The Last Post of 2023

Hello Everyone,

How has the year gone by so fast?  It's hard to believe the year is almost over.

I would like to take this opportunity to say Happy Holidays everyone.  No matter how and where you're celebrating, please stay safe and healthy.  Enjoy the holiday seasons with friends and family.

I probably will not sew or work on projects for the rest of the year.  I'll start again in January 2024.

I would like to thank all of you who visited my blog and posted comments.  It has been a pleasure and joy communicating with you.  I appreciated every encouraging word and well wishes expressed to me throughout the years.  My heart felt Thank You!!  

Margo

John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

The Blue House Quilt

I'm still not quite done with the Denim quilt.  There are some more quilting and applique to do.  I also have to decide what to do with the door.  The dark blue thread that I used is not showing up well.  It's too thin, maybe, but I think I may have a solution for it.  I named the quilt A Blue House.  

 

When it's done, I'll take a better picture so that you can see the color of the threads in each area.

At the same time I started the second denim quilt using some of the fabric that I posted in the previous post.  This is what on my design wall right now.

 

I'm curious to see how this one will turn out. 

Thanks for visiting and have a great week.   

Margo

 

In addition to the linky parties on the sidebar, I also link up to:

 

To Do Tuesday  hosted by Carol at Quilt Schmilt 

Put Your Foot Down at For the Love of Geese  (Thursday)

Brag About Your Beauties at From Bolt to Beauty (Friday)

Peacock Party at Wendy’s Quilts and More  (Friday)

 

 

 

"Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you.  Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid"  (John 14:26-27) 

 

The Baby Quilt is Finished and a New Project

The binding on the baby quilt is done, it's washed and ready to be sent to the new owner.  Here are the finished pictures before washing and after.  

 

After washing

Before washing

 

Quilt Stats:

Size:        41" x 53"       Before quilting 

                39" x 50.5"    After washing  

Top:        100% cotton

Bating:    Kyoto Bamboo Blend by Moda

Backing: 100% cotton Flannel

 

Working with bamboo batting in this project has been a delight.  I love the smoothness and how everything lay flat nicely.  There is no batting poking through the needle holes at all.  The quilt drapes nicely and has a little weight to it.  I think this is great for a baby or small children.  I will ask for feedback from the baby's family to see how they like the quilt.

The only thing that I don't like, in the slightest degree, is wrinkles after washing.  The quilt looks a little puffy as if I used a thicker batting.  

Now it's time to pull some fabric for a new project.  Remember the denim quilt I was making some months ago before I had to put everything aside to work on the baby quilt?  You can read about it here.  I have been working on quilting it along side the baby quilt.  When I was stuck, couldn't decide what to do next with the baby quilt, I went back to work on quilting the denim quilt.  Here is the sneak peek.

 

 

While I'm working on quilting this quilt, I thought I would pull out some more fabric for the second denim quilt.  Here they are....

 

What can I say; the fun continues......

Thanks for visiting and have a great week.

Margo

In addition to the linky parties on the sidebar, I also link up to:

 

Link to To Do Tuesday  hosted by Carol at Quilt Schmilt 

Put Your Foot Down at For the Love of Geese  (Thursday)

Brag About Your Beauties at From Bolt to Beauty (Friday)

Peacock Party at Wendy’s Quilts and More  (Friday)

 

WIP in October

The baby quilt progresses slowly.  While I was quilting it last month, I had some problems with the machine.  It started skipping stitches, so off to the machinist it went.  I got it back a week later and everything went smoothly.  But I missed the dead line for the OMG for September.  Now the quilting and trimming are done, I am ready to put a binding on.  Squaring up this quilt went like a breeze.  All the edges lay flat like they were supposed to.  I'm so happy!!

 

 

I should get back to the sewing machine. Hope you all have a great week.  Thanks for visiting.

Margo

In addition to the linky parties on the sidebar, I also link up to:

 

Link to To Do Tuesday  hosted by Carol at Quilt Schmilt  

Brag About Your Beauties at From Bolt to Beauty

Peacock Party at Wendy’s Quilts and More 

Put Your Foot Down at For the Love of Geese

WIP in September

The work on  the baby quilt continues.  I found a perfect flannel piece for the back.  It has sage green to match the front and brick red that I love.

 

 

I love to use flannel for baby quilts.  If I can't use all flannel, I will at lease put it on the back.  Flannel makes the quilt so snugly and warm. 

For this quilt, I'm using a bamboo batting from Moda.  A while ago our guild had a Moda rep. as a speaker in one of our meeting.  It was very informative and fun to see new fabric lines that Moda had in store.  She also showed us the new bamboo blend batting.  I had an awful experience with a bamboo batting as I wrote about it here.  I discussed my concerns with her and she offered a sample for me to use.  I was skeptical so I haven't even open the bag all these times until I found it again in the closet.   

 

Upon the first inspection, the batting seems to be smooth and clean with no visible bamboo chips embedded in the fiber.  That was one of my major concerns.  The next concern is bearded through the fabric.  I guess we'll know that when I actually quilt it.  I'm crossing my fingers!!  If the batting come through in the first line of quilting, I'll immediately take out the batting.  Don't want to have go through the nightmare experience like last time.  On the positive side, I like the fact that bamboo is a naturally anti-bacterial, Eco friendly and renewable material.  And this one is also manufactured in the USA.

Next, I basted the quilt and now it's ready for quilting.  So far so good, no batting shed through.

 

 

I'm still thinking about the quilting design.  I'm opting for straight lines, but it'll be a few days before I start the quilting.

What's on your work table this week?  Are you having fun making it?   Hope you're having a great time doing what you love....

Thanks for visiting.   Margo

In addition to the linky parties on the sidebar, I also link up to:

 

Link to To Do Tuesday  hosted by Carol at Quilt Schmilt  

Brag About Your Beauties at From Bolt to Beauty

Peacock Party at Wendy’s Quilts and More 

Put Your Foot Down at For the Love of Geese

 

 

 

August OMG finished

 For the month of August, I wanted to finish the baby quilt top and I did.  It's now ready for quilting.

 

Go to the Elmstreet quilt for the finish linkup here.

Have a great week.

Margo

WIP And LongArm Quilting on 'Scattered'

The work on the baby quilt continues.  I talked to the baby's mother  and she didn't like the juvenile prints or orange colors so off they went.  I think I have the final layout.  I'll leave them on my design wall for a few days.  The background will be a combination of beige fabrics.  

 

 

I've tried to capture the movement of marbles.  I hope I succeeded.  I loved playing with marbles when I was young, now I just collect them in a glass jar.  I enjoy looking at their beautiful colors.  Even though I don't have sage colored marbles in my collection, I like these color combinations on the quilt.

 

I did the longarm quilting on the 'Scattered' quilt.  Days before I actually quilted it, I looked at my collection of books on machine quilting by Angela Walters and others for ideas.  I also looked at some edge to edge quilting pictures online such as Wildflower and others, hoping that I would find something I liked.  When I saw this one and I said to myself, 'that's it'.  It looked easy enough, I thought.

 

 

I practiced tracing with fingers and over-confidently thought that I got it.  When the day came, I showed up to find that Patti, a volunteer at the Q4C, had already set a practice piece for me.  Isn't she great?  Without her I would never have done it.  I tried to do the loops and swirls according to the picture I had in mind.  I couldn't guide the machine to do what I wanted.  It was NOT as easy as it looked.  It came out looking awful, didn't look anything like in the picture.  Patti recommended that I do the simple loops and leaves design.  She brought me back down to reality and I really appreciated that.  I realized that I took a bite bigger than I could chew.  I practiced for a while, and off I went on to the actual quilting.  Patti helped me to load the quilt on, and two hours later, I finished it.  The leaves look more like hearts but it doesn't matter, I like that.  Here are some pictures. 

 

Detail picture

I know I have so much more to learn and the most important thing is to practice more.  I really enjoyed the longarm quilting.  I especially like the part that I don't have to manually baste the quilt which saved me a lot of time and also saved my back!  Even though this is my first longarm experience on a big quilt, I finished it in less than three hours time.  I really like that!!   Now I just have to make more tops so that I can do more longarm quilting.  Problem solved!!

What are you working on this week?  I would love to hear about your longarm quilting experiences, so please share in the comment below.  Thank you!!

Have a great week.

Margo

In addition to the linky parties on the sidebar, I also link up to:

 

Link to To Do Tuesday  hosted by Carol at Quilt Schmilt  

Brag About Your Beauties at From Bolt to Beauty

Peacock Party at Wendy’s Quilts and More 

Put Your Foot Down at For the Love of Geese

 

 

LongArm Quilting

 

This quilt top is made from a pattern called Scattered designed by Allison from Cluck Cluck Sew for the book Modern Quilts from the Blogging Universe published in 2012. 

I made this top in 2013 when I was teaching at a local quilt shop.  The quilt top is 60" x 72".  It has been in my closet since then.  Now I'm going to quilt this top and give it to a friend.  I already reserved a longarm machine time with the Quilting for Community this Thursday.  I'm excited to try the longarm again.  I haven't done any longarm quilting since the time I took the class in February and you can read about it here.  Wish me luck!!

Have a great week and thanks for visiting.

Margo

In addition to the linky parties on the sidebar, I also link up to:

 

Link to To Do Tuesday  hosted by Carol at Quilt Schmilt  

Brag About Your Beauties at From Bolt to Beauty

Peacock Party at Wendy’s Quilts and More 

Put Your Foot Down at For the Love of Geese

Staycation And A New Project

 Hi there everyone,

It's been so hot here in Southern California.  We decided to do a staycation and take it easy for a few weeks.  Everyday, I would go into my vegetable garden real early in the morning and take care of my plants so that they will survive the heat.  It's the happiest time of the day for me.  I didn't sew much but did some reading and tried my best to get off my feet.  I was diagnosed with Mortons Neuroma on my right foot last month.   By the end of the day, my right foot would be in so much pain that I could hardly stand up.  Right now the doctor hasn't yet prescribed the injection and I hope he never will.  At the end of the day, I just soak my feet in a warm epsom salt solution.  It seems to help a lot.  Fingers crossed.....

I started the quilting on my denim quilt, but put it on hold right now.  There is a new, more urgent baby quilt that I have to make for a dear friend who is having a new grandson.  This will be the third baby boy quilt for this year.  The color theme is sage green.  I pulled out some fabric, bought some new pieces and started to make some blocks.  I randomly put them on the design wall as shown here.   I want to finish the top by the end of August.

 

In our Valley MQG monthly meeting last month, we had a chance to enjoy a trunk show from Linda and Carl Sullivan of Colourwerx.  I really like their ModDog pattern which I won as a door prize from Linda as seen here.  I think this pattern will be really cute for a baby quilt.

 

Thanks all for visiting and have a great week.

Margo

 

 

In addition to the linky parties on the sidebar, I also link up to:

 

Link to To Do Tuesday  hosted by Carol at Quilt Schmilt  

Brag About Your Beauties at From Bolt to Beauty

Peacock Party at Wendy’s Quilts and More 

Put Your Foot Down at For the Love of Geese

The Denim Quilt Continues

When you have an idea stuck in your head, what do you do?  I asked myself that question a lot lately.  It's clear to me that when this happened, I just have to try out the idea and see what the result will be.  That's what is going on with this denim quilt.  

I had this idea in my head about a month ago but I ignored it.  I made the first block as you can see it here and thought that by making more blocks, the pieces will fall into place like solving a jigsaw puzzle which I love to do.   I made more blocks but nothing seems to go well together and the nagging feeling got louder.  Then I said to myself, 'this is silly', and gave up on making more blocks to work with the first block.  I'll use those blocks for other Denim quilt later.  Instead, I start making the blocks based on the original idea I had.  Here are the pieces. 

 

Now, I feel that we're really going somewhere.  I'll continue to work on this until I get the final layout that I like.

What are you working on this week?  Are you liking it so far?  Are you having fun working on it?  

Thanks for visiting and may the Quilting fairy bless you with a great and fun sewing time.....

Margo

In addition to the linky parties on the sidebar, I also link up to:

 

Link to To Do Tuesday  hosted by Carol at Quilt Schmilt  

Brag About Your Beauties at From Bolt to Beauty

Peacock Party at Wendy’s Quilts and More 

Put Your Foot Down at For the Love of Geese

WIP in June and Wood Chips

No, this is not a garden blog but I took a break from quilting for a week to work in my yard.  Spring is over and there’s so much to do; clean up finished vegetable beds and get them ready for summer planting, finish putting wood chips on the ground as in the pictures here.

No, I'm not finished with the wood chips.  There are still more ground to cover but that's for next month.  I'm loving the progress so far.  

 

I’m still working on the denim quilt.  I made some more blocks which are different than the first one here.  Here are the new blocks.

 

I don't know where this going but we're going somewhere.  Have a great weekend everyone.  I'm linking up to June OMG Finish Link-up here.

Thanks for visiting.

Margo

In addition to the linky parties on the sidebar, I also link up to:

 

Link to To Do Tuesday here hosted by Carol at Quilt Schmilt  

Brag About Your Beauties at From Bolt to Beauty

Peacock Party at Wendy’s Quilts and More 

Put Your Foot Down at For the Love of Geese

Great News to Share and A Change of Plans

Last week, I received emails from the International Quilt Festival Houston 2023 that my quilts, 'Modern Time' and 'Inside Lines', had been accepted into the show.  Originally, I submitted the quilts under the category of  'In the American Tradition', but the jurors felt that they should be included in the premier showing of a category called 'A Twist on Tradition' instead.  The email also said that this new category didn't exist a week ago!  WOW!!

I've heard so much about the show in Houston from friends who have attended in the past.  This is my first time submitting into this show.  I randomly stumbled upon the show website two days before the deadline.  I'm glad I did, and super excited and honored to be included in this show.   I know what I'll be doing in the next few days; get the quilts ready for shipping to the show by June 23rd. 

A change of plans:

I have been looking at my first denim block all week.  I like all the color combinations, but I decided that I will put a break on making more blocks for now.  I've changed direction of this new quilt.  I'll show more pictures in the near future.

 

What are you working on this week?   

Thanks for visiting and have a fabulous week!

Margo

In addition to the linky parties on the sidebar, I also link up to:

 

Link to To Do Tuesday here hosted by Carol at Quilt Schmilt  

Brag About Your Beauties at From Bolt to Beauty

Peacock Party at Wendy’s Quilts and More 

Put Your Foot Down at For the Love of Geese

Monday Musing at Songbird Design

The First Denim Block

I started on the denim quilt and made the first block.

 

 

This block is 24" x 30" right now and I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it.  I used chalk to mark some half and quarter circles on just to see what it would look like.  It's a maybe.  I definitely will make some more blocks.  See if you can tell which part of the jean the middle block came from.  😆

My goal is to make at least 3 more blocks and start putting them together this month.  Go to the Elm Street Quilts to see more June OMG. 

What are you working on this week?

Have a great week and thanks for visiting.

Margo

Resume Working on the Philanthropy Quilt Top

After putting it on hold, I picked up the charity project again.  You can read about it here.   This one is for my Valley MQG's philanthropy which I had in my possession for a few months now.  

I knew it would be daunting to piece all the blocks together because the blocks were made from many volunteers and there are so many seams to match.   Whenever I have to tackle a project like this, I would turn on my favorite songs, take a deep breath, pick up two pieces and start sewing.  After a few hours, I got the top done.   

 

Now I can pass it on to another volunteer for quilting.  I love the group effort to get things done.

I started pulling out some denim jeans and fabric that I’ve been collecting.  My SIL has been giving her old jeans to me as well. Some denim fabric I have are very dark, intense blue colors. I crossed my fingers and threw them in a washing machine with bleach and let the whole thing soak for additional 10 minutes during the wash cycle.  These are some of the pieces that I got out of the dryer.

 

     

It will be interesting to see what would come out of all these pieces.  I'm ready to go down the rabbit hole.

Thanks for visiting and have a great day!

 

 

In addition to the linky parties on the sidebar, I also link up to:

 

Link to To Do Tuesday here hosted by Carol at Quilt Schmilt  

Brag About Your Beauties at From Bolt to Beauty

Peacock Party at Wendy’s Quilts and More 

Put Your Foot Down at For the Love of Geese

 
  

The Pantone Quilt Challenge 2023 and May OMG is done

This is my first time participating in the Pantone Quilt Challenge.  Many thanks to the hosts Sarah Ruiz and Elizabeth Ray.  I am working with Paintbrush Studios fabric in the color Cherry Blossom and Raspberry.  Here is my original fabric pulled for this project.

I ended up not using any yellow or white/grey background. I did add Moda grunge green, and different black and white fabric.  The constructions of the quilt top was painless and went pretty fast.  Basting was done next, and I determined to do the best I could so that I wouldn’t have any problem during the quilting.  I have to admit, in the past, I didn't pay much attention to this step, hence I often had problems with puckering.  This time I spaced the pins a little closer than usual and it seemed to pay off.  The quilting went well and was finished with plenty of time to work on the binding, so I thought.  

After squaring up the quilt, I saw that the edges of the quilt were rippled like a wave, especially the area where I used my Juki machine.  How could it be?  Did I stretch the quilt too much while sewing?  What to do then?  I decided to block the quilt by laying it on my design wall on top of a big table and spraying water along the rippled edges.  Then I put pins about an inch apart along the edges to flatten them out and left the quilt to lay flat over night.  The next morning, I was pleased to see the ripples were gone and all the edges were flattened out.  Then I proceeded with the binding.  What a great feeling when I put the last stitch on the binding!!  Here are the finished quilt pictures of the front and back.

 

 

For this wall hanging, I used 100% cotton muslin and Kona Silver on the back.  While I was taking the pictures, I realized I love the back as much as the front.  Don't the pictures above look like I made 2 minimalist quilts?  I love how the shadows from the front came through the back so much that I will explore this design concept more in the future.  

Quilt Stats:

Size:        42.5" x 52"

Fabric:    Various 100% Cotton and 

                PBS - Cherry Blossom and Raspberry

Bating:    Hobbs 80/20

Quilting threads:    Wonderfil Specialty Threads 

Quilted on:    Juki TL98E and Bernina 1080

I love doing challenges.  It gives me an opportunity to do things that are out of the ordinary for me.  Before this project, Magenta was not a go-to color for me.  I found that many colors look amazing with it too.  I still need to improve my basting and quilting process.  About 60% through the quilting, I had to change a machine from Juki to Bernina.  I like using the walking foot on both machines.  Even though the Bernina is a lot older machine, it's still sewing great and produces amazingly smooth stitching lines.   Go to here to check out other great OMG finishes.

On to the next project; I think I like to work with Denim fabric next.  What's under your sewing needle?  I hope you're having fun working on something. 

Thanks for visiting and have a great week.

Margo

In addition to the linky parties on the sidebar, I also link up to:

 

Monday's Sew & Tell

Link to To Do Tuesday here hosted by Carol at Quilt Schmilt  

Brag About Your Beauties at From Bolt to Beauty

Peacock Party at Wendy’s Quilts and More 

Put Your Foot Down at For the Love of Geese

June's Favorite Finish Monthly Linkup at Meadow Mist Design

A New Quiltmagic Room and May OMG

From the beginning of the year, I've tried to be more organized so that I can have a new sewing space.    I signed up to Declutter Challenge for 2023 with Karen Brown from Just get it done quilts.  It was very motivating for me to watch her Youtube channel, but then day to day following along was too overwhelming for me.  I got discouraged so I took a break from it but the ideas Karen shared are very helpful and I started the de-cluttering; at my own pace.

The first thing I did was clearing out the closet in our spare bedroom and moved my modest fabric stash in there.  For the past few years, that room has become a dumping ground for all sort of things that we don't know what to do with them.   There were computer parts, car parts, lots of old children's toys, and books.  With the help from my DH, we cleared them all out.  After many trips to the Goodwill, he took the old carpet off.  The most beautiful feature of the room is the hardwood floor.  We cleaned up some more so that I was able to move the first sewing table in.  

 

 

DH was helping me cleanup the soon to be my new sewing space

 

 More cleaning. My fabric stash in the closet with Franklin watching over and making sure that we're doing it right.  Franklin is a yellow ducky; he's my son's first stuffed animal.

 

 

The first sewing table moved in.  DH snatched this picture without me knowing.

More stuff got moved in and I started to decorate the room.

 

 

The first window cover went up next.  There is so much light streaming into the room.   Can you believe that I made this window cover in July 2020?  You can read about it in this post.

   

 

My mini called 'Funky Trees'

I called this room 'Quiltmagic' room.  The name Quiltmagic is my instagram account.  There is so much light in the room that makes me so happy every time I'm in there.  I'm glad that I put the fabric in the closet, away from the sun light.  The window cover fits perfectly!!  It gives me privacy but let the light in at the same time.  Now I'm set to make another one for the other window.  Right now I just use a top that I made sometime ago, as in the picture here.

 

 

Now both sewing tables are in the room.  I put a folding table by the window for cutting and ironing.  I'm testing it to see how this will work.  In a near future, I may move a sewing table by the window to see if it will work better.   I'm in my Quiltmagic room working on new ideas a lot.  I'll say that the room is 60% done.  Off course, there are a few things that still needed to be done, like a new coat of paint for the room, a new design wall, more shelves need to be put in...etc., but they can wait.  It will take a few more months for me to settle into the room.  I want to see if the placement of tables and things is ideal for the work flow in the room.   Right now I'm just so happy that I have a place of my own to do what I love.  No more sewing in the dining room.  

 

'Modern Time' - Pantone Quilt Challenge 2023

I'm excited to join this year's Pantone Quilt Challenge hosted by Sarah and Elizabeth.   You can read more about the challenge in this kick-off post.

Pantone color of  2023 is Viva Magenta.  Sarah did the work to match up solid colors from different fabric manufacturers and I am working with Paintbrush Studios fabric in the color Cherry Blossom and Raspberry.

 

A few weeks ago I made the first block

 Then I finished the top last week. 

 

'Modern Time'  44.5" x 54.5"

I set a goal to finish this quilt by the deadline on May 15. Check out the OMG link here. 

What are you working on this week?  Whatever it maybe, I hope you're having fun making it.

Thanks for visiting.

Margo 

 

 

In addition to the linky parties on the sidebar, I also link up to:

 

Link to To Do Tuesday here hosted by Carol at Quilt Schmilt

Brag About Your Beauties at From Bolt to Beauty

Peacock Party at Wendy’s Quilts and More

Friday Foto Fun at Powered by Quilting  

Put Your Foot Down at For the Love of Geese

April OMG Is Finished

I finally finished the baby quilt for a friend.  You can read about it here and here.  It took longer than I thought because I had to wait for a part I ordered for my Juki.  Here it is; washed and ready to be sent to its new owner. 

 

 

Quilt Stats:

Size:    42" x 54.5"    Before quilting

            40" x 52.5"    After quilting

            38" x 51"       After washing

Top:        100% cotton

Bating:    Warm and Natural

Backing:  100% cotton Flannel

In the past few months, with the help of my DH, I've been working on a new sewing space.  I should be able to share some pictures in a week or so.  I'm beyond excited and eager to get the room done.

What's you're working on this week?

Have a great week.

Margo

The Making of 2023 Pantone Challenge

Last week, I started working on the 2023 Pantone Quilt Challenge and made this block.

 

The fabric color is supposed to be magenta, but it looks really red in the picture.

I'm also making progress on the baby quilt last week.  I made the pieced back for it with the baby's initial.   Here it is on my design wall.

Now I'm all set to baste the quilt together and start the quilting.

What are you working on this week?

Happy sewing!!

Margo

Link to To Do Tuesday here hosted by Carol at Quilt Schmilt.

Pantone Challenge 2023 and OMG for April

I'm not quite sure what happened in March.  I was all set to join in the OMG, setting a goal for March to finish the baby quilt for a friend.  First, I forgot to link to the goal setting link-up for March.  Then life happened and we got so busy, I didn't accomplish my goal.  Anyway, here we are in April.  My OMG for April is to finish this baby quilt. 

 

This week, I also pulled out some fabric for the Pantone challenge and here they are.

 

The Pantone color fabrics are Raspberry and Cherry Blossom from Painters Palette.  I'm still thinking about the design, not sure yet what it will be.  I also have a few Grunge fabrics in there because I love them.  Again, this is not the final selection.  I may add or pull out something later on.  We shall see.

Hopefully, I'll get things together better this month than last and accomplish something. 

Thanks for stopping by and have a great weekend.

 

Margo