Stitch It and Gift It Blog Hop - Hotpads

Hello and welcome to my stop on the Stitch It and Gift It Blog Hop!  I am so excited to see all the great ideas that everyone is sharing with us this week, and I hope you enjoy seeing my projects.  Thank you Carla for the opportunity to participate!  I encourage you all to visit Carla's website by clicking on the image above, and enter into the drawing for a gift certificate to Fat Quarter Shop and be sure to visit the others today too!

Wednesday, November 13th

MooseStashQuilting

Pampered Pettit
Mary Mack Made Mine
The Quilted Snail
Days Filled With Joy
Melva Loves Scraps

Limeleaves

I created/finished up a couple hotpads that will be gifted on Christmas Eve to an unknown recipient.  We do a form of White Elephant gift exchange in our family, the only rule for the item is the item can't cost more than $15.  So I am pairing my two potholders with a big bag of monster cookies and apparently my sister has already decided she will fight for these.  She actually tried to sneak one out of the room earlier this week, LOL!

This hotpad was actually a 6 year old UFO!  It is also the very first thing I ever quilted feathers on, and it was quilted on my Bernina.

This block was really fun to make, so much so that I actually made 2 blocks, but one is going into a future Christmas sampler.  (I like to make sample blocks with Christmas fabric when testing a block, eventually I will have a king size Christmas quilt!)  This is also the first time I have purchased a book and actually made a block out of it!  I had pre-ordered Lori Holt's Farm Girl Vintage 2 from Fat Quarter Shop earlier this year because I felt like I would definitely use it, and see, I was right.

The block in the book is the Evening Star, isn't just amazing how the colors make a block so different?  Also, look at how many other blocks I have marked in here, they will all make awesome potholders...

Isn't this little tag super cute?  One of our LQS (Stash of Walla Walla) has them and I just love the added little sentiment!  Also, I obviously was not going to hand stitch the binding down on this LOL.

You might notice how puffy my hotpad is, I like to use 2 layers of Insulbrite, or one layer of Insulbrite and a layer of cotton or 80/20, which ever is more available at the moment.  I also find that I prefer to use the couple of 12 inch hotpads that are in my kitchen drawer over the smaller ones since most of my pans are pretty large, so I figure the bakers in my family will also enjoy larger ones.  Or, you know, my sister will, since apparently she is willing to take on the family for these... (I am making extras for her Christmas stocking so she will have some no matter what).

 Thomas says to remind you how wonderful and comfy pillows are too. (Football block from Cluck Cluck Sew's Touchdown pattern.)

Belle learned the beauty of a tied fleece blanket this last weekend, so quick and cozy!

And finally I leave you with a little parcel that I am gifting to my longarm quilting clients this year.  I am so thankful for the people who are supporting my business (Blue Spool Sewing Room) and look forward to giving them their little gifts!  I will share later what I am gifting them, it's not a sewn item and it's a surprise.   But I am making the bags to put their gift into!  Selina shared some cute bag ideas on Monday, in case you missed them definitely go check her's out.

Thank you so much for visiting today, I hope you all have a wonderful time exploring all these great gift ideas and have fun making gifts for the holidays!

~Brandy

2019 - Back in action

Welcome back!

I just have to laugh at myself, I have been that person with the "best of intentions" when it comes to posting updates and yet I get so busy I just clean forget!  So here is some eye candy:

Rhonda's Elephant Abstractions quilt that I custom quilted for her.  She delivered it in person to her daughter in New York and her daughter loves it!

I had a great time figuring out motifs with Rhonda, we ended up picking out favorites from photos of finished quilts on Instagram and creating a unique design.

This was the first king size quilt I loaded on the longarm and I free-handed loose swirls on it for Anita.  I was really impressed with this quilt, the interlocking chains look so cool, and the simple quilting let the piecing shine.

This beauty made by my cousin Mary V. for her granddaughter was so wonderful to work on, there were new things to experience such as rouched fabric, applique, and dense quilting with a minky backing.

This minky looks and feels wonderful, even with the tighter quilting.

Business is going quite well, I have been able to make the payments on the longarm from money made on quilts for the last 3 payments, so I am beating my goal of making payments by the 2nd year of business!  I have gotten to work on some incredible quilts over the last year and am so thankful for the supportive quilters in my area. 😘 

And I am so happy to have my quilting area more complete, we added a white board (to track projects), a cork board (to hang my rulers), and new lighting which is really helping my eyes as I am in the basement.

I get to start this year off as part of a blog hop featuring a new book from Martingale:

I am excited to share my blocks with you all and to see what everyone else does with all the neat options Teresa has layed out for us.
Teresa can be found at mypatchwork.wordpress.com.

Thomas and Belle are quite attached to this quilt I made this year as part of a jellyroll competition.  It needs it's own post so you can see the quilting, but I will tell you that Hobbs wool batting is awesome.  And that may be why the cats love this one so much.

Have a super sparkly day!

Brandy

Henry Glass & Co. Desire to Inspire and other things happening

Hello friends!  I just realized I haven't been on here to tell you about a number of exciting things that have been going on in my life.

 

 

 

First off, John and I officially started the longarm business in January!  How exciting is that?  Our business is called Blue Spool Sewing Room.  I am having a lot of fun with my Handi Quilter Infinity and will definitely be getting pictures up.  If you want to check out our business page please visit www.bluespoolsewingroom.com.

 

Secondly, I was chosen to take on the challenge over at the Henry Glass Fabrics blog and I had so much fun working with the Just Beachy collection!  I finished a beach quilt, a swim bag, and a pillowcase.  They put up my projects this morning, you can click this link to see what I said there and the photos I sent them.

 

Here are some behind the scenes from working on my projects:

 

 

I decided I wanted to make a star quilt and make it octagonal like the pink one in my header picture above.  I auditioned fabric and attempted to fold in into the shapes so I would have a fairly clear idea as to what it would look like.  You'll notice that I ended up not using the colorful dots after all.

 

 

I decided early that I wanted to use two layers of batting since we plan to sit on it.  I also tried to think ahead as to what I would do for quilting.  I knew I wanted to give an impression of a starfish so after staring at photos of starfish I figured a ribbon candy pattern would look neat on the black and give the texture I wanted.  Also, as much of a pain as it may be, stitching-in-the-ditch is definitely important for making blocks look right after quilted.  I made it my goal with this quilt to not use any computerized designs, so all of this quilting was freehand!  I am glad to see that I am getting better everyday.  Practice practice practice!

 

I used jean yardage to back this quilt and I just love how the turquoise thread looks on it.  Also what looks like a huge wrinkle in the upper left-hand corner is just from me holding up the quilt while I took the picture. :)

Super excited when I reached the halfway point!

 

John and I had planned a trip to Eureka, CA a couple weeks ago which worked perfectly for me having a deadline to get my beach quilt finished.  We were able to get out and take some fun pictures first thing in the morning and only had to fight the wind a little.  We found this spot that had a nice tree and quick access to the water as well.

 

I caught John sneaking a peek...

Superstar!

 

This is me walking into the wind, considering how heavy this quilt is with it's two layers of batting and jean back it lifted in the wind pretty easily.

When we got home I went to work on my new swim bag for water aerobics.  Mom and I are still trying to attend every Monday and Wednesday.

 

I wanted zippered pockets on each end so I can put my keys and wallet away and not have them floating in the bottom of the bag.

 I chose to use mesh as the upper portion of my bag so I can see what I have in there easily, plus it looks neat.

 



Thomas helped me make the tops of the bag, I wanted to plush them up a little so the mesh doesn't wear down on the fabric, at least I hope that is how it works.  Plus it gives a nice finished look.

I was so excited when I finished and the bag stands up by itself!

It holds everything I need and more!  It will also be perfect the next time we go to the beach to hold two towels and the beach quilt, plus sunscreen, shoes, and water.  I am pretty happy with how my bag turned out.  When I get some instructions written up for it I will be sure to let you know.

 

It didn't take long for Belle and Thomas to find the quilt when I brought it home from working on the longarm, but if it is kitty approved it must be good!  Oh, and that gray stripe there under Belle is a burp rag I made for my sister-in-law, we have a nephew coming in June!

 

I hope you enjoyed some of these behind the scenes photos, I still have quite a bit of fabric left from what was sent me so I am going to crank out some more projects over the summer and I will be sure to share with you.  Thank you for stopping by!

 

~Brandy



Happy 4th Blog-iversary to me!

Oh wow!  I started blogging four years ago, how amazing!  I love being able to come on here and share my quilting and life adventures, and I love that you visit and take part in them.  My most recent project has been a last-minute decision to make John's father a quilt for his 60th birthday.  That was 2 weeks ago and today I am getting the binding put on!  Here are some progress photos:

 

I taught John how to make his first EVER quilt block.  We felt it was a good time since this quilt is for his dad.  John also picked out the elk panel and all the fabrics used.  I just told him where we needed certain lights and darks to create contrast.  We are loving the tree fabric.

I quilted this on my Bernina 150QE.  Once I got the first row done I texted my mom and said "This will be so much easier on my longarm when it arrives!"

I think Thomas will be sad when he doesn't have freshly quilted piles of quilt to snuggle into though...

Another thing I want to share with you today is some shops John and I visited on our last trip to Montana in August.

 

First we stopped at Regal Fabrics in Spokane, WA.  I was blown away by all the amazing embroidered pieces they have in their shop!  I even got to meet the lady who does them all, her name is Michele Eickerman , she was really great to talk to.

Oh my gosh, isn't this amazing?!  It's a Crabapple Hill pattern (turns out the designer is from an hour from my home) and is called the Mystery of the Salem Quilt Guild.

 

Gotta have a snack table!

Our next stop was in Bonner's Ferry, we had time to check out the second shop we have seen there.  This one is called A Little Comfort Quilting and is on a really amazing Main Street.

I always enjoy seeing the Sweet Onion Cat outside Walla Walla, this shop had a lot of items different than what we've been seeing most of this summer.  I am always glad to see variety.

John was eyeballing the ruler selection, probably glad he doesn't have to worry about keeping rulers organized.

Then we got to go to the Quilt Cottage in Libby, MT.  I was so excited to visit here because when we came through last year it was after hours.  We had a lot of good conversation with the lady working this day as well as a couple other customers who were in while we were.  And we hung out for almost 45 minutes because there was lots to see and talk about!



The next day I convinced John to drive with me down to Kalispell's Sew & Vac so I could show him the classic machines they have there.  John ended up buying 6 yards of fabric and we learned all about the longarm they sell (but it's not the one we are getting, we just like to try out all that we can).

It was fun to play around!

 

I will have to take my mom in to see this wall of batiks next year when we visit my grandma again.

We went crazy with the black and white fabric, but all that on the right is John's.  Hahaha!

Our other stop in Kalispell was at the Quilt Gallery.  I have been in there 4 times now and have such a great experience each time.  This was John's first visit and we spent an hour and a half in there talking to the ladies about the Handi Quilter machines (thus I have no photos of our visit, sorry).

On our way home we were able to stop in to Bear Paw Quilting for our second visit to that shop, and man, I just love going there.  HUGE selection and great customer service.  I am super excited about that floral print on the left side of the photo below, I bought enough to make myself a Hawaiian shirt! 

 

 

You may have noticed a theme in the photos above, there are blue and green fat quarters in almost all of them!  That is because I collected those up for making a quilt for my good friend's son who turns 5 this year.  I have the top finished, actually, it has been sitting for almost a month now waiting for me to make up my mind about backing.

 

His birthday is mid-October so I really need to pull this one together!

Well, thank you for catching up with me, I hope you are all still enjoying the Christmas Caroling Row Along, there are another couple weeks to go yet and then there is a show and share!

 

Hope you have a wonderful day!

 

~Brandy

 

Belle and Thomas are very good at reminding me that it is important to take a break occasionally when free motion quilting... they full-on stopped production!