Surprise! My Grand Opening!

It's finally here!  The day I've dreamed of since I finished my first few quilts three years ago!  My very own eshop!  My new shop is http://www.zibbet.com/SandandSunshine so please visit me!  Thanks to the folks at Zibbet I can now sell my quilts without having to pay outrageous commissions!  Actually they don't charge commission at all, now wont that be a real change for me?  Did you know by the time you PayPal and Ebay you're out about 20% in commissions just to sell a single quilt?  That really hurts.


I'm accepting PayPal of course and while it says shipping within the United States I able to create shipping quotes on a person by person basis so if you see something you like feel free to drop me a comment or a note. This is a very exciting time for me and I thank you all for standing by me on my shaky journey to this point.

My current listings are my Lollipop Quilt,  My I love you Freemotion Quilt, and Scatty Stars.  It pains me to be selling them especially before the Christmas Quilt-a-long is even done, but I have run out of places to put them in my tiny little house (no kidding) and the sale of these lovely quilts will bring in some much needed funds for things like Christmas.

Darling Details

I finished the free motion quilt along quilt!  Binding and everything!  I stalled out a little because I made my quilt a bit bigger so although I did everything I was supposed to (and surprisingly the right amount of everything) I had extra quilting space on the quilt.  First I experimented with some seashells and more variations on waves, but then I did this interlaced wavy quilting which turned out really great and from there I added a heart vine to one of the edges which was much easier than it sounds and after a tiny strip of loops it was all done.  For the binding I selected a baby blue which picks out highlights in both the front and the back of the quilt.  There is so much pink on this little quilt that I love how the blue mellows everything just a little bit.

After that I basted the lollipop quilt.  This had so many small pieces that after painstakingly hand sewing on many of the first flowers I went ahead and merely pinned them on.  Then I spray basted the entire quilt.  I tackled the stems first because I knew exactly how I wanted them quilted and now the flower head yo yos are waiting for me.  After a bit of sketching I think I know how I quilt them as well.  The only question remains what colors to quilt them all!

I'm so proud of my stems why not click on them to see them in more detail?  I haven't tucked in the strings yet, but I'll get to that after I stitch the flowers.

All Caught Up

I am now all caught up with the Freemotion Quilt-a-Long.  I hadn't realized I'd gotten so far behind!  So I happily stitched scallops, vines, meanders, and attempted some feathers.  I did not do the echo work except to embellish within the quilting I was practicing because I feel quite confident with echos.

Random Vine grows a nice flower!

 The best part about the vines was putting flowers on the end.  Some of these turned out quite nice even if my brain panics a bit at having to quilt a flower?!?!?!

Puzzle Piece Quilting

Next I made these little puzzle pieces.  On the front size the strip is just the width of those pieces so they really look like a line of pieces running the length of the strip.  These little pieces are a meander variation, I think they would look quite nice on a baby blanket, stitched row after row would add the tops and bottoms that appear to be missing in my strip from this backside view.

Meandering around the butterflies

Remember those butterflies that I stitched around?  I wasn't sure what to do with the empty space so when it came time to practice my meanders I went ahead and added them around the butterflies. The effect is nice.

Currently the quilt is about 2/3rds quilted.  At one point it was mentioned we should have our quilt halfway quilted at that point, but as I was never certain in the beginning where to stitch what I just sewed things where I thought they fit and looked good.  I wish all of you could cuddle this quilt the quilting makes it so inviting.  I have it positioned where I can see it often and the way the quilting pops is really nice.

Don't forget you still have a bit of time to get in any extra entries for the giveaway.  All of my non-Canadian non-US followers can feel free to enter as well, because I have a plan for you if you win!  ;-)

Freemotion Quilt-a-Long Update Kitty's Delight

Back of Strip Quilt

We're at the halfway point for the freemotion Quilt-a-long, so I thought I'd share some photos.  First off I have no idea how it happened, but I never photographed the back for you.  So here it is.  The strips go the opposite way of the strips on the front.  So if the back runs top to bottom the front runs left to right.

Front of Strip Quilt

I've picked a name for this quilt so rather than continuing to call this little ditty of a quilt the freemotion Quilt-a-long Quilt I'm going to start calling it Kitty's Delight, don't worry as the indexing wont change. If you click the image of the back of this quilt you will see two cat fabrics.  Those combined with the butterflies and the sweet spring colors remind me of spring breezes which my own Sunny loves so much. 

Spiral Border Quilting

Now for my quilting details.  The first thing I freemotioned was the border spirals you see above.  I think with just a little bit of alteration they will look like waves, which could turn out very handy in future quilts.  I also really like the way this looks it feels a nice to my fingers as it looks to my eyes.  Yes I tried them wide, tight, and I tried them circular, but I like them a bit loose like this.

Broad Orchid Quilting

Next was to make a symmetrical shape to fit within a set space.  After realizing that daisy type flowers work best if you stitch one petal at a time going starting north, then south, east and west and go back and do sw, se, nw, ne, and so on it really helped keeping me consistent with my petal sizes and shapes.  I'm not much of a daisy person so then I started to play with quilting orchids.  I really like these results.  

Skinny Orchid Quilting

Some orchids have skinny petals, and some have nice fat petals.  I'm a fan of the fat petals myself, but have been captivated by skinny petaled flowers as well.  I quilted these orchids by making my northern most sepal (petal) first, then moving on to the east and west petals.   Next I moved to the lip (the petal at the bottom) and sized it roughly to the type of petal I was making.  I moved to the sepals diagonal up and lastly I added two above for a nice balanced look.  Sure not all orchids are like this, but I think when it comes to quilts most people will see them as orchids or lilies regardless of how accurate something is quilted.

Spider Web Quilting

While I was quilting my thoughts turned to my youngest brother and his love for nature in the raw.  So I tried my hand at a spider web.  I think this design is better suited for a nonsymetical area where the achor points would appear more natural and I'd like to try it over a bigger area where I will have more time to freemotion the machine into those gentle dips you see in a spider's web.

Dusting Girl

This morning my daughter told me she wanted to dust something, so I have to show this photo I took of her dusting.  She looks so grown up, at least to me.  Her school is having a pumpkin decorating contest and even though I tried hard to convince her to use other mediums she stood stoutly by her markers.  That is until I suggested using glitter for the inside of the mouth.  Yes those are my beloved PeeWee Glitters.  I think next time I'm at the store I get some of the "kindergarten kind", so I don't panic quite so much over the sheer volume it's taking.

Pebbles

I myself have been busy.  I mentioned a while back about buying a darning foot for the Elna because it's such a good little machine and the brother is clearly the rebelling teenage sister.  I found a great deal on Ebay for a Big Foot to fit Elna and it arrived a couple of days ago.  I quickly caught up with the quilt-a-long by doing zigzags, these ribbon candy wiggles, and I did pebbles because I've done loops before, as you can see I struggled the most with those.

Ribbon Candy Loops

ZigZags

Then I still wanted to quilt and as the machine was loaded and ready to go, (the spirls hadn't posted yet) I went on to sew over the lines the the butterfly.  I'm having a bit of trouble with getting the tension just right as I've never freemotioned on the little Elna before, and I feel like my stitches are way small but these by far were my best tracings in the history of my attempting to trace.  I just love how it lifts the butterflies.  Connecting them I have use alternating loops as though the butterflies are flying to each other.  I'm not certain how much the quilting should be filled in.  What do you think?

Butterfly freemotion trace

My Christmas kittens are all done!

I finished up my little Christmas Kitties last night, you know the ones with the crazy button eyes?  I only added one loop at the corner for hanging to allow them to keep their bit of whimsy.  They make me smile every time I look at them.  The pieces are cut and machine sewn.  They they are flipped and ironed.  I hand stitched the faces.  I hand stitched down the white sock patches.  At my DH's suggestion I ran a thickness of four cotton threads through the needle, then I made the big obvious stitches both in green and the a line of gold which is more subtle at the bottom of the top white ruff. When I had the kittens attached to their stockings I felt the desire to machine sew the stockings down to the background fabric, but I resisted and hand stitched those down too.  So if you don't see the stitches they simply aren't there to see.  I love these two little cats, but I have to admit I crumbled up the template pieces I used and threw them away.  I can't imagine willing myself to do so much handwork, it's lucky my tendonitis didn't flare up.

I've of course been working on my knitting, not to much as I don't want my DH to ask me what I'm doing but I did start another little dish cloth.  I've used this type of yarn before but never on a straight edged project so it's interesting to see it progress.  I did spend a minute dreaming of those knitting machines, but then my mind drifted to other things as often happens with knitting.

Dish Cloth Progress 3 of 4

Sunny has taken to sleeping here in the living room since we had those two or three pretty days when the windows could be open.  I think he's dreaming with his eye open about the thrill of the wind in his face.

Sunny in the window

Quilt Basting Day

Basting Day Quilt Pile

Today I had that Quilt Basting Day I was looking forward to.  First I basted the Practice Freemotion Quilt for the freemotion quilt along and then the Denim Patchwork - I decided this one wont be puffy patches, but I'm not entirely certain how I will quilt it perhaps a simple trace of some of the flannel butterflies on the backing - only time will tell, and then I used my last big piece of batting to baste the Christmas Hodgepodge Quilt.  No worries on batting though as I have enough to take care of that Christmas Wall Hanging I mentioned here as well as a second secret project that I'll be working on next Saturday as part of Sue's Christmas Quilt-a-Long and sadly even though that should be wrapped up quickly you wont be hearing another word about it until Christmas.

The Christmas Hodgepodge Quilt is a really pretty quilt, I ran out of basting spray so it is the only one that is pin basted.  I found myself a bit startled by it as I was basting it and again now that it's puffy with batting.  I have high hopes for the finished quilt on that one.  While I have every intention on filling it with freemotion quilting I think I will make some aspect marks for things like the large snowflakes and so on.

Sunny Asleep on Kitty Kamp Pattern

When I was in college I took more than a couple of art classes, the first of which had a through if overly cautious first year teacher, she gave so many high quality handouts and so much sketch work that to this day I have everything from her class in a binder that I keep near my sewing machine.  So last night when five year old dd wanted to read one of my sewing books I happily let her have her pick.  Surprisingly she grabbed that old binder and out slipped a pattern given to me by my friend Vicki, some of the pages got a little mixed up and it wasn't put away so here is Sunny taking a siesta right on top of it.

Patisserie Stars

Last night I finished up the 54-40 fight Stars, my goodness, I think these turned out pretty.  As I was ironing them open I stopped and counted the pieces.  There are 29 pieces in each and every star, what was I thinking?  Though I am certain I've made blocks with more pieces, I don't think I've ever made so many, and I'm nearly sure the blocks were bigger than 12".  No matter I'm glad I didn't select to make the 9" blocks!  It sounds like it was bad, but as I made each block in sections, aka the star points and the four patch blocks it wasn't the big deal it might sound like it was. 

Of course it helps that the fabric I'm using is nice, so it slips through my fingers just right and presses open just the way you want it to.  Now that all of the stars are completed I'll be starting on the snowball spacer blocks.  Those will be the Patisserie fabric and that pretty blue-purple batik.  I'm sharing the process with dd each step of the way, so she's completely in the loop on where her quilt is and how I'm progressing on it.  Doing so even enticed her to do a bit of sewing on her own. 

As I'm certain you're feeling picture deprived (the camera had a dead battery - but I was dreading it to be something worse because the fool thing never warned me!)  The photo above is the front of the strip quilt for the freemotion Quilt-a-long, the back is a bit more complicated so time will tell which is the front and which is the back.

Sew Much Backing!

I think I need a basting day!  Seriously today I finished two quilt backs.  One for the Freemotion Quilt-a-long and one for the denim patchwork.  I'd like to think I'll be up to doing all of that basting Monday or Tuesday, but only time will tell as my birthday is Wednesday and I refused to be pooped from basting.

Long ago and far away my mom took an oath never to make her own birthday cake.  I think it's the meaning behind the cake.  Perhaps that someone cared enough to make you a cake, or buy one as the case maybe.  I have no such qualms, as I'm sort of a "you want something done you have to do it yourself" kind of person.  Currently I have a Strawberry Cake Mix in the cabinet, but you know what sounds really good?  Angel Food Cake.  I can think of only once that I've made it from the box, every other time I have separated that dozen eggs and baked it completely from scratch.  I've done this so many times that I've begun to wonder if I make it from a box perhaps it will fall?!?!?

I have my Grandmother's tube pan -which is also called an angel food cake pan, you know the one with the drop out bottom.  When I bake angel food cake she is always in my heart guiding my hands.  Perhaps that's why my cakes never fall?

I'd like to serve my cake with whipped cream and strawberries that have sat in a sminge of sugar for about half an hour just so they start to get a little bit of syrup.  But angel food cake is good enough that sometimes I don't feel the need to top it with anything.

So tell me, would you make your own birthday cake and if so what kind would you make?  I draw the line at candles I think.  I will not be buying my own birthday cake candles.  Shoot then I'd have to count them out and light them all, and then deal with the wax because it took a while to light them...  UGH I think not!

Quilt Along Quilt top, or is it a bottom?

Today I made the strip quilt suggested for the freemotion-quilt-a-long.  You already knew I didn't want to use Christmas Hodgepodge for that, and I figured it out while I worked on it.  For the strip quilt I used the mint and the pink of from the Star Kit (remember the one I had to buy to get the Patisserie fabric?) and they went together really well with the butterfly yardage that I had leftover from this time last year when I made dd's butterfly jumper. 

We glittered up dd's jumper with pee wee glitter shortly after it was done so working with it without the glitter seemed a bit odd, but as you can see I had just enough fabric.

My strips are longer than the suggested strips.  Mine being the length of the fabric and the suggested being 32".  That gives my finished top a size of 41 x 40 instead of 40 x 36, yes I know that means a pieced back...  Or maybe it will be the top...  You never know when it comes to my projects.

You + me = 6 + TV = 4

Christmas Hodgepodge Flismy Done

Yesterday I spent all afternoon making flying geese.  Why?  To make a 6" border for the Christmas Hodgepodge Quilt.  It was my intention to make spaced squares with stars inside.  I started with the stars and when the gal on TV said cut 1.5"x3" triangles that's just what I did.  Of course I didn't need that size I needed 2" x 3.5" for my 6" stars.  UGH!  What an ugly mess cutting them at that size made.  Into the trash they went before I went to bed.  Then this morning I couldn't help thinking that was an awful lot of work I did to throw it all away, so I pulled them back out and looked at them.  It was then that I discovered I could cut them down to 1.5" x 2.5" and then the points would be back,  Trust me it was a whole bunch of work for 8 @ 4.5" stars, of course somewhere along the away I cut the reindeer border at 3.5" instead of 4.5" so I had to fix that too.

Four inch Ohio Star

Luckily DH found me right about the time I was being inspired by a revised 45 degree border and spent the morning helping me make what I saw in my mind come out in the fabric.  Oh yes but once we figured out how to cut the fabric strips then we learned I didn't have quite enough fabric.  Hence the Happy Holidays at the top.  I really like the way the quilt is shaping up now.  It's 62" square and I think it's just where I'd like it to be.  

Embroidered Top

Of course I'm starting to think I should just go ahead and make the strip mini quilt for the freemotion quilt-a-long.  This Christmas Hodgepodge has been telling me it would like big holly leaves over the red stripes in the border and snowflakes over the red paisley blocks and who am I to practice flowers on it? 

Hodgepodge Christmas Quilt

I am very excited about the free motion quilt along!  So while she hasn't gotten started yet, I have!  Christina said she would be spending a little bit of time making a quilt top, but that we should feel free to use something plain or something we had on hand, I thought that if I went ahead and picked something, came up with a design, and made it from what I had 1. it would cost less, 2. it might look better with the fabrics, and 3. I could choose where to put what based on how much I had of aforesaid fabrics.

So I started and finished my flismy.  Here it is at 54.25" x 55" I haven't decided if I'll border around it or just what.  At it's current size if I don't decide to keep it as a reference - it would make a great Christmas gift for someone's teacher...   

Did you see the secondary view of this quilt?  Take another look and see, different now hu?  My pattern for this quilt calls for trapezoids, so of course I did it with half square triangles instead, that made it so much easier not only to sew, but to cut as well.  I think as it is this is a great freemotion practice quilt.  After all look at how many skinny spots I'll have for border practice, and the squares for block type practice.  

How would you border this?  What size would you allow it to grow too?  I have a tiny bit of the plaid, none of the Santa faces, lots of the red paisley and a fair to large amount of the reindeer leftover.  Oh and I have a beautiful red blender flannel.

If you look at the upper left corner of the top photo you can see I substituted a solid green for the Santa's - that's how completely out of the Santa fabric I am, but I'm already planning to embroider a bit - perhaps a label there in white to drag away any lingering contrast.

I'm feeling Bloggy

Or at least something like that.  I've gone ahead and joined another Quilt-a-long.  I know what you're thinking, "What is she thinking?!?!" and you're right as I'm wondering about that a bit myself.

This one is for freemotion quilting, and as I'd really love to open up more choices to myself I joined in.  I think you should too.  Why?  Because it's always good to learn more about something we love doing.

To kick things off Christina is having a little giveaway, so why don't you head over there to at least check things out.  Personally I'm wondering if I should buy more batting or go ahead and cut some off what I already have for the turtles.

Oh and as a bonus she's a midwife so I very much doubt there will be any of those disheartening comments about birthing babies that we find on another freemotion blog...