Finished Guitar Quilt!

I finished quilting and putting the binding on the guitar quilt for my dad last night.  Overall, I'm really pleased with how it turned out.

I used a light blue for the binding and I really think it goes well with the different shades in the background fabric.  All of the fabrics used in this quilt are my own hand dyed fabrics that I've been hoarding over the past couple of years.

I did a simple outline around each of the fused applique pieces and did a wood grain quilting motif in the background.  I figured the wood grain quilting would be appropriate given that guitars are made of wood. I really like how densely quilting the background made the guitars pop more in person.

As you can see, we got a dusting of snow this week.  I took these pictures as I was waiting for my car to warm up and was distracted by the cold, so I forgot to take a picture of the back. I used a similar hand dyed light blue for the backing fabric.

This is a Christmas gift for my Dad, who has been playing guitar since he was a little boy.  His guitars are to him as my sewing machine is to me.  Of course, he as a lot more guitars (and other musical instruments - base guitar, mandolin, banjo, keyboard, etc.) than I do sewing machines. 

A Quilter's Gathering

Last weekend I spent some time at A Quilter's Gathering in Manchester, NH.

I took a class with Robbi Joy Eklow and made this wall hanging which will be a Christmas present for my dad. He's been playing guitar for 50+ years, so I'm sure he'll love it.  I made it with all of my own hand dyed fabrics.

I'll share more pictures of the quilt in a future post once I dig my camera out and take some pictures of it since this one was taken on my phone.  My goal is to finish it by Christmas, so hopefully soon.

I also began making this quilt top (the petals aren't attached to the center yet) that night as KK and I were hanging out in our hotel room after the class and before our dinner reservation. This one is lower on my finish list, but I'm really liking how it's coming out, so hopefully I'll finish it soon.

On another note, my Dazzling Diamonds quilt is a finalist in the Blogger's Quilt Festival in the Doll/Mini quilt category.  I'd love it if you voted for my quilt. 

What to do with no machine?

Last weekend I was sewing away, trying to finish the stars for the border of my Christmas BOM when my machine started to make a squeaking noise.  I gave it a little oil and it sounded much better, for all of about 30 seconds.  After that 30 seconds my needle shattered.  I stopped sewing immediately because I wasn't using any pins, so I knew I couldn't have hit any pins to cause my needle to shatter.  I'm thinking my machine is out of alignment, so it's now at the sewing machine doctor's office for the next few weeks.  Hopefully it will be an easy fix.

So, what does one do with no machine?  I decided to make a little fused mini quilt top.

I made this using some hand dyed fabrics that I dyed over the past few years.  It's slightly larger than this mini quilt that I made last year.

Once I get my machine back I'll machine quilt it and hang it up next to it's cousin quilt.

At least I'll have a machine in good working order and lots of stuff cut out for the upcoming retreat next month.

Reverse Applique

Last Saturday we had our monthly BMQG meeting where Pippa taught us her reverse applique technique. Below is what I was able to make during the lesson.

I liked this hand sewing technique and could see myself taking this along with me on trips to have some handwork to do.

I used some of my hand dyed fabrics for this and I think I'll probably make a small wall hanging out of this.  I'll do a bunch of different types of circles in many sizes and colors.  

Mug Rug is Finished

and it's hanging up in my quilting room on the side of my storage unit.  I just couldn't bring myself to actually use it as a mug rug. 

I love it.  The only thing I would change would be the quilting in the purple.  I was going for a different look but when I got going I just didn't have the space to do it in such a tiny area and the looping sippling just kinda came out.  I thought about redoing it, but I decided against that since there were two layers of fusible web in that layer and I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to hide the holes.

My First Mug Rug

Last month at our NEMQG meeting we learned a new binding technique.  To help us practice we were all asked to bring a mug rug to bind.  I've been admiring all of the mug rugs I've been seeing out in the blogosphere and Flickr but never really decided to make one, until now.

For this, I finally cut into my stash of hand dyed fabrics.  I've been saving them for a special project, but I had won some fat 16th hand dyed fabrics a while ago and I decided that this was the perfect use for them. 

I cut the purple and orange fabrics in some wavy lines and cut them in half.  I had ironed on some Wonder Under on before cutting and had removed the paper backing.  I was trying this method after seeing Frieda Anderson show this method since she claims she never gets the stray pieces of fabric when cutting this way.  I then ironed the orange and purple fabrics together on the paper backing I had removed before trimming and ironing it onto the green fabric. 

This whole mug rug was an improv project that I experimented with as I went along.  After attaching the purple and orange piece to the green I then cut that down into a wavy piece.

I used my 18mm rotary cutter for this because I had more control and could make the wavy edges better than I could with your standard 45mm rotary cutter.  I would highly recommend that you invest in a small rotary cutter for projects like this.

Once I added the Green I felt like there was still something missing, so I found a nice, bright yellow fabric and placed the piece on top of that.  It really popped and I decided to go with it.

Voila!  At this point I did some quick quilting to get the mug rug ready for the meeting.  I don't have any pictures of that right now, but I'll show some soon.  I just need to get my camera out.  I'm in the middle of hand sewing the binding down to the back, which shouldn't take too long. 

I'm probably going to hang this in my sewing room on the side of my new bookshelf instead of using it as an actual mug rug.  It took a lot for me to cut into my hand dyed stash, and I just can't bring myself to put food or drinks on it.  Maybe some day, but not now.