My first mini quilt!

Last Saturday, I was browsing on Pinterest and saw a really cute mini quilt from samelia'smum.com and decided that I would make one.  I didn't use the tutorial, but you can go to the tutorial here.

From the picture, I started free hand drawing the design on a pattern paper and cut out a few bird shapes from scrap that I have.  I've done some free motion quilting before, but it's been a long time, 5 years to be precise.  Wow, that's a long time since my daughter's college quilt!  I'm really out of shape on this one, but I thought I'd give it a try.  I need practice, right?

I have some white linen fabric left over from my skirt, so I used that for the quilt top.  I guess I'll find out how this linen fabric will look as a quilt top, I told myself while I cut it into 18 inch-square.  With Wonder Under, I fussed the bird shapes on the top.  I layered the back, batting and the top, pin basted them and I was ready to give it a try.  Before I started on the real quilt, I took some muslin, scrap batting and practice the free motion for awhile.  I was all over the place.  Then I was ready to start on the mini quilt.

I sew around the edge of the bird bodies twice, 4 times on the tails.  I sew 3 times on the wire, and 4 times on each letters.  At first I didn't plan to do any quilting, so I squared up the quilt and sew binding on it.  Here is the picture.

I didn't like the way it looked.  The linen looks puffy even though I pin basted all three layers really well.  I threw it in the washer, hoping that it will look different when it came out.  It looked worse.  Not only that it's still puffy, the linen top was all wrinkled.  So I did some free motion quilting in the background area.  The quilting is supposed to be loops all over.  Here is the picture.  Do you think it looks better, or worse?

Over all I had fun making this project, and I learned a few things from it.

1. Never use linen which is not intended for quilting.
2. Learn to use my new digital camera, or go take a class, so I'll take better picture. 
3. Practice, practice and more practice free motion quilting.

Have a blessed week, everyone!

My garden for 2015

I took a break from quilting to work in my garden.  This year I started late because of my trip, so I went into the garden right away after I returned.  I put 5 tomatoes and 5 sweet basil in last week to start and will get more tomatoes this week.  The sun is getting hot and it's perfect for them.

I also started something new; I started a garden blog.  It's called 'New Urban Garden'.  In that blog I'll share all the things I do in my garden and I'd love for all my quilting friends to visit that site.

Have a blessed week!

EPP hexagon on T-shirt

Hand sewn project in Bangkok, Thailand continue

This week, I decided to use the hexagon shapes that I've been making on a T-shirt for my niece.  I also made a few leaves with the same EPP technique.  I put the smaller leaves on top of the bigger ones and using dark and light contrast fabric for interest.  I hand sew the flower and the leaves on a ready made T-shirt.  It's a quick and pretty easy gift before I return home to the US.

Here are some pictures:

My trip here is coming to an end.  I'm returning to California next week.  I'll miss Thailand, all the shopping excursions with my sister and of course, the food.  My mother is stable and in pretty good health.  She is one strong 92-year old lady.  I'm so blessed to have such a strong and courageous mother.  Because of her, I was able to go to school and earned a degree from college.  I hope I can take good care of my children the way my mother took care of us.  I'm grateful to be able to spend some time with her and my siblings.

My next posting will be from Los Angeles, California.  Until then have a blessed week.