Row by Row

The last row by row for the Yellowstone Valley Quilt Guild was turned in to the owner at the January meeting.  My last row was for Janet S.

The theme was baskets and flowers.  All of the other rows were very cute and petite.  That didn't work in my mind.  I made the flowers first in the 12 inch finished size.  I thought that I better do baskets too since it appeared that everyone else spent a lot more time on their row than I did.  Thus the basket blocks were created.  The blue in the center of the basket is a floral print provided by Janet S.  The brown in each basket is different.  Therefore, each basket had a twin that did not go into the row.  So, from me, Janet S. received 2 rows and 3 blocks.  It is all good because I am super happy with the rows I received back from the row by row exchange.

Sophie's Drawings

Facebook has many different craft items that have been showing up using your child's footprints or hand prints.  I had my friend's daughter put some footprints with acrylic paint on canvas.  Then I made the reindeer approximately like facebook suggested.

I did forget to make a female reindeer.  By the time I realized that I forgot the female reindeer, I had already put matte finish over the paint so I did not redo the painting and finish.

Since the kids had the paint out and there was extra canvas cut, they were also allowed to paint whatever they wanted.  Sophie hasn't painted around us before so she was unsure of what exactly what she was to do.  But she got her painting done just fine.

Framed in denim.  Only quilted on the denim.  That might be a problem later since it seems to sag a bit where the canvas is.  The canvas is really stiff though.  And it is a wallhanging; not a regular quilt.  It may be ok.

Patriotic Heart - #32 December

I created this Patriotic Heart for my friend, Melissa L.

First I cross stitched the heart on the burlap that was leftover from Melissa's Mom's funeral as the background of the picture board.  I tried to cross stitch the white stripes too but they were not showing up so I gave up on that quickly.

Next I cut a heart from old jeans that was roughly like the cross stitched heart.  I lined the heart and the denim up on the quilting machine and quilted the lines out from the heart.  I did not applique the denim to the burlap first because I would do dense quilting that would not allow the denim to move much.

Piped binding finished this little item.

Brown Bag

I participated in the Yellowstone Valley Quilter's Guild Brown Bag Exchange.  I used the Waffle Time pattern by Atkinson Designs to create my gift to Sharon R.

I used some scraps of homespuns that I had for the backing.  That seemed to create more of a stir among the viewers at the guild than the front did.

YVQG Exchange

I had completed at 13 blocks for other people in the Yellowstone Valley Quilt Guild block exchange.  That allowed me the opportunity to present a request for people to create a block for me.  I presented my block at the November meeting.

I requested a crumb line block with a solid background.  I didn't pull it from an actual pattern so I wrote the directions myself.  So far, there have been no calls with questions on the block.  That could mean a few things.  People may not be working on blocks yet because they cannot even turn in blocks at the December meeting.  Or, no one is going to turn in blocks for me.  Or, the directions are fine.  I would be living in a fantasy world if I completely believed the last idea.

Two crumb lines:

Three crumb lines:

The solid background is 13 inches square.  Then, the crumb lines are 2 inches wide.  The blocks do end up being wider than 13 inches and around 13 inches (depending on how lined up the top of the block is when inserting the crumb lines).  It will be fun to put see what people return.  I hope I get a good response.

Handprint bag

For Christmas, I made a bag for Mom from the extra paintings we had from this spring.

One side is dedicated to Keegan:

One side is dedicated to Dillon:

I did a split stitch through paper to get their names as the heading on denim.  I really like the way the split stitch looked on denim.  Getting the perfect font and then printing the name on paper from a word document worked pretty well.  I did learn to trim away the excess paper so I was not wadding it up when I was trying to hand sew.  When I wadded the paper with the fabric, it moved the paper enough that it could have ended up with a crooked name.  The hand sewing worked much better when I removed the excess paper.

I liked working with the old jeans on the outside of the bag.  I used the Elna Denim machine so I didn't have any trouble.

I tried to use knit for the lining.  It feels fine but I don't know if it is going to sag with use.  I also put in knit pockets.  I used interfacing in the pockets.  I think the pockets are too heavy.  That may contribute to sagging.  Knit is also heavy.  I think regular cotton fabric may have worked better.

In my opinion, the bag also ended up too tall.  I was so focused on getting the handprints and footprints to be included that I used as much of the painted canvas as was available.  I should have done more trimming.  Also, the name could have been on the side of the canvas rather than the top of the canvas to decrease how tall it ended up.

I made the handle around 43 inches long.  The top of the bag hit me at my hip.  I love that handle length but it may not be the way to go for normal people.  When Mom opens her gift, I will tell her that she can take a few pleats in the handle to make it the length she desires.

By Keegan & Dillon

Dillon & Keegan did some sewing in November.  Keegan dug through the first layer of his fabrics from Brooke A. and found a bag of fish fabric that was already cut into squares.  The boys sewed the fabric for a while.  Then they quilted for a few minutes.  Finally, I forced them to sew down the binding.
Keegan showed his quilt during the Show N Tell segment of the Yellowstone Valley Quilt Guild meeting in November.

Dillon was sleeping during Show N Tell so he did not present his quilt.

I was trying to get some community quilts quilted one day.  Keegan thought they should sew.  I told him I could not help him that day but I could help him the following day.  He informed me that he did not need help.  He could sew by himself.  He is 4 1/2.  In a few minutes, Dillon yelled for help.  Keegan told me that he could help Dillon so I did not need to come into the sewing room.  Sometimes the little fellers are too smart for their own good.