Texas Flag quilt #19

Hi there! I will try to blog more in 2016. I guess that won't be too hard when I compare it to how frequently I blogged in 2015. 

So I made my 19th Texas Flag quilt over Christmas. I think this one had some really great quilting. It was king sized. 

I really like to combination of swirls and straight lines.

I think I will only make one more of these quilts just to round out the number. While they are very fun to make it is draining to "make" for others. I love quilting. It makes my heart sing, but I may be done making the same thing over and over. But looking at that quilting I just LOVE it. Of course I can do this to any quilt. It doesn't HAVE to be a Texas flag now does it?

Have a great day!
Tia

Texas Flag quilt #18

Hey there!

I have a question for you...Have you ever made the same quilt more than one time? Every once in a while I do. When I am testing out patterns I normally end up making 3 of the same quilts, and I made the Scrappy Trip around the World 3 times I think, but that didn't really count because they were always with different awesome fabric so they were all their own thing. Now...The Texas Flag quilts have gotten into their own category. I think I have made 18 of these quilts. Back when I first started making them in 2010 or 2011 I thought I was a dynamite quilter. Now I think it is kinda humbeling to look back at the way I quilted them. I much prefer the way I quilt now, but in this time I have had a great deal of personal and professional growth.

So far this is my very favorite version. I was comissioned to make this quilt for a new Texas baby. I love it and think it is the perfect gift for a baby...any baby.  It is a good size quilt for a child to grow with, it also can be used as a wall hanging if that blows your hair back.

I kinda want to do another and quilt it similar. These are so fun to quilt (especially after quilting a bunch of E2E quilts) it is like therapy I tell you. Its so nice to let my mind go into auto pilot ( I have no idea really what I am thinking about while I quilt) but when I check back in with reality normally most of the quilting is finished and I need to go back and do some fill work. I have tried listening to podcasts, but normally I end up getting annoyed with them and turn them off.

I really love the mix of straight lines in with the curves and swirls.

I prewash the red fabric because sometimes that stuff runs.

Heres the back. Pretty pretty pretty. So, if you want to see some of the other Texas Flag quilts I have made over the years you can use the search function here on my blog (over on the right sidebar) search for Texas Flag quilt or just click on that section that says Texas quilts. Your choice.

Now, if you want one for yourself or your own favorite Texan I happily take commissions to make them. Shoot me an email or check out my Etsy.com shop.

Cheers!
Tia

A more simple Texas flag quilt

I made another Texas Flag quilt for a client. It is for her son who is going off to college. They wanted the quilting much more simple, so we went with a simple grid.

The quilting inside the star is more dense.

These Texas flag quits never get old. I do love making them.

xo,
Tia

A Baby Texas Flag quilt

I LOVE making Texas Flag quilts! I was really excited to tweak my pattern and make a little one. This one is a baby quilt.

Same windy Texas quilting, just smaller.

In the star I quilted the baby's name and birthday.

The back is great too. Super soft cotton batting...makes a great Texas flag quilt. I think this is the 16th Texas flag quilt I have made.

This one was the 15th. It was the back of a T-shirt quilt.

I hope you have a happy happy day!
Tia

Texas flag quilts make pretty good farewell gifts

 Good Morning! I hope your weekend is going to be a very good one. I will be quilting a couple more Texas flag quilts. You see, it is just about moving time around here. When you live your life in the military you know that with the end of the school years comes moving season. What gift does a group give a particularly helpful spouse? Well, a Texas flag quilt of course! I love making these quilts. The quilting is so fun and free...much like Texas itself?

 If you have ever visited or lived in West Texas you know that it is a windy place. I think the swirls look like wind. The little pebbles are pollen (at least for my family) and the paisleys represent how things are just a bit different around these part. Not wrong, just different. I love some of the differences, others I am not quite so thrilled with.

 All in all it makes for a pretty neat quilt. This is a throw sized quilt. I have taught this project twice while I we have bee stationed here. And each time the students have pinned their own touch on the quilting. There is so much open space you can really go wild with the quilting, or not. Lines would be lovely as well...just not quite are thrilling to quilt.

 I am not going to say Who I am making these quilts for....but I hope they find this gift to be a bit more useful that the typical plaque. These can also be personalized with unit patches or a signature label for the back....lots you can do with a Texas flag quilt.

Have a lovely weekend! It will be HOT here. April and it is already up into the triple digits. This is going to be a brutal summer!

xo,
Tia

BIG Texas flag quilt

 Hey there! I hope you are doing good. Is your new year off to a good start? I hope it is! So this is one of my first finishes of 2012. It is a large Texas flag quilt. A client of mine ordered a bit before Christmas. It is a really great throw size at 60 x 80 inches. She and her husband will be able to curl up under it on the sofa or they can use it on their bed. I hope they use it all the time and drag it all over the world with them in their travels.

 So, when you think of Texas, what do you think of? Lately I have been thinking of wind. It is so windy here. I wanted to take the swirly stary night quilting from the Alaska flag quilt and put it into this one....but make the swirls represent wind instead of stars. Can you see it?

 I also decided to quilt in some feathers and pebbles and a couple other elements.

 For the Back I used a 200 TC Muslin which is so wonderful. I love the swoosh sound it makes. The Cotton Batting is the low loft request weight from Quilters Dream . I am really pleased with how this quilt turned out and I hope it brings a bit of Texas to some Texans who are far away.

See, I tried to take outside pictures, but it was too windy and the quilt blew away. I said a bad word and set up shop in my quilting studio.

Have a great new year!

Tia

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