Terrain Stepping Stones Quilt, My First Finish Of The Year!

If you are looking for the Nifty Notions Ruler giveaway click here. Hurry the giveaway ends today!

This week was very exciting for me, not only did I work on 4 Valentines Day projects but I finished my first quilt on my 2012 Finish-A-Long list! It's my Terrain Stepping stones Quilt.

I finished the quilt top in November before Thanksgiving, so I guess technically it didn't take that long to make since I don't stop piecing until the quilt top is done. That keeps me from being confused. Besides it was a fairly easy pattern. If you want the pattern its available here for FREE!

I knew that I wanted to make a small lap size quilt to put over my legs when I am using the computer. We have hard wood floors and my feet get cold. I also knew I didn't want it to be too heavy and bulky so I decided to just back it in flannel with no batting. And its the perfect weight, its over my lap right now keeping me cozy :)

Like many of my projects this one had lots of HSTs, which you know I am craizee about! I know I am weird, but I like the challenge of matching them all up.

I decided to just quilt in the ditch around the different shapes, big squares, little squares, diagonals and diamonds.

The hardest part for some reason was hand sewing the back of the binding on. It was only 2 thin layers and my needle kept going thru the front so it took forever to hand sew. I think I need to learn to machine sew binding on.

Today is another big quilting day. I need to put the borders on Tyler's quilt and quilt and bind my Valentines quilt.

Speaking of Valentines Day, next week I have decided is V week here at Craizee Corners. I have a bunch of V-day projects to show you and maybe a great giveaway too! If you have a V-day project you would like to share let me know and I would be happy to show it here.

Come back tomorrow to see who the 2 winners of the Nifty Notions rulers are!  

Jelly Race Quilt Done!

In May Shawna at 1 Choice for Quilting hosted a Jelly Roll Race Quilt-a-long. I had a jelly roll of Daisies and Dots that I had been saving and this was the perfect opportunity to use the entire jelly roll. It was such an easy quilt, its a definite go to for those last minute quilts.

Here's my finished quilt. I decided to hand quilt rows of running stitches using pearl cotton in different colors. It was a great learning experience on hand quilting. I plan on hand quilting more quilts in the future.

So that's 1 more finished, only 5 more to go. I'm not going to finish anymore quilts until I get my Bernina 440QE, which should be within the next week are so. 

Sha :)

Hand Quilting for the First Time

Since I am making an effort to finish the quilt tops that I have done (I have 6 currently) the jelly roll race quilt was next on the list. Then I had this wonderful idea to hand quilt it. I thought it would be the perfect way to learn to hand quilt, after all how hard is it to sew a straight line by hand? Harder than I had expected it to be that's for sure.

I wanted to use several different colors so first I bought DMC floss. I though that would give me the best color selection. After doing a few rows I wasn't sure if the 2 strands I was using would stand up to washing. I asked several of my quilting tweeples and they recommended using pearl cotton instead for the look I wanted. So I learned that lesson the hard way and back to Joann's I went to get pearl cotton. Luckily I had a ton of coupons so every skein was discounted. I'm sure the people behind me were thrilled with me, but I every penny saved is more I can spend on fabric :)

I decided to just do a running stitch down the center of each row. The first few rows I did were pitiful and they got pulled out pretty quickly. Then a funny thing happened, I found my rhythm! I am using pretty big stitches so this is not traditional at all, but I like the way it's coming out. Is every stitch the same length, no. Are my lines totally straight, no. But no matter what it's mine and will be a nice cozy quilt for the guest room.

So next time you try something new don't be too hard on yourself. Be proud of what you have done!

Sha :)