Xmas Stockings Dec. 2017

New Christmas stocking for my grandkids. Dec 2017

Baby Dax's first Christmas stocking 

Hayden's 

Tanner's

Claire's

Claire's new sparkly purple poncho

Woodland Animal Babies Quilt for New Baby Grandson Dec. 2017

Woodland Babies Quilt
As if I hadn't done enough applique quilting in 2017, I decided that I loved this cute little woodland animals pattern and so I set out to make it for our new baby grandson, Dax who was due in December 2017.

Woodland Animal blocks

Went with the blue background for the hedgehog

The blue owl was fun to make along with the tree stump and the mushroom.

The first mushroom I made was pink as the directions called for, but I changed it to red instead. 

The beginnings of the raccoon block

Foxy 

Our darling little baby himself! :D

After ironing on the applique pieces, I made the squares for the scrappy border.

I decided on yellow  4 inch squares for the corners of the border.

Sewing on the scrappy border. Lots of seams to watch out for.

Then it was time to cut the light blue Minkee backing to the correct size., and pin the whole thing together with the batting in between the layers.

Time to quilt each animal block.

I stitched each background differently, meanders on one, waves on another and so on. I quilted the tree stump and on the bodies of the animals; Satin stitch around the outlines of the animals, zigzag stitch on the edges of the flowers and leaves.

The size of the completed baby quilt is 40" X 46"

I love how this little quilt turned out and I think that there will be many hours spent enjoying it! :)

Frieda Fox Collage Wallhanging

Frieda Fox- Laura Heine pattern
Started July 2017

   
                                     


This was a fun collage quilt to make, but not so fun to quilt it. If I every do make another one, I would get it quilted on a long arm to avoid the stickiness on the machine needle and the breakage of needles (2).
I took a workshop from Terry Rowland (a member of Central AB Quilt Guild) at The Hub, in Stettler Arena on July 7/2017.
We had to bring some fabric pieces cut out ahead of time to audition for our projects, plus a special background fabric to trace the pattern onto. It was quite a lot of work to fussy cut all the little individual pieces to create the fox. Each piece first had to have the sticky webbing put on the back.

What I learned was: USE STEAM A SEAM 2!
Any of the pieces that had the Heat Bond on the back, wouldn't stick on until they were ironed on and then they were permanent. The Steam a Seam 2 will allow the pieces to stick temporarily and they can be moved around until you are happy with their location and then ironed on permanently.

It took hours of moving the pieces around before I was completely happy with Frieda Fox.

Then came the decision for which background to use. I auditioned about 6 different ones over and over, but finally decided on the rust coloured one. I thought a fox would want to blend into the background instead of sticking out on say, a blue or bright green background.

Then I fussy cut a lot of flowers out (with Steam a Seam on the back) to put along the bottom under Frieda, and on both top corners.

Machine quilting this baby was a chore! I did a back and forth meander, "cloud-looking" stitch on the background without a problem. I used the clear monofilament on top of the appliqués and flowers. The tread often snapped and the machine needle constantly gummed up and had to be cleaned off. I broke 2 machine needles and had to buy some titanium ones to finish this project.
I suppose I probably over stitched the collage pieces and next time (if there ever is a next time) I would remember that and also try and use less layers.

Frieda Fox hang in our bedroom

Frieda Fox hangs in our bedroom on my side and I love looking at her and finding again all the tiny little pictures that are hidden on her, spool of thread, lady bug, kittens, fawn, baby bear. . :) 

It does look cute though! :)

Tanner's Buggy Barn/ Tractor& Trucks Quilt- March to December 2017

 Trucks and Tractors, Oh Boy!

70" X 80"

This is the 'big boy' quilt that I made for my little grandson Tanner for his 4th birthday. What little boy doesn't like trucks and tractors?!
This is a Buggy Barn pattern (called Convoy), from the pattern book called "Those Crazy Kids". I started it in March 2017 and completed the first 3 truck blocks on April 1/17.

Truck Blocks:

I have never done a buggy barn pattern before so this was an new and interesting method. The trucks and the tractors are 2 separate paper patterns.  You start out by tracing the pattern onto freezer paper and label each section.
Each block uses 3 different fabrics in 3 different places. The trucks require 3 fat quarters stacked one on top of the other. The freezer paper pattern is pinned on top of them.
Cutting: Using your cutting wheel and a long ruler, cut along the pattern lines through ALL the layers in REVERSE alphabetical order.
To stay organized, stack all the pieces onto of the master sheet.

(These directions want you to stack NINE fat quarters to cut through all at once, but that seemed pretty daunting to me so I chose to do only 3 at a time. )
Now comes "the shuffle" which the directions state clearly how to shuffle the pieces around so you get three 3 coloured blocks.

Tractor block pieces after shuffling

Stitching: The pieces are then sewn together in Alphabetical order to each other in 6 sections, A to F. Next you square up the blocks.

Truck Blocks: 16 1/2 X 12 1/2"

Tractor blocks: 12 1/2 X 21"

If you want to add an appliquéd bucket on the tractor blocks, you need to add a piece of fabric 6 1/2 to 7 " X 12 1/2 " to increase the size of the blocks. (I put buckets on all my blocks.)

Tractor blocks:

Tractor wheels have been fussy cut and adhered to block with Steam a Seam 2

I continued to make blocks until I had 6 trucks and 7 tractors. I fussy cut the tires and centres of the wheels and the buckets. I used Steam a Seam 2 to adhere them to the blocks. Next I appliqué stitched around all the raw edges.

I arranged the blocks differently than the directions to make my own pattern and sewed green sashing strips in between. I added a blue tractor fabric to both ends of row 2 and 4 to get the correct width. 

Then I added a roadway to either side of the quilt to make it wider, plus a narrow black border on the top and bottom. (2 1/2 " )

I used the left over fabric to make rectangles 2 1/2 X 4" for a scrappy upper and lower border.

The completed quilt top is 70"X 80" inches in diameter.

Then it was time to pin  the top together with the batting and a green "Cuddle" backing. After that I started the machine quilting process.

Machine quilting each block

Machine quilting: I used a complementary colour of thread on the top of each block background. I tried to do different patterns on most of them, squiggles, or loops, or waves or small circles; Some of the trucks got lines quilted on the boxes. It took a few weeks of work to do them all, but I'm happy with the overall quilt and I think little Tanner will get many hours of cuddly comfort under it. :D

Happy quilting!