Quilting – Page 4 – Thimbleanna

The Dog Days

13 Comments / August 9, 2017 August 9, 2017 / Around the House, Chat, Quilting, Sewing

Well, I think I was on a little break again, only I didn’t take a trip this time LOL. I keep hoping something exciting will happen around here so that I’ll have something to blog about. But then I tell myself that these boring Dog Days are good. Very Good.

After a really busy May and June, July has been slow and wonderful. Our weather has been beautiful. Stunning, actually. The hot muggy summer days have been replaced by cool, perfect temps. I’m missing most of it while I’m locked away at work during the day, but I’m sure enjoying it when I get home in the evenings. We’ve had quite a bit of rain this summer and I think that’s why my flowers are doing so well. I’ve been slowly replacing a “vegetable” patch with a flower garden and it’s finally starting to look fairly decent. My favorite flowers are these pretty phlox. I have my gardener extraordinaire friend Pam to thank for these lovelies — I’d never really paid any attention to this variety of phlox until I saw her beautiful phlox when SweetiePie and I visited with her a few years ago.

My garden will never be as beautiful as Pam’s, but if these flowers look like this every year, I’ll be a happy camper. My little garden has taken a lot of experimentation — it’s hard to figure out what the rabbits won’t eat. So far, so good on the phlox. The asters and sweet william haven’t fared so well though — they’re mowed down regularly by the bunnies. Nasty Wabbits. These pretty little coreopsis are doing well too — I didn’t think I’d like this flower because they’re so little and wispy, but I love them!

In addition to little bits of gardening and pulling weeds, there have been lots of routine boring jobs around the house. We’ve cleaned a few closets and done some long overdue painting. And I’ve managed to sneak in a little sewing. I made myself a shirt from the Rifle Paper Co. fabric that I used to have in my little shop. The pattern is Simplicity 1279 — I took my time, enjoyed the process and I’m really happy with the results — it fits just right.

I also finished up a little throw quilt just for me and the tv. A year or so ago, I saw this adorable deer fabric at Hawthorne Threads (I was going to link to the fabric but I don’t see it listed anymore) and I HAD to have it. I LOVE deer. Among my best childhood memories are watching Bambi at the movie theater and sobbing while I read The Yearling, one of my very favorite books. Now I have a little quilt and I can cuddle some deer!

For the rest of the fabrics, I raided my little etsy shop and used the japanese dots for a border, some cuddle for the backing, and that fun japanese stripe for the binding. I think that stripe is just perfect — it matches those cute little black deer noses. The quilting is just some random machine quilting — easy peasy.

So, that’s it for an update — just wanted to check in. I hope you’re having a great summer!

XOXO,
Anna

The Doll Cradle

25 Comments / March 5, 2017 March 5, 2017 / Quilting

My Oh My. WHERE did the weekend go? I feel like it lasted about 2 hours! I was busy busy this weekend — time flies when you’re having fun!

One of my projects was to clean up this little doll cradle that MyDadLovesMeBestSister and I played with when we were little girls.

I always thought that it was a doll cradle, but MeMum said that she and BigDaddy bought it when I was a baby and I actually slept in it. (Which was a little horrifying because when we used it as a doll cradle, we’d put our babies in for a nap and the bottom would fall out and they’d end up on the floor LOL!) When my boys came along, they used it to hold their teddy bears and other stuffed animals. And somewhere in there, someone (BigDaddy or TheManoftheHouse) fixed the bottom so it wouldn’t fall out anymore.

Anyway, it’s been in the attic for about 25 years and now that FinallyAGirl will soon be playing with dolls, I decided I should get it out and clean it up. It was REALLY dusty and dirty, but it cleaned up pretty well. Look at the cute little vintage (because apparently I’m vintage too LOL) vinyl mattress.

A sparkly clean little cradle needs some new bedding, doesn’t it? This is where the little Goldilocks project I’ve been working on comes in …

I made a new little set for the cradle with a fat quarter pack (plus a few scraps from my stash for the applique) and a little yardage for the mattress cover. (Oooh, and the quilt looks crooked, but it’s really rectangular — I was taking the picture standing above it and I was a little off to one side.) The back of the little quilt and the pillow also came from the fat quarter pack and there were quite a few big pieces left over.

Now my old doll has a comfy new bed. Look how happy she is — smiling while she’s sleeping!

I used Cassie’s great tutorial for the little pillowcase (the fabric pieces were much smaller, but I used the same crochet instructions) and I love the sweetness it adds to the set.

I also did lots of big stitch quilting while I watched tv with MeMum. It was fun to quilt around the little applique pieces. Speaking of which, I had a few questions about the applique — I just enlarged a picture of the fabric on my computer and traced the basic shapes right from my monitor. Then I added a lot of embroidery for the little features (like jewelery, bow ties, etc.) because I’m not one of those people that can applique a piece of fabric the size of a sprinkle ;-D.

So, now, my baby is patiently waiting for FinallyAGirl to start playing with Dollies — we she can’t wait!

Have a great week!
XOXO,
Anna

Goldilocks and the Three Bears

20 Comments / February 20, 2017 February 20, 2017 / Quilting, Store

Just checking in around here because it’s been a few weeks since I’ve posted. How are things going out there? Not much excitment around here — which, I suppose is good. Even Valentine’s Day was pretty uneventful this year. I can’t believe I just said that either — how can Valentine’s Day be over already?

It’s mostly just work, eat, sleep, repeat around here, but we have had a little fun. We visited our cute little FinallyAGirl yesterday. She’s growing like a weed and cute as a button. No pictures though — we were too busy just playing with the baby. The weather has been amazing the past few days too — we’ve set record high temps and the kitty cats are loving all the fresh air at their screen door.

The other fun has been the arrival of the Goldilocks fabric by Jill Howarth. I first saw this line at quilt market — I think a year and a half ago — It was a LONG wait for it to finally be released.

I was so excited to get this fabric that I got the whole line for my little etsy shop — oops! Here’s the feature print — isn’t it cute? I LOVE those adorable bears.

I’ve been having fun playing with it and I’ve started a little applique project. I think it would have been easier to just cut the bears out of the feature fabric and applique them, but where’s the fun in that?

I plan to add some embroidery to the little bears too — to show some of the finer details that would be really hard to do with applique. We’ll see if this project goes according to plan LOL.

Hopefully I’ll be back soon with a finished project. In the meantime, have a great week!
XOXO,
Anna

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Irish Chain on Repeat

38 Comments / January 29, 2017 January 29, 2017 / Quilting

It’s been a quiet, although sad, weekend here in ThimbleannaLand. TheManoftheHouse left on Friday afternoon to be with his mother and, luckily, he was able to be with her before she passed away yesterday. We’ve been so lucky to have all four of our parents be with us for so long, but having them leave us so close to each other sure hasn’t been fun. ;-(

While I’ve been waiting for news and receiving updates, I’ve been hanging out with MeMum and working on the binding for my Bliss Quilt. Remember this one???

My archives show that I finished piecing her in 2011 and, after some debate (machine or hand quilting?), shipped her off to our hand quilter. In 2013, she returned, but didn’t have enough quilting. I waffled about what to do and started to fill in the quilting myself, but finally decided I’d never get it done. So, in early 2016, I took her back to the quilter to fill in the gaps. Our quilter has done a beautiful job, and I’m so happy that I sent her back to the spa for a second treatment.

When she came back from the spa the first time, I commented that the quilter probably didn’t do much quilting on it because all that red and aqua made her sick. Jan then commented that the reason was probably more likely that she hated quilting across all those pieced intersections. (Which I can totally relate to, now that I’m quilting an Irish chain quilt.) Interestingly, when the quilter came to those intersections, she only quilted them on the top of the quilt. I would never have thought to do that, but it’s a great solution to not quilting through all those layers of fabric. You’d think it would look bad on the back, but it looks like a series of dashed lines — very cool and certainly acceptable. You can bet that I’ll be using that little trick in the future!

All the fabrics are from Bonnie and Camille’s Bliss line, plus I added a solid red and aqua. The quilt is backed in one of the bliss prints and then bound in the red honeycomb dots (I probably should have used a stripe — the dots look a little wonky in places). This is a big quilt — 88″ x 88″ — nice and big for tucking in the sides on a double bed. And a perfect surface for a big fat kitty (who got kicked off right after this picture ;-D).

So, that’s all from here. I hope you have a good week — I’m looking forward to our family gathering, even if it’s for all the wrong reasons. ;-(

XOXO,
Anna

The Aunts Are Done!

36 Comments / September 25, 2016 September 25, 2016 / Quilting, The Aunts' Quilt

Well…How was your weekend? Mine was great — I finished the Aunts’ Quilt!

Ta-Dah!!!

Oh, how I loooove this quilt! It was SO fun to make! This quilt took a year to piece the top (it’s been almost two years since we started the Aunts’ Quilt Quilt-a-long) and then I sent the top to a hand-quilter (because I think a quilt with that much work deserves hand-quilting ;-D )and it took her almost a year to finish the quilting. As always, she did a beautiful job! My very favorite part is the cross-hatching on the applique blocks.

The pieced blocks aren’t as heavily quilted, but that’s ok — the applique blocks are really the stars of the quilt. We basically did 1/4″ quilting around the flying geese and large cross-hatching in the corners. We debated making the cross-hatching smaller on those corners, but I like the contrast between the larger cross-hatching and the smaller cross-hatching.

For the backing, I used the same Japanese honeycomb dot fabric that I used in the border — just in a different colorway. You can also see how the border was quilted in the picture below. The clamshells were quilted both in the ditch and 1/4″ in from the edge. I know some of you don’t like that clamshell border but I love it. I love looking at all the different fabrics that were used in the interior of the quilt. And for the binding I used a Bonnie and Camille diagonal stripe from their April Showers line. It’s funny, when I bought the stripes in that line, the teal was my least favorite color and I thought I would never use it. I think it worked out just right for this quilt though.

So, now what to do with her? I’m still pondering my options. For awhile, I’ll probably just spend a lot of time just looking at her. I do so love a scrappy quilt! She looks pretty folded, sitting on a bench (look at those fun fabrics on those two middle folds!).

But she really looks pretty, all spread out with someone sleeping under her. (Speaking of which, what is it about cats and quilts? Within 5 minutes of sitting down to start the binding of the quilt, both cats tried to climb up on my lap and curl up under the quilt. Stubborn Scruff even tried twice!)

Now I can get back to work on the baby quilt. I’m hoping to finish the quilting by Halloween — it’s lots of work, but it sure is fun!

Have a great week!
XOXO,
Anna

P.S. The pattern for The Aunts’ Quilt was designed by Australian Gina Gregory!

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