My New Little Tote Basket

First, let me say we are still waiting, but all is well. I've been busy with leaves, but wanted to share pictures of my newest tote basket. My DDIL, besides waiting for her baby, has a fabulous home based business. She recently made me this little monogrammed tote. It is the most wonderful size to carry my small projects in when I go to work. You can see my new tree quilt peeking out of the top. (And doesn't it look good next to "Beauty Waits", which still inspires me daily.

She does such beautiful work and I've so enjoyed this as it's a big improvement to sticking my project in a leftover plastic bag.

So I'm off to applique more leaves, try and concentrate at work and wait for the phone call.

Have a great day.

-Karen

Another Tree Grows in Pensacola

I have been seriously sidetracked for the last few days. I decided I needed another tree for my office. I started with a beautiful piece of batik I got for my birthday last year. Then I decided to use a piece of fabric I got off the share table at Guild. It's probably a rayon blend, but it's nubby and wonderful texture. I made this tree a little more substantial and decided to hand applique the whole thing.
I know, it takes more time, but I just love to applique, especially on a fairly small project. By the time I would have prepped all the fused pieces and machine appliqued everything, I feel like I pretty much had the tree done! Here's my bare tree ready for leaves.

I've had so much fun going thru my batik scraps and finding just the right pieces. Since I can't really draw, I'm so glad this doesn't have to look realistic :).

The tree is growing and it's looking more like a tree with every leaf!!

Until next time,

-Karen

Clarification on Last Post

This is an update: I believe I have figured this out, at least for what I need to do. I'll work on it tonight and let you know. Thanks to all.
Thanks for the suggestions so far. I need to say that this is a picture of a quilt I found on-line, it's not one I've made. Unfortunately, when I went back to try and find it, so I could contact the person who made it, I couldn't find this quilt anywhere. So far, I've tried using a 4" center and sewing 2 rounds of logs and then cutting the block in half and re-sewing. The center matches up fine, but the logs don't line up.

So I'm hoping that my friend's quilt will look a lot like this one, but this one belongs to someone else!! I'm going to keep thinking about it.
-Karen

Can you help me name this block?

Does anyone know the name of this block? Or how it's constructed. I should know this, but I think my brain is tired LOL!! I looked on EQ7 and didn't find it exactly.
Thanks for your help..... I'm helping another friend who's going to be a first time grandmother. She has already bought a jelly roll and a charm pack of Pure and she's fallen in love with this pattern.
Until next time,
Karen

Ready and waiting...

My new granddaughter's quilt is done and now we're just waiting for a phone call :). We have 2 weeks left, but with a first baby you never know.....
I am so pleased with the way this quilt turned out. This is such gorgeous fabric and this simple design showcases that perfectly.

The two small inner borders and the single checkerboard border add just enough interest without getting lost. What surprised me is how green it looks. I'm so glad I decided to only add pink and turquoise.

The echo quilting on the petal blocks gives this very modern quilt that traditional look that I wanted.

I found a fun stripe with red, pink and pale yellow - a perfect contrast to the large floral design.

The "K" is not for Karen but for my new precious granddaughter, Karis.

And of the course the kitty. This time it did double duty as it's also the label. I had to add a background piece since it blended into the backing. So now I wait, trying to focus on another project. It's very hard :).

Until next time,

Karen

Mountain Vacation Project #1

This is not my vacation project. I actually finished this top last summer at the quilt retreat in Mobile, AL. It's still waiting to be quilted......sigh.
Anyway, even after making this quilt from the scraps of the 7 other Amy Butler quilts I'd made, there was still a considerable pile of scraps just waiting to be used. I almost think these things multiply when you're not looking!! (Now that I've basically finished the jacket and I still have this pile left, I'm thinking of some string blocks might be in my future :)!!!)

Back to the vacation project. So I decided to rescue an old pink sweatshirt from the goodwill pile and use my pile of scraps to make a sweatshirt jacket. This is what the outside looks like during construction. I have tried to start this project before, but by the time I get home from work, it seems kind of overwhelming to start. So getting away on vacation was the perfect time to start this.

This is the inside. I forgot to take pictures of the steps so I'll show the pattern pictures.

I'm using the pattern "I Can't Believe its' a Sweatshirt" by Back Porch Press. I love this pattern - I've made it three times for me plus once for my sister. I've also taught two workshops on this technique.

This is what the sweathsirt looks like when you first cut it apart and start sewing on the blocks.

You just keep layering blocks until you like the look. Then you quilt in wavy lines going in both directions.

Here's my progress so far, just starting to quilt.

I got all 4 sections basically basted with just a few lines of quilting before I left NC. Now it's all ready for me to just do the machine quilting.

It takes quite a while to do all the stitching, but once the blocks are positioned, it's pretty easy.

Until next time,

-Karen

Missing but making progress

I really cannot believe that it's been a month since I blogged!! I've been reading some, sewing some and trying to chill. I've been at the beach on the Gulf of Mexico with my family for a mini family reunion and I've been in the mountains of NC (no internet). I did take my machine and had fun working on some projects which I'll share soon. (Em, I thought of you and Roxy as I sewed, looking out at the beautiful mountains and the serenity of God's creation). Today, I want to share my progess on my new granddaughter's baby quilt. Here the shadows help show the quilting. I'm hand quilting this and doing a cross hatching in the plain fabric blocks.

It's a sweet old fashioned look to a very modern fabric.

I'm quilting in the ditch around each petal and then echo quilting.

I'm not marking anything, so each block is slightly different.

I'm doing straight line quilting at each one inch block.

I'm loving the contrast between the vibrant, modern look of the fabric and the traditional look of the muslin and the quilting. I always forget how different (slow) hand quilting is from machine quilting. I really want all my grandchildren to have at least one quilt hand quilted by "Nana Girl" so it's been a complete labor of love.

Hope you are all having a wonderful summer.

Until next time,

-Karen