Tasting Table Tuesday - Stripping

I have several quilt projects coming up that all involve 1 1/2" wide strips, and they are all scrappy quilts.  So I am in the process of cutting and sorting by color.  These little baskets I found at Dollar General are just perfect for storing these strips.  And at 3 for a dollar, you can't beat the price! 

Last week, I went on a little outing with some quilting friends and we visited a new quilt shop in the area.  Perry's Patches & Quilting is in Sylvania, near Troy PA.  Laura is a sweet, friendly person, and we had the best time visiting with her in her new little shop.  She is working on a building to house her new business, but in the meantime she has converted her basement into a warm and cozy little quilt shop.  Her hours are limited at the present time, so check before you go.  She has a very nice collection of fabric and top-notch customer service.  Here are some "must-have" additions to my collection of gray fabrics that I simply couldn't leave behind.

Cheers!

Tasting Table Tuesday - Another dress from a shirt

I just finished making another child's dress from a men's oxford shirt.  I just love seeing these classic shirts transform into something so cute for little ones.  This one is for my 3 year old granddaughter.

I moved the pocket from it's original chest position, down to the hip of the dress, then added an overlayer of quilting cotton to the top just to make it cute.  It's a Tula Pink fabric, but I'm not sure what it's called.

Two down, two more to go...

Cheers!

Family Ties Finale

The series of Family Tie Quilts is complete.  In the past nine months or so, I've made four queen size quilts, all the same design, but with a different background fabric for each.  My client gave me about 150 ties to work with, and there is at least one piece of each tie in every quilt.  If you'd like to read more about the process, click here for past blog posts.  All four were quilted by a local friend of mine, Sue Brought of Studio Sue's Longarm Quilting.  I'm so pleased with how she quilted these!

One of the challenges was to make each quilt, yet keep enough tie fabric reserved for the remaining quilts.  At first, I wasn't sure if we were using the same design for each, so I had no way of knowing how much tie fabric each would require.  I guess I was a little too frugal with them, because when I finished the 4th quilt, I was a little surprised to see how much was left.

These tie fabrics were just too beautiful not to use, so rather than see them go to waste, I decided to make a little log cabin quilt with the leftovers.  This was a little added bonus for my clients, and from what I hear, they are thrilled to have it.  The blocks are 8" square so it ended up being about 40" x 48", just right as a wall hanging, or to drape over a chair.

I had fun quilting this one myself using a design I found on Pinterest - a really cool wonky square spiral design.  You just follow the logs, stitching diagonally from corner to corner, starting in the center and working your way out.  I marked the stitching line with a piece of blue painters tape to keep me going straight and it worked great!  I just love how this little quilt turned out - it was so much fun to make!  I think I see more scrappy log cabin quilts in my future!

Cheers!