And Lastly Two

At the beginning of October, my son and girlfriend brought over a bag each of their old tee shirts in hopes that I would be able to use them in a quilt for each of them. I had used a couple of their shirts to make into pillows. With a lot of tee shirts, I was able to pick out the best to use on the backside of their quilts.

My son's girlfriend loves cats, but sadly my son is allergic to them. 

So I decided to make her quilt in a cat theme. I had enough leftover batiks and also the paw print motif fabric that was used in my son's quilt to make a rainbow of cats. I followed the Missouri Star's cat pattern. Got to love Missouri Star's Youtube!!

The backside has the tee shirts from her high school years; tee shirts that she got from Taiwan when visiting her Grandparents. 

For my son's quilt, I had already purchased a fabric with paw prints as the motif back when JoAnn's was going out of business and before doggie. My son had been talking about getting a Shiba Inu for at least a year. I wanted this quilt to be for the dog since my son already has many quilts from me. I used scraps from my stash to use as the chain in the Irish Chain pattern. 

An eclectic grouping for an eclectic group of tee shirts. 

The dog isn't a blanket kind of dog, but he didn't mind for this photo. I think he doesn't mind being on top of the blanket, just not inside it. My son was good by rescuing a 4 year old Shiba!! The sweetest Shiba!!!

Mrs. Smith's Favorite

Back in April, my daughter and I traveled to Hamilton Missouri to shop at Missouri Star Quilt Company's many shops. Honestly, I just wanted to experience this quilt town since I follow them on Youtube. My daughter saw the Mrs. Smith's Favorite quilt hanging on wall at one of the shops and fell in love with it. 

She loved it so much that she asked if I could make her one almost with the same fabrics and in a queen size for her bed. 

After purchasing the Block magazine with the pattern and directions, we headed over to their Batik shop.

Omg! That shop is worth the travels to Hamilton! There are so many beautiful batiks! My daughter loved the look of the blue quilt; so, we stuck to picking from the many beautiful blue batiks. We got lucky that they had the cute small flower fabric, which was used in the quilt at the other shop.

The pattern is easy to follow, but since I didn't purchase the suggestion of layer cakes, 10" squares, I had to make changes to directions. Since my quilt would be a queen size, I had to purchase yards of fabric for the different motifs of fabrics that are required. The size of the quilt increased from 68x68 to 95x95. I had to figure out how many more squares and rectangles would be needed to make a queen size.

Eeks! I forgot that quilting a queen size quilt is a workout! The binding was quick and easy using my favorite method. 

In this photo, the quilting looks like it's taking away from the star pattern in the quilt, but I think it's the lighting. The quilting is much softer, but this does show the pattern of the quilting that I used for being able to quilt a queen size quilt with my sewing machine. 

The backside of the quilt is a solid print. I used 3 yards of 108" fabric. This was a fun quilt to make and would do it again, but not a queen size. I'm done making queen size quilts---and don't even think of a king!   

Something Extra

 Made some pillows as Christmas gifts this year.

My son-in-law designs the tee shirts for his Mom's cafe: Son of Egg. 

This is the second pillow that I have made for him using a tee shirt that they sell. 

My son's girl friend gave me some tee shirts from her high school days to make into a quilt. 

These two tee shirts just didn't fit into the look or theme of the quilt; so, they went into a pillow that became a birthday gift for her. 

And lastly, my son also handed over more tee shirts with the request for another quilt. 

I used two of his tee shirts to make him another pillow since the essential shirt would have been difficult to use in a quilt. 

Beekeeper

I always wanted a quilt with a bee theme. When JoAnn Fabrics announced they were going out of business, I went shopping for fabrics with that theme in mind. 

I also wanted to use hexagons for the look of having a honeycomb. Luckily for me, Missouri Star Quilt Company had recently done a tutorial on sewing hexagons. 

After cutting out all the hexagons, I had to mark the seam lines for sewing. 

This made sewing so much easier! This isn't a quilt that one can rush through and get done in a day or two. Between cutting out the hexagons, marking seam lines, playing with the layout, sewing hexagons together, and quilting, this project took numerous of weeks to do. 

And the backside is a field of daisies with honeycombs and busy bees buzzing around.

Grandma and Tot HoHoHo!!

 

A friend of mine is a first time grandma. I know she loves to cook and wears aprons while cooking. I do know that she doesn't have a Christmas themed apron. So I made her one and one for her granddaughter.  

Grandma's apron pocket gets Mrs. Claus....

while granddaughter's apron gets Santa. 

I Spy Quilt

 I'll be visiting a friend in Japan who is now a Grandma! As my gift to her 1 year old granddaughter, I made an I Spy quilt.

I used a lot of leftover fabrics that I own for the 2 inch squares, but I also added a new fabric.

It's the Missouri Star's Chuck fabric. So, Chuck will travel to Japan!

Backside of quilt is ice cream cones. Now, who doesn't like ice cream!? 

I foresee endless hours of fun either counting ice cream cones of a certain color or looking for the I Spy with my little eye....

Missouri Here I Come!!

 My daughter and I went to Hamilton to check out fabrics and shops!

This town's shops are mostly owned by Missouri Star Quilt Co, the Disneyland for quilters. 

We spent two days going through their 19 shops, picking out fabrics, and chatting with very friendly folks. 

My stash of items for future quilt projects.

There are even shops on the second floor of some of the shops. 

I love the murals.  

Besides the quilt shops, there is a Quilt Museum with pretty antique quilts and very old sewing machines, well worth the visit. Also worth visiting is the JC Penny Museum at the library. We learned a lot about Mr JC Penny and his misfortunes and fortunes.

The basement of the quilt museum has a huge room full of antique toy sewing machines. I did not see a Davis or a Two Spools sewing machines like mine in the museum.

The largest spool of thread is next to the Quilt Museum. 

We did a day trip to explore wonderful Kansas City before heading home. Kansas City is fun city worth a visit to explore again!

Wowza Quilt!

 I follow Missouri Star Quilts on Youtube. When I saw the Wowza quilt that Natalie made, I knew I wanted mine in to be done with a black background fabric. 

A rainbow quilt has been on my to do list. 

This was a fun and easy quilt to make.

Testing!

 

I had always wanted to try the pineapple quilt pattern, but just wasn't interested in doing a quilt size.  Realizing that I had just enough leftover scrappy fabrics, I decided to try making a table runner in a Christmas theme. It's a fun pattern to do! Doubt I'll use this pattern for a larger project since I have other fun projects to do.

A Star is Born!

 

Started the New Year by working on a project that takes a day to complete. These are easy to make! This one is my test block for this tutorial. 

Start with cutting well starched fabrics:

• 5  3x3" squares one for placement fabric and rest for row 1
• 8  3.5x3.5" squares for row 2
• 8  4x4" squares for row 3
• 4  4.5x4.5" squares for row 4
• 4  5x5" squares for row 4 corners
• 1  9x9" square of muslin fabric for grid
• 1  9x9" square for backing

I started with a 9x9 muslin cloth that I folded in half and half again, pressed, and then opened it up flat. I marked those lines (vertical and horizontal) along with lines going from corner to corner. From the center I then marked 1 1/2", 2 1/4", 3", 3 3/4" for the placement lines on the vertical and horizontal lines.

I placed one of the 3x3 blocks in center for starting fabric with edges on that 1.5" marked lines. 

All other blocks minus the 5x5" get folded in half and then half again, and then open last fold. Mark that fold line with a pencil for reference for stitching. Then fold the two corners down towards center marked line to form a triangle and press well. 

Starting with row 1, place 4 triangle fabrics on top of placement fabric making sure to center with vertical and horizontal center lines. Sew down first on the pencil marked line as shown above. Best to use thread color close to fabric color. 

After all 4 triangles are down stitch around as seen in photo above for row 1.

Second row is sewn by first placing 4 of the 8 triangles on the vertical and horizontal markings, and making sure that the tip of those triangles are a 1/2" from center.

Block will look like this. By sewing down the triangles individually one is able to sew them down more easily. 

Place the last 4 triangles down on the diagonal lines making sure those triangle tips are also 1/2" from center and sew on pencil line. Tack down those 4 triangles in center along open raw edges.

Continue this method for row 3. 

For row 4 do the same for the vertical and horizontal placed four triangles.

Next fold the 5x5" squares in half on diagonal and then fold in half again, press well after each folding.  Open that last fold and mark that line with pencil for easy stitching reference. Then take the two corners and fold them to the center marked line to form a square. Now place those squares in the corners along the diagonal lines and stitch down. 

Trim to a 7x7" square. Place batting down along with insulbrite on top of wrong side of backing and then place trimmed top right side up on top. 

Stitch around edge of last row through all the layers. Then stitch around the edge of potholder.

Make binding from 2.5" strip folded in half. Decide on how wide for the top of binding and then stitch down on top of potholder.  Turn binding over and then stitch down either by hand on back side or by machine stitch.  If machine stitching, then stitch from the top by using the stitch in the ditch method.