Twirl Brick Baby Quilt

Today I get to show off our Twirl Brick Baby Quilt.  This is one of many quilts we created specifically to add to our Etsy Store. Sadly these quilts have been done for a while, but because of events out of our hands its been a few weeks since there creation.  They are not recent finishes, but rather recent items to show off.

Tanya finally sat down today and put all of the quilts we have for sell on the Etsy Store and we now have 20 items for sell.  Tanya and I have agreed that we need to stop our fabric shopping util we get a couple quilts sold.  Good for us is that we still have tons of material to make things with a current planned list of more then 30 quilts (most of which is for the family this Christmas).

Today I was happy to find that we had a sell of one of the rag quilts on the Etsy Store .  This is great as we have a few quilt tops we have finished and a few that we want to do soon, but do not have backs for.  We have been waiting for something to sell to afford some backing materials.

This is the 6th quilt we have made from the Twirl bundle I got for my wife.  She totally loves this line of fabric from Me and My Sisters a Moda line of fabric.  We partially won and partially bought from Fat Quarter Shop  I still think we have a little twirl left maybe we can get another quilt out of this fabric yet.

Here are 4 of the finished quilts made out of Twirl

Twirl Magic

Doll Quilt

Tanya's Quilt

Sands of Time (oops we messed up)

Still under construction is a baby quilt top Tanya Made shown in this WIP Wednesday post I am using it for practice with my FMQ so its a slow WIP

The Buzz & 300 Followers!

First off a thank you to all those that sent condolences for my father.  I think after 11 hours of sleep last night I am almost alive.  I have not created any thing fantastic yet this week but I do have some to show off from last weeks trip to the park.

This quilt is one of 2 Bee Quilts.  And out of the 2 it is my wife's favorite   This is another baby quilt with black minky on the back.  It is cozy and soft.

We had a lot of fun at the park while taking pictures and I think in the end we ended up having more then 20 of each quilt.  It is almost hard weeding out the pictures we did not like.

I was also happy to see today that my follower count is exactly 300.  At some point here in the future I will have to celebrate that but my brain and body is not yet ready for that.  Feel free to send me some ideas if you have for a way to celebrate.

Today's Post is posted by Richard

Link a Finish Friday #34

It is now time for Link A Finish Friday.  Today I would like to start with a big Thank you to Fat Quarter Shop who has offered to Sponsor our Link A Finish Friday with Prizes.  This month's winner (September) will be able to pick a yard of fabric of their choice.

Please remember to thank our sponsor by visiting their store at http://www.fatquartershop.com/ their blog http://www.fatquartershop.blogspot.com/ and Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/FatQuarterShop

Tonight Thursday is my Dad's viewing and tomorrow Friday is Dad's Funeral so I will keep this short as I am busy helping mom and getting things ready.  Please link up your finishes this week.  And since I am too busy to think you get almost a full extra day early to start.

So for the rules.

1) Who likes rules. Toss them out.
2) Add a link to your finish blog or where ever you show off your finishes (Not limited to quilts but I like them the most).
3) Visit a few of the finishes and comment or encourage them on.
4) Monthly random winner picked from all of the months linkups to one yard of fabric from Fat Quarter Shop.

Not required but fun to do

1) Follow my blog.
2) Follow the blog of all those that link.
3) Link back to my blog.
4) No finish, go quilt and stop reading the web.

My Dad Lynn Jay Healey

Today's post comes with a little bit of sadness and a little bit of joy.  My father above (holding me when I was just a baby) passed away last night.  He was one of the greatest teacher of my life.  He helped me become the man I became.  As a little child he spent all of his time teaching me and my siblings (I have a brother and sister) the things that we needed to know.  He was in my youth, a scout leader to me and hundreds of boy's that came before and after me.  

As he seasoned,he also cared and loved my children and my wife.  He was not always a easy man to deal with, but he was a loving and kind man.  He loved to tease and joke.  Even as recently as 3 weeks ago when visiting him, Baby Julia was being the cute baby she was sticking her tongue out, and he stuck his tongue out to her.  He loved his grand kids and they love him.

Last May I made my dad a quilt I am saddened that he will no longer get to use it, but I have joy that he has found peace.  He lost his only sister just a year ago to MS and both of his parents years before that.  I am happy to know that he will have some one to meet him on the other side and I know that he is now at peace and no longer in pain.

One of the great things that my father left me is a legacy of love for taking pictures.  As such a few of the pictures that were taken of my father in his younger years can be found here on a picture site of his. I created from slides he took when I was a kid.  And even more in the recent years can be found here on my picture site.

Dad we will miss you and we love you and will never forget you.

Yes more lizards, What can I say I love them!

I have been thinking for a while that its about time I put a picture of me on my blog.  I like the pictures of Julia better (she is cuter), but today I went to the Sahara Cares 2012 Carnival for Autism. We have two boys that are diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome, a high functioning form of Autism.  Any way one of the booths had a bunch of reptiles.  It was so funny to see how freaked out Jared was with the snakes, until he realized they were not scary.  Then he would not put them down.  Though Tanya kept her distance, about 10 feet back and kept yelling to wash our hands.  Any way I got to hold a cute lizard (and 5 different snakes and 2 turtles.  I drew the line at the scorpion that James my oldest held and he said it tickled as it walked on his hand.)

Any way all of this brings me to the quilt I will show off today.  This was finished a few weeks ago (but with being sick for 2 weeks and my father getting closer to meeting his maker). I have yet to post it as a finish. This afternoon I went to the park with a huge basket of quilts (6 completes that you have only seen bad pictures of the tops, so expect them over the next few weeks).  But today (thanks to the above mentioned Lizard) you get the lizard love first.  Tanya and I made a quilt for her step brothers kid out of the black lizards in this quilt and just had to make another one.

On this one we chose ivory minky to go on the back and various fun kid friendly prints to mix with a blue and black version of the lizards.  But I have to say, sadly that I do not like this quilt as much as the last one.  It is cute, but it could have been cuter.

Any way another quilt to add to my Richard loves Lizards line of quilts.  Enjoy.

Link a Finish Friday #33

It is now time for Link A Finish Friday.  Today I would like to start with a big Thank you to Fat Quarter Shop who has offered to Sponsor our Link A Finish Friday with Prizes.  This month's winner (September) will be able to pick a yard of fabric of their choice.

Please remember to thank our sponsor by visiting their store at http://www.fatquartershop.com/ their blog http://www.fatquartershop.blogspot.com/ and Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/FatQuarterShop

This week I have been working on a Plus quilt.  This is the first 4 rows sewn together.  If you looked again at the wall this morning their is 8 rows sewn together and there is rows 9-13 on the table.  I ran out of Pluses and have to cut a few more tonight to finish it.

The most clicked link from last week was this Tetris Quilt from Fabric Engineer.  Long ago Tetris was one of my favorite games.  As such a quilt like this is on my to do list.  Now link up and have a great week.

So for the rules.

1) Who likes rules. Toss them out.
2) Add a link to your finish blog or where ever you show off your finishes (Not limited to quilts but I like them the most).
3) Visit a few of the finishes and comment or encourage them on.
4) Monthly random winner picked from all of the months linkups to one yard of fabric from Fat Quarter Shop.

Not required but fun to do

1) Follow my blog.
2) Follow the blog of all those that link.
3) Link back to my blog.
4) No finish, go quilt and stop reading the web.

It all adds up to something?

Tanya was confused when I started this project.  She could not understand what I was doing.  I told her I was going to make a plus quilt.  If you look at my http://pinterest.com/rhealey101/quilts/ board on pintrest you will see many + Quilts that I have pinned over time.

In this photo here you can see my mess, I mean my quilt above the mess in my closet.  This is going to be a quilt of plus's all added together.  Each block is 4 1/2 inches wide.  It is out of the Reunion line which I have I believe 22 different fabrics from.  It is surprising how slow this is going trying to keep the 5 blocks together and sew them into rows.  I put 5 rows on the desk, all lined up and went to check on baby Julia.  I came back to a cat who had made himself comfortable while stretching out on my lined up rows.  Oh well this is going to be a cute quilt when done.

Speaking of the cute little one, she is looking cuter by the day and she is enjoying her quilt Hearts and Flowers which was one of the first quilts I ever made.

Work in Progress Wednesday #28

Today's Post by Richard

This week has been a slow week for me on progress.  Earlier this week I completed a top made out of the above diamonds, but it still hangs up where I took the picture not yet basted.  My Dad is sick and not doing well. Because of that I am more distracted then most weeks.  We were told a little over a week ago that they did not expect him to live a week.   Yesterday when visiting the nursing home where he lives, he said that he did not even recognize me.

This last week we did post a new quilt.  It is a complete that is mostly credited to my daughter Rebecca.  She sewed all the X's and she sewed it into rows.   I did finally spend an hour cutting up new blocks for another new top that is about 1/4 done now.  I sadly did not have the camera handy so have no pictures done.  Tanya and I have both got a cold so things are just not happening this week around our house.  Any way that is my progress if you can call it progress for this week.

Bug Rag Quilt

Today's Post by Richard

I have been sick and under the weather the last few days and have done no quilting (I know no one believes I can just sit around and do nothing) but it does happen.  I guess I have been doing a little more then nothing.  I did some programming, but I did not do any thing fantastic.  I did watch some TV tonight the new show Revolution was on.  I have a link to my blog and on the blog a link to the pilot if any one missed and wants to go watch it.  Enough about that I guess your wondering what this quilt is.  This is another finish, but I have to give most the credit to Rebecca my 14 year old she sewed all the X's together and then all the blocks into rows.  I did sew the rows together and Tanya cut it.

This is some flannel I found last trip to Joann's  It was on sale and so cute (talking about the bug's). I had to grab something to go with it, so I got some blue and then some yellow gingham.  It turned out great.  This will be going on the Etsy store as soon as I get better pictures and I told Rebecca she could have the money it makes.

Link A Finish Friday #32 With Prizes

It is now time for Link A Finish Friday.  Today I would like to start with a big Thank you to Fat Quarter Shop who has offered to Sponsor our Link A Finish Friday with Prizes.  This month's winner (September) will be able to pick a yard of fabric of their choice.

Please remember to thank our sponsor by visiting their store at http://www.fatquartershop.com/ their blog http://www.fatquartershop.blogspot.com/ and Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/FatQuarterShop

Wow is it Friday already?  When I got up for work today my wife asked me why I did not put the Link A Finish Friday Post up.  Wow I though it was Thursday.  I am so happy that I have to work one less day this week then I thought.  Late last night I made a post http://richardquilts.blogspot.com/2012/09/look-another-squirrel.html and talked about my newest Completed Top.

I guess I got so distracted last night making it that I forgot what day it was.  The last few weeks have been crazy.  Any way its Friday so lets get to it.

Last week the most visited quilt was from Vroomans Quilts  This week it could be yours.

So for the rules.

1) Who likes rules. Toss them out.
2) Add a link to your finish blog or where ever you show off your finishes (Not limited to quilts but I like them the most).
3) Visit a few of the finishes and comment or encourage them on.
4) Monthly random winner picked from all of the months linkups to one yard of fabric from Fat Quarter Shop.

Not required but fun to do

1) Follow my blog.
2) Follow the blog of all those that link.
3) Link back to my blog.
4) No finish, go quilt and stop reading the web.

Look another squirrel....

Today's Post by Richard

My wife teased me a few weeks ago in this post about getting easily distracted and chasing squirrels.  In that post I really did chase a squirrel around but this time I was distracted by new fabric that showed up.  Tanya in the last blog hop won a 20$ shopping spree on http://www.christaquilts.com/.  The other day she was sitting at the computer next to mine (Yes I can't even have one computer I have to have a room full of them, You know computer programmers kinda silly) I was programming my great true love (Oh don't worry I have lots of free time to quilt) working on new features on my TV site http://trackmyshows.com/ and Tanya was pestering me to help her pick what fabric to buy.  I looked over and saw this cute material.  It is a line called Brooklyn Heights Textures by Benartex which is a Kitty Yoshida fabric.  Any way I pointed at it and said yep I like that one.  And I went back to programming.  She pestered me again after finding 4-5 other great things to buy and I said nope I like the other one.

Things like this frustrate my wife.  I looked over for all of 5 seconds.  Made a decision and never looked back (Well she did make me look back that second time, but we won't count that).  So what do you think showed up in the mail tonight.  I asked Tanya if I could cut some Diamonds out of it and she reluctantly said yes.

So I cut out some diamonds.  They were just sitting their all sad in different stacks.  So I guess the least I could do is sew them into some rows.

Well now.  A few rows got done and I figured out that I needed some more diamonds and repeated the process.  By the time Tanya got home from work for lunch (well dinner time for me) I was just putting the last few stitches on the last row.

As you can see what I ended up with in the end is yes another quilt top.  You see I ran out of quilt tops that were basted so I had to make another one.  This on the small end of lap quilt size.  It is bigger then the quilt of the same design I made for my dad which you can read about here.  So ....  Wait I think I see another squirrel, so off I go (to bed, believe it or not I do get a hour or 2 in here or there)

Work in Progress Wednesday #27

Today's post is brought to you by Tanya. 

I finally finished this purple rag quilt I started several months ago.  I may have got a little too creative though.  I tried various stitches on each of the appliqued hearts, basically I quilted the hearts.  One more of my own UFOs done.  Now the combined list of both Richard and I has a long way to go. 

2 Amelia Quilts and Lizard Quilt



Pink Quilt, not basted

The baby quilt tops we worked on over Labor day weekend are almost done.  With the exception of the pink one that I haven't even  basted yet.  They have been quilted and are in the process of being bound.  We did a wide variety on backs, some are minky, one is flannel and two are cotton prints.



My favorite "Bee Quilt #1"

Twirl Brick Quilt

Richard was working on binding my favorite quilt when I went home for dinner, "Bee Quilt #1". The two baby quilts out of the Amelia line by Me & My Sister for Moda are finished, but pictures are not taken yet. Richard said he was planning on finishing the two "Bee Quilts" before going to bed (They are done now).  That leaves two quilts waiting to be bound, one more out of Twirl line and the lizard quilt.  I am usually pretty good at picking fabrics to go together, but neither Richard or I like this Lizard quilt as much as the first one he made. It is cute, but we liked the brighter colors of the first one.  One of us, probably him will be posting about each finish individually in the next few days.  Notice any trends?

"Bee Quilt #2

 We bought more of the Batik fabric for the back of his twin sized quilt over the weekend, now to have some time together to decide how we are going to piece it together.  I guess that is what weekends are for.

I receive a couple packages in the mail for items I won on the last blog hop. The first package was from Kim at Lily Patch Quilts. Four pink FQ's.  It will be fun to work them into various projects.

 I also received these patterns from Loris at Luckypup Quilter.  I love appliques and think the Teddy Bear one will be a fun one to use up some of our larger scraps on.

John Deere Baby Quilt

This quilt comes with a story.  I am from the city (Salt Lake City, UT) and my wife is from what I would call the country (Kanab, UT). I have never really fit in with my in laws.  They have always thought of me as a city boy and being a Computer Pprogrammer they just never got me.  When I decided back in January that I wanted to make a quilt for every one in the family Tanya and I went shopping you can read about that here.  Any way we ended up with a pile of John Deere material to make my Father in Law and Brother in law quilts.  You can follow those links to see the 2 quilts we made.  

To me my father and brother in law are more comfortable on their John Deere equipment then they are talking to me, so the quilt is a fitting tribute to them.  This little baby rag quilt is all of the left over pieces of those other 2 rag quilts.  The other day when I was making all of the pieced tops, Tanya put this quilt together and it is washed and put it up for sell https://www.etsy.com/listing/109051939/john-deere-rag-quilt-37x47-inches on our Etsy store.

As you can see, we had far too many of the green and not enough of the others.  This quilt has the full top and bottom row green and then every other block green with random yellow, tan, or brown block in between. 

As a last thought for the day, I managed to get some thread stuck in the well for lack of a proper name the up and down arm on my machine (any one know its real name). So I took some time and pulled apart my machine and figured I had to take a picture of it gutted.

Since I am still new and a novice at machine maintenance.  What do you do and how often do you do it to keep your machine running well?  I well killed my first machine. Now that I am on my 2nd one (yes less then a year and one died) What would you consider proper care and feeding for your sewing machine?

Twirl Magic and a Sewing Saturday

Today I get to show off our newest quilt.  This quilt looks beautifu,l but it almost killed me making it.  I discovered all the ways to not do half square triangles.  I used a method to create the blocks by sewing 2 7 inch squares all the way around. Then you cut diagonally on the bias.  I did not ever understand the issue with bias tell I decided to sew 2 bias cut peices back together again.  Any way I think the quilt ended up wonderful and it is on our Etys store at https://www.etsy.com/listing/109021822/baby-girl-patchwork-quilt-out-of-twirl  HST Quilt

All in all I think it turned out fantastic.

This last Saturday Tanya and I went to the SLMQG sewing Saturday.  This is the 4th activity I have gone to with the guild and I enjoyed it a lot.  The goal for the day was to work on charity quilts.  Here is a few pictures I took.

This last picture is what Tanya and I worked on, the fabric was donated from  http://www.rileyblakedesigns.com/  to go to the http://phoenixquilts.blogspot.com/ Tanya and I will be making 3 lap size quilts for them you will see more on this later.