My Friday Night Sew In has turned into a Saturday Morning Sew In both times I have participated! Although I did cut out and sew a little on the apron last night, I did the majority of the work on it this morning. I was just too tired to work on it past 8:00 last night.

I had no one to take a picture, so I took this one in the bathroom mirror:



Close up:



You can see the other side of the apron in this picture.



I have some small scraps of this fabric left and am thinking ...

I made this "Jungle Babies Two" quilt top during June's Friday Night Sew In. This weekend I pin basted it, machine quilted it, made the binding and sewed the binding on. These pictures were taken early this Monday morning.





I made this little quilted tote bag/purse Thursday night. Its hanging on one of the old doorknobs in the farmhouse.




I hope to do more sewing today and tomorrow while I am still off work.

A couple of quilting smiles for you today:

Quilting forever.... housework whenever!

A clean house is a sign of a broken sewing machine!

Last night I joined in with many other crafting ladies doing a Friday night "sew in". I didn't decide what I was sewing until the last minute, but had been wanting to make another "Jungle Babies" baby quilt. I had most of the fabric needed already on hand and made a quick stop on the way home from work yesterday to pick up a little more of the Jungle Babies Fabric with the big animal faces.

My intent was to make a quilt top from start to finish and so I chose this simple pattern. As hard as I ...

Its hard to throw away even the smallest scraps like these in my sewing room trash can!

Here are more 9 patches for the Summer of 2010 9 patch challenge. I've made 25 and its the 18th of June, so I am ahead of the game!

Reds and blues:


Lavender and purple:



Golds and greens:



Blacks and reds:



Doing different color combinations like this gives me ideas for future quilts color schemes!

I still haven't made up my mind what sewing project I'll work on tonight at the Friday Night Sew in! I have so many things ...

Time spent on an afternoon project was a joy... seeing my grandson play with the project... priceless!











My inspiration for making my grandson this neat Thomas the Train Quilted Travel Play Mat came from some tutorials I have seen that used fabric featuring cars, trucks and streets. Since my grandson loves Thomas the Train and this Thomas the Train fabric is the only one my local fabric store carries that would work, I decided to switch from cars to trains. And since I am a quilter at heart, I put a quilty twist on it. It has pockets for the ...

9 patches are so fast to go together! I started a week late on the one a day 9 patch summer challenge, but I'm already almost caught up.

Eight are complete:



Two are cut out and ready to put together tonight:



Today is June 10th, so since I will have 10 blocks done today, I'm caught up! Doing one square a day from here on out shouldn't be a problem. If I miss a day I can just do 2 the next day.

My 9 patch squares are 6 1/2 inches, since I am using 2 ...

I have been wanting to participate in a quilt along for a while and have been quite tempted by several that I have seen on some blogs. I was getting so excited about them and then I realized that I would probably not have time to do a very complicated quilt.

Also, the fact that I already have some quilts in progress helped me decide that I'd better do something simple. And I really wanted to use fabric that I already have, especially some of the scrap soup that I have accumulated.

So when I saw this quilt along ...

OK, I've always loved Friday nights. After a long work week, it is a night to let my hair down, put on the lounging wear (aka pjs, sweats, etc.) and anticipate the two day weekend coming up.

I've seen The Friday Night Sew In on blogs in the past and was intrigued, so I'm joining in for June. The date is June 18th, so there's plenty of time to plan.

Go to CRAFTY VEGAS MOM to sign up and read the "how to" of this fun night of sewing! Normally, Heidi of HANDMADE BY HEIDI hosts ...

Thanks to the long Memorial Day Weekend here is a FINISH! This quilt is one of two that I have worked on for quite a while using the leaders and enders system that I learned at Quiltville. This week I am working on the other one which is identical, except for the borders, and have made quite a bit of progress.



This is a first for me in a couple of ways. One, I washed and dried the quilt before giving it away, which gives it that crinkly quilt feel and secondly, I have listed it in my Etsy Shop ...

Good Tuesday morning to everyone!

I still haven't sewn a stitch since moving to our new home. But, I have been slowly organizing the sewing room and am ITCHIN TO BE STITCHIN! I thought I'd show you a few pictures of the "organized chaos" in the sewing room.

The cutting table with labeled totes stored underneath:



The sewing machine set up so I can see out the window. The view is of trees, a field and a bird feeder:



More Storage:



Odds and Ends - Scraps





I hope to show some sewing progress soon!

Believe it or not, this is better than it was a week ago! I'm going to go through all my boxes and totes of fabric and purge some of the scraps and other pieces of fabric that I probably won't ever use. I am resistant to throwing away ANY fabric or ANY scraps. But the time comes when this must be done so that the sewing area will be more efficient and..... well... pretty!

Can't wait to show a picture of the sewing room after it's all organized.

My handmade Valentine's gift for my hubby, including his favorite candy: Caramel Cremes.



This quilt has been hanging around in my sewing room for 2 or 3 years and I have finally finished it! It originally was planned to be a queen size quilt for my stepson. The quilt never quite looked like I wanted it to and then my stepson ended up going to a different college. So about a month ago I decided to finish it as a "throw size" quilt for my hubby for Valentine's Day.



I wanted it to be a surprise. Do you ...

For More Project Ideas, please visit MY COUNTRY HOME for Whatcha Working on Wednesdays.



I have been making these little quilted bags from the tutorial found on the PS I quilt blog HERE. Aren't they cute?

This is the original version which turns out to be 5 inches deep by 7 inches wide.



The larger version is 6 1/2 inches deep by 11 inches wide.



These aren't really quilt related, but when not quilting, I also make clothespin bags, which are for sale in my Etsy Shop.

Here are a few:





And a fabric bag:

"EARLY AUTUMN"


The plans for this quilt were first born in my mind well over a year ago when I posted about my plans for the cozy cabins pattern found in the January, 2009 issue of Quick Quilts in these posts: HERE,HERE and HERE.

The year 2009 for me was a year of learning new quilt making techniques, especially free motion machine quilting. I really love this quilting method and am so happy that I am able to free motion quilt on my vintage Singer sewing machine SHOWN HERE. I hope to improve my machine quilting skills this year ...

I was scared to try it, but its working!!!!!

Free Motion Quilting a large quilt:



The Set Up:



I put the ironing board in front of the sewing machine at the same height as the sewing machine and a tv tray on the left hand side. This is essential to keep the quilt from hanging over the side and back.

I quilted about 1/3 of the quilt this past weekend and hope to finish it in a week or so.

A project in its beginning stages. I have the squares for three rows of the quilt pinned in stacks...



Two quilts ready to be quilted.....



I'm ready to be in my sewing room, happily and contentedly working on my quilts. November and December are too busy for much quilting. But never fear! January, February and March are perfect for "getting lost in the fabric"!

In 2010, I am planning to make some baby quilts to be listed for sale in my Etsy Shop. I also look forward to posting more regularly on this quilting blog in 2010!

Stay tuned!




.

I've used this quilt for many different purposes over the years. One year it hung over the banister overlooking the living room. One year it served as a tree skirt. Other years it hung over the back of a love seat.

This year I thought it went well with the blue recliner and this little "Friends are the Best Presents" pillow.

I think a larger Christmas quilt would be fun to make! But, do I really need to add another Quilt to my "To Do List"?????? One more won't hurt, I supposed.... :o)

I recently completed two quilts and made these two quilt labels:





My sister gave me this book of "iron on" quilt labels. I am excited to try one of these out! The directions say to color the labels with crayons and markers. I'm not too sure about using crayons.... but I think an ironed on label in plain black and white would be nice. I could then fill in the blanks with my black permanent fabric pen. At some point, I may do a trial label using crayons and/or markers to see how it turns out before sewing ...

As promised in Friday's post, I worked diligently on this quilt in my spare moments over the weekend and am happy to report that it has been finished and delivered to my friend who will be presenting it to Sweet Savannah's Mama-to-be on Saturday at a baby shower.



Here's the quilt being free motion machine quilted. This is the second quilt that I've attempted this type of quilting on and it went very well.



I put my ironing board at a lowered position behind my sewing machine to make a surface for the quilt to lay ...

Since my quilting time is very limited.... to weeknights after work, Saturdays after housework and Sundays after church.... I can sometimes feel stressed out trying to do it all. This week I felt the need to step away from all after work quilting to catch my breath a little bit.

But, now that the weekend is almost here its time to quilt!

This weekend I would like to finish "Sweet Savannah". Here's how it looks so far.



You can see in the picture that I need to sew the already pinned on bottom border, and cut and sew on ...

Recently I did an internet search to see if Georgia Bonesteel had a website or blog and discovered that she has a blog HERE. I left a couple of comments and I was so thrilled to receive a personal email from Ms. Georgia Bonesteel and even more thrilled to receive this signed copy of her latest book in the mail.



If you aren't familiar with Ms. Bonesteel, she is a well known quilting author and teacher. She is the inspiration that got me started in quilting and I still to this day go back to her original 1980s book ...

The bigger the quilt gets, the more the workout! I never knew that making a quilt was such hard physical work, until I actually made one. But, once the quilt is finished, its worth the work.

Saturday, I worked on preparing "Early Autumn" for quilting. The quilt is queen size, so it needed a big empty floor space to be worked on. In the living room I have to move furniture out of the way and I knew if I didn't finish by lunch time, I'd seriously be in the way of other family members coming and going ...