Putting together the Dresden Plate quilt

All of the "flowers" are done and the two strips between them with the leaves and stems are done.  I am waiting on a delivery of more Bella Solids in bright white for the rest of the flower backgrounds.

The butterflies are fussy-cut out of the grey background fabric, a dozen of them or more, and sewing them on with a small satin stitch.  I would like to quilt it in white, pink, black, and burgundy thread but don't know if my skills or my machine are up to that!

There is a motif in the fabric that I really like so I took a piece of it, scanned it, then outlined it using MS Paint.  Will pay around with how much to enlarge it and make a quilting template out of it.

 

 

Big Red Tractor quilt top is done!  It was a really easy and fast one to make.  This is the second time I've used a panel and found that it is not straight to the grain of the fabric.  Is that common with panels?  I had a heck of a time with the large pieces as they were really wonky just trying to cut them out.

 

Don't know how I'm going to quilt it other than outlining the pictures in the large blocks, just need a simple fill in the red areas.

 

 

One big post....

What's in the works and what's finished?  Well, a couple of tops finished on the Completed Quilts and Tops tab and a whole lot in the works!  Three quilts for my great-nieces and nephew and a wall hanging for their mother and father, who is in the Army, and my niece asked for a Patriotic quilt to hang on the wall.

I have the Judy Niemeyer "Agave Garden" pattern but doing it in patriotic colors with some added stars. I took the blank outline from the pattern and scanned it, then used MS Paint to fill in the colors.

 

 

For the 3 kids I sent their mother a link to a fat quarter fabric site and asked that they each pick out a fabric they like.  One girl chose April's Garden so I designed this for it.

The next girl chose D'Amore Sunkissed and I saw there was a quilt kit with that fabric at Hancock's (so I cheated).  I ordered more of the fabric so I could make it a good bed-sized quilt and added in the stripe for a border.

The little boy chose Big Red Tractor!  I found that there are some panels in that fabric line and another line that has 15" panel blocks so.... I designed this to use them.

All of the fabrics have been delivered so there is a lot of work to be done!  Of course, I can't just work on three or our things at once so..... Traveling Turtles!  These are just so cute and fun to work on.  It's a pattern by Amy Bradley.

 

Need a bigger design wall!

Next time I'm at a department store I'll look for a big vinyl table cloth with a flannel backing.  I read that they're great for a design wall. 

I haven't sewn the outer points to the center and I'm kind of waiting on delivery of a circle ruler that goes up to 17", which is exactly the unfinished size that the center needs to be.  I've been reading the forum for this BOM and people have had problems with the center being too small so I didn't trim the dark blue outside ring to the trim line yet.

The star points have more of a green look than I intended it too.  The green points exactly match the green in the darker points that also have turquoise blue, which is the color of the dark frame.  It just really has an overall GREEN look.  I guess I posted about that already too!!  I can live with it and the next section that has a dark frame will be in the dark blue of the center so maybe it will all balance out.

Little progress

Haven't done anything on this for a few days, been too tired after work and now I have to work late tonight and this weekend.  :-(

I'm wondering though if there is too much green, not enough blue, in this section.  Maybe I should keep the green/blue dark print but change the lighter green to a blue.  The outside fabric looks very green but it's actually a dark turquoise. 

The second picture is more true to color than the first.  It's funny how things can look so different in pictures.  On the first picture the 1/4 circle is the same fabric as the light small circles but it doesn't look like it is.  One looks white and the other looks green!

The Quilt Show BOM January is done

Love how this is coming out!  And I'm sure glad that I didn't trim the dark blue ring on the outer edge before putting it all together.  It's a little off, a little smaller than it should be if I had trimmed it.  I think the bulk of the stabalizer is the main cause of that since it is sewn on the lines.  I tried a little bit to tear the stabalizer off of the center star in the seam area but it's not easily torn like paper.  I'll try again since I'm not sure that I want to quilt through it and the seams are pretty bulky.

 Started on the February pieces last night.  I think I got all of the points printed that I need but the printer ate some pieces so I need to check that I re-printed everything that I needed to.  I am using a LARGE roll of freezer paper so I have to cut 8.5" x 11" pieces for the printer.  What a pain!!  I ordered two 50 count packages of pre-cut printer sized last night since there is A LOT of printing to do.  Those should be delivered Friday from Amazon so I can work on it over the weekend.

Trying out colors to use for the blanket stitch applique of the points.  All those green threads look the same in this picture but they're not.  The darkest green in the large spool looks to be the best.  That is So Fine! from Superior Threads so will use two strands of it.  I used Sharon Schamber's technique of putting the freezer paper pieces on the right side of the fabric, cutting the shape, then glueing the wrong side to the background with Liquid Stitch before removing the paper.  It is pretty quick and easy and it sticks so well that when I had to remove the bottom 1/4 circle that I messed up on, the piece tore in half.

The Quilt Show BOM started

I received the fabric that I ordered for the BOM last week and got it washed and dried so I was able to work on it over the weekend!  I'm using Ricky Tims Stable Stuff and it's really not that hard of a pattern to do with paper piecing.  The trickiest part was sewing the dark blue outer ring to the inner ring but with careful clipping and pinning it's just the awkwardness of sewing a circle.  I haven't sewn the center star to the first border yet but I don't expect it to be any different (knock on wood).

I don't like iron-on applique so I used Perfect Circles to make the 1 1/4" circles and the large center circle.  After doing a couple of them with the gathering stitches by hand I switched to the sewing machine and a 3.0 stitch.  Just gather them around the Perfect Circle, press, spritz with starch, press, and remove the circle.  Used a tiny blanket stitch to sew them on.

The outer points don't get sewn on until they're combined with the February pieces.