Back to Basics - Thread Bunnies

Thread bunnies. AKA leaders & enders.
This is proof that the smallest scrap of fabric can have the biggest impact in your quilting.

So, here's what you need for this:

A scrap of fabric. You know that piece you accidentally cut too small. Or that leftover part of the strip that's too small to get another square out of? Don't toss it immediately!

When you're sewing on your machine, you sew a seam, you may even chain piece a bunch, but what happens typically when you need to stop? Or get up to iron? You pull on the piece you just sewed exposing the threads and cut them, right?

Then when you go to sew again you have to grab onto those threads so they don't leave a nice "nest" in your stitching and then trim them off, right? If you are like I was, I had a huge pile of threads cut just from this simple task. This is where I got to thinking - there has to be a simpler solution!

Go figure, it was one of those ask and you shall receive moments - my Mom introduced me to the thread bunny. Instead of wasting all that thread, when you finish sewing your blocks, you put a scrap of fabric right through your machine and then trim the threads in between those pieces...

When you go to sew your next pieces together, there's no threads to grab onto, just stitch away and then cut the small bit of thread between the pieces!

An even better option is this: I make a side project. For instance last year I had a bunch of jelly roll strips cut at 6-1/2" left over from my Scarf Tutorial on the Moda Bake Shop. I got to thinking that if I sewed 3 strips together they would make a triple rail block. I would see how many blocks I could make and go from there.

It was leftover fabric. I didn't have a deadline. And guess what? I got another quilt top I wasn't planning on making done in no time! Just recently I finished this small top too as my side project:

This is one of the Moda Bake Shop Boxes available in stores. I just sewed and sewed until I couldn't sew any more pieces, laid it out, and this is what it made.

For a bit more clarification, with projects like these I sew as many of a step as I can and keep them off to the side. When I get to the end of that step I press them all when I'm pressing the pieces for the project I'm actually focusing on. When I get to a point where I have actual blocks and need to lay out the side project, I take a small break and finish this side project and start another one.

This also works great for those of you who want to use up your stash... Just start sewing!

Do you do something a bit different? Do you have anything you would like to add to this topic? Or do you have a question? Just leave a comment below!

I'll be back soon with more topics!

Baby Quilts Revisited

So, Tammy read my post about her quilts and saw that I didn't get pictures of the finished quilting - and the sweet dear sent me over some pictures to share!

 Bubbles and bubbles! I love this style of quilting for baby quilts...

It's so fun! Thanks again Tammy!

p.s. So far so good on the flowers. It was really cold but they seem to be okay for now. I have to say I enjoyed this cold snap, I didn't get my fill of comfort food this winter with the warmer temperatures so I'm making up for lost time. Be back soon!

Lackluster

So I'm not going to give you excuses on why I haven't posted lately, just the truth. Honestly we've had the craziest weather I ever remember for this time of year. So weird that in the last week it's been over 80 degrees, we've had thunderstorms... and tonight the low is 20+ degrees.

Seriously last week I had the best of intentions of everything, but with the weird weather or something we had crazy power outages in our area. I wanted to use the long arm one day - power was out. Then I was at work - power went out so I had to stay late to catch up on all the stuff I couldn't do which = no quilting.

Then Ben and I took my parents out to dinner, went to stop by a store to get a rake for Spring cleanup (Ben broke our rake last year) and half of the store was out of power... Not this half was out and that half wasn't. Half of this section was out, some place over there had power, the gas station in the parking lot was fine, but the adjoining strip mall was even worse. Some stores only had power to the big signs out front. Some stores only had power inside. Only one store had total power. It was weird, but owell. We're driving home and all is well until we pull on our street and try to use the garage door opener about 15 times before we realize WE are out of power... Our neighbors had power, their neighbors had power. For about 4 or so streets that we could see the first 2 or 3 houses didn't have power, but the next 3 or 4 houses did, and after that everyone else towards the lake was out.

Needless to say I'm still playing catch up. Honestly I wanted to chat, but I couldn't. Now that I think the power issues are worked out, we have a bigger issue - my bulbs I planted are blooming or coming up and as I mentioned before the low tonight is 20+ and I'm afraid they might suffer, so I hurried up and took pictures while they're still pretty:

 My first Paper White bulbs... I love them and to think, tomorrow they may be gone :(

 I planted 2 different kinds of tulips that look more like peonies and they're both starting to grow, but I'm hoping they'll be okay. The front row is white...

 The second row is a dark pink... The only bulb not blooming at the moment are my Stargazer Lilies... maybe they'll be soon!

 My Japanese Maple is budding nicely, I haven't checked to see if it's grown, but I'm sure it has!

 And we have a new critter in the back yard. This small woodpecker has been raiding the squirrel nest when they're out feeding and stealing some of their nest materials. He's so little! And fast!

Just as I took the bird's picture the squirrel happened to come across this apple... (I'm guessing) and sat in a tree for about an hour and just ate and ate... They eat so much!

So, unfortunately I don't have many updates for you at the moment. hopefully later this week I will finally catch up and show you some new things. Have a great week!

Baby Quilt!!! (Machine Quilting)

Grace dropped off this baby quilt that she had made for me. The lovely Irish Chain quilt was made out of some pretty awesome batiks, the main one on the front has some little critters in it like turtles, butterflies and such.

 Grace didn't care how I quilted it, she just asked that I put butterflies and dragonflies in the larger areas. I played with this idea a bit and came up with something new to me:

 I quilted butterflies in the large squares and used a squiggle to fill the rest of the area inside the chains.

 And to fill in the border I quilted dragonflies in the smaller spaces and used the same squiggle effect around them too!

I love the way it turned out and with that wonderful sunshine we had, it really shows off the quilting on the back of the quilt.

Thank you so much, Grace! This was a ton of fun to quilt and I hope you enjoy it! I think this will look so adorable once it's washed... This really was fun! I had no clue what I was going to do until the night before I quilted this one. I just sat and thought about it and once this idea popped in my mind, I knew that was it!

I love how it compliments the quilt design without doing the same old stitching through the chain - not that there's anything wrong with that, but with a fun baby quilt out of batiks, I had to bring it!

So, do you love this as much as I do? I can't tell you how much I want to make something with a chain now just so I can quilt this again. Anyone thinking the same thing?

Quilting Gifts

So, through the quilt shop I met this adorable lady named Tammy. She is new to quilting (she's a wonderful knitter and we're slowly bringing her over to the dark side - insert creepy laugh here), but she's doing great! I had the opportunity to quilt a couple of her projects that are gifts for others:

This is a gift for a baby shower in the very near future. This quilt is so adorable and I love the colors and fabric in it! However, this was one of the quilts I was so excited to get done I forgot my camera at home, so Miss Tammy e-mailed me pictures of it before the quilting. I ended up quilting bubbles all over this in a light thread, perfect for a little one!

 And then there was also this log cabin quilt Tammy made.

 It's a wonderful mixture of blues and greens she's giving as a wedding gift. She asked me to quilt an all over design on it so I opted to quilt these swirls knowing it's for a wedding gift. I this design makes just about any quilt a smidge more elegant. Don't you think?

I think she did a wonderful job! (sorry about the sun shining in the lower corner there, it was a gorgeous day outside and I love having the sun shine in while it's around!

Thanks,  Tammy! I'm excited to see what you make next! I think this is my favorite part of quilting - new quilters!

Well, there's 2 of the quilts I've been quilting lately. I'll show you more pictures later as I quilt some more!

So Excited!

So, last night I got home after another long day of long arm quilting and was just browsing around on Facebook killing some time before dinner was ready and got quite a shock:

Posted on the United Notions/ Moda Fabrics Facebook status was this photo of the booth at the Dallas Quilt Show happening this weekend... Much to my surprise my You Zig I'll Zag Quilt is hanging in the booth! See it in the right corner? Yay!

When I spotted this I immediately jumped up and down and screamed and then followed it up with a long lasting happy dance! I even tried to dance so much Ben tried to calm me down but it didn't exactly work and I accidentally bumped my arm into his beer bottle which was at this mouth... Ooooopppps! Luckily it didn't hurt him at all - that would have been horrible!

And I am sad to say that you got the good news part of the good news/ bad news deal... So I have been quilting up a storm and had permission from my customers to show pictures of their quilts, but someone (me) was so excited to go quilt that I forgot the camera at home... Dun, Dun, Dun...

I am planning on doing much more quilting this weekend however and I plan on taking lots of pictures to share. Let's just hope that I remember the camera this time. So what are you all up to this weekend? Anyone going to the Dallas Quilt Show?

Shipshewana, IN

So, last Tuesday Mom and I hopped in the car and headed up to Shipshewana, IN for another fabric show!

I love doing these shows - you get to meet awesome people, see all the new goodies, and be around other quilty people and talk quilts all day - how cool is that?

 So I was set up in the corner there, I had my table with the new Stitchery designs...

 I also brought both of my Dueling Personalities quilts (on the bench to the left) which paired nicely with the quilt Joseph brought, made of the same collection. I made two quilts and split the line into neutrals and brights where his quilt combined them all!

Also on the table to the right we were featuring the new line by Edyta Sitar of Laundry Basket Quilts called Over the Rainbow (more on that later).

 Here's a shot of the back of the booth. We were still showing the Christmas and Seasonal collections, I can't wait to start making quilts with these!

 We also featured the new birthday collections found in the Moda Home department. It also happened to be the 15th anniversary of this show, so Mark had wonderful cupcakes there as well! But isn't this bunting adorable?!

 Back to that Over the Rainbow collection... Here's a shot of the Fat 8th bundle... There's 50 batiks in the line including:

 10 Neutrals and...

40 colors! Also Edyta designed a new product called Silhouettes which are laser cut applique pieces with Steam a Seam II already on the back! All you have to do is peel the paper off the back, iron them onto the fabric and stitch them down!

To learn more watch the video where Edyta explains all the details for you by clicking here.

Sorry it's taken me a while to post about Shipshewana, we got home from the show late Wednesday night and immediately turned around and had the vendor's weekend at the Lake Farmpark show. Two shows back to back! Whew! Now to get back to the grind. The show was so busy I wasn't able to take any new photos, but I may try to go out there one last time.

Today I'm off to start a quilting blitz. I have several quilts to work on and I hope to show you pictures of those as I work on them. Off to quilt, be back soon!

Heartbreak

I'm sure many of you have seen the devastation in Chardon the past few days. It's on the news, on the Internet, on the radio...

I'm not one to usually post about bad situations on here, I like to keep a light feel to the blog and escape to this cheery place for a chat, however...

I grew up in Thompson, OH. We have no grocery store, so you have to go to the next town over - Chardon. I worked in Chardon during High School at the local Tractor Supply, and now Cottonpickers Quilt Shop resides in Chardon, about 1 mile from the High School...

 I cannot begin to express the emotions and words I feel about this tragedy. I currently do not directly know anyone at Chardon High, but the entire region, not just town, REGION is stepping up in anyway they can to help this community heal. Just look:

 There's my tiny Alma Matter up at the top right, but look at this! It's so sad that this event happened. The wounds are deep and the scars will be forever, but this community will become stronger than it ever has been. That I am sure of.

I love my school, these kids are amazing and yes, I am sure this is the ENTIRE school showing their support. They have been to every prayer vigil, are planning more, and holding fundraisers to help the community - especially helping to fund the unexpected funeral costs for the families of the deceased. Ledgemont may be small in numbers, but they are large in heart...

I guess the main reason I decided to share this with all of you is to show how amazing I think my community can be, even in the face of tragedy. I would like to ask that even though we are trying our hardest to make the wounds heal, any amount of encouragement you could give to this community would be appreciated.

I'm not asking for monetary donations - if you could write a card and send it to the High School (just a small note with kind words of encouragement). In the future once the cameras and media are gone, but the memories still remain, this community will need then, more than now, a reminder of the kindness of strangers. A reminder of the better side of things.

Thank you kindly for reading this post if you've made it this far and please - go home and give kindness to those that you love. As my one friend said, give a hug and love to your children, but also remember to teach them how to love and hug...