Monday, June 30, 2014
Happy Tones Quilt - Done!

My very first quilt - hope it's not too obvious!  It seems to have turned out okay...of course, it hasn't gone through the wash yet, not sure it will survive that.  I have a new-found respect for quilters....it's not easy!  And this is supposedly just a basic, simple quilt.  Thank goodness for YouTube and Bloggers, how did we ever learn how to do anything back in the day?

Front of the finished quilt:

Back:

The sandwich is pinned.  I used Fun Foam to cover the tips of the pins; just cut squares about 1/2" in size and poke them on the ends of the pins. Got this idea from Blair Stocker at: http://blairpeter.typepad.com/weblog/2013/03/how-i-baste-my-quilt-layers-together.html

Sewing w/the Janome AcuFeed Ditch Quilting Foot - fun!:

Wow - someone needs to straighten up this mess.


Now on to this quilt top...it's all pieced and I would love to try free motion quilting on this one, don't think I'll attempt that just yet.  The fabric is Twice as Nice by Riley Blake - love the red and turquoise.
  
The directions for Annik Miller's "Four's A Charm" twin size quilt can be found here:  http://www.minneapolismqg.com/2013_02_01_archive.html and here:  http://minimushrooms.blogspot.com/p/fours-charm-baby-quilt-pattern.html.  Her directions are very clear and concise, a necessity for a beginner like me.  Thank you
Annik - I love your Blog!
Saturday, June 21, 2014
My First Quilt Top!!!!


I've always wanted to see if I could make a quilt...a friend and I took a quilting class for beginners about 20 years ago where we made a little table top quilt. I really enjoyed making it but I guess I was busy w/kids, work, life in general and didn't go any further with it, but the idea of making a quilt was always in the back of my mind. Then one day recently I was looking at some Blogs and saw this post at Sew Adorable Fabrics: http://www.sewadorablefabrics.com/easiest-baby-quilt-ever/. The bright colors of the Happy Tones by Michael Miller fabric line are so fun and cheerful and I wondered if just maybe I could make a small quilt using these fabrics for our 6 month old granddaughter.


So after a little more searching I happened upon this site: http://gogokim.blogspot.com/2012/04/happy-weekender-on-moda-bake-shop.html and Kim's Happy Weekender Quilt. I liked the borders she added to make the quilt a little larger.  After watching several of Jenny Doan's (Missouri Star Quilt Co.) Youtube videos I felt brave enough to give it a shot and...tada!

It's a simple quilt and far from perfect but to tell you the truth, I'm surprised it isn't all wonky and misshapen.
 It's a bit large for a baby quilt and I still have a couple Happy Tones Charm Packs left so I think I'll make another smaller quilt for Kendall.  My plan is to try to straight-line quilt this one, we'll see.  My new Janome 7700 sewing machine is supposed to be delivered Monday, can't wait to see if I can get this thing quilted.