Granny Square Finnished

Tonight I finished my purple Granny Square Baby Quilt Top.  This is made from 2 1/2 inch purple blocks.  Originally we bought these colors for Rebecca's wedding quilt but she well has since broken up from that um relationship.  But even before the brake up I started this quilt as I love the Granny Squares and I love purple.  And well Babies need quilts so hey what better then to make them a quilt.  I cant believe that Julia our Baby is now big enough to hold my Baby quilts up for me.

 Julia is really starting to be a big helpper in her own right.  She insisted on helping me cut all the blocks apart when I sewed the blocks together.  We originally did the granny square blocks back in January so its been a full 6 months since these pictures were taken so she has grown up a ton since these pictures.  Its amazing how much 6 months changes a kid when she goes from 5 1/2 to 6 years old.  The 4 block that are sewn on on the picture just below this line  and in the picture on the desk next to Julia are a hand sewing project that Julia decided to do.  She wanted to

make a blanket for her cat and dog for her doll house.  They are extremely cute.  She has hand sewed some of her stuffed animals together and she has even helped me sew a few blocks from time to time on a few quilts here or there when she does not drive dad completely crazy.  Not that you would expect a 6 year old to drive dad completely crazy but she does.

I am still looking for those that are interested in trying out my http://craftlovers.net/ to go give it a try.  It is a free site to use you can create a user account and share any crafting hobby like quilting, knitting, pottery, wood crafting etc.  I am looking for people to try it out and add some items and give me feed back on the user experience.  I need to know what makes sense and what does not.  What I can add to be more user friendly etc.  I am creating the site to be a place where I can share my quilts and where others can share their crafts and hobbies.  I of course dont want it to only be me using the site so I need others that would be willing to use the site so that I alone am not using it.  Again Check it out http://craftlovers.net/

Tanya and a Pieced Quilt

It is rare but there are times that Tanya makes pieced quilts.

A lady at church (well I still consider her a young girl at church) she has grown up and got married and moved in next to her parents is having her first baby.

Tanya is her visiting teacher and decided to make a quilt to take to her.  This girl use to Read with Rebecca when she was younger and could not read well so she is special to our family.

You can tell when Tanya sews.  She pins every thing me I just sew it too gather it takes too long to pull out those silly pins.  Any way the top looks cute and it now needs to be basted and quilted.

Half Square Triangle Top and Back finished

Its funny yesterday I posted about quilting this and now I will post pictures of it being made.

This is just a simple and cute quilt using our HST pattern that we sell on Craftsy.

Tanya and I have a system.  I cut and sew the tops.  She bastes and makes the bindings.  I quilt and bind.  But Today Julia had to get into the action.  She is now 4 and just growing up.  She just finished her first year of school well if you call parent/tot pre-k school.  Next year she is in pre-school by her self.

As you can see from photo's she loves her picture taken.

And she is cute as a Button!

Sawtooth Flimsy a quilting Acident

A few weeks back (oh did I mention the computer blew up) I set out to make a quilt for a lady at work that is having a baby.  She asked me for a Chevron quilt.

I had seen a picture of a Chevron that was not a HST which I had done in the past.  It used Rectangles cut into triangles.  I thinking I can do that.  I sat down and cut out all of my material (you know me I can make multiple quilts at once).  Any way after cutting it all out I went to lay out my Chevron quilt and had to laugh as I needed half cut one direction and half the other.  So taking my blunder to my EQ7 I created a new pattern which I am going to call my Sawtooth Quilt.  Hey it was almost a Chevron!

Custom Orange Quilt who could say no!

The other day I got a request to make my diagonal quilt in orange, white, and cream.  And how could I turn that down.  If you have followed my blog from the early days you might remember that I created a all orange quilt that my wife hated and every one loved. Well now I get to have another one (for a day or 2) but hey that just means I need to do my norm and make 2!  The pile above is what we finally decided on material wise.

My favorite part of quilting is chopping the material up.  I think I have more fun doing that then any thing else.  Here you see the fun pile of fabrics I turned into this quilt.

One thing I like about these quilts is how interesting they look while constructing them.  Instead of working from top to bottom I work from top right down to bottom left.  Sadly the orange and my tan walls do not like each other but above you can see the colors better.

Its funny that no matter when I take pictures, I have all the kids run into the room and want to get into the shot.  Here is cute little Julia trying to sneak into the photo shoot.

And of course here is the completed top  I love how this pattern of mine goes together.  It is a complete random fling of color and fun.  Can't wait to see how the customer likes it.

Purple Circular Triangle Quilt Top

I had so much fun last few weeks doing the Triangle quilt along that I had to make another one.  I designed this quilt top on EQ7 and I think it turned out pretty good.  I enjoyed the Minky on the last triangle quilt that I think I am going to have Tanya find me another one for the back of this one too.  My Daughter Rebecca was looking at it and asking if it was for her.  LOL nope it was just made because I wanted too.

I have talked in the past about my patterns on Etsy.  I have never quite figured out what makes the top quilts on the top but from time to time mine pop up.  2-3 weeks ago I found this one where 4-6 on the top 20 were mine.  Tonight I posted a new pattern for my 25 square quilts (I am making a purple one you can see the top on Instagram).  As normal for any of my blog followers if you visit the pattern on Craftsy and comment on it and then come back here and leave a comment you can have a free copy of the pattern.

Another Orange Quilt Top

Last year my favorite quilt that I made was Fire in the Sky  It was put on our Etsy Store and while listed there generated 97 favorites and was put into 23 different treasury lists.  Originally when I made this quilt I had over made the blocks and had more then I needed in this quilt (4 blocks wide by 5 long).  I loved this quilt so much I even created a popular pattern that I sell on Craftsy to make your own.

So the original quilt had 20 blocks in it and I had 12 blocks left over and I had decided way back then that I would one day put those 12 together and make a baby sized quilt out of it.  A few weeks ago when we went though all the boxes and did a good clean of the sewing room I found the blocks and I put them on the desk in a pile so that I could make my other quilt.  I of course like a good husband let my wife know the plans.

Well a week ago or so I came home from work and Tanya was so pleased with herself and showed me the neat hot pad she had made out of my useless blocks (her words not mine).  If you read about the original post you will see the comments about how much she hated my orange blocks.  Well it seems that she is now trying to get rid of them one at a time.   Being the persistent husband I am I cant' let this go so, while she was at work on Friday night I made this.

Yes that hole in the middle is my hot pad.  Thanks Tanya.  Any way I still need to add a border around it and find me a back but in a few weeks (or months, my to quilt pile has 5 quilts one of which is a twin size to still quilt,) but you will see this again and yes it will end up on the Etsy Store to replace its older sibling that was snatched away from me.  (Yes Tanya its too late I made another one)

Color Star Quilt

Tanya and I started working on a new pattern.  It is based on a quilt that my wife has made a few times now.  It is is one of the quilts that my wife has made the pattern for that I really enjoy.  I am twisting her arm to make the pattern so we can sell it.  She has made a rag quilt version and a pieced quilt version, I will show them both below.  Tell me what you guys think of this pattern.

I think the two previous versions star stands out more.  I like the newest one, but it will most likely will have the star stand out better once its quilted and washed.  Any way hope you enjoy this quilt and look forward to seeing the pattern on on Craftsy.

Ghastly Quilt Top Finished

You are all thinking that its not Halloween yet and I am jumping the gun a little.  Last week while cleaning out the stash pile (yes it turned into a pile rather then a organized mess) We found our Ghastlies, we finished one quilt last year that we totally forgot to blog about that.  It was made for Tanya's Sister and then started making the wonky picture blocs.  The strips of pink, green, and gray were also made last year.  I added the sashings around the blocks and made them wonky rather than square (I wanted them off kilter more then they were already) and then sewed the 5 strips together.  We have enough Ghastlies to make another top and most likely 3-5 wall hangings.  Our plan is to sell the quilts and keep one of the wall hangings.  One thing I find funny about the Ghastlies is no matter how I try to take pictures of them, they look blurry.  I don't know if its just too busy that the camera can't focus, but it looks so much better in person then it does in the picture.

I have of course still been working on the granny squares.  I think I have enough done now to make 2-3 more baby quilt tops.  I can't wait to get all of them done, they are so much fun.

Blocks old and new

Last Saturday Tanya and I sorted and went though the mess (stash) and found a bunch of things and put others away, sorted and filtered the mess and also realized we have TOO MUCH material (I think I need to get to quilting more quilts) any way the above top was made out of 20 blocks I found in the pile.  I made the blocks over a year ago and because I decided I hated the fabric (I found the bundle at Walmart before I became a fabric snob) so I quickly put these vanishing 9 patch blocks together.  We already had a back for this so it should be a easy quilt to finish. Not great material but its at least not in a box any more.

Along with my funky fabric we found the blocks that we started for our ghastly quilts.  We finished one quilt last year and gave it to Tanya's Sister.  We have enough material to make at least 1 more quilt and 4-5 wall hangings which we plan to get done before October to put up for sell.

The plan is to have these as 2 rows of the quilt we have a few other rows to go between also it will look neat I think when done.

And lastly I got a few more of my granny blocks done.

Tanya's new quilt top and other distraction

Today while trying  to take pictures of a quilt top, my son Jared though it would be neat to have a baby in the shot since its a baby quilt. To make him happy, we got Julia with that deer caught in a headlight look on her face. This quilt top Tanya has name the pattern Windows Quilt, because it looks like they are looking though windows.  We have this pattern for sell on Etsy for  0.95 cents.  If you would like a free copy of this pattern (to celebrate another quilt top being done) you can go to Craftsy put a nice comment on either the pattern or one of the projects attached to the pattern and come back here and tell me you did so and I will email you a free copy of the pattern (Oh that is true always for any of my patterns if you leave a comment its yours free)

Here is a full shot of the quilt.  It has a cute Owl pattern on it.  I bet this will be one that sells fast once we get it on the Etsy Store.  As of now, its just in the pile to baste.  Tanya and I spent most of the day yesterday going though the piles of mess in the sewing room and guess what?  Yes we found even more flannel that we did not realize we had?  Hum, I think Tanya's stash is going to go on for about 25 quilts (my old guess was 20).

These strings were made by Rebecca out of my left over scraps.  Speaking of the cleaning yesterday, it turns out I have a huge storage box now full of stuff for strings.  I sorted out the pile of leftover junk from quilts of the past into 3 piles.  Pieces of fabric big enough to go into a box for future quilts, big enough for 2 1/2 inch blocks, and  strings for the string quilt project that we have tasked Rebecca with doing. (She tends to mess the house up less when working, then just playing) so this may be another thing for at least the rest of summer we will have many to show off.  As for me I am still on the Granny tangent.

They are not completed yet, but these are block rows that just need to be ironed and then sewn back together. After the 4+ hours of cleaning/sorting I spent the rest of the day doing these and watching movies with Tanya.  Hum which project should I work on next?  Tanya thinks that huge pile of quilts that are basted should be done, but what fun would that be.  I think we need a couple more tops to make her feel like she needs to buy another couple boxes of pins.  I bet we have 10 boxes of safety pins right now basted into quilts.  Where will we put them all, once I finally quilt a few.

Granny Obession

 

Completed Granny Squares.

 

More Granny Squares.

 

Wait ... More Granny Squares.

 

 

 

Two  Sewn together.

 

 

 

Completed Rows.

 

 

First baby top finished, many more to go.