Quilting – Page 2 – Thimbleanna

Birds in the Air

17 Comments / February 27, 2021 March 1, 2021 / Quilting

Snow! We’ve had so much beautiful snow in the last week and I didn’t want it to pass without a little record here on ye ol’ blog. I heard that this was the most snow we’ve had on the ground at one time since 1982. If you’ve been around here for very long, you probably know I LOVE snow, so I’ve been in heaven.

I’ve seen lots of fun pictures of quilts in snow and I’ve always wanted to take a photo of one of my freshly made quilts in the snow. Sadly, I don’t have a freshly made quilt, and by the time I do the snow will all be gone (it’s fading fast boo-hoo), so I decided to take photos of an old antique quilt that recently came back from the quilter.

I’ve been putting the binding on, so at least the binding is something freshly sewn by me LOL. I actually put this quilt on the quilt frame several years ago in hopes that MeMum would start quilting again. I quilted the first two blocks (those two in the corner in the above picture) but MeMum just wasn’t interested. It didn’t take me long to realize that, with all my other projects, I’d be dead before I finished quilting this quilt, so I took it off the frame and sent it to our hand-quilter. Didn’t she do a beautiful job?

The original quilter used two different red and brown prints in this quilt. She must have not had enough of either print to use for the whole quilt — that’s just one thing I love about this quilt. It’s all hand pieced and her piecing is amazing — look at all those matching points!

I’m guessing the top was made in the early 20th century. It’s really fun to sit and look at all the different fabrics. Look at that Electric Green! And several blocks have some of those famous old bubble gum pink prints.

We backed this quilt with a reproduction brown print that came from MeMum’s stash. It was a good choice, ’cause even though it’s a print, you can still very clearly see the quilting on the back.

So, those are my quilt pictures in the snow! I should plan my quilts better so that they coincide with snow storms. Some years (like last year) we barely have any snow though, so it’s a hard game to play.

And speaking of games, we have had a great time playing in the snow this year. There have been snowmen and snow angels and even a little sledding. Both downhill and dragging babies around on a frozen lake. So. Much. Fun!

Happy End of February — Spring is just around the corner!
XOXO,
Anna

Another Pink Quilt

14 Comments / January 30, 2021 February 1, 2021 / Baby Oh Baby, Quilting

Hello Hello!
I hope January has been good to you! I’ve been hunkered down quilting and I’ve finally finished the baby quilt for FinallyAnotherGirl. Ta-Dahhhhh!!!

If you remember, I made a baby quilt for FinallyAGirl using the same fabrics, but a different pattern a few years ago. The pattern is from the book “In The Nursery” by Jennifer Sampou (Thank You So Much Miss Molly for remembering the name of the book!) It feels like this quilt didn’t take as long as the first one to complete, even though I didn’t finish it when I wanted to. It’s all hand quilted — I started the quilting last June and had about half of the quilt done by August, but then it sat untouched through all of the busy fall months. After Christmas, I decided that this quilt would be priority #1 for the new year and once I maintained a little discipline, it really didn’t take too long to finish the quilting.

I love the patchy simplicity of the middle of the quilt, and that sweet little swag border. It was hard to figure out the quilting for the border, but I pulled out my stencils and made something up. One stencil had the cross-hatch flower, so I put it above each swag and added a few leaves to it. Then, I decided to attach the flowers with a ribbon and I put a bow in each corner to tie them all together.

FinallyAnotherGirl is almost 2 1/2 now and it seems a little late for a baby quilt, but FinallyAGirl didn’t get her quilt until her 2nd birthday. I gave FinallyAnotherGirl her little quilt yesterday and she seemed pleased.

So, two out of three pink quilts finished! Just one quilt left for HurrayAThirdGirl — if only I could decide on a pattern. It will definitely be a scrappy pink quilt, just like her sisters’ quilts — and hopefully it will get done before she’s an adult ;-D

One month of the new year under out belts already — time flies when you’re having fun. Haha. At least we’re supposed to get some snow this weekend — THAT will be fun!

XOXO,
Anna

Walk Jog Run

8 Comments / April 6, 2020 April 6, 2020 / Chat, Quilting

Hello! A few weeks ago my cute friend Dara asked me if I’d review her new book “Walk Jog Run: A Free-Motion Quilting Workout”. I met Dara many years ago at a Quilt Market. She’s adorable and I had so much fun talking to her. I think she was just learning how to machine quilt back then and I’ve had such a great time watching her grow — and now she’s sharing all the valuable lessons she’s learned in her new book. Here’s a peek at the little project I made from her book …

… but more on that in a minute. First, the book, which I thoroughly enjoyed reading. She’s so full of wisdom and really great tips about free-motion quilting.

The book starts off with all the basics you’ll need to know for free-motion quilting. She goes into great detail about sewing machines, thread, fabric, batting and other supplies. Then she talks about setting up your workspace, setting some goals (Dara is an expert on setting goals and, in addition to being a talented quilter, she’s a life coach), and building basic skills. I think my favorite part of the book is how she compares free motion quilting to doodling and all the many exercises to help you build your fmq skills. Then, with the basics out of the way, Dara has an extensive section of projects in order to build your skills and get lots of fmq practice. Here’s a listing of the projects from the table of contents — lots of fun stuff in here!

For my project, I selected the child’s apron. FinallyAGirl and I love to make cookies and cupcakes together (we even recently did a facetime cookie baking session since we can’t see each other right now) and I’ve always wanted to make her a little apron. I’d been saving just the right Martha Negly cupcake print for her someday apron.

Dara’s apron is a patchwork apron, but I didn’t want to cut up the cupcake print, so I opted for a “whole-cloth” apron. Dara quilted her child’s apron with some super cute fmq daisies. I was all set to do the daisies – I got out my paper and went through all the daisy doodling exercises, but when it came time to actually quilt the daisies, I bailed out. The main reason is that I didn’t want the daisies to interfere with the cupcakes (or the puppy print on the other side) and I couldn’t figure out how to place the daisies from either side where they wouldn’t interfere with the design on the opposite side (if that makes sense.)

So, I ended up doing a simple, large stipple on our little apron. I was facetiming with FinallyAGirl when I started the apron and I told her what I was making. I said “What fabric do you think we should put on the back side of your apron?” With no hesitation, she yelled out “PUPPIES!” Puppies? Where did that come from? Well … it just so happens that Grammy had a cute little puppy print in the stash, so, puppies it is. Sewing for someone who isn’t with you is tricky and, as you can see, this apron is a little big. It’s ok though, that just means we’ll get many years of baking out of it.

After I finished the apron, I took it over and left it on the doorstep. Special thanks to SweetiePie who took some pictures for me. Rumor has it that FinallyAGirl LOVES the puppy side and really didn’t want to model the cupcake side. So, the puppies are now the front of the apron instead of the back LOL.

So, another fun project in the books. Dara’s book Walk Jog Run: A Free-Motion Quilting Workout is available from C&T and anywhere books are sold and is currently the #1 seller! If you’re at all interested in free motion quilting, Dara is your girl — you’re going to love her book!

XOXO,
Anna

Scrappy Trip

12 Comments / March 16, 2020 March 16, 2020 / Quilting

Holy Cow! It’s been a whole month since I posted last time — I know a month seems like a long time, but did everyone have to go off the deep end??? I can’t believe the level of crazy — I don’t even know what to say. Wow.

Rather than go down that depressing rat hole (and because there’s absolutely nothing else going on), here are a few pictures of my latest little quilt project. Allison at Woodberry Way hosted a Scrappy Trip Quilt Along in January and February and I sort of played along. I started late and didn’t do anything on schedule, but it was fun to work on a quick, easy quilt.

I used a fat quarter pack of Tilda’s Happy Campers fabric. I love the colors — they’re so soft and happy. The recommended size for the quilt along was 64″ x 80″ which required 20 fat quarters. I wanted a little larger quilt, so I added a few more fat quarters from my stash to the Happy Campers collection and ended up with an 80″ x 88″ quilt.

For the backing, I used Meadows Lace by Ana Davis in gold. I thought the soft yellow print went really well with the yellows in the Tilda fabrics. The quilt pattern is a machine-quilted baptist fan and I used some extra Tilda strips for a scrappy binding.

After she was all done, I gave her a vigorous bath and now she’s just full of cozy, crinkly goodness. Quilt projects like this are so fun and satisfying!

Ok. Off to get the family dinner. Good thing we don’t eat a lot of potatoes around here anymore, cause you can’t find them in the stores around here. Potatoes and TP. It’s a winning combination. Stay safe out there boys and girls!

XOXO,
Anna

Quilted Happy Flowers

25 Comments / January 20, 2020 January 20, 2020 / Chat, Quilting

Well, Happy New Year came and went and, canyoubelieveit, we’re more than half-way through January already! How’s it going out there? My January didn’t start off as planned. I thought it would be a nice quiet, clean-your-closets kind of month — hopefully one with lots of snow and beautiful scenes out the window while I was working inside the house. We did get started on a big clean out of our master bedroom closet. A job that should have taken 2, or maaaayyyybe 3 days if we took our time and enjoyed the process. But then, I screwed it up.

I ran over my foot with the car. All by myself. I told my son that the radiologist said “it’s not uncommon.” But then he corrected me and, what the radiologist actually said was “it’s not unheard of.” So fine. And, we like to be helpful and share here, so, I’ll tell you how I did it. Mostly so you don’t slip up and do the same thing LOL. I was in my car talking to TheFirstChild on the phone and pulled up to our mailbox to collect the mail. Normally, I have to put the car in park and jump out of the car to collect the mail. But I wasn’t done talking to TheFirstChild, so I sat there for a little bit to finish the conversation. When I hung up, I opened the car door, put my left foot out on the pavement and then took my right foot off of the brake. But, I hadn’t put the car in park. By that point, I had shifted my weight to my left leg, so, as the car started forward, I fell out onto the pavement. At which time, my right foot rolled into the path of the car. Luckily (or not), I realized the car was now heading down the street, so I had to jump up and run after it. I managed to jump in and save the car from going down a hill and ending up in a heap somewhere. By now, I know you’re probably chuckling at least a little bit, and, 10 days later, I am too. I kind of wish I had a video of the whole event. You know, for those times when the family is sitting around, “Hey, remember when Grandma ran over her foot?” I immediately called TheFirstChild back and he rushed over to assess the situation. The very worst part of the whole experience was that he made me put my poor throbbing foot in ice water for 2 hours. Ouch, Ouch, Ouch — that really hurt. After the swelling went down a little, he sent me for an x-ray, and fortunately, nothing was broken, which was really lucky.

So, I’ve been lame for awhile and not really able to do a whole lot. I’m just starting to be able to walk around without limping. There’s still some swelling and bruising and I’m sure it will still be sore for awhile longer, but it could have been a whole lot worse. But, silver lining — there’s been lots of knitting and a little stitching. Here’s proof:

I finally got the binding done on my Happy Flowers quilt! It looks a little crooked in the picture, but it’s really not. My hand-quilter had it for about a year and she did a beautiful job on the quilting. Here are a few of the blocks — she quilted them all differently.

I backed the quilt in the cute little Japanese cheater print by Atsuko Matsuyama and the binding is another Atsuko Matsuyama print with flowers and the cutest little deer.

So, all has not been lost with my January. One step forward, two steps back LOL. We’re still working on the master closet, but we’re getting there. If only it would snow a little so I could feel better about being cooped up in the house cleaning!

Happy January — and remember, Put Your Car In Park When You Stop!
XOXO,
Anna