Memory Quilt #3 is DONE!

The long weekend gave me lots of time to sew again, so after being bored on Saturday, I decided to finish the third Memory Quilt (which will be MQ from now on cuz I'm lazy).

I had enough materials to finish it, and decided to use white muslin for the back since the center piece was white.  Sewing and tying the yarn really tore up my fingers, then sewing the back of the binding by had also was not easy on them, but it's done!  I'm half-way there!!!!

Here is the picture of the front of MQ #3


And the back of MQ #3


And the quilt with the guard dog  LOL!!!!


Yesterday I started on MQ #4.  This is the layout:


This is how I have to label each piece so I sew them in the correct order:


I am only scheduled to work 16 hours this week, which is bad but at least I'll be able to get  more sewing done and possibly I'll get #4 and #5 done before Christmas.  #6 will be for me and Todd, so that doesn't have to be done before Christmas.

Thanks for reading my blog!!!!!  :D  Have a wonderful week!

Memory Quilts again

It's the day after Thanksgiving, 2009 (Nov 27).  Today my goals were 1) to finish the quilt top for the 3rd memory quilt and 2) complete the 2nd memory quilt.  I started late morning, and it's now 8:40 pm and I have both of them DONE! YAY!!!!

First, here's the quilt top for memory quilt #3:

I started it earlier this week.  They go pretty quickly now that I have all the fabric cut already.  All I have to do is decide on a design and start sewing them together.

And here is the COMPLETED Memory Quilt #2:
(front)



(back)




I also completed the Christmas Table Runner, but haven't taken a picture of it yet.


I'd love to hear comments!!!!!

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

Table Runner is pieced!

Training was slow yesterday, I had lots of breaks, so I worked on the rest of the quilt blocks for the table runner.  After supper I pieced it all together, so it's ready to be made into the sandwich.  We are going over machine quilting next time we meet, so that is all I need to do for now.  I'm VERY happy with it!



The binding will be the striped fabric that is the small inner boarder, so I think it will tie it all together very well.

I have a lot of fabric left, so I'm thinking of making placemats to match again like I did before, but not sure if I'll do them now or next year sometime.  I probably need to get the memory quilts done before I do them.  We'll see.....

Thanks for visiting my blog!!!!!

Home from quilt class

At our quilt class we worked on the main block.  It's similar to the block we did before, but a little different.   After ripping out a bunch of seams and working hard to get all the seams to match, my block was finally done!  It turned out very pretty!!!



I'm anxious to get the rest of it done.  We're meeting again in a couple weeks to go over the quilting, so I need to have it done by then.  I think I'll work on it and get the piecing done before I finish the second memory quilt.

Keep checking back!!!

Top is done for second memory quilt

Since I started training for my new job on Thursday, I didn't do much sewing the last few days.  I had already started on the second memory quilt and finished the top today.  I had to cut more fabric - mostly denim.  (If anyone close to me has jeans to get rid of, I'll be glad to take them off your hands instead of throwing them out.)

The middle of this is another one of Nel's sweatshirts.  I don't know if she made it herself or not, but it's one she wore often.

At first I was going to make it smaller than the one I made for Larry.  But this is how it was when I stopped:

It was too long and thin, so I added another row of denim on each side. This is the finished top:


And I added the same label to this one - I have them all made, so all I have to do is iron them on and sew around the edges:


 Tomorrow (Monday, Nov 16th) we have another quilt class at church.  This time Jean picked a table runner and we were to pick out Christmas fabric.  It took me a while yesterday, but I finally got all the fabric cut.  This is most of it:


These are the fabrics I'm using:  

The off-white will be the main background, the green will be the large inner border, the striped will be a thin border and binding, and the rest of the Christmas fabric will be the star.  The pattern is called "Shooting Stars".  Here is the blog of the designer and it shows a picture of a finished one.



I have more training all week for work, then we'll be on the telephone answering calls.  I'm excited to get back to work!

One Memory Quilt is DONE!!!

I finished my FIL's memory quilt today.  Yesterday I made the sandwich and tied it, so today all I had to do was put the binding on it.  I also made a label for it.

I didn't hang it up on the wall, but here's pictures of it:
Front

Back (Muslin)



And the label I made

 I sat down later this afternoon and made the labels for the rest of the quilts, so those are done.  I need to iron the interfacing on the back so the stitches don't come out.

Memory Quilts

The last couple of months have been sad ones for our family. On September 30, my mother-in-law passed away, then just 13 days later, on October 13, my husband's grandmother passed away. (You can read about them on my "Family Life" blog - you'll have to go back to older posts to see them all.) When I first really started sewing again, I went to Craftster, a website where people post things they have made and you can get great ideas there. I saw a post on there where a lady had made some quilts for a family who had lost their father, and the quilts were made out of shirts of the father. I thought that was such a neat idea! So after my mother-in-law passed away, I asked my father-in-law (FIL) if I could take some of her clothes to make us quilts out of. He said yes, and I brought home a bunch of her jeans, shirts, and her sweatshirts that she wore often. I fill up three Wal-Mart bags. We were home (from Nebraska) for less than 48 hours (we stayed for a wedding after her funeral) when we were notified that Grandma passed away, so it was another trip out of state (this time to Illinois). So I asked my FIL if I could take some of her clothes, too, to add to the quilts. I didn't take as many of hers as I did my MIL's, but at least I had some.

So this week I finally started to cut up the clothes.

These are the squares I cut out of MIL's clothes:


These are the squares I cut out of Grandma's clothes:


I divided everything up into six piles - that is how many quilts I'm going to make.


I decided to work on my FIL's first. I knew I wanted to use this sweatshirt for his:


So I took one pile and started sticking them on my design wall to start FIL's quilt - I put the sweatshirt in the middle. He's tall, so I knew I wanted it to be extra long. Here is the design before I started sewing:


And this morning I finished sewing it together:


His quilt top ended up being 47" by 71", which will be good for him. The rest I'm going to make won't be that long. I didn't have enough fabric from the clothes to make the whole quilt, so I had to add some squares of jeans, Todd's old shirts and other fabrics out of my stash.

I'm not sure when I'll get to the rest of the quilts. I also have to decide if I want to complete FIL's quilt (sandwich, quilt or tie and bind), or if I want to get all the tops done and then complete later. I'll have to see what I have as far as supplies (batting and backing). I'm also starting a new job on Nov. 12 working at home, so I won't have quite as much time to work on them, it will just be evenings and weekends.

Anyway, that's what I've been up to this week. Today I'm going to take a break from sewing and go to a bookstore to read the new PostSecret book that came out last month. I don't want to spend the money right now to buy it, so I think I'll go to B&N, get a coffee and read it. Maybe I'll get a gift card to a bookstore for Christmas from someone (hint hint!!!) so I can buy it later. lol

TGIF!!!

I've been sewing a little bit,

but haven't taken any pictures of what I've sewn. I will one day soon. Sam's work is going to have a mini-craft show on Dec 3, so I decided to have a table. It didn't cost much, and I think it will be fun.


But I wanted to post a picture of the quilt we have on our bed. It was made by my mother-in-law (who passed away Sept 30, 2009). We have a couple quilts that she made, but this one is my favorite.

I just love the different colors on it and how vibrant they are.