fix them. All you need is a felting needle. Then you stab the wool ball over and over until the wool fibers become entwined again.
All better! This took about 5 minutes of stabbing. I have four dryer balls in my dryer. This one was in the worst shape of the four. The rest will need repair eventually but I have everything I need to fix them when the time comes.
Sometimes a fabric line arrives and I get an idea for a project really quickly. That was the case with this collection.
The panel is great as are all the coordinates. I used a black Grunge for the border around the panel and the binding. The pattern calls for 7 fat quarters but I only got 5 coordinates so I added two other patriotic themed fabrics from the shop to round out the quilt.
For the back I used yet another patriotic themed fabric from my shop.
It turned out so well that I kitted it up. Many of my kits come in these really nice reusable project bags.
The finished size of the quilt is 56" by 59". If you added an inner border of the black grunge then an outer border of another patriotic themed fabric you could easily make this a bit bigger.
If you are interested in purchasing this kit click the following link: Patriotic Splendor Quit Kit
The back fabric I used can be found by following this link: backing for Patriotic Splendor Quilt
You need 3 1/2 yards of regular width backing fabric or 1 3/4 yards of a wide back. I have a nice selection of Americana/Patriotic themed fabrics listing in my online shop. You can see all of them that are listed in the online shop by clicking the following link: Americana/Patriotic fabrics
File this one under "done is better than perfect."
I should have taken more time in squaring up the top after quilting to get the design centered better. Oh well!
This is part of a baby mat panel that I have in my shop. I cut off the left side with the numbers because I wanted it to be just a quilt. I free-motion quilted it myself on my new Q20 using an all-over swirls motif.
Here is what the whole thing looks like. It's about 42" by 54" off the bolt.
The idea of this baby mat is that you can put baby in the center on the right hand side and then use something like an embroidery hoop to mark the age of the baby when the photo was taken.
This is great for the mom who loves to photograph her baby every month. You don't even need to quilt it!
For this quilt I used a couple fabrics from Aviary fabric line from Dashwood Studio, some basic fabrics from my color wall and a Villa Rosa pattern called Hop To It.
The center is the main print from the Aviary collection. It is just one piece of fabric even though it looks pieced. It isn't! You could also use a panel there.
For the back I used another print from the Aviary collection.
The quilt finishes at 45" by 68". Adding a border would make it twin size.
One of the fun things about owning a quilt shop is that I get to see LOTS of fabrics that are available for me to order and pre-order for my shop. Last week I had a couple of sales reps come to see me and one of them is my rep. for Lewis & Irene fabrics. She showed me their Queen's Jubilee collection and I fell in love. Unfortunately, I didn't have the budget to order it for my shop. I asked her if she had sold this line to any of her other customers and she had. The shop Gathering Stitches in Bosque Farms, New Mexico (a little south of Albuquerque) bought the entire collection. After my sales rep. left I got online and did some personal shopping. It arrived yesterday!
If you would like some too I'm sure the ladies at Gathering Stitches would be happy to hook you up. You will find these fabrics in their Novelty Fabrics section. The link in the previous sentence will take you directly to page 2 of their Novelty Fabrics section. Scroll down just a bit and you will see these gorgeous fabrics along with a few others from the collection that I didn't purchase.
If you do decide to purchase some of these fabrics there is a "notes" box on the check out page. Leave them a note letting them know Lynn from Alamosa Quilt Company sent you to their website. I had a nice email exchange with one of the owners, Kristin, when I placed my order. I left a note telling her that our mutual sales rep. let me know where to purchase these fabrics.
I have no idea what I will make with these but I just had to have some for myself! For now I'm going to pet them and wish the Queen a happy Jubilee. Love her or hate her, 75 years is a long time to be in any position and worth celebrating!
I will be hosting a challenge in my shop this month. I'm calling it March Madness.
Here is how it works:
(1) You must purchase one (or more) of our 1" square in a square papers packs.
(2) Use at least 12 of these little blocks to make something - anything! I made a pin cushion using 16 blocks and it finishes at 4" by 4".
(3) Bring it into the shop by March 31, 2022
In April I will find a nice spot in the shop to display all the items that have been made so that folks can vote for their favorites. There will be prizes in the form of gift certificates to the shop: 1st prize will be a $25 gift certificate, 2nd prize will be a $15 gift certificate and 3rd prize will be a $10 gift certificate.
Should be fun to see what people come up with!
I have gotten a bit behind in some shop sample sewing. I've had this panel for far too long without sewing up a sample.
The panel is large, 36" by 60". I had the entire panel quilted by my long arm quilter then I cut off the two smaller blocks at the bottom. I plan to turn those into pillows. I squared up the top portion and added binding for a super quick and adorable baby quilt.
A baby quilt doesn't get much easier than this! Mine finishes at about 35" by 45". You could also add a simple border before quilting if you wanted it to be a bit bigger. I still have quite a few of the prints from this collection in stock, Zoology Fabrics.
