Productive Weekend

I've been stitching away for the last several days.  I started and finished a quilt top.  This quilt top is for the big sister to the baby that was born a little over a week ago (was supposed to be a girl, but, turned out to be a boy).  I'd ordered the turquoise camouflage fabric online, since it is very hard to find.  I purchased the coordinating fabric at a local quilt store.

This quilt top was made on my purple Featherweight, EXCEPT for the blanket stitching on the letters.  I only have one machine that can do the blanket stitch, so, I pulled out the modern Janome. 

stitching around the edges of the letters

Yes, I know, I decorated the Janome.  With such lovely vintage sewing machines, with lovely decals, my poor Janome was boring to look at.  It's much happier now that it has some decals, too.  Here is one of the letters, stitched down.

stitched down letter

I tried something different with this quilt top.  Last month at my large quilt guild, the speaker, Annette Ornelas of Southwind Designs, showed us how she makes curved blocks without using curves.  She just folds the fabric, then places it on top of the other piece of fabric.  Well, I decided I wanted to use part of her method.  Annette folds her folded fabrics back, then stitches down the curves, but, I didn't want to do that.  I just wanted to have the layers.  So, instead of making half square triangles for this quilt, I folded another square, and stitched it to the first square, making it look like a half square triangle, but, making a 'pocket'. 

folded 'pocket' half square triangles

Here is the completed quilt top.

completed quilt top

I will say, with all the folded fabrics in this quilt top, it makes the top much heavier than I thought it would be.  I still like it.  I even know how I'm going to quilt this, so that most of the 'pocket' will stay open.

Well, I'd made a baby quilt for Mady's little sister (here), but, since the sister turned out to be a brother, I needed a new baby quilt.  The new mom thought a deer would be good.  I'd found a deer head online, and took it to the copy shop to be blown up.  The copy shop made it much larger than I asked them to, but, it works out well.  A friend found the deer hooves after I'd already been to the copy shop, so, I blew up that pattern on my printer at home.  Again, I had to use the Janome to stitch the edges of the fusible applique.  I haven't done anything other than machine quilt on the Janome in quite a while.

deer head and hooves

I knew it needed a border, so, here is the finished quilt top.  I have camo minky for the back of the quilt.

completed baby quilt top

I've been needing to work on the Sapphire Stars quilts, from Kevin's Mystery last summer.  I'm making 3 of these quilts (2 scrappy, and 1 just using 'fixed' colors).  Two of these tops will be for Quilts of Valor, but, one of the scrappy tops is going to be a (late) wedding present.  I need to have it finished early October, so that I can take it to the Family Reunion and present it to the happy couple.  I finished the 24 large quilt blocks this afternoon (12 for each scrappy quilt top).  These blocks are 18.5" square.

24 quilt blocks

I also stitched a scrappy backing for a Quilt of Valor.  I've had the top made for some time, but, hadn't made a backing for it.  I even have the binding strips cut out.  I'll take pictures tomorrow at the Quilts of Valor sew-in. 

It's going to be a busy, quilty week for me.  I have Quilts of Valor on Tuesday, the Wisconsin Quilt Show on Friday, and a guild sew-in on Saturday.