Designing Monday

My life slowed down a little bit this week so was able to get some sewing in.  I finished all the trees in my little forest.

Right now I am just enjoying looking at them on my design wall.  It always feels good to get a step completed on a long journey.  These will sit for a bit while I catch up on some other projects.  You know how that goes.

I have been wanting to make this little 12" quilt for quite some time.  It is one of the blocks from the 100 Blocks magazines from Quiltmaker Magazine.


I intended to have it done before the 4th of July...

or the middle of July...
or perhaps the end of July..

Now I am settling for the 4th of July next year.

Hop on over to Judy's blog to see some more great designs.

Designing Monday

My design wall is filling up with little trees.  I am having fun making these even though I am still having to do some rework along the way.  They are such happy little trees.  I am up to 19 finished trees so far.  I only need 6 more.

I signed up for the Americana QAL from Deana at Dreamworthy Quilts.  It is posted on the Daughters of Dorinda website.  Here are the first two blocks I made.  I also made a couple of extra flags and hearts.  It is a row quilt.  I don't have a large patriotic quilt, so this will be fun to work on for next summer.

Hop over to Judy's blog to see more beautiful designs.

Designing Monday

I graduated from my Long Arm Quilting class this week and feel like I can tackle loading the quilt and some very easy quilting designs.  We only touched on using pantographs as that is taught in the second part of this class -- someday in the future.

I got half way thru this quilt last week after many thread breaks and two broken needles.

 The teacher had me take it off and committed to having me finish it this week.  So this week was a little different loading a quilt that was half quilted, but we did it and off I went.  Only my first stitch out, the thread broke.  And then it broke again and then the bobbin thread broke and then I had a bunch of skipped stitches.

 The teacher finally decided that the needle was at fault and it did have a burr on the tip when we removed it.  The needles we tried didn't improved the situation.  So then she sent me off to her quilt shop across town to pick up more needles that were a different brand.  This was a good thing as I was getting frustrated and needed a break.  The new needle helped tremendously and I was able to finish with almost no problems, except a few skipped stitches.  I was just glad to stop.  This quilt pattern is a modified Fons & Porter design.

My classmates also finished their projects.  Sue was quilting two pillow shams to go with a king sized quilt top she calls the Monster.  It is made of drapery or upholstery type fabrics that are very heavy.

Joyce made another practice quilt with some Packers fabric and a batik on top.  It was Joyce's birthday so we had to have some carrot cupcakes to celebrate!

Here is Jana, the teacher. She fell last week and injured both her wrists, so now she has splints on both of them.  Her customers had to cut their own fabric at her shop for a few days.  Hope she is feeling better by now.

I have started paper piecing these little trees.  So perfect for the Emerald Woods.  This is Bonnie Hunter's Crabapples pattern.  I have been wanting to make this quilt for a long time and finally it has come to the top of my list.  I have about half of the paper piecing done and I think there are 882  squares that are 1-1/2".  That should keep me out of trouble for awhile.

Check out more beautiful designs on Judy's blog.