12 Days of Christmas Quilt

I finished the 12 Days of Christmas Mini Mystery Quilt (from the Temecula Quilt Co). Such a fun, quick project to make! I looked forward to 1:18pm every day to see what kind of block would be made with another piece.

It came out to 17" x 20". I used Civil Wars Chronicles fabric by Marcus Fabrics and wool batting. 

Yes, I see the red swastika in the corner - my family wanted to know what it had to do with the 12 days of Christmas! How come I never see these things until I have attached the binding?! It would have been fine if I hadn't used two different reds for those pieces.

I free motion quilted an over all mini Baptist Fan, using Invisafil 100WT thread in the top and Aurifil 50WT thread for the bobbin, with a Microtex #80 needle.

This is the first time that I have tried a Baptist Fan. 

I drew it out on a white board first to figure out how it would go. I couldn't figure out how to travel the pattern backwards and so I quilted each row individually in all the same direction - this made the quilt a bit twisted when I finished quilting (you can probably tell in the first photo that it is not "square"). I have now washed it and re-squared it - I'll see what happens when it dries.

I love the quilting design and will have to look into different ways of creating it, I think it looks nice on mini-quilts.

I have been working on taking the paper off the string quilt - watched 2 movies and Skyped with friends and only managed to remove paper from 30 of the 120 blocks!! I am sure it will all be worth it.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!♥

Endless Strings

I have sewn 44 - 7" string blocks and hardly made a dent in the string bin, I think the quilt may end up bigger than originally intended.

I am really pleased with how it is coming together.

These are the first 7 days of the 12 Days of Christmas (3" blocks) from the Temecula Quilt Co.

Thanks for stopping by and all the best for 2012! Happy New Year!!♥

Sewing Strings

I have been sewing strings!

I never realized what fun these were to sew (now I see why so many people make them, and such a great way to use up scraps). I love piecing without much thought, very relaxing.

I started with an 8" square of paper cut from an old phone book. The 1+1/2" white strip is lightly glued with a glue stick. Four 8" blocks use 1 strip of fabric (cut the width of the fabric) with no waste.

The blocks are trimmed to 7+1/2" when all the strips are added (they will be 7" finished).

When I cut most of the strips the other day I cut them between 3/4" to 2" and later realized that I needed some wider scraps to make it easier when I came to the corners -

Luckily I had some more scraps left and found some wider ones! Yikes! I have decreased my scrap bins down to 2 from 3 though.

All kinds of fabric for these blocks - nice to see some old "friends".

I also started the "12 Days of Christmas" (a mystery mini sampler quilt) from the Temecula Quilt Co.
These are 3+1/2" squares (they will finish to 3"), today was day 4 (the four patch). Quick and easy!

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!♥