Cross and flowers quilt

 I finally took the time to finish the binding on this quilt.  I LOVE it! Can I say that again... I LOVE this quilt. This is one of the things that I just can't believe I made. I feel like someone else must have made it and forgot it in my house. I had a completly wonderful time quilting this quilt.

 I wanted to do something special around the tulips besides just hand quilting them, so I added bubbles and I think they look just right.

 I think this cross quilt block is wonderful, don't you? I used a tutorial from  the long thread. You should give it a try too! I used a wool batting in this quilt. I love wool. If you have never used it before, I really urge you to try it out. The wool batting I use is from Quilters Dream Batting. I have it available for the quilts I quilt as well as their cotton batting.

I decided to quilt more leaves and buds along the vine instead of appliqueing them on. I don't know if you can tell from the picture or not, but the cotton thread I used to quilt this piece is a pale variegated yellow.

Another Texas quilt

 I have been making Texas Flag quilts lately. They are quick to sew up and great for experimenting on the quilting with my long arm. I am quite happy with how this quilt turned out. This one will be in my shop when I load it up.

 I also plan to teach this quilting as my beginning quilting project. It is a great size for either use as a quilt, or as a wall hanging. People either love Texas or hate it, but in either case they probably need a Texas flag quilt to represent their stay here.

 I had so much fun quilting this one!

 I am planning a quilting class for the first week in November. I would love to see you!

Another Quick flag quilt tutorial

 Would you like to make a quickie quilt? I bet you might. I like making quick quilts. I made this one for one of my bag customers and I was so happy with how it turned out I decided to write up a quick tutorial for it. I know it only has 9 stars and that bothered me too...so just quilt more stars in the blue when it comes to the quilting part.

The Basics

You are going to need to make 9 liberated stars. These are really easy to make.

2.5 inch squares x 72

3 inch squares x 72 - but these white squares you are going to cut in half diagonally to make the rays of the stars.

And you will need 9 centers for your stars. I used some ACU fabric from the uniform I was cutting, but you can make them all white.

2.5 inch squares (for the star centers) x 9


HERE is my favorite wonky/ maverick star tutorial. Ignore the sizes she recommends, just follow her method.


After you have your 9 stars finished you need to make your stripes. I just took some reds and whites from my stash and cut a couple strips of varying widths (from 1 inch to about 2.75 inches). I did cut selvedge to selvedge, so I had about 44 inches of fabric of each strip. I decided that would be a pain to sew together and it would get boring, so I cut each strip in half = 22 inches of fabric and that was much better.

So, after you have pieced your strips together, just put some to the right of you stars and the rest down below.

For the stripes to the right I cut a 6 inch section...I can sketch this out for you if you like. My husband set my bamboo up again so I can doodle. Just let me know if you want more guidance or maybe you can figure it out on your own because you are awesome. You are awesome, you know.

This is how I quilted the blue part. Stars mixed in with stippling. Pretty simple huh? Ok, let me know if you make one! I would love to see it. I also have a little easy Texas flag quilt instruction a couple posts down.

xo,
Tia

Geese Flying Over the Pond Quilt

 Hey there! How are you all doing today? I hope you are good. Fall is upon us, we even got some rain on Saturday. It was so wonderful. The thirsty desert tried to quench it's need, but in my humble opinion we will need about a week and a half of steady rain to make a difference in the drought we have been dealing with.

So, since it is fall (and this is the latest quilt I have finished)  I give you...."Geese Flying Over the Pond".

I made this quilt for Michelle Engel Bencsko of Cloud 9 Fabric. I have made a couple other quilts for her

Dog Wood, Shade Garden, Miscellany and now this one.

Michelle sent me a stack of fat quarters and wanted a 60 inch quilt. She let me do whatever I wanted for this quilt. I love that. Here is a wonderful stack of organic cotton fabric...do whatever you want with it. So I was looking at the stack of pretty fabric and I was thinking to myself, this fabric looks like fall. I was wishing it was cooler here (I think we were well into our over 100 days of 100 degrees) and I just wished for some cool weather. What really signals that the cooler weather is on the way? Leaves changing colors, that smell of autumn....pumpkins, pumpkin spice lattes at Starbucks?? Well, I think looking up and seeing flocks of geese honking away to each other as they fly south is pretty fallish, right?


I love Flying Geese Quilts. All those triangles are scary though aren't they? Well, actually they are just a bit time consuming, but not hard at all. If you have never made flying geese blocks before here is a tutorial for my favorite method

Sarah Fielke is one brilliant lady isn't she?

Since I had 4 background colors I made the brown geese fly North, the Yellow geese are flying North, the red ones are flying East and the cream geese are flying west.

I had a fantastic time quilting this quilt with my long arm.

I made a little fern going around the last boarder. Ferns always remind me of the fall and the forest and lakesides. So I figured a fern would be just fine.

So, if you are at quilt market in Houston, this quilt should be in the Cloud 9 Fabric booth. Say hi to it for me! I will be wondering around market too....I can't wait!

A Texas quilt

 Do you ever look at flags and think to yourself "Wow...that would make a great quilt." Well, I sure do. I bet you do too, because sewing is awesome! Since I now have another super power (the ability to quilt just about any size quilt in no time flat) I decided to whip out a Texas flag and then quilt it! It took me about 20 minutes to piece the top and that includes the time to figure out how to make a star really big with power point (the computer program) and then make it even bigger to make a template for the big white star. Which in the end turned out really easy.

 I am pretty happy with how this quilt turned out. It will be my go to baby gift for all babies (of friends) born in Texas. After all I can't make quilts for all babies in Texas. My super power is not that strong.

 I bet Betsy Ross was a quilter.

 I had a great time quilting this quilt. Quilting the quilt was the only reason I made it you see. I was out of junk quilts to experiment on, so I whipped this out. I am happy I experimented on this one because my Gammill HATES the blue thread I used. I had about 15 thread breaks. I finally just advanced the quilt to the part I could go back to the whitish thread. That thread was like butter, but the super fancy Prescencia was totally destroyed with my machine (well both of my sewing machines hate it now. Maybe it got old, because I have used it int he past with not too much drama). Who knew thread could make machines (and the women who operate them) so angry?

 The fabric I used in this quilt was just kona cottons. So overall this was a really inexpensive quilt.

 If you want to make a quilt like this one, just cut a 20 x 44 (selvage to selvage) piece of blue, and a 22 x 44 inch piece of both the red and white. The hardest part will be the star. But you will overcome that quickly by using power point to print out the biggest star you can, then make it 2.5 inches bigger with your straight edge. I just raw edge appliqued the star onto the blue fabric and quilted the heck out of it once the quilt was stacked. Too easy. Give all the Texas babies you know a Texas quilt!

 My wonderful Bernina 820 is kaput. I am so sad. It is going really really slow then speeds up of a second then gets really slow. It just doesn't feel good and needs to have a servicing. Now, I live in the middle of no where and I have to take it to the big city of Killeen to have it worked on. I never thought I would ever think Killeen was the big city when I lived there! Ha...

 So she is sitting down here until it is time for her appointment next week.

For now I will use my other sweet Bernina. She likes to feel special and important too!

Have a great evening folks!

Tia