Sew day and a giveaway

If you are looking for my giveaway go here.

I have spent early Saturday morning sewing up some goodness with a finish and a beginning.  So let me ask you have you ever had an idea grab you?  Something you have never done and never really thought you could do?  Machine quilting has been that idea for me in many ways.  Especially the dense patterns such as I see Leah Day do on her blog.  So how did I get brave enough to do this?

I tried to think of all the ways I could quilt these little houses on my mini quilt swap piece and the stone like pattern just insisted I try it. 

 Boy was it tiring.  Even on such a small quilt.  And I had to dig out my elegant gardening gloves that look like evening gloves but have gripper stuff on them.  I also went through 2+ bobbins because it is such a dense pattern. 

I straight line quilted the borders which seem to set off the center nicely!  And then added a happy dot border.

BTW here is the pattern I drew up on the computer to paper piece the little houses.  I also free pieced a couple.

I used this wonderful busy Kafe Fassett for the back which went well with the the other fabrics and hid the quilting.

I think it turned out great and cant wait to give it to my secret partner at the TMQG next Sunday!

Keep dreaming...Colleen



I am up to 5 blocks!  Veggie Hunter blogged about hers! I cant wait to see the other 5!



colorful cats galore

So I was reading Beginner's Guide to Art Quilts and took idea of the first project and challenged myself to run with it. 

 

I found 4 inch brightly dyed charm squares in my stash. 

 I picked out 12 different colors creating the 4 by 4 grid. 

Then I found the 3 inch high stack of 2 inch cat squares I bought years ago on ebay. 

BTW in case you did not know ebay is a great pace to buy precut squares. 

I matched up squares by colors and fused the cats to the dyed fabric. 

Then I assembled the cat quilt and practiced some more machine quilting. 

 I think it turned out so cute!

 I need to turn off my brain this weekend so I can finish my quilt along top and baste it at the snack and craft at the church on Tuesday.

keep dreaming...Colleen...aka 'butterflygirl'

charming pumpkin

So I haven't written for a while because I spend too much time reading every one else's blogs.  If you are looking for some good one to follow check out my list on the right hand side.  Warning:  reading blogs is addictive!  I am also working on two large quilts, two three small wall hangings and one table runner with coasters set.  I keep finding more things that I want make!  I wish it was summer already!  So let me post about the one project I made and finished in two days. 

I saw a quilt that had a jack-o-lantern made out of charm squares.  I sorted through my 4" square stash and began cutting green and yellow squares in half and laying out the pumpkin with borders.  I sewed it together and machine appliqued a green stem on top. 

I then decided that it would be a fall quilt so I decided to add a red border.  Mmmm...thinking leaves here.  Then because I had so many orange squares and orange is a fall leaf color too... I halved the squares and sewed a binding.  

I told someone today that I was reteaching myself quilting (see New Directions )and learning new techniques.  So this quilt also became an experiment in machine quilting.  I had recently learned that my old Kenmore has a pressure setting for the presser foot from this great video by Marguerita -Quilting Tutorials CrazyShortcutQuilts's Channel.  Here is a close up of my experiment.

 I quilted ridges in the pumpkin in orange and then echo quilted the borders in matching thread colors.

Well I'm falling asleep at the computer.  I'll share on of my other two 'experiemnts' in a day or two.

Keep dreaming....Colleen aka 'butterflygirl'