Holiday quilting

 It's been a productive week, lots of quilting happened. From the start to the end, picking fabric to binding each one.  And all from the stash. First up a 10 degree round wedge topper for the holidays. I picked the focus fabric, the holly one first and then picked the coordinating and background fabric. I have a tutorial for this topper on my tutorial page if you are interested.

Definitely time to finish some snowmen for the shop. This is my Snow Dudes pattern. I pieced two of these and only quilted the one for now. 

Buffalo Plaid has been a favorite in the past and I hope they continue to be. Two of these pieced and only one quilted for now. I have two other table runners and a wall hanging I am working on too. 

I received some sad news yesterday, my Wisconsin quilting friend of 20 years passed away recently. We connected online over our knitting machines and then learned we were both quilters. I have been to her house several times while we attended the Wisconsin quilt show and always looked forward to when we could get together. The last two years she invited me to a quilt retreat that she attended with friends from her area. I am already missing her as we texted often sharing our ideas and accomplishments of our quilting projects. I knew something was going on with her health this summer, but wasn't expecting the end to come so soon. My heart goes out to her family. RIP Sandi B. 

Linking with Free Motion Maverick's, Beauties Pageant, Finished or Not Friday, TGIFF

A little patriotic

It's no secret I like work with red, white and blue fabrics especially at this time of year.  I pieced three of these carpenter wheel toppers over the winter, they are all identical. This is the first one to the finish line. The Accuquilt carpenter wheel die was used to make this.

Quilted with my favorite freehand design called hook swirl.

The backing is from a bolt I bought at Marshall Dry Goods.  I really need to use up some scraps(maybe next time) and piece my backings but this was quick to finish with yardage.

The 10 degree wedge round topper is a favorite to piece and looks great in lots of fabrics. I have a tutorial for this under my tutorial link at the top of this page.

Also quilted with the hook swirl design.

The backing.

We took an ATV trail to this mining town,no longer in service, and took a tour.  Years ago there were 5000 people living here.  Henry Wickenburg discovered gold here in 1863. If you are curious you can read more HEREAt Vulture City mining town we saw several sewing machines(I am sure they had to patch those miners clothes). 

A look of the room it was in. You can see the same sewing machine in the left side.

Another machine. 

A fun surprise to see quilts on the beds.

This one looks pretty white yet!

Linking with Wednesday Wait Loss, NTT 

More S swirl wedge runners

Yipee, I sold my first S swirl wedge runner a week ago.  Whenever I sell something it spurs me on to making another pretty quickly.  So I grabbed more Christmas fabrics(some are the same as the first one) and got busy cutting and sewing the strip sets for two Christmas ones and a fall one. 

Before long I had them all pieced.   I could put one bigger piece of fabric on the longarm and quilt the Christmas ones at the same time.  One of these landed in my Etsy shop and the other I will have for a local craft show that is in less than a month!!  How did fall arrive so darn early-hmmm I say that every year it seems. 

Last Wednesday I took a nice three hour drive over to Wisconsin to see a friend and go to the quilt show with her.  This show is the one put on by Nancy Zieman and is called Quilt Expo.  Next year the name will change to The Great Wisconsin Quilt Show.  It is always a fun show to attend, lots of vendors and great things to see and buy!  I was pretty proud of myself for not buying tons of fabric:0.  Only 6 fat quarters, and 4 patterns plus a little wool kit came home with me.  

This is one of the new patterns I whipped up yesterday.  It is from Bloomin' Minds.  I added the long outside orange and dark borders to make this table runner a bit wider.  I hope to quilt it today.  But isn't that pumpkin darling?  She has so many adorable patterns and at a great price.  

Linking with Look What I Made Monday

Addicted to 10 degrees

And that doesn't mean 10 degrees fahrenheit either!!  I am talking about the 10 degree wedge ruler.  I love working with this ruler.  Using my tutorial I created this fall fabrics one first. 

 It's always fun to see how they turn out.  The center circle is the last piece I figure what fabric I want to use.  And I don't even do that until the top is all pieced.  Here is #2 topper. 

And then it was time to make a Christmas one. 

With the edges being curved you have to make bias binding.  Not my favorite thing to do, but it is necessary.  I used to dread sewing the bias binding onto the curves.   But no longer, I have finally figured out what works for me.  You have to be sure not to stretch it while sewing.  Even the tiniest bit of stretch will keep your top from laying flat.  After sewing the binding on I press the binding outward and use a bit of steam. 

Here you see my fingers/hand slightly pushing the binding away from the topper, keeping it away from the steam of course!  I might press around the circle a couple of times making sure the binding is smoothed out before I machine stitch in the ditch from the front side. 

And then while pressing two halves of the Christmas one I accidentally laid them down side by side, with one of them upside down, and made a whole new style of wedge table toppers.  Since I wanted a round Christmas one I made yet another set of wedges! These wedges were cut with a wider section of the ruler.  And this was born, a wedge swirl!!   Be honest and tell me what you think of this design.

Linking with Midweek Makers, Wednesday Wait Loss