Snowy Afternoon Sewing

It snowed here yesterday! We need the moisture so badly. No one at my house minded the snowy day. It gave me a chance to do a little sewing.

I turned one of my Reindeer Games blocks into a pillow. The link will take you to a page that contains all the patterns for the Reindeer Games blocks.

I have enough of the red & white fabric to turn another block into a pillow. Might do that today.

What do you think?

I made up this quilt top a week or so ago, but wasn't really happy with the contrast stripe.

Today I made a new contrast stripe by reversing the placement of the two fabrics. So which do you like better?

Slate background with dot accent

Dot background with slate accent

I know which one I prefer. I just pinned the dot background with slate accent contrast stripe over the finished top to cover the original contrast stripe. I'm trying to decide if it is worth ripping out the original contrast stripe to replace it, or should I just leave it. What do you think?

Mini Totes

I've been making lots of gifts lately and decided I needed some cute bags to wrap them in.

The smaller one is this pattern by Happy Zombie. The pattern is a free pattern on the All People Quilt website. You may have to register to see it, but it's free to register. The bigger one is my own adaptation of the smaller one. I just upsized everything by 50%. The pattern for the smaller one calls for ribbon for the handles. I didn't have any ribbon that would go with my fabrics so I made my own handles. I think it would be a lot easier to use the ribbon on this small scale.

Modern French General

The Modern Monday Quilt Along will continue for another few weeks. I plan to wait until the last block is published then finished up the last few all at once. To see Caroll's block please visit Attic Window Quilt Shop.

I've had lots of other sewing to do recently and have been busy at all of my jobs too. I finished French General top late last week.

Modern French General

The pattern is Urban Birthday by Jenny Pedigo. I really like the juxtaposition of a modern pattern done up in traditional style fabrics. It is one of the classes I will be teaching at my LQS over the next few months. You can see samples of the most of the classes we are offering by following this link.

Class Samples

The next "term" at my LQS begins tomorrow so I've been trying to finish up my class samples. The quilt I have been quilting this week is a Yellow Brick Road pattern.

Good Fortune YBR 1

I finished quilting it yesterday. The binding fabric is at the store, go figure! So I'll have to go and get it today. Below is a photo of the back so you can see the quilting better. You may need to click on the photo to see it larger.

I also made another Yellow Brick Road quilt as a sample.

Good Fortune YBR 2

The class is will be a follow-up course to our Piecing 101 class and is several sessions so I can take students through the entire quilt making process, from picking out fabric to attaching the binding and making a label.

Another class I will be teaching is the Corn Rows pattern.

Corn Rows

I blogged about this one already. Go here to read that post. I never showed the finished quilt top with the border though. I had hoped to have it quilted before displaying it at the store. Oh well, it will get quilted eventually.

I made another sample from the book the Corn Rows pattern is from, Graphic Mixx, just to show another pattern from the book.

Bohemian Stripe

I'm not happy with the contrast section though. I think I may reverse those two fabrics and see what that looks like. It will be easy to remove that section and replace it. I can use the other on the back.

I'm teaching some other classes too. You can see photos of all of our class samples on the Heartstrings & Heirlooms blog. As well as see the latest newsletter and calendar. Just click the appropriate tabs underneath the header.

The blocks I showed you on Wednesday did not get turned into a finished quilt top on Wednesday. They are now in rows and I hope to get the rows sewn together today at some point. You will get to see that finished top next week.

Todays Project (if I have time)

The only sewing I got accomplished yesterday was laying out these blocks.

Today is my day to work at my LQS, Heartstrings & Heirlooms. Since this is a class sample, I can sew on it at work if we aren't busy. I'd prefer that we are busy because that would mean business is good, but if we have an off day at least I have something fun to work on.

Quilting Leaves

I'm quilting up a Yellow Brick Road quilt this week.

Above is a photograph of the back so that you can actually see the pattern I'm quilting. I got the pattern from the book Free-motion Quilting with Angela Waters. She calls it leaves. It does look like leaves, but it also looks a bit like the Star Fleet emblem the characters wear on their chests in the shows.

This is the second pattern I have used from her book. I blogged about the first one here. The only challenge has been figuring out how to get the leaves going in all different directions and still fit them in together nicely. I've done better with this in some places than in others. I don't think it will be too noticeable to anyone but me when I'm done.