“Friendship, love, health, energy, enthusiasm, and joy
are the things that make life worth living and exploring.” ~ Denise Austin

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Christmas scrappy rectangles squared tabletopper

 I made this for a gift for our party of people I work with....
I used a jelly roll of different Christmas fabrics....
and I made up a very simple design....
 I did machine binding with the buttonhole stitch...
very fun to do....Pat Sloan has a really good tutorial on binding by machine...
 I used decorative stitches along the seam lines...
and wrote messages along the borders....
 here is a photo without flash....
total is 20" x 16"...
close-up of some stitching...
I am linking with Linky Party Tuesday, finish it up Friday and Link a Finish Friday.

smiles and hugs....Caryl

Thursday, December 13, 2012

Easy Street, Part 3

Here is some of part 3 of Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt....
The turquoise is Ricky Tims dyed fabric I bought over 5 years ago...
I bought fabrics with the jewel colors when I attended one of his seminars in early 2007...
So I will be using some of them in this quilt.

I am glad Bonnie said to test a block first.....the first one was not correct....
It is a tricky little block that is for sure.....
glad I didn't chain all that I have cut and have it be way off!!
I am wondering if I pressed correctly....I pressed toward the white with black
and maybe I should have pressed toward the purple square?

For those who haven't started yet....jump in...it's fun!!
Smiles and hugs....Caryl

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

let's do D9P

I just finished making these little mats/coasters/whatever you want to call them...
they are about 5 1/2" square......
On Sunday afternoon I decided to make a bunch of these for gifts...
I started with a jelly roll of fabrics that I have had for awhile...
I sewed strips in 3 groups of 3 each and then made 9 patches....
I then cut along the centers and twisted the four pieces to make the blocks....
I quilted them with the batting underneath and then trimmed them....
added a back with right sides together..sewed a seam around...
left about a 2" gap....then turned them...and topstitched along the edge.
These were really fun to make and I have more strips to make more...
or to make something else!  Now it is almost time to go to my party!
Smiles and hugs....Caryl

Friday, December 7, 2012

Christmas HST runner

I finally finished this tablerunner....
I started this project in September when I tried out the Easy Triangle Tool and blogged here
Then in October I blogged about it here
In November I did the spirals from the FMQ Challenge and I blogged here
I put words in the lighter colored areas...
joyful...family...memories...love...celebrate...jolly...noel...angels...holly...
 
I used a variegated thread for all the quilting.  It was fun and easy!
I am linking with crazymomquilts for finish it up Friday.
Smiles and hugs....Caryl

Thursday, December 6, 2012

Easy Street, Part 2

 I am doing the mystery quilt with Bonnie Hunter of quiltville.com...
part 2 is the purple geese and I am using the squares method to make the geese....
 I finished all 192 of the 4 patches and most of them are piled in this box!
I used 7 different white with black with the gray for these on part 1...
and so far I have used 4 different white with black for part 2.....
Here are some of the fabrics I am using to make this quilt.....
I just love jewel colors....they make me happy!
Anyone still wanting to start this quilt.....it's not too late to download the directions from her site and get started...
Smiles and hugs....Caryl

Monday, December 3, 2012

another D4P tutorial

 In June 2010 I did a tutorial for D4P....
Yesterday I did a slight change in that method...
 I started with 4 Christmas fabric 5" squares...
I sewed them together....
Here is the difference.......... I cut them 1 1/4" from the seam lines instead of 1"....
I finished the same as 2 years ago....
Keep all the corners in place and move the center outside sections...
L to R and R to L and top to bottom and bottom to top...
then turn the center 180 degrees...
and then sew all the sections together!
This is a fun and quick block to do with 2, 3 or 4 different fabrics in each block!
Be sure to let me know if you try this!!
Smiles and hugs....Caryl