This Quilter's Journey-My Very First Quilt

I had thought it was gone forever, but when I happened to mention it to my oldest daughter, she said "Oh, I have it." So here today, I am going to show it to you. Before I do, I want to remind you that I made this quilt in about 1979, and when I did, I knew less than nothing about quilting. I made it from scraps leftover from sewing garments. Okay...ready?

 This is the patchwork side, all cut with scissors and hand sewn together. The denim around the outside was recycled jeans.

 It's lumpy as heck with polyester batting that has shifted since it is tied, and not too close together.

And this is the front. All stained, wrinkles and yuk! I am almost embarrassed to be showing this.

 Embroidery block with a very wrinkled ribbon on it. There was a popular set of sheets with a similar print back then and I tried to copy it, sort of.

 My philodendron plant that was in my livingroom.  All the leaves were hand appliqued by me with no fusibles. Heck, I don't know if we even had those back then. lol

 Another plant, this time with embroidered stems. I loved these two plant blocks. Still kinda like them.

                           A boat, once I decided it was going to be a baby quilt.

 Ewwwww, so stained...don't look. No, just kidding. All fabric scraps I saved for years.

 A cute little heart and some ribbon trim. The reason the applique is hand done is that my singer featherweight sews only a straight stitch.

And the odd orange gingham teddy bear.  Now I made this over the course of about 2-3 years, working off and on. I finally finished it when I was pregnant with my oldest daughter. It graced the bottom of our playpen (a perfect fit) through three babies.  Now my daughter brought it to me so I could photograph it for sharing here, but she doesn't want it back. I'm not sure what I will do with it. But anyway, that is how I started on my quilting journey some 35 years ago.  Hope you enjoyed the story. Talk to you soon.

Sunday Stash #11

So this week wasn't as full with sewing as I would have liked. Lots of life got in the way, but then that happens to all of us. I was wondering what I would talk about with my Sunday Stash post this week since the only thing I got was 3 yards of Kona white that I bought last week on sale from Canton Village Quiltworks. Nice, sure, but doesn't make for the most exciting photos. Then I remembered that I had ordered some fabric for a quilt, so I went to the site and borrowed the pics to show you here.

These fabrics are all from the Rocket Age collection by October Afternoon for Riley Blake. I had to go to two different on line shops to get all of them. I found some at Hawthorne Threads and the rest I procured at Lemon Tree Fabrics.

My daughter requested that I make a quilt for V in the same pattern as B's quilt since the boys share a room. B's is the wonderful Sasparilla fabrics, also Riley Blake. She says that with cowboys on one and spaceships on the other it will be like Woody and Buzz. To infinity and beyond!
Linking up with Sunday Stash at Work in Progress Girl.

Sasparilla-WIP Wednesday

I am actually working on several things right now. Big Shock, right? But the main thing I have been working on and making great strides at, my Sasparilla quilt for little B. This is a Riley Blake line and I love the 1950's feel of it. In this colorway, I think it looks amazing.

 I finally got all the little HSTs put together, pressed and trimmed. I now have to finish attaching them to each other to create the small blocks.

 I am doing lots of chain piecing with this one and it does help it to go a bit faster. I am using Aufifil 50 weight thread for all this piecing. It also saves so much on thread when there are so many blocks to piece.

 This is what I have so far. Now that I am this far into it, I have found that I actually have enough fabric to make it bigger, as I originally planned. So I will be cutting more pieces next and seeing how big it will get.

 The goal is a twin size for a future  big boy bed for little B. The little HST blocks across the top are probably not going to stay there. Just trying them out. I think they need something to separate them from the others. Not sure yet.

Here is a bit of a close up. I love the way this is looking. I did not realize the big X effect that the fabrics were creating. This quilt is having so much movement when you stare at it for a bit. I hope you are having a great sewing week too. Linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced. Talk to you soon.

Sunday Stash #10

I got just a couple of new things this week.  I am planning a wedding quilt for my middle daughter and she loves fall colors. I wanted to make something modern using fall colors and I am going to use mostly Kona solids, so I had to start getting some of them. Sorry the pics are not brighter, but cloudy and rainy is the order of the day here.

This is the pattern and the first of the fabrics. The pattern is Concerto by Aria Lane, a pattern company that was started by Alyssa Lichner of Pile O' Fabric. I fell in love with this quilt when I first saw it and am so happy to have a reason to make it now. I still need to work out what other fabrics I want to incorporate. The pattern and fabrics came from Christa Quilts. Colors are lipstick red 1194, orange 1265 and Canary yellow 26.
Next, I was blog reading and saw an adorable quilt by Allison of Cluck Cluck Sew using this sweet goldfish fabric by Timeless Treasures. I fell in love with it. It is actually a brighter white background.

I scoured the internet and found it at Fabric.com. They are out of it now, so I am thinking I am not the only one.  I bought a yard to use in a baby quilt. Allison has a great pattern that she used this in, but I haven't quite decided if I am going to use that pattern or another.
Here is the fabric I pulled from my stash to go with this one:

         This is the complete pull, for now. I may add or subtract. Still thinking on it.

 Some Sweetwater, Squared elements, Emily Herrick, Malka Dubrawsky and some older blues.

        Some Pearl bracelets, Denyse Schmidt, Alison Glass, and Laurie Wisbrun.

                                 These are the darker blues I chose.

And this is an older batik that I have used pieces of in many things. It is a bit hard to tell, but the dots in it range from a yellowish orange to a darker red orange. I have always loved it and it will be perfect in this.  Linking up to Sunday Stash.

Happy Quilting Day

I have to go to work soon, but I did take a bit of time this morning to work on some bee blocks. Not quite done and the triangles are giving me fits, but I will keep going until they work out well.

Hope you have a great Saturday and get to sew lots.  Talk to you soon.

Scraps and Charms

My Friday finish today is made from scraps and two charm packs. I had this stuff sitting there staring at me for so long and I couldn't figure out what to do with it. It was like it was at the edge of my thoughts, but wouldn't come into focus. Needless to say, I did get it into focus and now the top is finished.

 I saved the white curved pieces off my Retro Flowers quilt because they were so interesting and I though they should become something. I toyed with lots of ideas, but nothing in my mind would translate to the fabric.

 I finally decided to sew them together into pairs along the curved side. I clipped the seam and turned it right side out and ironed the heck out of it.

 I took two charm packs out of my stash of charms, one was Oh, Deer and the other was a Moda charm pack that went well, color-wise. The name escapes me at the moment. I arranged them on my design wall to a pleasing effect.

 Then I inserted the curved pieces in a pattern and stitched them in when I sewed the seams together. Yes, they are a bit bulky where they overlap, but I love the way they look.  They are like little pockets.

I am going to quilt this in the ditch I think, so it will be well anchored, but I don't want to stitch over those pockets.  Happy Friday to you. Linking up to TGIFF at Quilt Matters, and the new Sewjo Saturday at My Go Go Life.

My Aurifil Experience

So if you are on Facebook and you like Aurifil, you see lots of pretty things made with Aurifil thread and read lots of comments on how great it is for quilting.  This is my Aurifil experience.  I have told you before that I have been sewing for more than 40 years now, and quilting for more than 20 of those years.  I started out sewing with whatever thread was available and when I bought thread, it was a cotton polyester blend.  I never gave thread another thought.  Until I began quilting.  Use cotton thread was what I was told.  NO POLYESTER EVER!!

At that time, the best thread at my LQS was Mettler and I used it exclusively for years.  And then, I bought a new machine. I bought a Bernina. It was the most expensive machine purchase I had ever made. I told myself and my husband that this was the last machine I would ever own (hopefully) and I intended to take great care of it.

Then, in 2010 I discovered blog land and began following many blogs and eventually began my own blog here.  I entered a giveaway on Lily's Quilts blog in October of 2011 and won a 48 spool suitcase of Aurifil threads. You can read about that here.

 Here is what that suitcase of thread looks like today, 2 1/2 years later.  This is the front side.

 This is the back side. I still keep all my spools in there and whenever I have to buy a spool of white, which is most used of all, I put it in there too.  I think I need to buy a cone of the white, actually.  But back to my story.

 So, I got this thread that everyone said was so superior to others and I began to use it. It sewed like a dream. I noticed less lint. My bobbins seemed to last longer.  I was amazed and so thankful for all this great thread.

 I sent a spool off to a woman as a pay it forward gift.  She had never tried it before and I felt like I should share the wealth, so to speak.  It was a long time an a lot of blog reading before I knew there were other weights of this thread.

 This is the 50 weight and it is the only weight that my LQS carries. I can't tell you when they began to carry Aurifil, but they have it now, and have for several years at least. You know it's kind of like when you buy a new car and you suddenly notice how many of that type of car are on the roads? It took a while to notice it at the shop.

 Now the new buzz in quilty blogland is the different weights of Aurifil and what they can do.  I try not to be too much of a follow the crowd quilter, but sometimes, you just can't help it.  So I am thinking of getting some of the heavier weight threads to try out for myself.

 I love the look of Aurifil on my quilts and if a heavier weight stands out more, I would love that too.

 I might even try a bit of hand stitching with some Aurifil. I would love to see what that feels like even though I don't do that much hand quilting anymore except as embellishment.
A couple of months ago I tried to use another brand of thread in my Bernina. It did not go well. I think she is just as hooked on this thread as I am.

I know this sounds like a bit of a commercial, but when you find something wonderful, you want to share it with everyone you know. These opinions are strictly my own. Talk to you soon.