Finished Halloween Quilt Binding

My 2014 Halloween Quilt binding is completed.  OK, I'm 2 days late but I'm so happy it's done.  Time to celebrate a finished quilt!    I decided to try and complete the binding by machine.  I used the Clover Wonder Clips on the quilt to wrap the binding to the back and hold until I would sew it.  I would give the clips a B+ on a review.  Here's some pro's and con's that I think of them.

CONS

• It takes a lot of them to hold the binding.  I placed one about ever 2" So you'll probably need to buy multiple sets.
• If you open them with too much force, the spring mechanism breaks or stretches so they don't hold anymore. 
• It's hard to move the quilt around with all those clips on it.  They get caught on things.
• I still had to go back and resew a couple areas where the binding wasn't caught on the back.  Good thing was that this was black binding on back backing.. you can't see the resew areas.
• Taking them off is a little slower than other type clips I've used.

PROS

• Amazon has them on sale for about $11 for 50 clips.
• They hold the binding a lot better in place than trying to sew on binding without them.
• Hey, 90% accuracy is great in my book when it comes to binding.
• Sewing went slow but it was a heck of a lot faster than hand sewing the binding to the back.
• It only took me maybe 20-25 minutes to finish a 60 x 80 quilt.
• I'll definitely use them again when I want to machine sew a binding on.

Here's the spacing I used on the clips

and here's the finished binding.

Now on to quilting the Christmas Present Quilt with a Christmas Present Panto I created.


Thanks for stopping by!  
~*~Trish~*~

Happy Halloween - Quilting Finished

Well I finished this earlier in the week just in time for Halloween.  However, I did not get the binding sewn on in time.  But, who knows, I may finish it today.  Since the Halloween quilt is so colorful, it is hard to see the quilting.  You can see it in the black separator bars.

The backing was completed with a glow in the dark spiderweb fabric.  I used black thread for the back and a grey spiderweb color for the front bat pantograph.

Happy Halloween.

Thanks for stopping by!
 ~*~Trish~*~

Creating Quilting Pantos

I've been working in my Art n Stitch software to create pantographs for my quilting machine.  There's an option where you can create meandering patterns with a few items placed in the loops.  I've been trying to come up with a quick Halloween Pantograph to finish my Halloween quilt.  I had a delay on finishing it with some family items.  Now, I'm speeding up to try and finish it by Halloween.

Here were some pantos created and tested with stitch outs.

I call this one BATTY LOOPS

I call this one BATS and HATS

I call this one GIFT SWIRLS
Thinking ahead for when I need to quilt my Christmas Present Quilt :-)

Finally... Webbed Spiders

After much consideration, I decided to go with Batty Loops (first one) on my Halloween Quilt.  I wanted something quick and not detailed since the quilt is so busy and you won't really see the quilting too much.  Time to square the backing and load the quilt!

Thanks for stopping by!  
~*~Trish~*~

Halloween Tumbler Quilt Top Completed

As soon as I finished the Christmas Present Quilt, I decided I wanted to try and squeeze in a Halloween Quilt.  I order 20 fat quarters off of eBay in a Halloween theme.  When they came, I didn't realize all the brightly colored patterns were more of a children's theme.  I was determined to use them.

I used my AccuQuilt Go and the 6.5 inch tumbler.  I was able to cut 6 of each out of each pattern and I have a lot of scraps left over for a pillow or to place on the back of the quilt.  In one day, I cut out all of the tumbler blocks cut out.  The hardest part was organizing the blocks in a random pattern lol.  I could have done a better job but I got tired of rearranging them.

So, here are two strips started. As I finished up all of the rows sewn together, I figured there was too many bright colors so I decided to add some black and orange rows to break up the many colors.

The it was time to trim up the sides.  I was going to add the orange and black all around the edges but I thought the orange was a little too bright as well.  So, I planned to trim the sides straight and add a basic black border all around.  Here's a photo where the black sides were completed.

It's hard to see the sides since I trimmed the photo so closely.  All that was left to complete was the top and bottom borders and I finished those today!  So now I have a finished Halloween quilt.  I was hoping to have it added to the quilting machine before the end of the month.  But, happily I have a vacation coming up and the ocean is calling me!  So one less week to sew...  stay tuned.

Thanks for stopping by!  
~*~Trish~*~

The Moda Flurry Present Quilt top by Kate Spain is finished!

Hello.  I was able to finish the Moda Flurry Quilt top by Kate Spain today.  I made a few changes on the bordering.  I did not place the outer 2" border since I modified the corner blocks.  Since I was not using the Flurry fabric, I did not have a cute snowflakes for the corners.  So, I was going to use the dark ornaments fabric as large corner block.  I just didn't like the way it looked and I was too lazy to add another 2" white border around the complete outside.  So, I took 4 of the small 2.5" blocks and surrounded them with the 2" white border strips.  I like how they turned out.  They float sorta like the color blocks separating the presents.

Now to decide if I want to try and quilt it or do I send it away to someone.  I still might have time to whip up another Halloween quilt!

Here's a closeup of the modified corners

Thanks for stopping by!  
~*~Trish~*~

Flurry Borders Created

I finally finished piecing the flurry border for the Christmas quilt.  The piecing wasn't the hard part, the ironing of these borders and ironing the seams to the center dark was the pain.  I think it took longer to iron thenm than piece the borders.  However, I like the outcome next to the flurry quilt.  The photos below do not have the borders attached, just hanging next to the quilt center.

Next up, squaring the center, finding the corner blocks and attaching the borders.  I'm thinking I should be done this month!

Thanks for stopping by!
~*~Trish~*~

Moda Christmas Quilt Center Corrected

The way I've been posting on this Christmas quilt, you'd think I was creating a new quilt each post!  I'm just happy that I've been doing sewing on work days.  I've just convinced myself that even a little progress is at least progress.  So with that being said, I'm happy to say the center of my Christmas quilt has completely been corrected by adding each of the blank rows above the presents.  Now, if I could only figure out what's up with the slightly wonky bottom left present.  It may just be because the quilt is over the banister and about midway, the quilt bends forward from the floor edge.

My goal for this weekend is to get the borders created.

Thanks for stopping by!  
~*~Trish~*~

Moda Flurry Christmas Quilt by Kate Spain - Making Progress

I only have one more plain row to insert at the bottom of the quilt between the last two rows of presents.  I've decided they are definitely worth the effort of seam ripping the rows to insert the missing rows.  Once I add the last row (hopefully Wednesday) then all I have left is the outer pieced border.

With the extra rows, it won't be long before I'll need to move the cabinet out of the way when taking photos of the quilt hanging in the entry way.  You can see a little of it in the bottom of the photo below.

I'm so excited, I may finish the Christmas Quilt on time.  But I bet I use up all my time to get another Halloween quilt on time for this year :-)

Thanks for stopping by!  
~*~Trish~*~

Slow and Steady Seam Ripping

I didn't have a lot of time to sew this weekend.  Also, for the life of me, I could not find my seam ripper and had to use a teeny tiny one to rip the whole center section out to place the plain white strip.  For ease of lining up blocks, I pieced the white strip the same as the separator row with colored blocks.

I have one corrective row added and two more to go.  I think I'm going to stop here and look at it during this next work week.  It hangs in my entryway so I look at it every time I enter the house.  I'm just not sure the effort of adding the corrected white rows above make that much of an impact.  In photo A is the correction and in photo B is the original.

Option A with corrected inserted white row

Here's how it was originally without the corrective inserted row

Option B with original mistake

Thanks for stopping by!  
~*~Trish~*~

Christmas in July - Returning to Moda Flurry Quilt by Kate Spain

I was thinking that my next project would be a Halloween item, but, then I kept reading about all the Christmas in July projects out there.  So, I jumped on the bandwagon and decided to work on my Christmas quilt started last year.  Last year I started the Moda Flurry Quilt.

I was all excited that I got the center part all pieced together.  I hung it up for photos and thought, something doesn't look right?

 

It finally dawned on me that I'm missing a white row above each of the separator rows.  Now I know why I precut long white strips that I didn't use.  Now, time to decide if I"m going to rip apart the top and add the white rows. 

Beyond that, I need the pieced borders yet to do.  The previous link I provided for the free pattern no longer works but I found another one for the Moda Flurry free pattern by Kate Spain.

Thanks for stopping by!  
~*~Trish~*~

AccuQuilt Tumbler Flag Binding Completed

Well I finished it!!  5 days later than the intended holiday but completed just the same.  Now it will be available for future celebrations.  I opted to piece my binding to match the changing colors on the tumbler American Flag.  I am very happy with how it turned out.  There are a lot of seams on the binding since I used leftover tumbler blocks for the red/white stripe ends. 

Here's the finished flag

Also, here's a close up for some of the changing colors.

Thanks for stopping by!  
~*~Trish~*~

Post 4th of July Flag Finish

I displayed my non-binded flag for the 4th of July and now I'm determined to finish binding the flag for future use.  There were several options I could have gone with.  A solid color, cutting the top and bottom straight, etc.  I decided to piece the binding from some leftover tumbler blocks I had to match the colors of the flag edges.

It was a slow process with a lot of measuring.  It seems to be lined up but now comes the turn to the back and hand sewing the binding to the back.  Here's the match ups so far.

Thanks for stopping by!  
~*~Trish~*~

Flag is Finished - Almost - Happy 4th of July!

I finished up picking out the backing to the flag wall hanging and quilted it using a quarter inch seam on each side on a change in color.  It turned out great but, I have not placed the binding on yet.  I'm still pondering that one.   I did however received a great suggestion from a reader that maybe I should have added a white border on top and bottom and then cut it straight.  Now, why didn't I think of that!  Thanks Leslie!

Now, I'm hanging the flag without adding the binding to contemplate adding the white strip on top and bottom using the Quilt as you Go format.  Here's the quilted front and back as they stand today!

Happy July 4th!!

Thanks for stopping by!  
~*~Trish~*~

Red White Blue Tumbler Flag Quilt

I was determined over the last 2 weekends to dust off my sewing machine and see if it still worked.  I'm happy to say that it does.  So, I have seen this quilt wall hanging created with the full size AccuQuilt go tumbler dies.  I recently purchased the small tumbler die and wanted to try my hand at a tumbler Red White and Blue wall hanging.

I cut out the tumbler dies using my AccuQuilt go machine.  I cut 16 blue tumbler dies and host of random red and white tumbler dies.  I laid out the draft sewing order.

 

Then I got moving on sewing the vertical strips in careful order.

From there, I sewed the strips together to create my flag flimsy.  Next step to pick out a backing and get it quilted.

 

Be sure and come back and see the final wall hanging.  I'm not sure if I'm going to leave the edges wavy or not.. decisions, decisions.

Thanks for stopping by!  
~*~Trish~*~