Wedding Dress Quilt Finished!

The Donna Miller Wedding Dress Quilt is finished. It was such fun to make, and I love the way it turned out.

After de-constructing the dress and designing the quilt, I drew out the quilting pattern for the large center panel, using the mirror technique I blogged about here.

Then I sewed the top without the outer ruffle, and loaded it on my frame.  I machine quilted the pattern in white, off-white, tan/gold, light pink, and dusty pink threads.  Lots of "scribbling" made the feathers really stand out.  After quilting, I attached the ruffle and binding (on the back).

These quilts are never the same, it's so interesting to see the dresses, and make this special quilt for the bride! These next pictures show more of the detail and quilting

Working on a Wedding Dress Quilt

I love making wedding dress quilts!  They aren't the easiest quilts I've ever made, but the end result is SO pretty.

Here's just a sneak peak of the latest wedding dress quilt I've been working on for Donna.  She didn't want just a white quilt, and requested dusty pink on it also.  It was a beautiful ruffled dress, so I had lots of lace ruffles to work with!

When I finish it, I'll post pictures of the entire quilt.  Stay tuned!

To see more of my Wedding Dress and Special Occasion Quilts, click on the tab at the top of the page, or click here

And again, I couldn't have done it without this Craftsy class - Thanks Cindy!

Mary

Found a Way to Organize my Acrylic Templates

I've been collecting acrylic templates for a while, and never had anywhere to store them that was easy to get to when I was quilting on my mid-arm/frame.

I had found this shoe tree at Walmart, and seen an idea to hang fat quarters from it, using paperclips and binder clips. Good idea, but didn't work for me.

So I decided to hang my templates (and some rulers) from the shoe tree and it worked! Using the same bent paper clips and binder clips (you can buy snap clips that work well too) I hung everything, and it looks great! It's sitting on a plastic drawer unit next to my frame, and I think it will work really well -- as long as I put the templates back after using them!!

I love creative solutions!

Mary

Double Wedding Ring Quilt

I just realized I never finished my blog posts about the double wedding ring bed runner I was making.  I did finish it, and think that the machine quilted feathers really set off the design well.

The original posts were New Way to Paper Piece and Update on Double Wedding Ring Quilt

Even with paper piecing, this was not an easy quilt to make, but I enjoyed making it, and the finished quilt was worth all the effort.

This bed runner was a hostess gift for my aunt and uncle, I hope they enjoy it.  And I hope you enjoy the pictures!

Mary

Tuesday's Tip - DIY Thread Storage

For today's tip, I'm going to show how I made a great DIY thread storage drawer.

I have a thread hanger on the wall by my small sewing machine, but I needed something for my mid-arm machine that's on a frame.  It needed to be convenient, hold even large cones, bobbins, and keep the thread clean.

The plastic drawers in the photo were next to the frame, and had an empty drawer.  I saw a picture on Pinterest that showed dowels hot glued to a plastic drawer, and that got me thinking -- I could do this!  So I got out an old thread holder, a scrap piece of wood, bamboo skewer, glue gun, electric drill, and a few other odds and ends and started to work.  I was determined to use materials on hand and do it myself!

After several ideas that didn't quite work, I ended up drilling holes in the piece of wood, breaking the skewers in half, and hot gluing them in place if they were loose.  The skewers needed to be long, so the  bobbins that match the thread could go on top of the thread spool. The whole piece was then spot glued into the drawer.

I did use half of an old wooden letter holder (I think that's what it was) on one side, for my really big cones and to fill the space, but a larger piece of wood would have worked just as well.

This is still a work in progress, I may shorten the skewers a little, and it's not the prettiest thing, but when it's filled with thread and bobbins (someday!) it'll look fine, and it works!!

What do you think? Have you made something like this?  I'd love to see pictures!

Mary

Tuesday Tips - Elmer's Glue instead of Pinning How To

Every Tuesday, I'm going to post a tip --- things that have really helped me, and are easy to do!

Today's tip is about using water soluble glue (I use Elmer's School Glue) to match seams for sewing, instead of pins.

I really have a love/hate relationship with pins.  I know we need them, but they are such a hassle.  Then I remembered seeing an idea about using glue instead of pins.  Here's my adaptation:

Grand Prize Winner of the 2013 Q&N Paint Chip Challenge -- Me!

My Purple Butterflies quilt won the Grand Prize in the 2013 Quilt & Needle Paint Chip Challenge!

Back in January, I joined the Q&N Paint Chip Challenge --- my paint chip color was a red-violet.  I decided to use the Tessellating Star pattern, and wrote up instructions in this post.  After I finished the patchwork, I appliqued LOTS of butterflies onto the quilt top, then machine quilted it using a combination of echoing, flowers, pebbles and other fill patterns in a diagonal direction.

When the quilt was completed, I posted it here and sent pictures in and I won the Grand Prize!  I won a $50 gift certificate from The Quilt & Needle.

This was officially my 100th quilt, so was special to me, even before I won!

Mary

Tessellating Star Instructions

Tessellating patterns are interlocking patterns that repeat.  There are a lot of different patterns, but I was really intrigued by the tessellating star, so thought I'd make one.

I wrote these instructions for myself for future quilts, but thought I'd share them.  This is my first attempt at instructions, so any feedback would be appreciated!

New Way to Paper Piece

Did you know you can paper piece without all the tearing and cutting of paper -- AND you can reuse the paper templates?  This technique has worked so well for me on my Double Wedding Ring quilt that I had to share it!

This is a really simple explanation, not a paper piecing tutorial, because I want to hurry and get back to piecing!  Let me know if it doesn't make sense.

Steps  1-4

1. Copy or draw your pattern onto the non-slick side of freezer paper and cut it out. (you can also use regular paper, and a glue stick).

2. Press Piece 1 fabric lightly onto the slick side of the freezer paper, being careful to stay inside of the lines. Pressing from the paper side helps.

3. Place Piece 1 and Piece 2 together, lining up the edges right sides together, BUT, before you sew, fold back the paper on the seam line.
.

4. Sew the seam, being careful to sew next to the paper fold, without sewing the paper.  If your pressure foot wants to stick, put a scrap of paper over the freezer paper.

Steps 5-6

5. Press lightly, carefully pressing Piece 2  to the shiny (sticky) side of the freezer paper. Again, stay inside the lines of piece 2.  Press from the paper side, and you can see your pattern. (If you use regular paper, use a dab of glue stick to hold the fabric to the paper, or pin).

6. Fold at the next line, trim your seams, and sew your next seam (Piece 2 to Piece 3).

7. Continue until you have finished your piece.  When you are finished, trim around the outside, and carefully pull off the freezer paper and re-use!


 -- it's just that easy!

Mary

Double Wedding Ring Quilt - Here Goes!

A Double Wedding Ring quilt has been on my list of quilt patterns I'd like to try for a long time.  Spring seemed like a perfect time to use my new fabrics, too!

I'm in a bright pastel phase, as you can see, love these fabrics, a combination of Joann's, Connecting Threads and Fat Quarter Shop.

So, off I went -- first I went to my scrap stash, and pulled out everything I could use -- I got tough, and if it was too small for this quilt pattern, it got thrown out.

The pattern I used came from Quilt Inspiration Blog - Wedding Ring Quilts Part 1, I love the River City Quilt Guild's quilt, but it will have to wait until I master the technique. Part 2 has some beautiful quilts too!

I'm doing the Double Wedding Ring Quilt by Marsha Evans Moore at Free Spirit Fabric for a collection by Jennifer Paganelli at Sis Boom.  Click on the link for a free pattern.

So  away I went!  I like paper piecing for this pattern, it's more precise for me.

One of my goals with quilting is to enjoy the process, and to SLOW DOWN!  This quilt is definitely going to be a process :)  Here's what I have so far.

I can't decide between making a bed runner or quilt, we'll see how it goes.  Now I better get off this blog and get quilting!

Mary

Snow Quilts - This is Amazing!

Somehow I received an email about this guy, and I'm glad I did, the pictures are unbelievable! I looked Simon Beck up and he is legit - he really did these amazing snow quilts.

Artist Simon Beck must really love the cold weather! Along the frozen lakes of Savoie , France, he spends days plodding through the snow in raquettes (snowshoes), creating these sensational patterns of snow art. Working for 5-9 hours a day, each final piece is typically the size of three soccer fields! The geometric forms range in mathematical patterns and shapes that create stunning, sometimes 3D, designs when viewed from

higher levels. How long these magnificent geometric forms survive is completely dependent on the weather. Beck designs and redesigns the patterns as new snow falls, sometimes unable to finish a piece due to significant overnight accumulations.

 

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