Q2 Finish Along 2016: Proposed Finishes

I decided to make this list a mix of things I have to get finished for deadlines and also some old projects that need to be finished up.

1-First up is the wedding quilt that I need for the August wedding.  

The top and the back are made.  

It needs to go to the quilter and then it will need to be bound. 

 Here is the label that is on the back.  

I embroidered it and then incorporated it right into the back!

2-Fox Face:  This quilt is a carry over from last quarter. 

 It is all basted and just needs to be quilted and bound.  This one needs to be finished soon!

3-Baby Birds quilt.  This is one for one of the impending babies. 

 I managed to get a few birds finished, but need to decide how to put it together.

4-Bridal shower gifts.  

 Two Oven mitts, an etched casserole dish, 2 dish towels and maybe 2 more pot holders, or coasters.  The theme is black and white so those will be the colors.  

They will be along the lines of the ones I made for my niece, Ashley's wedding shower.

5-Bind the pumpkin quilt.  That's all this quilt needs.

6-Thadd's sports quilt. 

 I only have fabric, I have not started sewing much together yet. 

 All the sports teams in the Detroit area, including some of the college teams.  

Those are my proposed finishes for Q2 of the finish along.  

You can link up your list here, if you want to join in.

Have a Happy weekend of sewing or doing whatever makes YOU happy!

~XOP~

Q1 Finish Along

I just linked up my finishes for the first quarter. 

 I got all but 2 of my proposed projects actually finished!  

Plus I completed one that was not on the list.  

Pretty good, I think. 

 I will review those finishes here just in case you are interested. 

 From January 1st to today.  

These are just the ones from the Finish Along, I have had a few others too.

Vintage sheet rag quilt

Chenille blanket

Baby Pinwheels

Dreamy Stars

Amy and Matt's wedding quilt

 Here are the finishes that were not included in the Finish Along 

(I can't show 1 as it is for a swap)

This is a pouch from the free tutorial on the blog of Lori Holt.  

I substituted a cat face for the flower.

My "Jack" pin cushion

If you have not joined in the Finish Along you should consider joining next quarter. 

 It was certainly motivational for me!  Link is on my side bar.  

Q2 begins on April 8th.  

~XOP~

Dreamy Stars is Finished

I've been working on completing some of my unfinished projects. 

 I did not realize how many of those I actually had until I began digging them out!  

I joined the All People Quilt 2016 UFO Challenge. 

 I listed out 12 and each month they choose a number and you are supposed to work on that one. 

 I also joined up the 2016 Finish along . 

 For that, I made a post and listed projects I wanted to finish in the first 3 months of the year.  

You can carry them over to the next quarters if need be, no penalty. 

 I think there are prizes for finishes.  

Just a little motivation for me along with all the quilts I "need" to finish this year.

The first project for the month of January was my Dreamy Stars quilt.  

All it needed was binding!! 

 I cut out the binding from a vintage sheet.  I love this diagonal gingham for binding. 

 The nice part was that I only had to cut 4 strips for the entire quilt!!

Doesn't it look great?  I used a vintage sheet for the back and I could not love it any more!

It has been cold and GRAY here in MI so this is not the best photo but you get the general idea.

Here is a close up of the quilt.

I was hoping the quilting would show up better but it is really nice.  

My friend Liz did the quilting on this one. 

 Also, note the corner stones?  

They were cut from actual vintage sheets too.  

Sometimes it is difficult to work with this drama queen and all her "help"!

Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts for Finish it Friday.

Also linking up with the Finish along here
See my original list here

Have a great weekend!!

~XOP~

First Finish of 2016 and A Short Tutorial

That's right, I have one finish so far. 

 I finished that rag quilt that I was making with vintage sheets.

This is a photo of the finished front.

And this is a photo of the finished back.

If you have not made a rag style quilt before you should.  

They are super easy and make great baby quilts!  

I think having one for a winter snuggle would be great too.  

They make good blankets to take to cold football games too.  

I had tons of batting scraps I wanted out of my closet so this is what I chose to do with them.

  I cut them into 4" squares.  

You, of course can cut them any size you like.  

I wanted to use 5" charm squares of my vintage sheets.  

You need your batting square to be 1" smaller than the fabric you are using.  

First thing to do is sandwich you batting between the 2 wrong sides of the fabric you are using.  

If your squares are larger than 5" you may want to spray baste them to avoid slippage.  

I also use my walking foot to make this quilt.  Stitch an "X" on each sandwich.

Here you can see mine all stacked up with the "X" stitched on them.  

You may chain piece this part.

That sure makes it go more quickly!

It is easiest to use your walking foot to assemble the quilt too. 

Once you have all the "X"'s sewn on the squares you sew them together like you see here.
I used 1/2" seams to sew everything together.

One side of the quilt will have all the seams up as you see in this photo.

The back side of the rows will look like this, more like a typical quilt looks

Once you have sewn your rows, then sew them together, matching the intersections as you do.

You are now ready to do the very tedious part, snipping all the upturned seams. 

 I use a spring loaded, short bladed scissors to help my hands out a little bit. 

Here is a link to the exact ones I use

 It is good to do while watching TV as it is pretty mindless. 

 Make sure you snip about 3/8" apart. 

 A little smaller or larger is no biggie, the only big no no is not to snip into the sewn seam!  

Then your quilt would come apart! 

 If you do that (and I think we all know most of us will at some point) 

take it back to your machine and stitch it back up a bit. 

 If you are not near the machine put a piece of painters tape on the spot 

so you can find it when you are.  

I would say a pin, but I always seem to lose them and then I have 

A) lost my pin and 

                  B) don't know where to stitch!

Both are not good!. 

 Don't forget you need to sew all the way around the outside of the quilt and snip that line too!!!  

Close up of my snipped quilt.  Isn't that bird adorable?

I also loved those butterflies!

It is a technique that can be used with quilting cotton or flannel.  

Flannel makes one HEAVY quilt, but so nice for winter.  

One you have the entire quilt snipped you will throw it into the washer and then the dryer. 

 It will fray/fuzz a bit more when you do and that's exactly what you want it to do. 

 I find that the more snipping, the better the fuzzing, 

so keep that in mind for the look you are going for.  

This is the first time I have used vintage sheets and 

they did not fuzz as much as regular fabric or flannel, but I like it just as much!

I hope you have enjoyed my little tutorial and that you decide to give this technique a try.  

If you do I would love to see your pictures!

Have a wonderful day!

Linking to Finish along here
See my original list here

~XOP~

Finish Along 2016 Q1

It's time to link up to the 2016 Finish Along!  

You can find the information here, about how to join in the fun!
Link is live until January 16th here

I have a few things to list here as proposed UFO's

1-Baby Pinwheels:  Needs to be quilted and bound

2-Vintage Sheet rag quilt:  Needs to be sewn and snipped

3-Dreamy stars needs the binding to be hand sewn down and a label made

4-5 I have 2 chenille blankets that are basted and need to be sewn, cut and bound.

6-Amy and Matt's Wedding quilt will need to be bound once it is back from the quilter.

7-I have another Fox Face quilt that the top is finished that needs to turn into a quilt.  

I made two tops at the same time.  

One turned into a quilt and one is waiting.

I think this is as much as I can cram into one quarter of the year.

8-I also have decided to work on finishing some embroidery/cross stitch.  First up is a beautiful mermaid that I started I have no idea how long ago.  

Oh TRUST ME, there are soooo many more!

Are you going to join in and work on those UFO's?

~XOP~

A few More Projects

I have been working on a couple more things too. 

 In the spirit of moving forward with UFO's I hauled out my older Dream On stars quilt.  

It only needed the binding done.  I had to make the binding and attach it.

I had that green vintage sheet just begging to be made into binding for this beauty.  

Bonus that I only needed 5 strips for the entire quilt!  

Now comes the task of hand sewing the binding down.  I'm working on it.  

This will be included in my Finish Along group.

I cut up a TON of old batting scraps to use for making rag quilts.  

If you happen to have old charm or layer cake squares you don't need or no longer want,

 I would happily take them!  

I know I usually end up with a few left over squares that I don't end up using in the project.  

They typically end up in my scrap bin.  

Well, feel free to mail them off to me!  I need 12" squares, 10" squares and 5" squares.  

I don't really want to take the time to cut a ton of these.  

So if you want to clear some out, email me at mamaspark@gmail.com and 

I will give you my mailing address.  

I have enough of my own fabric that I can cut up, but if they are already cut, 

you know it will go that much more quickly!  

I did take the bull by the horns and cut up a bunch more of my vintage sheets to make 

198 squares for one of the sets of batting I have cut out. 

 I put them all together and sewed the "X" across the squares.  

All that's left is to sew these together and voila, a rag quilt in the making.  

Then all that snipping, Oi!

I will be listing this in my finish along post too.

I am excited to be able to bust out some new WIP's and finish up some older ones.

Will you be joining me??

~XOP~

New Baby Quilt in Process

Because I don't have enough to do, I decided that I needed to begin another baby quilt.  

It looks like I will have 3 to make this year. 

 I basted 2 chenille blankets last night but they are both decidedly "girly" so I need to baste at least one more in case one or more are boys.  

Just so I am clear:

Three wedding quilts

Three chenille blankets 

Three baby quilts

So far anyway. 

 I am hoping this means I can sneak in some selfish sewing along the way.  

What do you think?  

I had seen this adorable pinwheel quilt with Prairie Points on the Moda Bakeshop.  

It said that it took one charm pack.  I thought, what the heck, why not?

The pinwheels went together pretty quickly.  

Those prairie points?  Not so much!  

You use a 2.5" square and fold it 2 x diagonally to form the PP. 

 Then you kind of nest them.  

I have a few pointers on this. 

 Don't be an idiot like I was, how about that for starters? 

 Pay attention to which way the folded edge vs the open edges face as you pin them to the quilt.  

I did not do this.  It would have been best if the folded edge faced you as you sew. 

 In other words, make the folded edge the part your needle comes into contact with first. 

 Once I had them pinned in place I noticed that the folded edge slipped out of the overlapping edge.  Elmer's washable school glue to the rescue! 

I put a dot of glue under the open edge, slipped in the folded side and pressed.  

This holds them all together and nothing slips out of place when you go to baste them to the quilt top.

They are all basted down in this photo.

Once they were all basted I was able to sew on the outside border pretty easily.

 The next step was to grab a vintage sheet for the backing and get to basting.  

It is now ready for me to quilt. 

 It is small enough to quilt on my home machine.  

I am excited to get to quilting this one.  It is such a cheerful quilt!

I am going to join the Finish Along going on out there in blog land too.

It is done by quarter year increments. 

Info can be found at She Can Quilt.

Linking up begins today some time if you too are interested in getting some UFO busting done.

I'm hoping this is not a UFO for long!

~XOP~