Fabric goodies from Lancaster PA

I have the BEST business partner in the world!! Nellie went on the guild bus trip to Lancaster, Pennsylvania this week and look at all the yummy fabric goodies that she brought back for me!!
She is one AWESOME personal shopper - I can't wait to plan my next project using one of them.

All the loot!

Bee Creative jelly roll

Layer cake and charm packs

52 Week UFO Challenge - Project #15 - Stencilled Leaf Wall Hanging

Stencilled Leaves with Shiva Paintsticks

Over a year ago, Nellie and I took a surface design course with Elaine Quehl. We learned lots of techniques, one of which was using freezer paper stencils with Shiva Paintsticks. 

My UFO featuring Shiva Paintsticks stencilling.

We traced the stencils from Elaine's patterns and then cut them with X-acto knives. Using a stencilling brush, I filled in the stencils with both gold and green painsticks, blending them in the middle.

Close up of one leaf. 

 I trimmed the stencilled piece first and then picked fabrics for the inner border and outer border.

Once the borders were on it was time to mount it on the Gammill for quilting.

Quilt top ready for quilting.

 Here is a close-up of some of the quilting on the leaves. I outlined each of the leaves and then did some nested tear drops in the background.

Close-up of quilting

Here is the finished wall hanging. Project #15 is all finished!

Unfortunately, when I was looking for fabrics for the borders for the quilt I discovered MORE unfinished objects. Now my total is up to 49!! Good thing I have been working away at these projects faster than I first planned - 15 projects in 2 1/2 months is pretty good!!

52 Week UFO Challenge - Project #14 - Wool appliqué heart candle mat

MORE hearts!!

I've said it before... I love wool hearts!!

I started this appliqué piece almost two years ago to do a wool appliqué demo at our local quilt shop. The hearts had been blanket stitched, so I added some embroidery stitches and cut a backing from another piece of navy wool.

Cutting a backing from another piece of navy wool.

I decided to add some buttons to the appliqué piece and that was just what was needed.

Sewing on the buttons.

 The final step was to blanket stitch around the edge of background in order to secure the backing.

The candle mat has been blanket stitched around the edge.

 Project #14 is complete!

The finished candle mat.

Sewing and Quilting a Hexagon Lap Quilt

52 Week UFO Challenge - Project #13 - Using up my leftovers

I just loved the look of my hexagon table runner, so awhile ago I cut the left overs from the fat quarter bundle into 3" hexagons and triangles and took the stack with me to the quilting retreat last November. 

I came home with most of the triangles and hexagons pieced together, but the size was awkward and I wasn't too sure what to do with it.

Pieced hexagons and triangles.

I trimmed the top and bottom of the pieced section to make them straight.

Trimming the top and bottom.

I had quite a few triangles and hexagons left over, so I decided to make two more sections to put on the top and bottom of the quilt to make it longer. Unfortunately I didn't have enough of the triangles to piece the sections in the same manner as the original section, so I needed to cut some of the rectangles into pieces that could be used to join the hexagons into a line.

Leftover hexies and triangles.

Trimming the hexagons.

I used these pieces and the leftover triangles to sew the hexagons into two rows for the top and bottom of the quilt.

The top row.

 Afterwards I trimmed the triangle edges off to make the two rows straight.

Trimming the top and bottom rows.

 Next, I auditioned a few fabrics to find the best one to use for the sashing. I decided that the medium grey fabric was the best.

Picking a sashing fabric.

I added one sashing strip to the top of the centre panel and one to the bottom and then added the two hexagon rows. The next step was to add the outer border.

The borders and sashings have been added. Now it is time to quilt.

I decided to quilt the entire top with this water ripple design.

 After quilting and adding the binding the lap quilt is all done! I really love the finished quilt. Thirteen UFOs are done!

52 Week UFO Challenge - Project #12 - Hexagon Table runner

LAST March I started sewing 1" hexagons together by hand just so I would have something to work on while I was on vacation in Florida. Last August I posted some Tips for Hand Sewing Hexies and now FINALLY I am finishing my hexagons into a table runner.

One of the reasons that it took so long to finish this project was that I really wasn't sure HOW to finish it. I didn't want to bind around all of those corners and I didn't want to cut off any other edges to make the sides straight. Finally I thought of a solution - I would appliqué the hexagons to a background fabric. After trying a few different ones, I decided on a Stonehenge light grey.

My finished hexagons previewed on a grey background.

The next step was to remove all of the hexagon templates from the back of the pieced runner. First I pressed the piece really well to make sure that the edges were nice a crisp.

The hexagon templates.

Popping out the hexagon templates.

The templates have all been removed.

The next step was to use my 505 Spray to spray the back of the entire piece and then to centre it onto the grey background.

The back of the hexagons sprayed with 505 Spray.

After the hexagons were stuck to the background I stitched around the outside of entire piece to secure it to the background.

Stitching the hexagons to the background.

 My next step was to layer the background with batting and a backing. I then used my walking foot to quilt straight lines down the entire quilt.

Close-up of the quilting lines.

Straight line quilting with my walking foot.

I wanted to add a little bit of the teal to the binding, so I decided to try out the Magic Binding tutorial that I found online. That little extra teal was just what I wanted!!

The magic binding!

Here it is! The finished table runner! I just love how it turned out and now I'm thinking of other ways to appliqué pieced hexagons to backgrounds!!! And wouldn't you know it...I have MORE hexagons left so I guess that means another UFO :)

The finished hand pieced hexagon table runner.