Disappearing Four Patch Hot Pad

Sooooo I originally made this thinking I could use it for PQ6. But then I read all he requirements again. Whoops. Guess I'll be making something with more charms!

My name got pulled for a prize last week! Yay!! Looking forward to receiving it in the mail. Until then, tomorrow is the deadline for the last challenge of the year, and it's a bit sad. Fortunately, I've been able to participate in all six challenges this year! This week's theme was to use 5" charms. This week was super busy for me, so I decided to go with something small. I took four charms and created a disappearing four patch hot pad. The quilting part was fun since it slid easily on the machine. 

Thank you , Kim, for PQ!

Pillow Cases for Homeless Children

The quilt guild I'm a part of was helping a Girl Scout meet her goal of 50 pillow cases for children in homeless shelters. Why pillow cases? She explained that the children can't take much of their personal belongings, but they are given their own pillow cases with hygiene necessities. Therefore, it's a special personal property that needs to be more comforting for those children. Took my machine thinking I'd be sewing them with other women. Instead I got to teach two scout girls: a Jr. and a Brownie how to make them. We completed two with each taking turns at the wheel, but with me steering both in the right direction. It meets the criteria of three or more layers. Here's the second one I call "Froggie's my Friend" on top a pile from the others who were there, too!

Isn't the fabric adorable? I really like the froggies and can think of a ton of other projects to sew them into. Three fabric lines donated boxes of fabric for this project, and it was fun to play with the different fabrics. I let the girls choose the coordinating fabrics as these would ultimately go to children their own ages. It's sad to think that children that age could be homeless, but it happens. Makes me thankful for organizations like the Girl Scouts who teach girls skills that will be applicable later in life and also challenge them to complete projects that help others less fortunate, such as this project this particular Girl Scout decided to do. She had to decide on a project, write a speech, address about a hundred of us during a quilt guild meeting, and organize companies and quilters who have the materials plus younger scouts to assist. I couldn't take any more pictures, due to privacy, but there were about fifteen adults helping over thirty girls with ages ranging from I'm guessing six to twelve plus their parents. The two girls working with me were sisters, and their mom took plenty of photos of us in action. You will just have to imagine it. Just know that many children in homeless shelters will at least have fun and cuddly pillow cases to call their own!

Favorite Fabric- PQ Challenge #5

This week's PQ Challenge is to use our favorite fabric. Well, if you are at all involved with fabric then you know that this is a really hard thing to decide especially if you only buy fabric if you just can't leave the store without it. I love Moda's Winter Wonderland fabric, but I have that reserved for a red work project and I just about already finished a flannel quilt in which I used a birdie fabric I absolutely loved, so of course that's out. There are also those fabrics that you may have favored for reasons besides being pretty or lovely. I have this fabric that is my favorite in the way of being whimsical and I bought it just for that reason without having any idea what I could use it for. I may possibly figure that out this week as I think I will try to come up with a design using it in this week's challenge. 

Like I said- whimsical, huh? Any ideas?

50 Shades of Pink

This week's challenge had everything to do with hearts! I had bought a few quarter yards of Valentine fabric last year, so I finally got the inspiration to use it. 

Last Monday I got the chance to check out a quilt guild that meets about four miles from my house. I had been meaning to attend for months now, but every month the second Monday would come and go and I would remember the meeting after the fact. This time I kept reminding myself and had my husband remind me all day, too. Unfortunately, I woke up with a sore throat that day, but I took some cold medicine and took a nap when I got home from work and was still able to make the meeting that evening! All this to say..one of the members was making a presentation all about the Kuna people of Panama making Molas, and this is what gave me the inspiration on how to start this week's challenge. After the demonstration of how to reverse appliqué (maybe I'll explain more about what I learned about Molas another time, if you're interested- it's quite intricate!), I took a small kit home and practiced on the pig outline that came in it. It was my first time doing hand appliqué, let alone reverse hand appliqué, and strangely enough I enjoyed it! Soooo when the hearts theme was announced, I knew I wanted to use this technique to create some hearts. 

I machine basted by following the heart outline I had drawn on the back using a paper template I had drawn and cut out. This way, when I pulled out the white machine thread, the material would fold nicely under where the needle holes were made and I could hand sew it easily with the black thread. This was fun to do while I watched television shows during a couple of the snow days we had (teachers get snow days, too!). It also gave me a chance to think about what design to use to create the rest of the quilt. Since each fabric was 1/4 yard, I decided on simple 9" squares. I added the hearts, but I wanted more than just rearranging the squares and sewing them together with a diagonal pattern.  I had some black flannel fabric with white hearts, so I tried out the sashing technique. 

I had lots of flannel left over, so I added a border and included it with the purple and white hearts flannel fabric on the back. Binding is my LEAST favorite part of quilting, so I skipped it all together- I sandwiched it together right sides together..

..cut out the batting exactly and placed it on top, sewed it almost all the way around like a pillow, and pulled it right sides out. Here is the messy process of getting all the fabric through the small hole I left after triple sewing each side. 

It was so worth it, though. I chose a decorative stitch on my machine and stitched all the way around the edges. 

Quilting got to come last instead of the tedious binding! I did a simple zig zag, and probably should never throw it in the washing machine since I didn't quilt it very much. I will show you the back first, and with close looking you can see the three zig zags.

With all the sparkly Valentine fabric I found last year and got to use in this quilt, I think it turned out so pretty. These kind of sparkles are the best kind- you can touch it to anything and glitter does not get everywhere! Plus, all that pink goes well wih breast cancer awareness. Win win. I'm sure you were wondering about the name of my quilt- well, with all this movie talk going around, I felt led to twist it into the color pink, instead, because there is actually a website that goes by that name who take donations for cancer research. I feel it's better to promote this kind of love rather than the "gray" kind. 

The finished quilt is 67" by 50" and ended up being kind of heavy. 

It's perfect for those cold February snow days for snuggling up under on the couch and watching my favorite shows! If you enjoy it, please vote for "50 Shades of Pink" at http://www.persimondreams.blogspot.com/2015/02/have-heart-challenge-4-of-project.html and check out the other quilts others were inspired to create!

UFO PQ3 Challenge- Tied Strings

Edit: this quilt has been entered into Lily Pad's Pets on Quilts Show Contest in August, 2015. Thanks for visiting! Isn't Tate the cutest Morkie ever?

This week's Project Quilting Challenge was to finish a UFO (Unfinished Finished Object)! Being a person who likes to try many different patterns and techniques, I had quite a few UFOs. Hehe  One of them consisted of a few of these squares-I had made them by cutting squares from the yellow pages of a phone book and sewing scrap strips diagonally to them. I was leaving them in a drawer until I had more scraps to make a bigger quilt, but I its this challenge I had to go for it. Here are the squares right out of the drawer:

So, away I went sewing them all together. What took the longest in this entire process was ripping that darn paper off after I had the top sewn together! I didn't sandwich the quilt until late last night, then barely sewed the binding on with enough time to link up. I submitted my finished "String Quilt" with four minutes to spare. Phew! I didn't even have enough time to take a decent picture! Here's the picture I got in time to link up:

Thankfully, it's in the 60s and a beautiful day outside, so I took my Morkie outside (even if he's scruffy and needs a bath), and got a couple of pictures to edit this post:

The back is also scrappy- isn't it fun? It's 40" by 40" and I tied it rather than FMQ because I felt like it would take away from the design. 

I hope you like scrappy quilts as much as I do!

Sunset(rise) Challenge for PQ6

In January of last year I discovered a blog (persimondreams.blogspot.com) that hosted a challenge called "Project Quilting." It's based on the tv show, "Project Runway," except instead of only a few hours to create wardrobes, you have a week to finish a quilt based upon that week's theme. Beginning on Sunday at 1:00pm EST, she announces the theme for that week. The project you create can be any size, and it doesn't really even have to be a quilt as long as you follow at least one of the three rules she sets out and it's finished and linked to her blog by the same time a week later. The popular vote then begins. Everyone has until the following Friday to vote for their six favorites. The creation with the most votes wins the popular vote, and everyone's name is thrown in a hat to be drawn for other prizes. The next challenge begins again that Sunday-two weeks after the first one was announced. This continues for six challenges. 

Inspiration, challenges, prizes and competition with others while getting to "work together" with them? Of course I participated! Now I'm in my second season of participation, and we are in the second challenge of the year. The theme was Sunrise/Sunset. The first thought that came to my mind was the silhouette painting I had done with a friend of an African scene featuring an elephant and a tree. The background was a gigantic yellow sun setting amongst a red sky. I started with that by rummaging in my scrap pile for yellows, oranges, pinks and reds and began piecing them together. What emerged was a round yellow piece for the sun and the negative area in orange. Last summer I learned how to sew in a curve, so I attached the two together using that technique. I did the same after piecing blacks together, although this was with a much less extreme curve. In the mist of all this piecing, I took a break to take a run in the dusk of the day and saw my shadow. This made me decide to draw a picture of myself and use the outline to create a sort of self portrait on my quilt. Needless to say, I am quite proud of the result!

I had to take this picture in the gloomy outside light since it poured all day, but don't you just love it? That's my outline and it all pieced together so nicely. It ended up being 32" by 27" and I think it may turn into my first wall hanging. Here are some close ups:

..and the back of the quilt where the appliqué outine is..

..all pieces from what the colors of the sunset or sunrise would consist of. For now, I'm calling her "A New Dawn." Here she is laid down flat with Tate showing you the size.

What is your interpretation of a sunrise/sunset?

**Edit** My quilt is #53 of the link ups at http://www.persimondreams.blogspot.ca/2015/01/sunrisesunset-challenge-2project.html so please take a minute to go vote for "A New Dawn!" Thank you!

Muddy Spring Flowers

I finished a quilt today. I started it a couple months back after seeing a Fons and Porter television episode on a certain strip technique that I immediately decided I just had to try out. I had some delicious fabric in my stash that I believed would look just darling together in a quilt, so I gathered it up and began cutting strips. I had been waiting for the opportune project to come along so I could use all those lovely designs, and this seemed to be the one. 

After cutting enough 2.5" by WOF strips to total around 40 in order to end up with a good lap sized quilt, I pulled out some 2.5" squares that I had already cut for a previous quilt and were extra. I counted them up and had enough of the browns to use for the quilt, so that's what I went with. (In hindsight they don't really match the quilt, but they are also the inspiration for the name. When it's spring and there's rain, there of course has to be some mud along with it. This quilt kind of portrays the way spring can be as one walks down a lane: pretty flowers blooming, a patch of mud, another row of flowers, another patch of mud, and so forth. You have to think a little creatively to see it. As for the kitties on the back, well, that's just for the person cuddling underneath the quilt to enjoy as the backing is flannel and whomever gets it I'm sure loves kitties.)

I then sat down at my machine and began sewing away. I grabbed a random strip and sewed the 2.5" end to a square, grabbed another random strip and sewed it to the other end of the square. I continued with this pattern, strip square strip square, until I had one loooooong strip of strips and squares and had used all my cut pieces. This is where the fun part come in. I took each end of my long strip, put them right sides together, and began sewing them together on one long side. I continued sewing (it took a bit!) until I made it where the middle of the strip would be. It was twisted here, but that's okay because I just snipped it and finished up the sewing to the end. I then had a long double strip half the size as it was before. I again put the two ends together and sewed the long sides together. I did this until the quilt was the correct size. It is a neat technique and comes together fairly quickly, depending on how fast one sews. I have already taught two of my friends who have never made a quilt before how to do this and I am proud to say that one has already completed her quilt top and is moving on to sandwiching it together. She did not use squares and carefully chose matching fabrics for her strips, so it is very lovely. I cannot wait to see it finished!

Here is mine all finished, after ripping out part of the quilting that "eyelashed" and redoing it, it actually didn't turn out too bad.