Cherry Checkerboard Quilt and I learned a new trick!

Cherry Checkerboard

Cherry Checkerboard with Super Helper

 I started this quilt a LONG time ago with the leftovers from this quilt. It sat around as a quilt top for, oh, forever. I have a hard time quilting anything larger than a baby quilt on my Bernina. Some people can ram a king size bedspread through there, but I am not one of them, being as I am not double jointed and have only the standard two arms.

Last year my local quilt store got a long arm quilter and made it available for renting. For $15/hr you can happily quilt tents or king size bedspreads or even normal size quilts. I took a class for 2 hours and the next day I quilted TWO quilts in about 7 hours. It was actually really fun. I dislike the quilting step on my domestic machine and expected not to like it on the long-arm. WRONG! I loved it. I will definitely be doing this regularly from now on. They even change the bobbin for you- and supply the thread. It's a great deal.

 I did loopdy-loops on this quilt and am very happy with how it turned out. Next time I might get brave and do some flowers or feathers or something fancy. 

We are keeping this quilt and are already using it on the couch. 

(But we do fold it up and put it away when we're done. At least while it still has that new car smell.)

I am linking up with Lit and Laundry for Finish For Friday. Swing on over and see what other bloggy persons have been up to.

ETA- I just found a really cool new to me blog, amylouwho, with a Sew and Tell for Fridays. There are some really really cool quilts and sewing projects over HERE.

This post is brought to you by the number 2.

I missed Finished For Friday last week, which is hosted by Lit and Laundry every week. I was trying for a quilty finish every week this month, but missed it. I did have a finish last Friday- I finished being 33! My birthday was Saturday, and not one, but TWO of my aunt-in-laws offered to babysit for us, so we got to go out on both Friday and Saturday nights. (TWICE in a row!!) Happy Birthday to me!!

I did (finally) get the TWO baby quilts bound this week so they are ready to go to their new owners on Monday.

For my birthday Paul went with me to TWO new-to-me quilt stores in Green Bay, and I chose a yard of fabric at each. (See how good I was? Only TWO new yards of fabric!)

Jane Sassaman designed this one for me:

Amy Butler kindly thought this one up just for my birthday:

THEN we went to Joann's and I got a new cutting mat! Yay! Paul was quite a good boy during our outing, although he did try to borrow my scarf to hang himself at one point.

The boys spent Saturday night sleeping over at their great-aunt and uncle's house, so during my peaceful quiet morning with NO CHILDREN I made myself a present- a new bag like the one I made for my cousin.

I used a bright green (thrifted) linen tablecloth to make this bag:

The lining is polka dots of course, and I put pen pockets in again. Loving those.

I cannot believe how much more I can get done with no little, mmm, helpers we'll call them.

I addition to binding the baby quilts, in the past two weeeks, I finished TWO quilt tops. Well, finished the centers anyway. This is my Cherry Checkerboard quilt I am making to use up the cherry applique squares left over from Cherry Surprise. I finished making all the blocks and stitched them together, but I still need to put the borders on. It turned out very narrow, which I don't like, but in order to get the Irish chain to look right, this was the layout I had to use. (It's about 60" x 84" at this point with no borders added.) I think as I add each border I will make the side ones an inch wider than the top and bottom ones to kind of fix this issue.

This next one has been sitting in my WIP box for FAR too long. I finally stitched the petals down on all the flowers. (It took me a while to collect the right thread colors.) I am not quite sure what I will do for borders on this one. It will be a play mat/blankie for my newest niece, Baby Autumn, who is just the cutest thing in the world. She loves to stare at my Mom's ceiling fan, so I think she will like this.

A closeup of the satin stitch holding the petals down.

My SIL should be able to wash this a hundred million times with no problems. These babies are ON there.

So that's what I've been up to. If you have a finish to share, head over to Lit and Laundry and join in! Be sure to compliment her beautiful hexagon quilt. It's gorgeous!

A quilt show from Mom's house

The boys and I went to my mom's house last week and spent a week there sewing and having fun. She has THREE weddings on one day next month and was trying to get a quilt made for each one. She had them all cut out and two of them sewed together. So we put the completed tops on the frame and pinned them and she quilted those two while I worked on sewing the third top together and making a fancy backing.

Here is quilt number one. This is for my brother's friends' wedding and is the one I worked on sewing together. My brother is standing up in this wedding, so he helped pick out the fabric and my SIL helped with the sewing, too. For having three different people sewing on this top, it turned out remarkably square. I was proud of us! The back is gray camoflage.

This one is for a friend of the family's wedding. These are the colors in her bedroom. The binding on this is really pretty- a large scale blue gingham.

This one is for my brother-in-law's brother. (Wow- all the apostrophes in these relationships are confusing me!) Mom started this one a while ago and worked on it at my house so you have seen pictures of this quilt in progress.

There was a flaw in the (Walmart!) fabric that my sister had gotten for the backing for this quilt. (Not the spot- that was on my camera.) So Mom said we should cover it with a heart with the wedding couple's names on it. I agreed and said we should look at their invitation and use a heart from that. Well, there was nary a heart to be found. They had really cool, sort of gothic/bohemian invitations. So we decided on a fleur de lis instead of a heart and my bestest friend Sherry and my SIL helped me make a really big one. Then we printed their names using a cool font, appliqued them on and voila! the back is almost as cool as the front!

A closeup to see the font. My SIL designed the fancy "plus" sign and Sherry freehanded the fleur de lis. Cool, huh? Lots of artsy fartsy types in my family. Sherry is technically a friend, but she has been around long enough that we have "adopted" her. (She's just crazy enough to fit right in.)

I cut out my scalloped border and started hand quilting the purple and green heart quilt for Future Niece and the other two quilts are a lap quilt with the Lord's Prayer on it for my grandpa's birthday and a panel baby quilt for one of my cousins. My mom made those two in between making the big ones. (She's a busy lady to put it mildly.)

All stacked up.

Lukey wanted in and so he held Katie's quilt for Future Niece.

My parents have a log cabin with 2 lofts which are perfect to hang quilts on. Mom switches out the quilts seasonally. She had her spring quilts up so I took some pics so you guys could enjoy the view.

The tulip quilt is the one my Mom considers to be her "best" quilt. She made this one for herself and had it machine quilted locally by Arlene Readman who does amazing work.

This is a pretty daisy quilt that Mom made to keep. (She gives most of her quilts away.)

This quilt is MINE! My mom embroidered these fans for two years. She has over 40 hours into each fan. My mom has MS and she likes to take hand work with her whenever she gets an IV of steroids when she is having an attack. (Right now she is working on a bluework quilt that is going to be stunning.) I loved the squares and the pretty colors she chose, but had no idea that it was for me. Then when I got married she gave it to me for a wedding gift. I couldn't believe it! What you see is only half the quilt so there are another 5 fans on the other side of the railing. She saved enough of the yellow so that I can make a bedskirt out of it, but I won't take this quilt home yet. I will use it in a guest room someday and I don't have one right now. Also, I have two small "ruiners of everything nice" at this point who would get marker or koolaid or something on it and I will wait until they are a little older to have this treasure in my house. Also, I need to put this in a room with a door that closes so that I can keep the kitties off of it. Normally we use our quilts so that we can enjoy them, but this one is too precious to me to risk damaging. I will use it, but not at this point in my life.

I should have gotten a closeup of the fans, but my camera batteries were dying and it kept turning off. They are VERY pretty. I am a lucky daughter!!!

Some of my quilts

Duh! I realized that folks will want to see pictures (just like I do)! So here are a few that I have saved on my laptop already.

Here is my stash/sewing cabinet. It is "upcycled" from an old Sauder armoire that my grandparents used for years and passed on to me about 10 years ago. I had hubby put bead board behind it and I painted it off-white to match my dining room furniture. I sew on the dining room table and this way everything is handy. (So, yes, sometimes we eat in the living room!)

And this is a quilt I made for my SIL's wedding almost 3 years ago and I JUST finished it a couple months ago. (She hasn't even gotten it yet.) In my defense I had a second son in that time and worked full-time, night shift (DH works days) so there was very little "me" or craft time. These were their wedding colors and the center square is copied from their invitation. (A local embroidery shop did that for a reasonable price.) This quilt was long-arm quilted (not by me!) and is very large- a king-size.

This one is the one I chose for my avatar as I made it for myself. To keep! Yay! (I have given most of my quilts away.) I got the applique pattern from a book at the library and as I started it about 5 years ago, I have no idea what book it's from. It's a very happy quilt! This quilt was also long-arm quilted. This one is about a full-size.

This one was made for a friend's (30th!) birthday recently and it came together quickly. This was my first attempt at embellishing and I loved doing that. (It goes well with my OCD.) I do have regrets with this quilt. I don't like the borders- too big- and I wish I had quilted it more heavily. I hand quilted it (in the ditch), though, and only had 2 weeks to make the quilt, start to finish, so it is what it is. This is between a lap and a twin size quilt.

Here are some closeups of the individual blocks. This one I hand sewed little crystals "in the ditch". I got all the embellishments from old clothes- prom/bridesmaid dresses that were beyond other usefulness.

Little crystals in the corners.

For this one I used ribbon and wove it for the very center of the block.

The brown fabric has iridescent dots- so pretty in RL, but does not photograph well.

It's a bit hard to see, but there are little mirrored beads all over this square.

This block has turquoise sequins. Yes, I put sequins on a quilt! (I sewed them on really tight.)

More of the ribbon. I so enjoyed all the little fussy details on this quilt.

This quilt had a lot of sparkle to it. When my friend opened it and shook it out, it caught the light and just shimmered. I loved that, so I will have to make one for myself like that eventually.

I apologize for the quality of my photos. I need a better camera. That is on the list AFTER I get a new sewing machine. I had borrowed one but I think I wore it out as the needle won't go up and down anymore, so currently I am sewing on an old (pretty rough) White machine I got at a rummage sale for $3. (Good thing I picked that up!) DH has promised me a new machine, so here's hoping it's sooner rather than later.