Tag: baby quilt

I finished something….and I can not get my act together

I finished the dinosaur quilt.  Well, that is easy when you get laid off and have no job. 20180917_133908 Right before the holidays.  Yeah.  Ugh.  Oh please, let me add some more crappy ass news (sorry for that).  My favorite uncle died on Thanksgiving day.  He was the last bit of my Mom that I had.  He had the best sense of humor.  He loved to tease my Mom (when she was still here), which us kids found hysterical.  He lived in Germany (that is where my other was from).  I loved when he called me.  He always made me laugh and it reminded me of Mom.  I will miss him dearly.

The picture is my Uncle Uwe, my dear sweet sister Kellie and my cousin Holger (who is coming to visit in August.  Very excited about that).  It is a great photo.  Holger and Kellie were about a year apart.  He came to live with my parents for a year and went to High School as a teenager with Kellie.

So, while job hunting, I am sewing, which is sort of good.  Helps to keep my mind of my super crappy life.

About the Dinosaur quilt (rant over)

It came out cute.  I really like it.  No fancy quilting, just meandering, which seemed to work fine for this quilt.  I pieced the back, which came out pretty good.  I find this adds personality to the quilt and takes way less fabrics.  I can use up random one yard pieces that I have.

I feel guilty for not reading everyone’s blog, I need to get back to that.  it is one of my happy places.  I really love to see what everyone is doing.

Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting

Treasure your loved ones.

 

Advertisement

I’m still here … Hand quilt along and other stuff

I have missed you all.  Just have not been myself for a host of issues.

I have managed to do some sewing.  It helps me think and sort of work things out.  I finished my dinosaur quilt top.  It came out nicely.  It is for Kevin’s sister.  Her baby theme is dinosaurs.  I think it will be cure for a boy.

watermark_2018-11-18-13-10-04.jpgFor my Hand Quilt Along, I have finally picked back up my dog bone dresser scarf.  It is nearly finished.  I added the last dog bone, so hope to have it finished soon.  This is the lat one in the set of 4.  Please visit all the wonderful ladies in the Hand Quilt Along and check out what they have been up to.

Happy Sewing
Happy Quilting
Treasure your Family

The Hand Quilt Along and My One Monthly Goal

WaterMark_2018-10-28-20-46-25Honestly, I did not get much hand sewing/quilting done.  THe only thing I can truly take credit for is the binding on the back of this baby quilt.  I find the hand sewing on the back very relaxing.  It just so happens that this also Mo One monthly Goal Project. So to see all the fabulous project where people actually get stuff done, please visit all these lovely ladies who make way more progress than me on a regular basis.

Kathy, Margaret, Kerry, Emma, Tracy, Deb, Connie, Susan,  Nanette, Sassy , Edith, Sharon, Karrin, and Gretchen

I did manage to complete my One Monthly Goal Project.  Not the best photo, but I like the quilt.  It came out pretty good.  Simple but cute.  My manfriends sister is having a baby, so this will go to her.  I am also working on a dinosaur quilt for her, since that is her watermark_2018-10-28-20-37-26-1-e1540775539573.jpgtheme.  I pieced the back.  This was my second time attempting this.  It was supposed to have an orange piece at the bottom also, ut that did not go as planned.  It is still OK, just a little odd, but tolerable.

So, what lesson did I learn this time????? WHen you are hand binding and it is raining outside, do not forget to put the doggy door in, because the Moka Monster likes to stand in the rain and get muddy.  Then she runs in, down to the family room and jumps on me with her muddy paws, which means watermark_2018-10-26-23-57-13.jpgshe just jumped all over the quilt I was binding.  The things that came out of my mouth. I will not repeat here.   So, yes it has been washed.

Kellie – This has been hard.  I thought it was supposed to get better with time.  Not so much.  For me the image of her laying in the casket is stuck in my head.  I constantly see it.  That is not how I want to think of her.

I have not dreamt of her.  I finally had a dream last night that I remembered.  We were living in my Old condo and it was burning down.  Have no idea what that is supposed to mean.  She was not there.

This was the one time I remember Kellie having short hair.  She had such beautiful long hair.  If I remember correctly, the dog on the right was stuck in her bag (by Mom) when she went on her honey moon.  It was her favorite.  Happy Sewing, Happy Quilting, Love the ones you are with.

20180917_134224.jpg

 

When life throws you a curve, quilt

This is my One Monthly Goal Project.  I actually finished it.  It was completed before my sister died.  I think I needed something to do rather than sit around and wait for something to happen.  I actually finished the binding on the evening before.  I needed something to do with my hands.  It is a cute baby quilt, even though my fire fly looks like it has mated with a bee.

For the first time, I pieced a back.  Nothing fancy, but I did it.  Learned a few things.  If watermark_2018-09-24-19-02-24.jpgyou can piece your back, you can save a lot of fabric.

I used my heart-shaped ruler for my quilting.  It does not look watermark_2018-09-24-19-02-49.jpgto bad. I find quilting with shapes and rulers relaxing, which is why I probably got this completed.  I needed to do something that was sort of mindless. For some weird reason, the color looks goofy in this photo.  Maybe because it is a close up

I hope you don’t mind….for a while I will likely add pictures of my sister Kellie.  I think honoring her helps me a bit.  It has only been a week and there were many time I said oh I will ask Kellie, burst in to tears when I suddenly realized I could no longer do that.

KELLIE – When, I had issues with my first husband, My sister drove down and picked up Haley for

20180917_134023 (1)
Kellie and Lori

the weekend so we can try to sort out what we were doing.  Unfortunately, that same weekend, my husband Jerry took his own life.  Kellie kept Haley for a couple of days so I could make arrangements and then brought her home.  She wanted to protect her for as long as she could, from how hard life was.  Haley was only 4.  I was so thankful that she did that.

Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting

Treasure those you love like there is no tomorrow

My One Monthly Goal Finish….

I would say it was a miracle that I completed my One Monthly Goal, but I have already used that headline…LOL. I finished my “Starry Starry Night” quilt.  This was a top that I paper pieced for Denise at For the Love of Geese as a pattern test (She does have some lovely patterns).   It came out not too bad, considering I don’t consider myself a very good paper piecer.

I had a lot of fun quilting this project.  I think that is because I like how the quilting cameWaterMark_2018-05-23-19-12-25 out.  I wish I had chosen a different thread for the front, because I wound up liking the back a lot.  I used a variable thread on the front, and all I see is the the light part of the thread, which shows any mistakes.  I do not have a long arm, so I am always using my domestic machine and I always want to get the “longarm” look on my WaterMark_2018-05-23-19-10-53domestic machine.  I know it takes a lot of practice to become proficient and I have been working on it.  However, I found these rulers (not sure why some are called rulers) at my local quilt shop.  I quilted this using the Star shape.  It made making beautiful stars on my 20180422_135918.jpgdomestic machine easy.  They come out nearly perfect.  I am still getting used to using them, so not every star is perfect, but I like it.  I think I will keep this quilt for one of my future grandchildren.

This is the last photo I have of my birds.  They have all flown the nest.  I see them in the yard, learning about life, trying to get food.  It was wonderful watching them hatch and grow each day.20180523_175037_resized

Hope you all had a wonderful Holiday weekend.

Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting

The good, The Bad and the Ugly…..

So, you know what really stinks?  When you finally get around to doing something and it is screwed up.  So, my one monthly goal is to quilt this quilt.  So, I spray basted it about a week ago.  I go to get it and it looks like this.  So, the border was totally jacked up.  It looked fine when I had it all laid out, but I like to wait until that spray basting is dry.  Ugh.  So, more finagling with the border.  I am trying to figure out what I did.  Did I stretch it out when I basted it?  Do I not know what square is?  Could be either, I have my moments.  Will have to figure out something. Open for suggestions.

WaterMark_2018-05-13-12-39-59So, on a more positive note.  My star quilting looks awesome.  I love this ruler, even though it is not really a ruler.  It makes it look like I WaterMark_2018-05-13-12-39-26am way better than I am.  It is hard to mess up.  Perfect stars.  This was my test piece, until I figure out what to do with my border.

Baby birds look about the same.  Getting more feathers though.  It rained a lot here yesterday, so I watched Mom andIMG_06261001 Dad collect worms for the babies.  So cute.  This morning when I left, it was sprinkling, and Mama was sitting on the nest, keeping the babies dry and warm.

Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting

Sarcasm is running amuck…..amuck…amuck…amuck…

I finally found a use for flannel.  Yeah.

I do say that with a hint of sarcasm.  I like flannel, just not in quilts.  Then why do I have so much?  Good question.  Maybe I just can’t pass up a sale.  Ohhhh, that is very likely.  Don’t get me wrong, I have made a  few flannel quilts with scraps.  They came out fine.  I just feel that by the time I am done, the fuzz on flannel looks dirty.  I know, weird.  But I do like these cute receiving blankets made with flannel.  Super simple and cute.  I would like to make them a bit larger, which I will work on for the next one.

20180414_085845-1.jpgThis past Saturday our guild had a quilt in.  Name tags with your name or your code name.  Hah!  Well, I could not help myself.  The sew-in was fun.  They had someone teaching free motion quilting, or you could just work on whatever you wanted to.  I took my $11.99 Bernina and sewed up a storm.  It was a rainy Saturday in Ohio, so it was perfect for sewing and I won a door prize.  $25.00 gift certificate to a local quilt shop.  WooHoo!

Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting

Starry Starry Night….a secret project

So, I have been working on a “secret” project, meaning that I could not blog about it until it was ready.  I have tested a pattern for Denise at For the love of geese.  I volunteered to test this pattern for her, mostly because I really don’t paper piece but wanted to do it/get better/be less chicken.  That way when I see some of the beautiful paper pieced patterns, I won’t just dismiss them because they are paper pieced.

I previously attempted to paper piece a quilt and gave up.  So, I am always up for a challenge and really wanted to be able to paper piece confidently.  By the time I was done with this quilt, I was pretty confident with it.  It looks so hard, but it really wasn’t.

I actually like this one so much, I am going to finish it and put it up for my future grandchildren.  Funny thing was that I did not find the paper piecing difficult at all.  What I found harder was putting the blocks together.  I wanted to make sure all the points were perfect.  They are not, but not too bad.

Now the dilemma, How to quilt it?  I will have to think about that one for a bit.  If you are interested in this pattern, please visit Denise at “For the Love of Quilting“.

Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting

One Monthly Goal Finish

Seriously, how can January be over?  As I get older, I do not understand how time passes so quickly.  I feel like the holidays were last week.

I actually completed my One Monthly Goal. Not only did I complete, but I did a “New” (new for me), all over FMQ design.  I guess I can call it the “Linangle” design (lines and Angles).  It is not perfect, but it is not that bad either.  The only major weirdness is the binding.  I did not have enough fabric to do all one color,m so I used what I had.  Looks a little wonky because of it.

Now I am going to have to come up with a new one monthly goal for February.  Likely to be more quilting.  I am working on a secret piecing project.  More on that later.

I don’t have any plans for this quilt yet.  Will likely just store until the right time comes along for me to give it away or donate to charity.

I really enjoy the “One Monthly Goal”.  It is a strong motivator for me to get things done.  I can not say I am going to do something and then not do it.

Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting

My One Monthly Goal and the coming year

So, for my One Monthly Goal, I am going to completely finish this baby quilt.  It needs quilted and bound.  It has been laying over the gate entrance to my room, for months.  It is just staring at me.  Since I am now imaging my unfinished quilts are staring at me, I should probably just complete.  Then, my non completion guilt should go away….maybe, there are a lot of those pieces.

The one monthly Goal has been so helpful in helping to get items completed.  I very much have that personality that if I say I am going to complete something, then I am going to do it.

For this year I would like to finish all the tops that I have lying around.  I am not sure how many I actually have.  I would guess 7 or 8.  That is a fairly tall order, but it would be great to get done.

I won’t say that I won’t start any new projects, but I do not want to buy fabric to start a new project.  I can purchase stuff to finish things, but I am trying to avoid going out and buying fabric to start new quilts.  We will see how that goes.

Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting