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Quilty Inspiration

This week’s quilty inspiration comes from Bonnie at Quiltville.

Bonnie posted this picture on her page about leaders and enders (scroll about halfway down). As soon as I saw it, I was immediately smitten with it. I hadn’t heard of an Irish chain at the time that I started this quilt, but I was able to see how she put it together from the pictures. I ended up making this now finished quilt, Scrappy Irish Chain, which my husband uses every night. Once I figured out what the pattern was called, I found all kinds of tutorials on the web for it, but it really is not a difficult quilt to make.

Happy Quilting!
Rachel

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Funky Neighborhood Swap

Recently I was the hostess for a Funky Neighborhood swap. This idea was born out of the Funky Chicken swap. Members had about 3 months to sew up blocks and mail them to me. There were about 30 members, some made as little as 6 blocks, others made as many as 48. It was a bear to swap the blocks, but I did well being only one block short in the end!

I wanted to make a bunch of blocks like I did for the funky chicken swap so I could make a lap size quilt, but unfortunately time got away from me, so I was not able to make that many. I am very happy for the blocks I did get though.

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I am not sure how I am going to make these into a quilt, I have a few house type fabrics that I was going to use for more blocks, so I will probably incorporate those. I probably won’t get to this one for a while since I don’t have an inspired idea right now.

Cheers!
Rachel

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Finished Chicken Top

A while back I showed you all my funky chicken swap blocks laid out ready to be sewn together. I never showed the full finished top, so here it is!

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I was going to do a bunch of embroidery on it, but I wasn’t as inspired to do so as I thought I would be, so I just left what I did do and I am just going to finish it as is.

Happy Quilting!
Rachel

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Don’t Drink and Fly

While I was waiting for the new batting and thread for my long arm machine to arrive, I decided to give one of the patterns I had laying around a try. About six months ago, I discovered Eat Cake Graphics. Someone had made one of her patterns and posted it to the quilting forum I visit sometimes. I was smitten with all of the patterns but only picked up two for now. Here are the two I grabbed.

Fluffy Says Boo

Don’t Drink and Fly

They have sat around for a while because I couldn’t quite decide how I wanted to do my applique. My previous try at needle turn applique went well, but it was pretty time consuming. I don’t want these quilts to be heirlooms, I would like to be able to get them finished quickly. So a while back I bought some fusible webbing to try my hand at raw edge applique, but truth be told I was a little nervous to try it.

Finally last week I just jumped in and did it. It was actually a lot easier than I thought it would be. It’s not quite finished as I still have a little needlework to do, but here is a picture of it almost finished.

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I am not sure how I am going to finish the edges yet, I am probably going to wait until I am better on the longarm to attempt to it there, but I really like it so far. This one will probably get hung up somewhere in my house.

I still have Fluffy Says Boo to make, maybe when I do that one I will take some pics of my process. I just need to figure out which fabrics I want to use for the cats, it’s not as easy as it would seem!

Happy Quilting!
Rachel

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Bee Creative Halloween Quilt Top

As I told you earlier, I recently put together my Halloween top that the girls from my Bee Creative swap made for me. It was like a puzzle putting all the blocks together. I didn’t give them any direction on the size of the blocks, so I had all different sizes. I laid them out on the floor and moved them around until I liked the look. Then I added a little extra fabric here and there to make everything fit.

When I was done putting it all together, I felt like it needed something more, so since I have a lot of fabric left I wanted to try a border. I went for a braided border because it really shows off the leftover pieces of Halloween fabric. This was the first time I ever tried a braided border, and it was easier than I thought it would be. I used a tutorial from Quiltville. I cut my pieces 2.5 by 4.5 inches, which made a 4.5 inch border.

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I am totally in love with this top, once it is totally finished it will probably hang in my hallway.

Happy Quilting!
Rachel

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Quilty Inspiration

This week’s quilty inspiration picture is from Oh, Fransson.

The quilt is made using Paintbox Blocks. If you click on the picture, she provides a quick tutorial on how to make these blocks. She has also hosted a quilt along on her blog for this quilt. It is done now, but you can still follow her posts to make your own. I really like this quilt because of the vibrant color play going on. It seems like a quick and easy block to make that has a lot of visual impact.

Happy Quilting!

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Christmas Mystery BOM

Yesterday I showed you my Mystery Block of the Month that I had to do some frogging on. I have finished that block and the next one as well. I think the third block, the wreath, is my favorite so far.

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It is so much fun to get these each month and see the creativity that each designer has in putting the block together. The packets are very generous with the fabric they provide too, so I will probably have quite a bit leftover when I am done.

Happy Quilting!
Rachel

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Frogging

It wasn’t until I started visiting a quilting forum that I heard the word “frogging.” Frogging is a term used when you have to unpick stitches with your seam ripper. It is so called because you have to “rip-it” out. (Like Ribbit, frogging … get it?? ….) This method is also known as un-sewing. Needless to say I hate frogging. There is nothing in the world that I hate more than having to re-do something I just did 10 seconds ago. If I write a post here and lose the post because the internet is being wacky, I will not rewrite the post. When I take a test, I answer the questions and I never re-read them after I am done. If I make a quilt and the seams don’t line up perfectly, I embrace the imperfections and call it good because done is better than perfect in my eyes. Redoing anything is just not my thing.

That being said, sometimes I have no choice but to do a little frogging. I was recently working on a block and my seams were a little narrow so when I sewed two pieces together I ended up with some puckers, which you can see at the top of this picture:

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I set the block aside for a day or two and went back and forth with myself about whether it could stay or not. As I said, I.hate.redoing.anything, so this was a real long conversation with myself about whether this could stay or not. I nearly had myself talked into not redoing it, when I looked at it again. I finally admitted that these mistakes were just too obvious and I wouldn’t be happy. So I bit the bullet and did a little frogging. I tightened up a few seams, sewed things back together, and now I have no puckers:

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Though I was irritated at having to redo, I am very happy with how it looks now. Putting a few days between the original and the redo helped, and I know it will look better in the long run. I will show you the finished block tomorrow!

Happy Un-Quilting!
Rachel

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Family Reunion Pattern

A while back I started following a blog called A Bee in My Bonnet. Lori Holt is the blog owner, and she has the best applique patterns I have seen in a while. I am not big on traditional quilt patterns, so hers entertain me. I am particularity smitten with one called Family Reunion.

Click on the title of the pattern to see pictures of Lori’s finished quilt. The pattern can be picked up at Material Girls or if you are lucky, like me, on Etsy.

Since nothing is short of an adventure with me, especially since I have the worst memory in the world, of course it wasn’t easy for me to get this pattern in my hands.

First off, I have been putting off buying this pattern, because though it is well worth the price, at about $25.00 it is a little pricey. Finally one day I had $30 dumped into my Paypal account for a bunch of referrals I had made. It was like a sign, this money was meant to be used to buy me this pattern.

Unfortunately Material Girls does not take Paypal for payment, so I turned to Etsy. When I was doing my search I could not remember the right name of the pattern, so I typed in something like “Quilt Bee Bonnet” and a bunch of stuff came up including this pattern also by Lori …

That’s it! I thought and I quickly made my purchase before I reminded myself of the eighty-million more important ways that money could be used. I was so tickled at having bought it, that about a half hour later I went to Lori’s site to look at the pictures and dream of making the pattern. When I got there, I quickly realized my mistake!! While the pattern I bought was very nice, it wasn’t the one I have been lusting for.

I quickly hopped back over to Etsy and sent a 911 message to my seller telling her that I bought the wrong thing and was there anyway she could switch them or refund my money? Pretty please with ice cream on top? I crossed all my fingers and toes, braided my hair, and spun around in a circle three times while I awaited a response.

Lucky for me, my seller was so kind and understanding and said she would switch out the patterns and send me the one I really wanted. Yay!! I love wonderful sellers, and this one should get lots of love. So if you are ever in dire need of something quilty on Etsy, please check out Piper’s Girls, she is pretty awesome.

Happy Quilting!
Rachel

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I must admit

I have blog envy. I hate to admit that, but I do. I have about 250 blogs in my Google Reader, and while I don’t read them all all the time, I do read a lot of them. They are all so very interesting and it gives me blog envy. I would love for this blog to be alive with not only my quilting escapades, but my own voice too. Cupcake ‘n’ Daisies recently asked her readers what makes a good blog, and when I went to post, I thought about what I like in a blog. I like blogs that have a focus, photography, food, quilting, crafting, scrapbooking, finance …. But I also like when these writers incorporate their own lives into the blog. This is something I generally don’t do, and something I want to work on! I know there are not many of you reading this out there right now, with I’m cool with that, but I am not trying to impress anyone, I am just trying to share a little about me and about being crafty. So this long winded brain dump is to simply remind myself to not have so many expectations for my blog.

And since I think every blog post is so boring without a picture, here is one I took of my son’s Toy Story Legos, I was trying to get all fancy with my new DSLR. I actually think the pic is quite endearing.

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Happy Quilting,
Rachel

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Christmas Mystery Block of the Month

I have been looking to do a block of the month for a while. A block of the month is where you get enough fabric to make one block each month and then at the end of 12 months you have 12 blocks that you can make a whole quilt. I haven’t found one that struck me in a while, but I happened to stumble upon a mystery block of the month from the Fat Quarter Shop.

I have one Christmas quilt right now and I would love to have another, so I thought this was a good way to get one and do a block of the month. Since it is a mystery, I do not know what the final quilt will look like. I have finished just one block so far and am currently working on the second. Here is a picture of the first block.

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Happy Quilting!
Rachel

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Quilty Inspiration

I draw a lot of inspiration from blogs, websites and forums. I like to bookmark quilts as I come across them so I can peek through them when I am feeling uninspired. I thought I would share some of the pics that I bookmarked every so often so maybe you can find inspiration from them too.

This week the picture I am sharing is a quilt I probably won’t make for a long time, but I love the look of it. It comes from the Sew Create It blog.

I know a lot of people use old shirts as fabric for quilts, I have been meaning to find some at a thrift store and try it out, but I haven’t done it yet. This quilt is a fun way to use an otherwise unusable part of the shirt. There is no tutorial with this picture, but I think if I wanted to make one I could easily figure it out.

Happy Quilting!
Rachel