Just Sew Quilter

Monday, October 14, 2024

Something Wicked is coming!

The Something Wicked blog hop will be here soon! Starting one week from today, you can visit lots of wonderfully wicked websites (see what I did there? Hee, hee!) and get inspiration! Here's the list:

OCTOBER 21

Just Let Me Quilt

Just Sew Quilter (you are here)

Sew Many Yarns

Patchouli Moon Studio

OCTOBER 22

OCTOBER 23

Elizabeth Coughlin Designs

Beaquilter

Homespun Hannah's Blog

OCTOBER 24

MooseStashQuilting

Ms P Designs USA

Quilted Delights

Quilting Between the Rails

Monday, September 23, 2024

Bee Kind--My Turn

For my show and tell on this hop, I decided to get my shop hop quilt completed.

The fabric of choice for the East Central Illinois Shop Hop in July was Honeycomb Gardens by Laura Berringer for Marcus Fabrics. Because of the bees, I was enamored with the fabric and ordered the kits for the 12 blocks.

(It was a gorgeous day so I had my personal quilt holder display the quilt for me. LOL!)

There were 11 shops that participated in this hop, which means one shop provided 2 blocks. Three of us in the Cerro Gordo Quilters group had fun going to all but one shop in 2 days. I had visited the other shop (Stewart's Sewing in Mt. Zion, IL) myself the day before our big excursions.

Each shop provides a pattern and kit for a block--the pattern of the quilt is Are We There Yet by The Fabric Shop Network--and offers finishing kits based on those designs. This time, however, I wanted to just put the 12 blocks together with sashing and add borders.

The outer border is Bee Grateful by Deb Strain for Moda. With a yellow binding from the shop hop fabric, my quilt was done.

I FMQed the quilt with loops and bees, hoping the loopy pattern looked like bees' paths through the air.

Can you find my bees in the quilting? :)

As far a being kind to others, our Cerro Gordo Quilters regularly do charity work. Last fall we made lots of Christmas stockings for the domestic violence shelter. We are making them again this year. Somehow, I missed taking a photo of the stockings, so I can't include one.

In August we made 12 drawstring backpacks to give to kids at school. The library put some school supplies in them and then gave them to the teachers to hand out. Again, I did not take a photo!!

A number of years ago I made this little pillows from a kit. I forget the designer but it may have been Rachel of Greenfield... They fit perfectly with this theme.

Always Bee Kind and thoughtful and have fun using bee fabric!

Thanks, Joan, for hosting this fun hop!

Here is the list of hoppers for the week. Be sure to visit them and Bee inspired!

Monday Sept 23

MooseStashQuilting.com

Tuesday Sept 24

Patchouli Moon Studio

Wednesday Sept 25

BeaQuilter

Karrin's Crazy World

That Fabric Feeling

Elizabeth Coughlin Designs

Quilting Between the Rails

Thursday Sept 26^th

Thursday, August 22, 2024

Shoreline Shells

Here is my finished Shoreline Shells quilt from Whole Circle Studio.

It was a block of the month last year, and I pretty much had all the shells done (foundation paper piecing) by the end of the year. The sea glass in the center was done almost immediately. :)

Then I had to decide how to quilt it!

I ended up sort of, kind of echoing around each piece of sea glass and each shell after I had stitched in the ditch around each object.

Boy, did I have trouble with thread!

Omni, by Superior, is my favorite thread to use when quilting, but I had some Glide that matched my background--it kept breaking and I regularly had "goobers" on the back despite tension changes, bobbin changes, and needle changes. So I tried Isacord--same deal. Finally, I ordered some Omni from Superior (kind of hard not seeing the thread in person but I had seen a thread card at Lori's Pins and Needles in Paris--very helpful). Yay, the Omni was a true performer!

Don't you love my quilt holder's feet? LOL!

Below are some closeups of the quilting. I didn't try to stay at the same distances for the echoing.

I faced the quilt instead of binding it--I like the look of facing sometimes when I don't want my eyes stopped by the binding.

Sew, it was at the Piatt County Quilt Show last Saturday and will likely be at the Salt Creek Patchmakers quilt show next spring (both in Illinois). I should have kept track of the hours I have in it--it's a bunch!

I have another pattern from Whole Circle Studio--and the fabric--one day soon I'll get after that paper piecing project too.

Monday, July 22, 2024

July projects

Wow, it has been a while!

Below are some projects I have finished up this month.

Two convergence quilts--I plan to give away the red, white, and blue one.

This one I am calling Fiesta Convergence--and I will be keeping it. The quilting is similar to the red, white, and blue one except I did some matchstick quilting in part of this one. I faced the edges instead of binding them.

The quilt below is called Anne's Australian Adventure. I bought the kit at The Quilted Fox in St. Louis, MO. They have LOTS of Australian fabric there. I decided not to make the quilt as large as the pattern called for so I made a pillow cover with the extra blocks. I quilted straight lines through this too--and that takes longer than an all-over free motion design! I think I'll save that for even smaller projects in the future (like the Convergence ones).

I'm just about done with my shells quilt--the quilting is finished--now to square it off and bind or face it... Then I'll share.

Tuesday, May 21, 2024

My Turn for On the Road

Monday was a great start for this hop/challenge!! I'm looking forward to seeing all the rest of the inspiring work from this group of bloggers! Many thanks to Carol of Just Let Me Quilt for hosting!!

I decided to be brave and share the most likely one and only quilt I have made or will make from a photo. This is from a photo I took while hiking the Presque Isle River trail to Lake Superior in Upper Peninsula, MI, in July, 2022. I took a 2-session class at my LQS, Stewart's Sewing Machines, Mt. Zion, IL, at which we were encouraged by our super-talented teacher, Karen Edwards, to find a photo to reproduce. I really liked this photo so... Perhaps an easier one would have been better. Anyhow, I got all the fabric on the piece right away and a week or so later did some quilting on it. Even did a small practice piece first to see how it would work. Then this hung on my design wall for several months. Finally, in April, I decided to start quilting again and get the thing done. Hooray, it's finished! And I don't think this is for me. I'll leave it to Karen to make quilts from photos, and I will do my thing with more traditional and a few modern quilts.

P.S. The hike was amazing, beautiful, and led us to the shore of Lake Superior where we ate our lunches. It was a beautiful day!

Another project I just finished involved some traveling for the people pictured:

My quilt holder was having trouble hanging onto the quilt, so the photo is as good as it gets since I'm too lazy to try to get another photo somewhere else. :) This quilt has a story--a quilting friend found these fabrics in a "kit" at a rummage sale. Evelyn made a quilt like this one, and after I raved about it, she gave me the rest of the fabric. I reproduced her design but I didn't have enough border fabric. After searching the internet, the only place I found it was a shop in Canada (don't remember the name anymore--sorry), and I ordered all they had which was barely enough to do the borders. (The shipping cost more than the fabric, but I had to have it!) So now it's done, and there is still more fabric--just not the border. I have a big panel that I will probably make up for our church's district conference auction, but that will be another day.

Thanks for visiting!

Enjoy the rest of the hop!

MAY 20

MAY 21

Just Sew Quilter (You are here.)

Kathy's Kwilts and More

MAY 22

MAY 23

Monday, May 13, 2024

On the Road Again THIS WEEK

The blog hop/challenge On the Road Again, hosted by Carol of Just Let Me Quilt, will be starting in one week!

This piece has nothing to do with traveling or being on the road, but here is one of my latest finishes. It is one of Ricky Tims' Convergence quilts. This version is called Divide and Conquer. I love the bright colors. I thought too much yellow ended up together in the center, so I made spirals to fill the spaces. Then I quilted the whole thing with my walking foot, kind of following curves. I'm ready to make another one after I finish the project I just started...

Below is our list of participants for On the Road Again--I am scheduled for Tuesday, May 21.

I expect a fun week of stories and inspiration, as usual!

Remember to check out everyone!

MAY 20

MAY 21

Just Sew Quilter (You are here.)

Kathy's Kwilts and More

MAY 22

MAY 23

Tuesday, April 23, 2024

My Turn for April Showers

Another great hop is going on, thanks to Joan at Moosestash Quilting! Already we have seen some great projects!

I did a simple one for this challenge/hop. This is a Riley Blake pillow kit from a couple of years ago when they had a kit for each month. This one is April's with appropriate raindrops.

The raindrops are all foundation paper pieced.

I love these kits--everything is furnished in them. I have done 5 or 6 and have 2 more to complete.

And, happily, I have 2 beige 20" pillows that these covers slip right onto! I can change them out seasonally or monthly. Love that!

These projects have nothing to do with April or rain, but I want to share them anyway. You saw the wallet last month.

I had a lot of left over waxed canvas and decided to make the Sandhill Sling bag with the rest of it.

It was not difficult to make and I love that these go together, but this wallet is really too big to fit easily in the bag. One of these days, I'll make a Mini Diva wallet to use in it...