Givawasy Coming Up!!!

I have decided to give away a custom designed shopping tote when I reach 25 followers on my Blog! I found this absolutely adorable design that I want to try from Bijou Lovely. When I reach 25 followers, I will chose a winner using Random.org! Come along for the journey and join me!

Main piecing is done!

Completed Right Side

Here are some pictures of the piecing of the top...

Almost done piecing the Hanui Quilt!

Well, I spent all day today working on Reece's Hanui quilt! I finished piecing the top, except the borders. There will be a total of 4 borders a d the binding. I finished the 1st border and cut 2 more. This is all part of the modifications that I made to the original pattern, tweaking it up a bit! I will upload some pictures of today's progress.

Embroidering on the Plane!

Ok, so I had a long, boring flight from Cleveland to Dallas today. So, I figured this was a great opportunity to work on finishing up the embroidery of the Dragons on my sons Hanui quilt. Helped pass the time! It was funny, though. A guy a seat behind me freaked out over me having scissors and a needle. Really? Really? The scissors are 2" big and my needle is like an inch! Grow up! The flight attendant laughed and told him it was perfectly fine. He watched me the entire flight like I was a terrorist! Lol - this is why I usually fly First Class! (Unfortunately there want 1st on this flight!). Happy quilting all!

Hanui Quilt (#3)

Here is some of the hand embroidery that I am doing around the dragon...

 I have embroidered all around the dragon in Black and highlighting the red with Embroidery as well.

 Filling in the whiskers with silver...

An overall look at the panel.

Quilt #3 is 'In Progress'! Reece's 17th Birthday Quilt

Ok.... so, no break for the weary! LOL. As soon as I finished my grandma's quilt, my son decided he wanted one for his birthday. And do kids ever ask for anything easy? NO! He decided that he wanted an Asian Quilt (we are Asian, after all!) and picked a Hanui (Kimono) Quilt from Susan Briscoe's book "Japanese Quilt Inspirations". OUCH! so, we went to JoAnn Fabric and Hobby Lobby and picked out some beautiful Japanese fabric. I also ordered a few special pieces as well to showcase the sleeves. I did piece the sleeves together and cut the decorative center panel. Reece decided on a beautiful dragon fabric, but I was disappointed because it was rather flat. So, brilliant (or not!) me decided to hand embroider the fabric to make it beautiful and a showpiece of the quilt. I am almost done with that.... it has been worked on in Tennessee, Texas, New Mexico and Ohio... and in a plane above and between... But, if it turns out beautiful and my son loves it, that is all that I can ask for!

Here is the quilt design (Above) and the fabric for the sleeves (below)...

 This is the fabric for the rest of the quilt (excluding the centerpiece).

 Here I finished piecing the sleeves. This is the LEFT Sleeve.

 And here is the RIGHT sleeve.

 This is the Center Panel - As you can see, it is pretty, but rather flat after the gorgeous fabric of the sleeves...

So, my embroidery began! My next post will be an update on the Embroidery!

Quilt #2 - My Grandma's Quilt!

Ok, so shortly after I finished my grandpa's quilt, I had to start my grandma's! My grandma put in an order for a quilt in reds and green's, but not Christmas colors. So, the hunt for the perfect fabrics was on! I ended up mixing up a couple of delicious looking Moda charm packs and Jelly Rolls! Then the big question became, what kind of design??? I needed something easier (remember, only been sewing for a month!) but beautiful for my grandma. I really wanted this to be a quilt she would be proud of! Since I still wasn't great at finding quilt patterns that looked easy enough for me, I decided to make my own pattern. (Later, I realized that this pattern was nothing new... if I knew how to search, I could have saved myself a LOT of time! lol). I will admit, that I ended up making a BIG mistake - I figured that 2 1/2" jelly roll and 5" charm packs, perfect right? Uh, no, I ended up having to trim all my 5" squares! TONS of extra work, but worth it in the end!

 Here started the long process of the "random but organized" sorting and layout! In order to give it a bit of continuity, I used the jelly roll to create a a series of patterns.

 My Singapura Lil' Bit had to preside over the layout and give her approval...

Here I started stitching them into rows, then combined rows together until my quilt was completed.

 I used notes pinned to the rows in order to make sure that every row was properly stitched together this time!

 After I quilted the top, I used the leftover jelly roll pieces to make a matching pillow!

 I quilted inside the squares by 1/4" to make a nice design.

I attached the back.

 I used a pretty rose floral leftover from the quilt back of my grandma's quilt.

 Pillow is done! Now, back to finishing the quilt!

 I made a biased binding and attached it to the quilt ot finish it off. I used a long patchwork design to make it interesting. I quilted the top in a cross square design and hand quilted the border.

 On two sides, I used a running heart border...
And this design on the opposite two sides! (The blue is the fabric washable marker)

 All done!

I am quite happy to announce that my grandma loved the quilt and pillow!