My Grandson Kayden ask me to make him a little quilted blanket to use in the front room. He picked out his colors “lime green and blue”. He ask for a satin trim.

This blanket was a real challenge for me. With the colors he ask for and he also ask me to use lime thread for the quilting. I let him pick out of my stash and he picked about 6 fabrics and some I thought did not look good, but he wanted me to pick out of these. He also wanted the blanks lite “Airy” so I did not want to do much quilting. I used a 100% polly batting witch gave it that lite airy feeling. Adding the satin binding was well for me new and scary. I watched as many videos as I could find on youtube until I felt I could meet the challenge.

Well the end result was not without flaws but turned out just the way he wanted it.
For him it was flawless.
Love is Blind!
I love you Kayden!
Grandma.

I had this idea to make like a flower design Quilt Block using the starburst 60° ruler.  thought I would try it out. Came out pretty good the first one I’ve ever done. I will only get better in time.

These rulers all cost a lot and are for specific designs, which often limits there use. Trying to come up with some other ideas. One thing I did not like about this ruler is it leaves a lot of wasted fabric. I had to find something creative use the waste for so I decided a Dresden plate would be nice or the fabric left overs. I hate to waste fabric!

I have uploaded this video to YouTube. Please leave your comments if you have any suggestions on how I could’ve improved the problems I had with the sewing. If you have a suggestion on how I could have improved the video would even be helpful,  I’m new at all so it’s a learning process. Thank you.

Adding another Appliqué square for my quilt from the same coloring book. Here I picked out a cat that I really liked that is simple.

As you can see when you cut up a few items in the drawing you can add some real interest.
I have taken the back leg, tail, chest and inside of ears and made them a darker color.
With the ball of yarn I added, I did one solid color for the base color and added some scraps I had to add interest and they will fray with washing to add more texture.

Adding another Appliqué square to my quilt from the same coloring book.
Here I picked out a frog that I really liked that is simple.

I made the belly out of another fabric. To get the tree branch in with the feet I cut them out but still leaving them attached to the main body and slid the branch into the feet. Worked out well. The original picture just had the ends of the branch empty, I added some leaves to make more interest.

I learn something new each time I make a appliqué out of a coloring book drawing. When I am done I often see where I could have done something different but still pleased with the fact that I did it and completed it. God knows I have enough unfinished projects laying around under something. LOL

The holidays are always so busy I do not have time to sew. But when the holidays are here I get these moments I wish I would have made something for the table to class it up under the all the yummy dishes. I don’t really think of these things until they happen. Here is my finished Holiday Table Runner I sewed for this holiday.

I wanted something and did not have time to fuss over creating it. So I made this simple holiday table runner to put my Baked Dishes on for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Did one side for fall and the other side for Christmas. Staying away from a print that would limit just Thanksgiving I used some fall leaves so I can use it longer in the year.

Wanted to create appliqué from this cute toucan in a coloring book I found at the Dollar Tree. He looks like he would have personality. I can vision him to be very colorful on a tropical background fabric.

Choosing some bright batik fabric like this striking red made him stand our. Love the background fabric I found, it had that tropical look to it.

Sewing the details on I really like that look he has, kind of reminds me of my husband and the look he gives me sometimes. LOL

Needing to work on my free hand quilting skills and thought I would give this a try. I am creating a raw edge quilt and I want lots of texture so I thought some raw edge appliqué would look really nice.

Creating this New York Beauty quilted placemat was a challenge. I think the New York Beauty is one of the most beautiful patterns, also not for the beginner. I had to try a few with some scrap fabric I had around and so I did, well I found it is not as easy as I thought it would be. It was a challenge and sewing on the curve without distorting the pieces was the most difficult. I found it fun and I still like the end result of the mat and use it for my Mac Book on my desk. Adds some cheer to my desktop.

This project gave me a chance to work with sewing on the curve, paper peiceing, and free motion quilting. All on a small scale. The more I practice the better I will get and I wonder what my post a year from now will look like and what I will think when I look back at this?

Wonder what I well try next? Maybe another quilted placemat.

I made this colorful quilted placemat to practice my free hand quilting and even assembling squares. I love all the colors that play in this placemat. These are nice on the patio table or TV trays too. They really live’n any place up.

I tried a method that I saw where you sew two squares together and cut them corner to corner to make triangles. Sewing them together you make some pinwheels. There is only one problem I had with doing this and that is the center of where I got pinwheels you have a lot of fabric in that center. When I quilted the placemat I did to run over the center of the pinwheels. I did take a rubber hammer and tried beating them down, but that was just to squish it not to try to sew on the center.

Now these don’t match much around the house but they sure are pretty. They do match my bedroom/sewing room I have some really bright quilts in there. LOL

For the LOVE of Color Placemats for Practice

5 inch squares

Two squares right sides together.

Cut into 4 triangles

One layout

Another layout

Both layouts with multi colors

Multi color Thread

Quilted with no real pattern just all over

Back of placemats

Playing with layout

 

Going to try Graffiti Quilting. I am new to quilting and have done mostly simple quilts. There are so many talented people out there quilting and seeing their work just inspires me.

I have been influenced by artist like Karlee Porter and Amy Johnson doing Graffiti Quilting. So I thought I would give it a try. Those ladies make it look so easy! Karlee works on a Handi Quilter Sweet 16 machine and Amy uses a home machine.

So I thought I would give it a try. Here is over 25 hours total play.

After trying out my graffiti quilting skill for over a week now, I find I like it. I really like playing with trying different colored thread. At the beginning I felt totally out of control. Like my hands would not move in the direction my brain was going. Then sometimes I think my brain got stuck on stupid or something. LOL