Bunny Quilt

Finished the bunny baby quilt top last night.
Quick and easy, 7 inch squares of bunny

fabric, 2 1/2 inch sashing and stars are 2 1/2

center squares and 1 1/2 inch quick corners.

February Reflections

I didn't get many of my own project done or much stash busted in February but I was kept very busy with customer quilts.

I quilted:
1. Queen sized 1930's quilt
2. Lap sized Sunshine and Shadows quilt
3. Two bunk sized r/w/b quilts
4. Two twin sized scrap quilts
5. and a raffle quilt for charity

In addition I turned in one charity quilt at our monthly guild meeting, quilted 3 table runners (though only one binding is done), finished my heart quilt top and also last night finished my bunny quilt top.

Some of my goals for March are to:

1. Quilt/bind and turn in an OLD UFO as a charity quilt
2. Quilt and bind my heart quilt so I can enter it in a local quilt show to be held in April
3. Quilt the bunny baby quilt.

4 Day Weekend

I sure enjoyed my 4 day weekend and I met or exceeded all my personal goals. I made two swap blocks from quiltville.com site, managed to get my heart quilt top done, quilted a twin sized customer quilt and started on a quickie baby quilt.

I am taking a day or two to work on my projects between each customer quilt so hope to find some backing fabric in my stash tonight that would coordinate with 2 or 3 of the table runners I have (for craft shows) waiting to be quilted and get that on the frame. Table runners are so much fun to quilt when you can put one after another on the same backing fabric.

My Projects

Spent a little time last night working on one of my own projects. I have been working on this heart quilt for the last couple of weeks. All the hand-dyed fabrics are from my stash, they are leftovers from a star quilt I made for our bed about three years ago. I had collected the fabrics for a couple of years at various quilt shows and ended up with way to much yardage. I made the queen sized star quilt, then last year I made a staggered bricks quilt and now the heart quilt and I will still have some of the fabrics left.

Weekly Progress

Well I have done zero in the stashbusting department this week but at least I have also not brought any new fabric in the house either. I spent a few minutes one day working on my heart quilt but the rest of the evenings this week have been used to load and quilt Mary's Nautical raffle quilt. I finished it last night so here are a couple of pictures of it.

I intend to now take a day or two to do some of my own sewing before I load the next quilt on the frame.

I have a nice long weekend, 4 days off of work so in addition to the usual chores around the house I hope to spend some time sewing every day. My goals for the weekend are to make a couple of blocks for a block swap from a Bonnie Hunter pattern from quiltville, get all the rows to my heart quilt sewn together and fabric for the first border at least cut and maybe to start a quickie baby quilt for my daughters one dance teacher.

Pictures Take Two

Posted the pictures earlier but they came out so small I thought I would try again.

Customer Quilts and February Goals

Wow I have done very well with my February goals so far. I have completed the 4 customer quilts that I had in approximately two weeks which was a lot faster than I thought they would be completed. I have another backing loaded on the frame that will be a raffle quilt in a fund raising effort to save the bay. I am then going to take a short break and quilt one of my UFOs before starting on a set of twin sized quilts. Wish I could quit my day job and just do this, much more fun. Maybe some day.

One of the quilts I did recently was a beautiful 1930's quilt that Kathy V. from my quilt guild made for her mom. Thanks Kathy for letting me post pictures.

Long Arm Tips

I am doing well with my goals for February. I complete two customer quilts over the weekend and have the backing for the 3rd quilt loaded and ready to add the batting and the top to it. This made me think that anyone that has not taken a quilt to a long arm quilter to be quilted before might need to know some specifics of how to prepare your quilt so thought I would post some of the tips here.

1. Do not embellish your quilts with lace, buttons etc. until after the quilting is complete.
2. Clip all loose threads from the back of your top. You don't want any of those threads to shadow through.
3. Make sure your top and backing are well pressed.
4. Most important factor is to make sure the backing fabric is squared up. If it is "wonky" it can't be loaded properly on the rails. Also the backing needs to be 6 to 8 inches wider and longer than the quilt top. This allows for room to attach the quilt top to the rails both top and bottom plus the extra is also needed on the sides so that clamps can be attached so that your top will be nice and flat after quilting.
5. Be sure to check with your long armer on size limitations. A 10 foot quilt frame can accommodate up to queen size, a 12 foot king or oversized king. Quilts can usually be loaded with either the width or the length of the top attached to the rails but if you have a large quilt be sure to check with the long armer before piecing the backing. (If a backing has one or two seams in it I load the quilt with the seams running the same direction of the rails so there won't be any bulk or lumps when rolling the quilt. On a very large quilt where only one side is small enough to be able to attach to the frame the backing should be pieced so that the seams run across the shorter side of the quilt).

January Reflections

Nancy on the Stashbusters groups posted her reflections looking back over January and I thought it was a great idea. Since I have not kept track on paper I will just have to wing it this month but below is a listing of my quilting accomplishments for January.

1. Turned in two charity quilts at January meeting (quilted over the holidays)

2. Completed 3 spring runners (from "new" fabric) picture of one of them is attached here, and 1 patriotic runner from stash

3. Completed first UFO, kids airplane quilt started the end of December 2007, all fabric from stash including a pieced backing.

4. Completed horse quilt which was started on New Years Eve. All fabrics from stash.

5. Quilted 1 patriotic charity quilt (to be turned in at February meeting)

6. Used up (or at least cut into) approximately 29 yards of fabric, 24 of which was from stash.

In addition to the personal quilting I quilted two customer wall hangings and two table runners.

My goals for February are to quilt 4 customer quilts (2 in house, 2 to be here this weekend) and to finish at least the top to hand-dyed heart quilt I am making, and continue to use at least twice as much fabric from stash as I purchase new.