Quilt as I Go and Toni to the Rescue

I tested a couple of quilting techniques that are new for me while I made this quilt for my niece.
One is the simple method of making half squares by sewing two pieces of fabrics together around the edge and then cutting across the diagonals.

The other method is the "quilt as you go". This is my second "quilt as you go", and this quilt is just a bit larger than the last one. Since I didn't follow a pattern, I had to figure out the pattern and steps. Even though it took some time to do this, I like the "quilt as you go" method. My basting step was shorten to just pinning the layers together of the piece that I was working on at the time. No longer was I wrestling with the entire quilt while quilting a section.

Decorative stitching on this section was done with Hank the Tank, Singer 328K in treadle.

Quilting in the ditch with my Davis NVF.

Two sections ready to be joined with a white strip. The section on the left has two sections that were joined with a pink, horizontal strip. All the strips used to attach sections together were quilted with uneven straight stitching look that is seen in the pink, horizontal strip.

Toni, my 401A e-machine, helped me out with the decorative stitching on the binding.

Front side of quilt.

Back side of quilt.

Front just rotated for different view.

Piecing was done on both my Eldredge Two Spools and Singer 201.

It's All About the Baseball

I had some leftover fabric with baseballs that were screaming at me to use. The fabrics with the baseballs are scraps from the I Spy quilt that I made around this time last year for my father. While visiting a quilting store last week, I spotted the baseball motif fabric that will mainly be used as the back of the quilt. I'm trying a new technique on this quilt. A row is layered to the batting and back, and then quilted before joining the rows together. This is a quilt as you go method that I recently discovered while researching on quilt as you go. This quilt is for my sister's grandson; he loves baseball.

Worked on this most of yesterday. Quilting went smoothly until after dinner. I prepared my next sections, oil machine, and even replaced the needle with new. I'm all ready to go for the evening while watching tv with my husband, but my Singer 201 no longer wishes to sew for the night. First evening project turned into a fiasco; the dang machine wouldn't stitch correctly for me. I tried everything I could think of to correct the problem. No go, so, off to the Davis NVF to finish the section that I had tried to get done. Back to the 201, I play around with her for another half hour to no avail. I give up, take shower, and eat a large bowl of ice cream. Of course I can't leave the machine alone until morning. So, I go back to try one more time to get it to do the beautiful stitches that it's famous for. I say some words of encouragement. Well, she sews for me the prettiest stitches again. I looked at her and said now what the heck was that all about.

Sometimes I think these vintage ladies are telling me to take a break, just slow down and relax.

Can't today, got to finish this...more postings later.

A Scrappy Jeweled Quilt

It's interesting what can be made with scraps, and this one is a gem.
All finished a ready to keep someone warm for the winter.

I Give My Heart to You

or just one area of the back of the quilt that I'm working on.

Now I just have to piece them all together and finish the back.

It pays to measure correctly.

I have been busy adding the border. Took the leftovers resized them to fit into border. I'm loving this quilt. I'm now working on the pattern for the back. I have at least four fabrics that my mom had sent that I plan to use in this quilt.

I discovered that if measurements aren't just right piecing can get ugly very quickly. That is what happened with this quilt top. I should have made sure all the squares were squared up all to the exact same size, but in my haste to see the results of taking scraps to create a top I made a mess.

So, I spent a week ripping out the entire quilt. I then squared up the blocks to have them all the exact same size. I just finished today with reassembling all those pieces.

Even though it was a lot of work, I'm happy that I did it. I learned a lot in the process. And I'm now loving the look of the quilt!

I also learned that there is another pattern that looks somewhat similar called Jewel Box quilt. Next time, I will cut my squares and half squares to the size of the pieces used in a Jewel Box quilt tutorial that I have bookmarked and follow that pattern.

My border is next!

Ladybugs and Pinwheels!

I just felt like making pinwheels the other day. I love making baby quilts! The piecing was done on Melinda, Two Spools, since she are quarter inch foot always helps produce the proper seams. The quilting was done with Starr, Singer 201, but I kept running into problems with the dang walking foot and stitches. The binding was attached with Penny, Davis NVF, and finishing touches were made with Hank the Tank, Singer 328.

Finished Twisted 60

Finished in time for my daughter's birthday! This quilt will grace her bed in her new college room.

Belated B'Day Gift!

My son's belated b'day gift! It's more him with the browns, blues, and grays. He loves the back too with the guitar fabric. The pattern is the Plain Spoken which he requested. The white blocks in the front of quilt are really a very light gray fabric that looks white next to all the other fabrics.

Using my 201K to quilt the straight stitches.

Finished quilt with pillowcases!

Somewhere Over The Rainbow

I couldn't decide on title for this post. The song "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" keeps coming to me every time I look at this quilt. So, that title won. This will be my donation quilt for a person in Joplin Missouri. I told my neighbor if I ever sold the sewing machine and table that she gave me, I would use that money for a donation quilt. She told me that she knows of a person in Joplin that lost everything. I sold the machine and table faster than I thought I would; some gal wanted the table badly. Well, I was having a difficult time making my son's b'day quilt. The colors didn't seem right for him, and for some reason the donation quilt kept surfacing to my mind...a please work on me now. As the piecing progressed and the quilt took on a life, as all quilts do, I knew this quilt's home would be in Joplin.

A close-up of scallop stitch used to finish off the binding. I use a different method from before. Instead of just straight stitching down and then running the decorative stitch over, I got brave and just did the decorative stitch. I had too many stops, starts, fixings, and fussing over position of binding for my liking while treadling. Next time, I will glue iron the fabric down first and then do the decorative stitching. It will make is easier for me in treadling.

I love this quilt! I like my choice of fabrics and the backing. There is a feel of movement and life! May this quilt bring warmth and comfort to another.

Eagle Scout Quilt

Finished up the quilt last night. The piecing was done with new Two Spools, Melinda; the quilting was done on Singer 201 treadle, Starr; the binding was attached with the Davis NVF, Penny; and the decorative signature stitch was done with Singer 237, Hank.
This was a quick, fun quilt to make with all my vintage machines all in treadles!

THe quilting is just straight-stitching in the ditch and in the border, very simple.


I used the arrowhead cam in the Singer 237 treadle to make this stitch to finish off the binding.

Made progress on the Boy Scout quilt that I'm making for my friend's son.
This is the back of the quilt. Next is basting and then the quilting.

Here is the front all pieced.

Here is a photo of the 5x5 pieces in rows all set up to have the rows sewn together.

A friend's son is getting his Eagle Scout Award. My gift to him will be a quilt that I make from these scout fabrics. These fabrics will be used for the front of the quilt.

And these fabrics will be for the back of the quilt.

Finished Irish Chain

My first and most likely my last Irish Chain. The pattern is interesting but the quilts can look boring without any quilting. I just don't like the traditional quilting that is done with the Irish Chain quilts. I did have fun thinking of ways to jazz it up a bit. And I got to use the Singer 328K, Hank, in treadle for the decorative stitching. So, this quilt was pieced on my 201, free motioned quilted using my 15-90, binding was attached with the Davis NVF, and decorative stitching on binding and around some seams were from my 328K.





The back of the quilt.