An ending and a beginning :)

December 1 I had hoped to be able to start on my next project… but instead was still Slow Stitchin 🙂  I blog frequently on Sunday’s with Kathy here… she offers a link up if you are doing something quilty by hand or machine 🙂  This week I just left her a nice message and trudged along to finish this table topper 🙂

YIPEEE!!!!!

Do you like my take on homespun stitching???

 I used perle 12 cotton thread and backstitched those angels in each diamond… there are 6 in the family this is going to.. and angel for each person 🙂  Then I signed it tone on tone!

Here are the two together…

do you have a fave ???  They are about 18″ across now 🙂  Read more about the first one here.

December 2 I officially started my honey’s quilt that will be called THE MAN quilt for now 🙂  He hasn’t named it yet! lol  And I don’t care if it doesn’t have a name as long as he names it before it is done…

This quilt started from a pattern I was gonna follow… but is ending with my own designs… I have 2 types of blocks…

These still need to be trimmed up to all be the same size… and no dogears please! lol

You see patterns are always tricky for me… I never understand what they are telling me but if they have lots of pics or vids… I do fine … so when I made the John Deere square in a square too big for the pattern I had to decide if I wanted to continue on or just make it my own design… I made it my own after consulting the reciever.. my honey 🙂

All of this quilt is being sewn with Fiona!

Read more about her here 🙂  I recently acquired her and yesterday with LOTs of help from my honey… we turned this wrinkley puckery seam

into wonderful stitches that lay nice and flat with top and bottom tensions that ROCK!

I simply changed the foot that was on her… rethreaded top and bottom… and read the manual to make further adjustments 🙂  My honey helped me soooo much because he really wants this quilt sewn together on THIS machine we found and resurrected together 🙂

This is the layout I have planned for this quilt…

I just drew it out last night… how do you plan out your projects?? Are you a drawer on graph paper like me or can you take it straight from your head to fruition???  Or do you play around with a computer program you enjoy… I have never used one and figure I don’t yet know what I am missing so I stick to graph paper, pencil, and erasers too! lol

I have learned how to make a square in a square… using tips I learned from Bonnie Hunter I did opposite sides on these then ironed then the two remaining opposite sides then ironed… much easier this way… and chain pieced them turning them out really fast… all 16 cut and assembled yesterday!  Whoop 🙂

I have learned how to make mitered corners.. thinking this was not possible for me and it is really very easy … I watched a couple youtube vids as that is my preferred way to learn but they moved too fast… so I stepped back to one of my fave blogs for tutes and found THIS!  A great tute showing the way to sew the seam… how to measure for it… easy peasy… but time consuming as it is very accurate sewing to make it happen… and lots of ironing on these blocks too… so take THAT into consideration.

I am making 16 of each block… I only need 15 and have potentially set aside one of each that didn’t turn out well… one I will surprise my honey and make a pillow from… the other is gonna be a wall hanging for his memory wall in the Garage 🙂  Yipee for extras with a purpose!!!

thanks for reading this rather long post!  Hope you leave a comment.. I will respond 🙂

Have a wonderful rest of your week… as for me.. I will be listening to the gently hum of Fiona 🙂
Linking to:
Sugar Bee Crafts ~ Take a look Tuesday here
Freshly Pieces ~ Wednesday WIP here 
My Quilt Infatuation ~ Needle and Thread Thursday here
Whooping with Sarah ~ Confessions of a fabric addict here

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