A Joyful Noise...Finished!

Still working on projects from the UFO basket...and finished the binding on another little quilt last night!

A Joyful Noise, by Jeanne Turner McBrayer, 2017

 This one has been "cooking" for quite some time.  It of course is made of scrap fabrics, mostly from baby quilts that I have made.  I followed directions from the blog Del Quilts, who learned this technique at a workshop with Rachel Maus called "It Doesn't Matter."  Basically, you sew lots of scraps and strips together, cut them into triangles, sew together into squares, and then arrange your squares in a pleasing manner.

Here is a detail of the quilting, which is my favorite free-motion meander with flowers, leaves, and feathers.

A Joyful Noise detail

The backing fabric is a very happy print of cherries and cherry blossoms.  In fact, everything about this little quilt makes me happy.  I borrowed from Psalm 100 for the title, A Joyful Noise.

A Joyful Noise label and cherry backing fabric

I am not sure where this little guy will end up, but I think it will be a table topper.

Woodland Friends Quilt: Finished!

All bound and ready to send!

It was fun to quilt this one.

I used a purple thread, which surprisingly blends in well in the busy fabrics, but shows up nicely in the plainer backgrounds.

I adore the border fabric!

The back is made of eight-inch squares in coordinating colors.

I love a striped binding.  This fabric has diagonal stripes, so I did not have to cut it on the bias.

This was such a fun project!

Beautiful Customer Quilt

I finally finished quilting Carolyn Ormond's sampler quilt.  What a stunner!

The edges are both angular and circular.  She should have fun binding it!  I decided to use white thread and do mostly background quilting to make the dark motifs pop. 

Some of the shapes were too large to be left unquilted, so I added some lines to enhance the motifs.

It was a pleasure to work on such a pretty quilt!

The mountains are starting to change color.  We had some pretty rides last weekend.

We continued to work on the landscaping.  I moved a lot of dirt and gravel around as Charlie filled in with the tractor.

Just a few steps and the Great Wall project will be finished.

We will eventually paint, stucco, or add cultured stone to the cinder block, which is now painted with dry-lock.

We were all tired after the weekend...even the dogs (we had our grand-dog Roo with us.)

Quilting in the Mountains

In a previous post, I wrote about setting up my Gammill long arm machine in the unfinished basement of our mountains cabin.  I decided that I could not wait until it was finished to start quilting again.   I had some projects I needed to get finished.  So, I drove up by myself last Wednesday morning and started cleaning up the sawdust and dirt down there.  That pile of insulation, plywood, and metal screening just had to stay in their corner and be ignored.

My husband's shop vac was up there.  Now this is a truly awkward machine, undoubtedly designed by men for men.  You have to bend over to vacuum the floor, pulling that bulky barrel-like tank, and using a little slot-like nozzle to do a whole floor.  Not good, but I did not want to use my good vacuum cleaner down there.

 

After sweeping, vacuuming, and mopping the floor, I put some sheets under the machine to protect the parts of the quilts that might drag on the floor.

One of the biggest problems in the room is that there is no overhead light or even electricity.  I used a whole mess of extension cords and multi-outlet sockets for the machine, light, bobbin winder, and hydraulic lift.

I set up a card table for the bobbin winder and some supplies.

I spent some time cleaning and oiling the machine, and turned it on.  Voila!  It fired right up and worked just fine after months of neglect.

Here is the first quilt that I did in the new location.  It is a baby quilt to be given on Saturday to a family member.  I don't think they read this blog, so it is okay to show it off.

I had some squares left over from another baby quilt.  For the center squares, I put two of each fabric so that the quilt becomes a sort of matching game to look for the same fabric.

The quilting is free-motion, with lots of swirls and ocean motifs to go with the baby's nursery.

This quilt is now completely finished and wrapped in its gift box.

I also quilted a small quilt for a friend of mine from the Whacky Ladies who has waited about eight months for her quilt.  She know I like to do artistic quilting, and let me have free rein on how to quilt all the monsters and ghouls.

The creatures were fused to the background, making a stiff surface to quilt on, but the area was too large to be left unquilted.  I went inside each one with some defining quilting stitches, and did echo quilting around them.

In the washings and borders, I did a straight-line meander in all directions.  The backgrounds behind the faces are quilted mostly with loops, but sometimes their names.

The thread broke quite often due to the heavy going in the fused areas.  And then there was this pieced backing!  All those seam intersections also made for a lot of thread breakage.

Well, it is done and Carolyn liked it!  On to the next one.

I got both quilts done in two days, and was able to enjoy the long Labor Day weekend with lots of family and friends.  In our little cabin we had six adult guests, five children under five, and four dogs!

Here are a few pics of the fun we had.

Back in the Saddle

On Tuesday I spent the day in Clayton, NC, exercising my "visitation rights" to use my Gammill longarm quilting machine.  I got both of my baby quilts done!  Well, almost!

I did my granddaughter's first.  Her nursery is a mermaid's paradise!  I quilted in some wavy water, seaweed, a few fish, and a few hearts and other motifs that were in the theme fabric in the border.

 

The quilting shows up better on the back.

 

 

In my attempt to do some stash-busting, I have been piecing my quilt backs from whatever fabrics might coordinate with the quilt top.

 

 

I actually made the bias stripe binding and applied it yesterday, and it is about three-fourths sewn to the back by hand.

The next quilt was for my great-nephew, Lucas.  His top is a riot of bright colors and jungle animals.  I decided to do some balloon-type round shapes, with some sunbursts and other shapes thrown in when I got bored.

 

 

 

All was going well until I got to the last four or five inches from the bottom.  I was getting ready to baste the bottom edge to the batting and backing and take out the pins. 

 

Uh-oh!

 

I ran out of backing fabric.  If I kept on quilting, I would be sewing right into the canvas leaders!

 

I just took the quilt off the machine and brought it home to add some more fabric.  Of course I did not have any more of the blue fabric.  Notice I had already added some pieced fabrics from the top to extend the blue fabric a bit.

 

 

When I trimmed the extra fabric from the other sides, I had enough left to add a narrow strip to the bottom.  Then I had to quilt the last few inches on my home sewing machine.  Oh, my!  Not easy to make nice circles and loops.

 

But it's done!  I have cut the pieces for his bias striped binding.  I love the way bias stripes make a candy-cane effect around the edge of the quilt.  Will show the bindings next time.

We are leaving for a long weekend in the mountains for Easter weekend.  It should be cold, but not rainy.  I am ready for spring!