Last Slow Sunday Stitching for 2013

Welcome to Slow Sunday Stitching - a celebration of all kinds of hand stitching! 2013 was a great year for slow stitching - 52 weeks have passed in which we could enjoy our own hand stitching, and be inspired by the projects of quilty friends. Thank you to each of you that linked up your blog posts on Sundays and shared your stitching with us. Last year, we had a total of 641 blog posts that were linked up to Slow Sunday Stitching! That's a lot of s l o w stitches!
At last week's link up, there was a draw for an applique pattern, and the winner was comment #12 which is Deb in Florida. Congratulations to Deb and thanks for being such a regular contributor to the Slow Sunday Stitching party!

Over the past year I have shared my progress on various projects including binding quilts, hand quilting two projects (Journey of a Quilter and The Accidental Quilt), making a scrap rug, stitching some tiny hexagons, hand piecing some blocks, improving my applique stitch,  and I did a bit of hand embroidery. And I enjoyed every single stitch - the perfect, consistent stitches, and the crazy, messy ones too! 

This week I am so proud to tell you that put the final stitches in my "Up, Up and Away" quilt! This quilt was impulsively started at quilt retreat in February, hence it became named The Accidental Quilt. Amazingly, it was pieced and hand quilted, and finished in the same calendar year!
My quilt model Max was totally uncooperative... this puppy needs some training since he has a Grandma who is a quilter!

I was able to get a nice photo of my finished quilt hanging outside before the sun went down. Can I say again that I just love everything about this quilt!?!
The pattern is from the book called Sunday Morning Quilts by Cheryl Arkison and Amanda Jean Nyberg.  

And then I had an amazing synchronistic experience. Just as I was finishing the stitches in this quilt, a gift arrived in the mail for me - 
 "A Month of Sundays". It is hot off the press, and I can't believe that I won a copy in a draw on Cheryl's blog called Dining Room Empire. I love this blog (go read her wonderful post about the reality of Christmas, which reminds me to say "Thank You" to my Mom for years of fun and memorable Christmases past!)

And just look at the card Cheryl put inside the book! She even autographed the book for me! 

What a wonderful Christmas gift - thank you Cheryl!  And what a great book this is, full of patterns and tips, and amazing photography. 
So now that this quilt is finished ("out with the old") I am I wondering which of the projects in the new book I will be tempted to start next ("in with the new")?!?
For today, I'm back to hand quilting my Journey of a Quilter. I am really close to finishing that one too, so will start to think about which hand quilting project is going to be next in my hoop. 
And I have a new hand embroidery project to start in the new year that I can't wait to show you!

2014 holds 52 more weeks of hand stitching link ups at Kathy's Quilts. Grab my button (code is on the right sidebar) to put on your blog, and make a commitment to yourself to enjoy some relaxing hand stitching with us on Sundays throughout next year.  What are you proud of accomplishing with your hand work last year?  Link up your blog post below and share your current project or ideas for what you plan to work on next year. 

New Mystery Starting - Old Mystery Finished!

Bonnie Hunter's new mystery starts today!  
All of my fabric is washed (something I am not usually organized enough to do!) and I am ready to start cutting and sewing.

My goal before starting the new mystery was to completely finish the 2011 mystery, and to finish the top from the 2012 mystery. I am happy to report that I have been successful!
The 2011 mystery 3 Sisters Grace (Orca Bay) was my goal for A Lovely Year of Finishes this month (click here to see more finishes). 





I had a lot of fun with the machine quilting, which is mostly free motion with a little bit of stitch in the ditch. 






The borders were also fun to quilt as I just made up the designs as I went along.
The quilting photos are bad but it is hard to get good detail shots when the weather is so dark and dreary. Hope you can see the quilting lines on the backing here. This is my sixth finish from my UFO wish list (on the sidebar on the right side of my blog) this year!

Left Side

Right Side

And I finished sewing my 2012 Easy Street blocks together. 
Here is my finished quilt top...
in two photos!

It was a challenging project for me due to the large size of the quilt top, the diagonal layout, and the fact that my design wall is about half the size of the quilt.
The quilt top is now about 85" square and I'm considering whether to add the border I picked out or not.  
But today, I'm just enjoying my accomplishments, and am ready to take on the new mystery challenge... bring it on Bonnie!
Hop over to Jo's Country Junction link up to see more "Bonnie quilts" in progress.

Finishing the Pumpkin Seeds

Since the Featherweight machine is not recommended for machine quilting, and the feed dogs cannot be lowered, I decided to do the machine quilting on the Pumpkin Seeds quilt with my Brother 1500 machine.

I quilted a stipple pattern in the middle and tried to make pumpkin seed shapes on the borders. 


It was fun and things were going well until I remembered that I was not considering the 1/4" seam of the binding, which covered up much of the edge quilting. See what I mean? 
The binding covers up the edge of the quilting design.

Oh well...I hope I remember this the next time I try this quilting idea!

Here is my finished "Pumpkin Seed" quilt hanging on my clothesline. It measures 18.5" square. I didn't put a hanging sleeve on it since it is going to be a tabletopper on my dining room table.

Here is a very resilient Morning Glory in my backyard that wanted to be part of the photo shoot today. So pretty and still flowering in mid October!  
Many thanks to Cheri for a fun quilt-along.

A Finished UFO!

My July UFO is finished and here it is on my brother's sofa! Wow...that's bright!
You can see the red backing, which I also used for the binding.





I quilted lots of leaves on this quilt...
some big, some small, some with veins, some are really wonky. 
It was really fun to quilt and I spent approx. 6 hours on the machine quilting. 
I especially like how the leaves turned out in the gold border.
I decided to try out a different batting called "Legacy Natural Blend" in this quilt, which is an 80/20 batting from Pellon. It quilted up as nicely as the Warm and Natural that I usually use. I did not have many issues with thread breakage or pleating on the back. I wonder how this batting will wash? 
I like how the Warm and Natural shrinks a bit and gives the quilt an antique look, so I hope this batting will do the same thing. 
Hop over to A Lovely Year of Finishes to see the other UFO projects that were completed this month.

A Finished UFO!

June's UFO is done! 
I couldn't be happier with this finish!
Once I had the layout decision made with the two half candle blocks, it practically finished itself!! Well...not exactly :)
The blocks were made by machine applique, and then sewn together in the "Quilt-as-you-go" method.  

Isn't it cool how the sun is shining through the dots where the stitches are?

Isn't this a great photo of the finished quilt? It measures 30" x 30" and is called "Shattered". 

To see more June finishes, hop over to a "Lovely Year of Finishes"

Friday Finish

Can you believe that May is over?!? 

And can you believe that I finished my May UFO for the Lovely Year of Finishes?!?

Me either!

This quilt was started at the Red Letter Quilt Along almost 2 years ago. The letters were made using Tonya's book called Word Play Quilts (a great reference book that every quilter should have in their library IMHO). The 37 asterisk blocks were inspired by Jean's quilt, and I used a tutorial at the Selvage Blog to learn how to sew them. They were really fun to sew and I think I will probably be making more of them in my quilting future.



It took a while to settle on a machine quilting design to go around all the letters, but I decided on a swirly pattern. 

Then I had some thread snapping issues.
I tried to slow down, but this did not help.  This is the point at which beginning machine quilters struggle, and sometimes give up.  For sure it can be really frustrating, but I always encourage people to just kept trying a different combination of thread and needles.  It is totally dependent on the quilt sandwich, what batting you used, how thick the fabrics are, the combination of the type of thread that is on top and in the bobbin, and how your machine feels on that particular day! For me this week - the quilting needles and the embroidery needles didn't work, but the Topstitch 90/14 needle solved the issue completely.
I was happy to find this fabric in my stash which was perfect for the binding...and I had enough of it to go all the way around! That hardly ever happens...I usually find the perfect fabric, but don't have enough of it :)

The backing of the quilt is a plain white fabric with letters on it.
Click here to see other quilts finished this month.

Good News - A Finished Quilt!

Machine quilting with walking foot

This is going to be called the FUN quilt! I started it at a quilt guild party with many wonderful friends, and I had such a great time quilting it. 

Quilt Backing

I knew I had to use a "forgiving" quilt design, because the backing was wonky, plus I had stitched together 4 chunks of leftover batting, and that turned out wavy too.
So I decided on a very simple quilt design - just some straight wavy lines (is that an oxymoron?!?) 
Simple. Stress-free. FUN!


If you are not confident about your machine quilting but would like to improve, you must try this. Put on your walking foot and just quilt vertical lines across your quilt. It holds the layers together and it is very forgiving. For more great information about quilting with a walking foot, hop over to PetitDesignCo. and you will find enough ideas and inspiration to last the rest of your quilting days! The walking foot design I used is shown on day 9. 

I added a scrappy binding and then enjoyed some relaxing hand stitching while watching the Masters golf tournament on Sunday.

The sun even came out to shine on the quilt for a photo op!
This quilt will be donated to my guild's comfort quilt project, and I know it will warm a little girl's heart.

I am linking this post to Patchwork Times and TGIFF...
lots of inspiration to enjoy!

BeAttitudes is a finished quilt!

March's UFO is DONE!

Phew...that was a tough one!
This is my BeAttitudes quilt (pattern by Nancy Halvorsen).
The blocks were a BOM that I started in 2008, so this quilt took almost 5 years to finish. 
I didn't enjoy the machine applique technique, but I forced myself to finish it, and it will probably be my one and only machine appliqued quilt! 
The machine quilting went fairly quick once I got started.
I don't like how the blocks puff out under the large applique chunks, because I couldn't quilt over the applique (way too thick with layers of fabric, fusible, batting and backing).

But anyway, it's done and I'm so thrilled to have this quilt finished, and to have one less UFO! 
This photo shows the machine quilting a bit.
Maybe I should stitch some rain drops coming out of that watering can?




I have to show a close up of the Easter bunny block because today is Easter, and because it was one of my favorite blocks in this quilt. 

I finished hand stitching the binding today...Easter is the perfect day to finish my BeAttitudes quilt!
To see more finished UFO's this month, hop over to the Lovely Year of Finishes Link up.

Design Wall #9 - "Imagine"

On my design wall today is a wallhanging that is almost finished.   It measures 28" x 31" and is called "Imagine".
I was inspired by the panel which I bought at Sew Little Time, and just added a border with cornerstones.
The fabric line is called Simply Imagine (made by Red Rooster Fabrics) and was lovely to work with.

I machine quilted using my favorite swirly design.
What a fun and inspiring project, which nows lives at my parents' house. It just needs some threads snipped, and a hanging sleeve/rod.
To see what other quilters are making this week, hop over to Patchwork Times.

February UFO Report and March Goal

Wow...that month just flew by!
I accomplished a lot in life, work and quilting, but did not even touch my UFO of the month! It's so funny because I made a post about my goal, thought about it a lot, and had it on the design wall most of the month, and then accomplished nothing! Harumphffff :(

You can pop over to the Lovely Year of Finishes to see the over 100 bloggers who managed to finish their project this month. 
And as for me...I'm blaming it on the fact that if this wasn't February, I would have had 3 more days, and I'd have it finished for sure!! LOL!!

However, I did finish 7 (yes, SEVEN!) quilts in this short month, which means that I hand stitched a whopping 1,071" in bindings! WOW!
*Charlie Brown's quilt 46" x 58" = 208"
*Heart Waves  57" x 57" - 264"
*Imagine 28" x 31" = 118" (hey...I didn't blog about this one yet!)

*With A Little Help From My Friends 5" x 6" = 22"

*Heart Mini 10" x 11.5" = 43"

*Abundance 12" x 12" = 48"

*Bricks and Stepping Stones 84" x 100" = 368" (ready for the quilt auction in May)

January's binding total was 444" plus February's total brings me to a grand total of 1,515" of binding stitched for 2013 so far. Not too shabby! 

Okay...this month I plan to finish my BeAttitudes for sure!

A Finished Quilt

I finished a quilt within two months from start to finish, which must be a "personal best" record!
This was the New Year's Eve mystery quilt posted on the Quiltaholics Anonymous Yahoo group. It was a fun pattern that cleared out lots of old 2.5" strips of batiks from my stash.
I finished the quilt quickly in order to donate it to the fundraiser/silent auction this past weekend raising money for my brother's upcoming surgery.
I have two other finishes to share later in the week...woohoo!

Finished UFO!

Yep...right on the very last day of the month! 
And that is why deadlines work for me. If I didn't join the Lovely Year of Finishes, and commit to finishing this project in January, it would still be in pieces in the UFO closet. 
Here it is being quilted by my trusty old Brother 1500. It has been such a work horse machine for the last 12 years.

I tried a new (to me) quilting design for this flannel quilt - a variation of clam shells.  The shell shapes on the center snowball blocks were easy and things went downhill from there! LOL 




I think many (most!) of my shells are quite a bit wonky in places, and as I was quilting, I was thinking of ways to make it a little more organized and even the next time I try it. 
But overall it was a fun and quick design to quilt and I am happy with it.

This is the backing, with lots of trees, and moose, and pinecones. The piece I bought wasn't quite wide enough, so I added a green strip on one side.
I realized as I was making up the scrappy binding that there are scraps of four different flannel projects in this quilt! 

Hop over to the UFO link up to see the other projects that were finished in January.

In Your Words

Welcome to the "In Your Words" blog hop! If you are new here, take a look around and see what's going on in Kathy's quilty world. 
I am excited to share my "Words to Live By" quilt.
About two years ago I learned to sew letters using Tonya's  wonderful book called Word Play. I was inspired by the Virtues Quilt over at Nifty Quilts to learn how to make words from the Virtues Project list of words. To read more about the construction process of the words, and the decisions made along the way, click here. 
In my overly optimistic mind, I envisioned sewing all the virtues, but then lost interest in this project as I do "from time to time" (really laughing out loud!) When I saw the "In Your Words" blog hop invitation, I decided that this would be just the incentive I needed to finish my virtues quilt and here it is!

I put the 6 words I had sewn together with some scrappy hearts, and a few triangles here and there just for fun.
This quilt was made in a totally "liberated" way - no patterns, points chopped off, no logical construction, no thought given to colour planning, and nothing lines up very well. The process of sewing it together was SO FUN! And I feel happy when I look at it, so it's my favorite quilt so far!
I machine quilted it last night as part of a quilting demo for the quilt guild...yep...nothing like finishing a project at the last minute!  That's how life goes around here!

Well, actually "finished" is a relative term for a quilter! The binding isn't actually on the quilt...let's just say it's near the quilt!  And the quilt was whispering something about some embellishments and some hand stitching to add, so I've realized this isn't "finished yet".
A big thanks to Madame Samm over at Sew We Quilt for all the fun blog hops, and to Linda for organizing us!
Here are the blogs to visit to see today's "In Your Words" projects:

Wednesday, January 9

Kathy's Quilts (That's ME!)

Sunshine Quilting (Martina S.)

Sew Incredibly Crazy (Amy)

Quilt Doodle Doodles (Cindy S.)

Doodling in My Mind (Darla R.)

I Like to Quiltblog (Bente)

Michelle's Romantic Tangle (Michelle M.)

Grammie Q's (Charlotte M.)

Dancing Moon (Carla B.) 

The Fuzzy Hat Quilter (Laura Ann)