Aren't all quilts scrap quilts?

Okay, I don’t know if this conversation happens between your spouse or not, but it is an ongoing debate between my husband and me.
 His side of the debate stands at you have to cut up large chunks of perfectly good fabric, that could be used as a blanket just the way it is, to make different blankets. Therefore, the cut fabric is a scrap of the larger perfectly good fabric. Blah!
My side of the debate is yes, it can be used as a blanket/quilt as is, and some whole cloth quilts are just that with beautiful decorative quilting done. But in general, it’s the artistic side that causes the cutting of large pieces from the bolt. Scrap quilts are scraps of fabric leftover from other uses. Usually one does not go out and buy loads of fabric for a scrap quilt. Like when you see a quilt and you go buy the fabric just for the purpose of making that quilt. That is not a scrap quilt. The fabric for scrap quilts was bought for another purpose and served its purpose. The scrap pieces are just that scrap.

So, that is the playful bantering that goes on at my house whenever I go buy more fabric for a quilt. Does your spouse have a different way of thinking about an aspect of your sewing/quilting?
 

Happy 4th Weekend!

Whew! It's been a great long weekend so far.... I hope yours has been just as good as mine. The only problem I've had this weekend is I can't find my jump drive to upload pictures. So, sorry for the cruddy pictures from my ipod. This is what my Sunday looks like right now.

 Wheat Harvest for those of you who are non-famers. ;) I'm sitting on my front porch enjoying the view and some leftover 4th of July cake. I hope to start ripping out a broken zipper on a jacket soon. I think I should take more of my ripping projects outside. Well, that is until I get bitten by a bug and swell up. Screening in the porch is on the To Do, but it's defiantly not near the top. Anyways, just thought I would pop on and say HI! Here is a picture of the fireworks we seen on Friday.

Toss Challenge

Stuff, Stuff and more stuff! It seems like my home is being over taken by stuff. Mostly stuff that is not useful, does not make someone happy or is something treasured. So, I am on this kick of tossing items that we don’t need to have in our house. I am challenging myself to toss at least 365 items away. That is one item a day.  I know there will be days that I toss a lot and then there will be days that I don’t toss a single thing because of our schedule and vacations, etc. By saying “toss” I can either throw it away, which is my easiest choice, give it away or sell it. That being said, I am not going to throw something away just to meet my goal. Then on the other end, I could go through a certain crazything’s room and be done in one day with tossing 365 items. She is one of the motivating factors in this challenge. She is a hoarder! She has a hard time throwing even broken items away. The other day, she broke a bucket that we stored toys in and threw a huge fit about throwing it away. She dug it out of the trash and colored a piece of paper green to match the bucket to cover the hole. I can’t take it anymore!

In an attempt to set a good example, I have been trying to clean up my sewing room. It could be in a hoarder fabric stash show. Yikes! I’ve bought several fabric boxes to put my scraps in. I came to the conclusion that I just don’t have time to make fabric scrap boxes. I want to, but I have so many other things I would like to finish first.  I’ve also started using those cheap fabric bags that everyone seems to give out these days for carrying groceries or such, as project holders. I put my WIPs in the bag and hang them up so I have everything together. Then when I want to work on something, usually at sewing club, I can just pick up the bag and go. Everything is in there, from fabric to instructions. I just have to make sure I have the right threads.

 

If anyone else takes up their own Toss Challenge, I’d love to be inspired by your story!

Hometown T-shirt Quilt

Thank you to everyone for all the helpful comments on what I should do with the "extra" t-shirts for this quilt. This quilt is a farewell present from our church's CCD classes for our current priest of 12 years. He will be missed by many. He married my husband and me as well as baptized both of the crazythings.

I'm sure some of you would like to see the finished product. Well, here it is! I'm happy with how the front and back turned out, the quilting not so much, but it will be greatly cherished and provide much warmth for countless napping sessions.

 All t-shirts having to do with our town

"Extra" shirts

We went with Golf balls on black for the backing since he likes to golf. This fabric almost didn't make it in time to be in the quilt because of some shipping issues. It was presented to him at last Sunday's farewell dinner at church. It was great to hear the ohhs and awws when he opened it and held it up. That just about brought tears to my eyes.

I hope that I can do this again in another 12 years for our new priest.

One Lovely Blog award

Hello to all my dear blogging friends! I’ve been sewing, working, spending time with the crazythings and not getting much sleep from the previous three things. SO that leaves even less time to sit down and write a blog post. Plus, with summer the crazythings think that 10 or 10:30 is the new bedtime. Seriously. Today, I had to go into work for a couple of hours. I got up at 5:45am because I missed my fist alarm at 5:15am, seriously I don’t even remember turning it off and had to be out the door by 6:45am. My oldest, who went to bed, not sleeping mind you at 10pm, got up at 6:15am. The youngest wasn’t up yet, but I’m sure she was up by 7:30, at the latest. Did I forget to mention that my husband and I stayed up and watched a movie, American Sniper, not a child friendly movie, after the crazythingss went to bed. So 1am, we go to bed. This is my life. Late to bed, early to rise, makes for one tired Mama. So this is why blogging has slipped to the wayside.

 

Now on to more happy sewing news….

 

One of the first bloggers I followed and have gotten to know and able to call a friend is Nancy over at PugMomQuilts. Her blog is filled with Humor, Sewing adventures and of her adorable Pug pack! I had a Pug for several years, so this is what drew me to her blog in the first place. She nominated me for the One Lovely Blog award, back in May. I feel so Honored, even if I blog like once every month or so….Life happens.

 

I am suppose to tell you seven things you probably don’t know about me. This is the hardest part of this award. So here it goes, cross your fingers I can think in 7 things, in the time I have to write this post. Which, shhh don’t tell, is being drafted while babysitting the phones at work.

 

1      I have basically taught myself to sew. I have taken a few classes here and there with the best one being when I bought my Bernina sewing machine. I refer back to my sewing book frequently to remind myself how to do something and look at the sample we did in class.

 

2     Farming/agriculture is quickly taking over my life! I now work at a Feed mill were we feed hundreds of turkeys, pigs and chicken, Oh my! I love my new job, since January of this year. Plus we have a small grain farm we live on. So its farm talk about 24/7.

 

3      That being said, I am not an outdoorsy type at ALL. I tend to burn easily, get more bug bites than anyone else, pick up the strangest rashes from just walking on the local canal path. Maybe that’s why I like sewing. I gives me a reason to stay indoors. ;)

 

4      I really want to visit all 50 states. I have already visited a big one, Alaska. I would go again in a heartbeat!! I try to find a magnet in the shape of the state when I visit. I write the year and the city we visited.

 

5      I dislike watching most beloved sports. I am willing to go to a baseball game. I would like to go to a pro football game, but if it’s on tv, I really could care less. My husband is the same way. Something I love him dearly for!

 

6      I take my crazythings to children museums all over the place. This is something my parents never did. We went to the Zoo or amusement park, which is fun, but let’s face it, not that much fun after the tenth time or so. And I am not a roller coaster person.

 

7      I have a big fear of heights. Or falling as my husband put its. I have been up on top of the feed mill, which is five stories high, the view was great, the wind not so much. Plus I think it has to do with thinking about the engineering of things, my husband is an engineer and so are half of our friends, and how one small oversite can cause the whole structure to fail.

 

Whoo, I made it. I also just wanted to Thank everyone who stops by and reads my sewing adventures. I really like talking with each and everyone of you! So no promises in the immediate future, but I do hope to post more often.

 

I think everyone I follow has been nominated, so here are the blogs I follow that I think as just wonderful! So in no particular order....

 

Melissa over at Happy Quilting with Melissa

Amy over at 13spools

Kelly over at My Quilt Infatuation

Mari over at Academic Quilter

P.S. these ladies post WAAAAY more then I do! ;)

 

Thanks for reading!

Just a Mom who sews

Help!!

Okay wonderful sewing people, I have a HUGE dilemma!! I was asked to help make a t-shirt quilt for the priest at my church, who is moving on to a new church after being with us for 12 years. He married me and my husband, baptized both my crazythings, so I was very happy to offer up my services.
Okay, I did not have anything to do with collecting the t-shirts. The Problem, which I need help with is this: Not all the t-shirts fit my thought process or the other ladies who were helping me out designing the top of the quilt. What do I do with the t-shirts that don't go? There are several that are just random t-shirts. There are a couple that just don't quite fit our theme. We went with all the t-shirts that had a connection to our town. Like school shirts, local businesses and local sporting teams.
How can I not hurt anyone's feelings by not having their shirt in the quilt? By the way, I don't know who donated or who did not, but I don't want a lot of hurt feelings. Any help would be appreciated. I don't know if I just put them on in a strip on the back or what? It's just some of these shirts are so random...HELP! Someone suggested one shirt be made into a pillow, but I really don't have time to make all of them into pillows, nor do I think he wants ten pillows! I think the biggest problem shirt is one kind soul went and made a shirt with pictures of her kids and wrote a message on the shirt. That would be a great quilt if everyone did that, but she was the only one. So it would really stand out and I think will cause a lot of hard feelings because other people didn't think/know that was an option. I have to make a decision by the end of the week, because it's due June 14th. Ya, nothing like a deadline.

Fabric Store Bribes

Does anyone else bribe their children with fat quarters or thread when they take them to the fabric store or is that just me? We usually go look at the fabric first, the fat quarters are usually right in front of the bolts in the stores I shop, so I can look for my fabric and they can pick and choose their choice. Sometimes, I switch it up and they can choose a spool of thread.  It’s a win win in my book. I get “different” colors of fabric and thread then what I would have chosen and they get to carry something around with them, tying up little hands from touching other things, Here are some of their picks as of recently…

 Aren't they fun?

Here are my picks...

 

Hope you got to work on something fun this weekend!

Oh the places quilts go...

So I haven’t been around lately in blogland, but I have been up in my sewing room, sewing like a mad fiend almost every night! I shipped out a customer quilt this week, to of all places, Australia! Part of me wishes I could have just shipped myself to Australia; it’s very high on my top 10 places to visit. But oh well, guess I’ll just stay here in my little corner of the world. It’s rainy right now, but by next week it’s rumored to be in the 80s. WooHoo! This means happy farmers by the end of the week, which means happy days at work. Speaking of work, my co-workers got a taste of my sewing enthusiasm, shall we say, when I brought the Australian quilt along on a work field trip to bury the threads. Hey, I wasn’t driving and it was going to be an hour and half drive one way, so I might as well do something productive, right??? I may have an upcoming trip for work which will be about three days from home, by myself. So my question is… Has anyone else taken sewing projects on work trips? Or on Vacation to work in the car/plane/train. How did that work out for you?

 I’m thinking of taking a hand quilting project that has been on my WIP list for, well forever. It’s my first quilt. I thought quilts were all hand quilted, that was many moons ago, now I know more about machine quilting. But since I started it, it's probably over half way done, I might as well finish it and having three nights of down time in a hotel sounds like the perfect time for some hand quilting.

2nd quarter Finish-a-long already??

Well the 1st quarter Finish-A-Long is done. Is my list done? HAHAHAHA! Not even close. As a recap, I had 14 items on my To Finish List, Seasons wall hanging, mesh tote bag, new scarf, spiral quilt, Cinnamon start quilt, (2) pillowcases, (2) Taggie Blankets, fixing the gymnastics leotards, (2) t-shirt quilts and a stacked squares quilt. I DID finish making myself a new scarf, spiral quilted and finished the spiral flannel quilt, (2) pillowcases done from my crazythings for Valentine's Day, one taggie blanket and BOTH of the t-shirt quilts. For starting back fulltime working, I do feel like I did get a lot done. So now on to this quarter's list, (Note: It's even more ridiculous then first quarters')

On the list again...
Finish my seasons wall hanging. Started this one in August at my club's retreat but didn't like the boarder I had picked out. I now have the boarder piece so no more excuses. (Didn't even touch this one)

Finish my mesh tote bag. This was a monthly project at my sewing club meeting in October I think. Still needs our name embroidered on a piece and it should be ready to go together. Was suppose to finish this for my crazything's fall swimming lessons Crazything is no longer taking them till summer. (I did get our last name embroidered on the fabric that is to go on the top edge.)

 

Start and Finish my Cinnamon Star quilt. I started cutting it out at my August retreat and it's not gone any further. (Anyone see a pattern here?!?) Also for this one, I need to find a tad more of Michael Miller's Fairy Frost in Haze so I can make this quilt bigger then the pattern calls for. I want it to be king size for my queen sized bed. I like my bed topping to be long on all sides. (Haven't found the Fairy Frost fabric, yet...)

Start a stacked square quilt for my youngest crazything so when she moves to a big girl bed she will have a quilt top. This I still need to think about pairing it with some solids to complete the quilt. (This one needs to move up on the priority list)

Fix my crazything leotards that I accidently stuck in the dryer. Bad Momma! (Got the seam ripper out one day and detached the tops from the ruined bottom pieces)

Finish the Irish Chain quilt-a-long I started but stopped halfway through because my life got crazy...

My sister requested a tie blanket for my nephew to be born this summer from this fleece. Maybe I'll try that new braided technique. Also, a few burp cloths from these flannels.

I still need to make her a Taggie Blanket too.

Chevron quilt to teach to my sewing class. Here is the jelly roll I plan to use. It may double as a baby gift for someone later this year. I swear something is in the water around here...(I'm Perfectly happy with my two crazythings)

Okay, that's it for the list. I have several other projects, mostly t-shirt quilts for customers and a baby tetris quilt too, but these are my personal projects on this list. In reality, I really hope to get two things done. This is a great way for me to list my current projects and be able to see what I need to work on before I take more on.

Linking up with the 2nd quarter Finish-a-long over at On the Windy Side. Check the blog out, Adrianne has some pretty cool stuff she is working on. (So I am a day behind! I thought I had till today to link up, duh, wrong day Hollie! Oh well, there is always next quarter!)

Thanks for reading!
Hollie
Just a Mom who Sews

Go Eagles! Quilt

I feel like I've fallen off the blogging quilting world wagon. I've been sewing, but not having time to write about it. Transition is complete at my new job, but that included getting audited this week. Whew! Its been a long week. Then our dishwasher broke. Ugh, washing dishes takes soooo long so that leaves a few snippets of time at night to sew. More about what I've been sewing later...

I finally finished and dropped off the Go Raiders! quilt along with this quilt this past weekend. They were fun projects, but it feels so good to have them back to their owner. AND they are off my 1st quarter To Do List. Yes!!! But for Pete's sake, I've been adding to my To Do List faster then I'm taking them off. Not the point of the challenge.

Okay, back to the quilt. I love the color of this shirt. Even though it's not the school colors, it was the basis of the backing and sashing. I really love the teal damasks flannel.

Sorry for the blurring picture, but my oldest crazything took the picture. Good free help is hard to find. lol But maybe she will like photography and figure out how to make my pictures look more professional.

 

I also put the label on the Go Raiders! quilt, the sister to this quilt at the same time I did this one.



Thanks for reading!
Just a Mom who Sews

Go Raiders! quilt finalllly finished

This quilt and it's high school mate have taken me forever to work on and finish. I received the t-shirts in November and said it would only take me a couple of months... Well, it's March and this one is DONE! and it's mate is almost done being quilted. It would have if I didn't run out of backing thread. Oh well, I HOPE to deliver these to their wonderful owner this weekend. I love when the owners can help pick out fabric. She picked out the backing/striping for both quilts. This is my alma mater too, so it's fun for me to see some shirts I wore or seen on campus or have never seen before all go into a quilt that it took four years in the making. (gathering the t-shirts, not me putting it together. ;)) So here is some pictures of my weekend finish...Sorry for the cruddy pictures. My helper and I have strep throat. I didn't feel like getting the good camera out.

OH Geez, I just realized that I still have to make a tag for this one yet. I'll just put it on when I do the other one.  Crossing it off the 1st quarter Finish-a-long list. Hope everyone is well in your neck of the woods!

Thanks for reading!
Hollie
Just a Mom who Sews

Irish Chain Quilt-A-Long week 4 assignment

Yippie Skippie! I completed my homework for the week! Which is way better then last week, which by the way is still not done. Maybe next week at sewing club. Maybe??? So this week all we had to do is sew our WOF strips background to our WOF strips printed fabric and cut them to the correct widths.

Next week is assembly of the block. Hmmm, maybe it's assembling the blocks that I have trouble with getting done, we shall see next week.

There is still time to join the Quilt-A-long, so stop by or just come oogle all the color combos. ;)

Joining up with NNT over at My Quilt Infatuation and of course the Quilt-A-Long weekly Linky

Thanks for reading,
Hollie
Just a Mom who Sews

Star Passion by Quilt Lily

My wonderful blogger friend Nancy over at Pug Mom Quilts! hosted two giveaways in February. I was the lucky recipient of a free pattern by Quilt Lily owned by Karen Pratt. Karen has some awesome patterns! It was hard to choose just one. There are a come of wall hangings that are really cute, but in the end I'm a sucker for a star pattern. Plus, I haven't finished my wall hanging that I started last summer. One thing at a time...

Star Passion comes in three sizes: lap, twin and queen. After looking at the pattern it seems like the hardest part will be choosing a size and fabric. I was so excited to see pictures AND pressing instructions. Happy Dance!!! Pattern writers, I'll let you in on a secret, a picture is worth a thousand words. Seriously. But words are still needed. ;)  It will be awhile before I am able to put this pattern on my cutting table but it should be a quick quilt to put together.

Speaking of quilts, I should have one of the t-shirt quilts from my 1QFAL done by the end of the weekend. So hopefully another post coming soon! I know, several posts in one week!

Note: This is all my own thoughts and words. I was not given endorsements by either of these wonderful ladies. I am just showing my appreciation for winning a giveaway.

Thanks for reading!
Hollie
Just a Mom who Sews

A pillow and a blankie

So, I did get something done in the sewing room this week. I finished up a Taggie Blanket for a co-worker. She wanted a Cleveland Brown's Taggie Blanket. This one is different from my normal mixtures of textures. I still used satin for the backing, minky for the front but instead of a corduroy, I used a printed cotton fabric.

 I flipped the corner up to cover the name I embroidered onto the blanket

Look at this cute football ribbon I found. It just finishes off the blanket perfectly. Plus, it's another finish for my 1QFAL. Though I don't think my WIP's list is getting any closer to being shorten. I keep adding to it in my head all the time. Then just last week I remembered I forgot three projects to put on the list. Agh! Hopefully next quarter I can work on not adding anything and crossing more off the list. (Yup, I'm laughing too)

The pillow I finished is a birthday gift for a friend of ours' daughter who is also a classmate of my daughter's. Hopefully we get to make it to the birthday party because my oldest crazything is feeling not so crazy right now. It's a nasty bug going around in her classroom right now.

 Another burrito pillowcase. This one I did a little different then from my other burrito pillowcases. I only made the minky edge an inch and a half wide finished. So I started with a three inch wide strip. It was a big pain to turn!! I almost didn't get it turned. But it was also problematic to sew. All that Frozen fabric, rolled up into three inches of minky. It was one tight burrito! I would do the five inch finish one hundred times over then have to do one more inch and a half finish.

Well that's my finishes for the week. I hope to have lots to show during the week, next week. Everyone stay warm and safe. Still well below freezing temps here. I believe we are under a wind chill advisory right now.

Thanks for reading!
Hollie
Just a Mom who Sews

Mountain of trimmings

I knew it was going to happen sooner or later, I missed an assignment in my Irish chain quilt-a-long. I can make a million excuses, but I won't. I just didn't get my butt up stairs as much as I wanted. I like sleep more then I wanted to have a finished assignment. So this is what I had as of Wednesday night. A HUGE mountain of trimmings.

 Mt. Irish Trimmings

 Aerial view

See, it could shallow up my rotary cutter and come back for my small ruler. Agh! Hide the sewing machine before it decides to eat that too. Lol, it's been a long week and but I still have my sense of humor.

This stack of squares are all trimmed, they just need to be sewn together into a block of four pieces. Maybe over the weekend I can get them done, but I think I will do this week's assignment first and then finish last weeks. So hopefully, fingers crossed I can get both assignments done by next Thursday.

Thanks for reading!
Hollie
Just a Mom who Sews

Irish Chain Quilt-A-Long week Two assignment

This week's assignment was to take the triangles and sandwich a rectangle in between them.

 It sounded easy enough. So off I went gathering my 300+ triangles and a 100+ rectangles and off to my sewing retreat Friday evening I went. My thought was I will have these popped out that night and be able to start on the next project in the morning. Ha, ha, ha! Ignorance is bliss right?? 160 once through the machine takes awhile; let alone twice! This goes back to my last post Bitten off more then I can chew? So I did get the one triangle on and threads clipped apart on Friday.

That looks like a productive pile for a couple of hours of sewing. It almost hides a cone of thread.

 

Saturday morning I ironed the seams and started on the 160 back through the machine to add the other triangle.

This pile would have buried the cone of thread.

 

Clip, iron, count out blocks to make sure I have my 160, yup all there with a few leftover triangles.

How, did I get that many leftover triangles, you ask? I read the directions wrong! Head hanging in shame :( For some reason I kept reading 360 triangles instead of 320. I needed 160 rectangles. I say it was from staying up too late and procrastination. On a good note, I won the first prize in the quilt-a-long!! Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner!! Now to go scope out Green Fairy Quilts with my gift certificate. I'm sure something will call my name! I just hope it's not too many somethings! One of my faithful readers suggested I use the triangles to make a pillow(s) to go with my quilt. I think that's a great idea! Thanks, Beth!

Thanks for reading!
Hollie
Just a Mom who Sews