WiP - Slow Stitching

I'm back from our adventures on the East Coast! My mom's sewing machine was under a pile of construction, but I did get some hand stitching done at their place.

Mom taught me to blanket stitch so I could fix my sister's Cinderella quilt. So far, I stitched the shoe in place and started ripping out the words. See the words in the light pink? No? Yeah, that's why they're out.

At my MIL's, I visited her neighbor who imports threads from Germany. My thought - uh, Gutermann? Nope, turns out it's hand-dyed, artist palettes, all kinds of weights and decorative things that I don't understand. But I understand sparkly and now I have a small sample to play with. As soon as I learn a running stitch.

I also did a lot of binding stitching and got my mother's table runners finished. I'm working my way around the daisy ones next, and then I still have a nice stack waiting to have binding stitched to the front. Sigh.

Once I got home, I pulled together the rows for Luscious Picnic. And a bonus doll quilt from the scraps. And the backing, and the binding, and it's all ready to go when my babysitter comes back.

Then I made five of the flannel stars for Grandma's quilt. I'm going to try to knock out five a day, because that's all I can stand of trimming flying geese.


And California Girl became my leader/ender project, and goodness gracious, she is perfect. LOVE!

Full disclosure moment. What I have to deal with every time I want to take a picture.

And then I realized I hadn't done any BOM stuff. I don't know where I am on churn dashes because it's green...again. Apparently May was emerald green and August is bright green, and all of my May ones were bright, so...maybe dark green? Maybe something totally different?

Anyway, instead of making a decision, I whipped out Part Five for Ripples and Reflections. I had to skip steps because I miscut Fabric Nine. It's been replaced but not yet recut. This step was fairly simple, but as there's sixteen of them, fairly boring.

And finally, my blue palette, borrowed again from Lori Barbely Photography. She goes to Maui and takes these gorgeous pictures, and all I get is a couple yards of fabric. Not fair. And look at those Kona names! Oasis, Breakers - yes!

Linked:
BOMs Away Monday @ What A Hoot
Design Wall Monday @ Patchwork Times
Color Mondays @ Porch Swing Quilts
Linky Tuesday @ Freemotion by the River
WiP Wednesday @ Freshly Pieced
Rainbow Scrap Challenge @ SoScrappy
Slow Sunday Stitching @ Kathy's Quilts
Fabric Frenzy Friday @ Fort Worth Fabric

Border Table Runners - Part 1 - Finished!

I've mentioned these before - table runners made from a border print. I took the class back in March, and since then, I've been churning out...well, tops. My hand-stitching is glacierly slow, so the binding has taken a while.

I finished the first "Celebrate!" one in March, just in time for a birthday.

Bound a daisy one for my church's silent auction in April.

And finally, I finished the set that started it all - the witches border print that my mom bought...a long time ago.

Quilted with the most adorable loops and pumpkins, if I do say so myself.

The leftover pieces work perfectly as a little center piece. Or a wall hanging. Or a giant mug rug or large candle mat. I really like the kaleidoscope effect of the witches' faces.

And then while I was at it, I finished up the second Celebrate one.

With a bright and cheery backing, and double loop quilting.

And the matching hexagon mini.

Details

Size: long - approx. 20x40" depending on the print / small - approx. 20x20"

Pattern: Striped Table Runners

The witches all went to my mother, but the two Celebrate ones will be listed for sale on my Facebook page. And stay tuned - I have quite a few left to bind!

Linked:

Whoop Whoop @ Confessions of a Fabric Addict

TGIFF @ Quilt Matters

Finish It Up Friday @ Crazy Mom Quilts

Link A Finish Friday @ Richard and Tanya Quilts
Sew Darn Crafty @ Sew Many Ways

Fabric Tuesday @ Quilt Story

I Quilt @ Pretty Bobbins

Needle and Thread Thursday @ My Quilt Infatuation

Let's Make Baby Quilts @ Michelle's Romantic Tangle

Feline Friday @ Sarah Did It!

Finish-Along @ The Littlest Thistle {FAL List}

Weekly Progress - Pieced Borders

So, a quilty question. What do you call borders that extend the main quilt top design? I mean, they're not just borders, or pieced borders. They're different. And I worked on two of them this week.

Tennessee Waltz - finishing out the points from the snowball blocks. TW will probably get another border in the grey.

Summer Drinks - finishing out the quarter square triangles. I think I'm done here. At least, I'm out of fabric!

I also finished a t-shirt quilt.

And quilted a second one.

...but both are just sneak peeks until they have been received!

And did my Weekly Churn Dash. This is one of my mother's old scraps.

And popped the binding on Mom's Halloween striped table runners so I had something to hand stitch while we drove around the Seattle area.

You know, where I ran a half marathon. Not even close to my best time {but also not my worst.} Considering my longest training run recently was...Portland's half marathon. A month ago.

And the boys played in the snow pack in front of Mount Rainier. It's not as dirty as it looks!

Linked:

BOMs Away Monday @ What A Hoot

Design Wall Monday @ Patchwork Times

Linky Tuesday @ Freemotion by the River
WiP Wednesday @ Freshly Pieced

Rainbow Scrap Challenge @ SoScrappy

Scrap Basket Sunday @ Kim's Big Quilting Adventure

Fabric Frenzy Friday @ Fort Worth Fabric

April - The Adoption Month

Our adoption was finalized this month. Does anything else really matter?

Well, actually, since that was all done in Korea with no input from us at all, I had plenty of time for other stuff this month, actually.

Like finishing the Little Man's quilt - my AYOLF goal.

And finishing Pretty in Pink, which was one of the several quilts listed on my Facebook page and already sold.

I also finished up a bunch of quilting, mainly of the striped table runners, but also of Cat Tails. I'm saving Cat Tails for the Blogger's Quilt Festival, so only sneak peeks for now.


Since the table runners have hand-stitched bindings, they finish up slowly. This one went to a silent auction for my church, so that's why it's done.

In piecing:

My four weekly churn dashes. Definitely a range of purples!

A couple extra RSC'13 blocks.

Finished the block piecing for Spin Cycle. I'm setting them aside now because I don't feel like sewing sashing I'm waiting for the release of MISS KATE for the borders of this Bonnie & Camille tribute quilt. I mean, really - obviously they named the new collection after me, so it only makes sense.

Some progress on Celtic Solstice. Last month I decided on a new layout and unpicked all of the secondary blocks. This month I actually started on the new design. I like it. The pinwheel was just too distracting, IMHO.

And then I made it all the way to the 29th without a NewFO! Instead of whipping out a kit, I decided to work on a quiet book for the Little Man. No iPads allowed at the embassy, so I have to have some way to entertain him. I know, weird, right?

But it is a sewing project, so I think it counts. The Dude and I have been having fun Pinteresting and designing the pages. The monster is completely his design. Unzip the mouth and unroll the tongue!

I'll have a post on Friday with more pages, or you can catch a sneak peek on Instagram. {@katiemaequilts}

And in family news, besides the whole finalization thing, the Dude became a Webelo. Momma cried. So did the Dude, when we had to rip that mustache off.

And I realized CC is the same size as Tycho now - and she's only eight months old. He still barely tolerates her. She manages to snuggle up with him if she creeps up slowly while he's not looking.

Linked:

Rainbow Scrap Challenge @ SoScrappy

A Year of Lovely Finishes

Fresh Sewing Day @ Lily's Quilts

NewFO @ Cat Patches

Weekly Progress - Not in Korea

I was supposed to be leaving for Korea this week. But, I'm not... So my sewing plans changed up a little.

Goodnight Monkey - I did finish the Little Man's quilt.

And I quilted Cat Tails and allllllll the table runners.

And then, since I now had another week, I thought about prepping something else to quilt. But, eh. I decided to spend this coming week on a couple of projects for my boys, and cleaning up the sewing room, rather than rushing through some backings.

So, in other sewing...

Bound one of the table runners to donate to my church's silent auction.

Weekly Churn Dash - I'm almost positive this one was in Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Maybe. Gah, is purple over already??

But while I'm complaining, I also pulled out some of the good purples from Fractured Four Patch and made a couple more RSC'13 blocks. Sad that I don't have enough of any of these for churn dashes.

Spin Cycle - three blocks added. Four to go! {Oh hey - it's Bad Kitten!}

And then I realized I made it all the way to the last week of the month with no NewFO! Oh no! Hmm, what to pick, what to pick?

Linked:

BOMs Away Monday @ What A Hoot

Design Wall Monday @ Patchwork Times

WiP Wednesday @ Freshly Pieced

Linky Tuesday @ Freemotion by the River

Rainbow Scrap Challenge @ SoScrappy

Scrap Basket Sunday @ Kim's Big Quilting Adventure

Fabric Frenzy Friday @ Fort Worth Fabric

Weekly Progress - Final Approval!!

Sewing? Who cares about sewing? WE HAVE FINAL APPROVAL!!

This long, long, loooooong journey is finally at an end. But not without another little government hiccup - the embassy is closed for most of next week, so we have to wait just a bit longer to go pick him up. Because of course.

But, deep breath. It's almost done.

And I did get some sewing done this week!

Pretty in Pink - finished!

Goodnight Monkey - quilted and binding prepped. That will be finished off ASAP so it can go with us to Korea. Because I get to get my son soon!! {Have I mentioned that? I don't know if I mentioned that.}

Striped Table Runners - started quilting the myriad of these. I finished the daisy ones and the long spring-y ones. Hexagon spring-y ones are pinned and ready to go, witch ones are on the bottom of the long backing piece.

Oh, and once I remove the daisy backing, I'll add Dutch table runners. Because when you cut one off, another grows in its place. {Hail Hydra!}

{I should probably remove my row markers before quilting...}

And since by the end of last week, I knew I wasn't going to be flying to Korea this week, I went ahead and finished Cat Tails and scheduled quilting for tomorrow. Just because I really want to finish Cat Tails.

Weekly Churn Dash - this one...hmm. I know I've used it before, because it's not a full FQ. But I can't remember where. I told you the purple scraps weren't all that meaningful!

Spin Cycle - two more blocks added. 18/25 done.

A random question. I've been working on updating my pages at the top. Since I do a lot of baby quilts, there's...a lot of quilts. I think I have 50-60 finished ones?

Anyway, what do people think is the best way to display that? Quilts by year? By category? Smaller thumbnails so you don't have to scroll past twenty quilts? Collages? No one actually ever checks past works so who cares?

And lastly...I finally gave in and joined Instagram. In case you want to see daily pictures of Bad Kitten being bad, instead of weekly ones. {Or Korea pics. Because I'm going to Korea!! To get my son!!!}

Linked:

BOMs Away Monday @ What A Hoot

Design Wall Monday @ Patchwork Times

WiP Wednesday @ Freshly Pieced

Linky Tuesday @ Freemotion by the River

Rainbow Scrap Challenge @ SoScrappy

Scrap Basket Sunday @ Kim's Big Quilting Adventure

Fabric Frenzy Friday @ Fort Worth Fabric