2017 quilting/blogging goals

I have a hard time setting and meeting goals, however I know that if I plan then things really do go better for me. I think the reason I have a hard time planning, is because I just want to do everything.

One of my biggest goals I am working on for 2017 is to get good enough at my quilting that I can quilt for others as well as designers.

I have taken a notebook and started planning some of my goals for next year.

I want to make a metro medallion quilt by @sewkindofwonderfuljenny. I love using their quick curve ruler.

Practice quilting designs daily. One thing I will do is have a notebook handy and practice drawing quilting designs. I have a big stack of quilts to practice on.

 Another thing I will do is some whole cloth quilts. I will draw out areas on the quilt and do different designs.

Also make a notebook of quilting samples. This let's me show people what I can do and gives them a closer look at my work.

Pattern testing for designers. I did some of this in 2016 and want to do it again. I found it was hard to keep up with several at one time, along with full time work. This year I will schedule my time better. And if I know we are getting swamped at work, I know not to try to do too many.

I also want to publish 2 patterns I have been working on.

BLOGGING GOALS
In 2016 I participated in a new bloggers hop. I had so much fun and learned a lot. I want to apply again, and really improve my blogging skills.

I will also be sharing more tips and techniques on my blog throughout 2017. And would like to do more tutorials.

I am linking up with Yvonne @quiltingjetgirl.com and her 2017 planning linky party.

4th quarter 2016 proposed finishes

Well, I didn't do so hot with finishes for the 3rd quarter. I got 1 quilt done. So, the list moves on, and I added more quilts to be done. These are in no particular order.

1. Metro Medallion by sew kind of wonderful.  This quilt is being done for a wedding at the end of the year. I am doing their wedding colors and favorite colors.

2. I call this one the Eagle quilt. Pattern being used is Frayed Edges from patterns by Jen. This is planned for a Christmas gift. 

3. Churn dash. This one is for a wedding and will be done in the wedding colors. I have just a couple of blocks cut for this one. But I will be getting more done soon.


4.  This is one of two Christmas  quilts I am working on. This one is ready for quilting. Yay!!

5. This is another Christmas quilt.

6.  This one is on the frame right now.  It is a dragon quilt, made from my own pattern. I am quilting it with stars.

7. This is a wall hanging for one of my daughters. Just needs the binding to be finished.  I may do some quilting on the dress. Binding in yellow.

cinderella wall hanging

8.  This one is ready for binding.

9.  I have those one almost ready for quilting. I just can't remember where I put it. I need to find it because it is for a grandson.

10.  Another one ready for quilting.

This is part one of my list. I have more to do, and more on my proposed list over on my instagram account @kathyskwiltsandmore.   I need to train my body for some long nights ahead of me. A lot of what I accomplish depends on work. If we have a lot of overtime, I won't get a lot done.

Linking up with Rhonda at www.rhondasramblings.com
Monday Making @www.lovelaughquilt.blogspot.com
Let's Be Social @www.sewfreshquilts.blogspot.com

One Lovely blog award

A couple of weeks ago, I was nominated by my friend Jen over at adreamandastitch.blogspot.com.  Jen and I met as we were doing the 2016 new bloggers blog hop. Thanks Jen for nominating my blog.

So we are supposed to share 7 things about ourselves. So, here it goes:

1. Quilting really is my passion. I enjoy all aspects of quilting. I really like testing patterns for quilt designers, and these are just a few I am doing.

This is on I am doing for Tammy at tamarinis.com

This is the fabric selection for another quilt I am testing for tamarinis.com

This one is for Jen at #patternsbyjen.

This is my fabric selection for a pattern test for desertbloomquilting.com

2. I am a professional seamstress. We make all sorts of things for events, tradeshows, etc.

3. My family brings great joy to me.

4. I am an early riser, even on weekends. I love taking a walk in the quiet, peaceful mornings.

This is a view from one of my recent morning walks. 

5. I just recently published my first quilt pattern on craftsy. If you would like to view or purchase it you can do so here.

6. When it comes to sewing and quilting, and people ask me to do something, I tend to not know the word "No". This is a dress that I will be making for one of my granddaughters to wear to an upcoming wedding.

7. I really enjoy blogging about the quilts I make.

As you may notice, I like to stay busy. I don't watch a lot of t.v. and my quilting is really very relaxing to me.


I also need to nominate some other bloggers.
These are just some of the bloggers I like to follow:
www.thistlethicketstudio.com
alicesamuelsquiltco.wordpress.com
thismomquilts.wordpress.co
yellowcatquilts.blogspot.com
myquiltdiet.blogspot.com
tamarinis.com

Giveaway winners!

So as you know I was doing a contest where if you left a comment on my blog post about my pattern release, I would enter you in to win a copy of it. I am giving 2 away. The way I chose the winners was by a random.org generator. Here is what it came up with:

True Random Number GeneratorMin: Max: Result:5Powered by RANDOM.ORG   Comment number 5! Winner is Cheryl! Congratulations!  True Random Number GeneratorMin: Max: Result:3Powered by RANDOM.ORG  Comment number 3! Winner is Cat Lady! Congratulations!  Thank you all for participating. Please remember that if you did not win and you would like to purchase the pattern you may still do so. Just click here to purchase.  The winners will be receiving an email from kathyskwiltsandgifts@gmail.com with the pattern in PDF from. The comments are greatly appreciated. Thanksfor making this contest fun!  

Bricks and Blocks pattern release And GIVEAWAY

In 2013, I had a couple of ladies contact me about making some quilts. I told them I would, and they described what they wanted. I couldn't find a pattern, so I decided to come up with my own. This is what I came up with:

All done and my little grandson loves it. 

Twin size. Super heroes. Made by my daughter Jennifer for her little guys first birthday.  She chose to tie this one. Love it.

Well, I got the quilts done, and I had made notes, just in case I ever wanted to do them again.
Fast forward to earlier this year, when I was reading a newsletter from a fellow Quilter and learned about a pattern writing series hosted by Cheryl over at http://meadowmistdesigns.blogspot.com/p/pattern-writing-blog-series.html?m=1.  I started reading it, and decided why not finish writing the pattern I had started before. So, I wrote, sent copies to my daughters and revised. Then I had 1 of my daughters do some computer drawings. Yes, they both proof read  again, could understand everything and then it was time to test. I asked both if they would make 1 up. They were more than willing to.

Crib quilt from the pattern. Will be backed with green fleece. Made by my daughter, Krystal. I will quilt this on my machine quilting frame.

 We did a quilt along on the blog, and made sure all revisions were made.  Everything went well.

Queen sized quilt that my daughter is hand quilting. This was done during the quilt along  just before the pattern was released.

Up close look at some quilting, as well, as the fabric.

Then I got this crazy idea why not publish it as a pdf. So, I had one daughter working on figuring out how to do craftsy and get our pattern on there. I enlisted the help of my daughters as I work full time.

So then we had to get a quilt done for the cover. 1 is sitting in my quilting room waiting to be quilted. 1 daughter was tying hers for her little guys first birthday and the other daughter is hand quilting hers. So, I asked my daughter who was tying hers if we could use it for the cover. She was more than willing.

our cover quilt.

GIVEAWAY TIME:  how would two of my readers like to win a pdf of the pattern? All you have to do is leave a comment, then we will use a random number generator to choose 2 winners.   The contest will go until August 10th.  If you want to purchase the pattern, you can do that here.   The sizes include: crib, twin, and queen. Please share with your friends.

The Chevron Quilt

This is a quilt I made for my bosses little girl. Once he announced they were having a girl I asked about the bedroom colors. Gold, black and white. Then I added some pinks and purples. I had a blast doing this quilt. The pattern I used was Charming Chevrons by Christa over at christaquilts.com. it was such a fun pattern to put together.

I got started on it, and for some reason, I set it aside. I swear it took me forever to do. Once I got the top completed, then I started to quilt it. I used glide thread, which has a bit of sheen to it. I was undecided on what color to use, and as I asked my different quilting groups, I came across a lady who had done one with white thread. I loved it. I decided to go with the white thread and I love the way that it blended into my colors.

This  picture shows some of the close-up quilting. I chose to do some simple curls. I really like the look of this.

I love the back of the quilt. It turned out really well.

More of the quilting. The glide thread was great to work with.

Usually I will do the binding by hand, once I have Stitched it onto the front, but this time I Stitched it by machine.

I really like the way the stitching showed on the back. I used a wide white on white backing, and because the quilt had a lot of white, I chose to use warm and white batting, which is 100% cotton.

I really love this quilt. I want to make another one, but in a queen size for my bed.

I am pleased to say this is the first finish of quarter 3 finish along list I made. Really makes me feel good to finish a quilt I have had in progress for a while.

I would like to mention about the thread. I use glide thread (#filtecglidethread). It is a thread that is used for embroidery and a lot of Longarm erst use it. I follow Judi Madsen aka green fairy quilts and notice this is a thread that she uses. I got my thread from www.terylloy.com located in St. George, UT.   I got very good and fast service.

2016 New quilters blog

This year I am participating in the 2016 New quilters blog hop.  They divided us into little groups called hives and I am in the Hive Sewciety.  Our hosts are Cheryl at www.Meadowmistdesigns.com , Yvonne at www.quiltingjetgirl.com, and Stephanie over at www.latenightquilter.com. This has been a lot of fun as I have learned a lot about blogging.  The first part of the hop involved dividing us into groups of 4 or 5 and critiquing each others blogs.  This was fun.  I am grateful that I have a daughter who was willing to help me put different things on my blog.  So, now we are into the hop and we visit each others blogs.

They have asked us to do an intro about ourselves.  

I was born in Salt Lake City, Utah and raised in a small town named Grantsville.  I learned to sew in 4h, with my mom as my first teacher and then later with another lady in town.  I had fun and really enjoyed sewing.  As I was growing up, my mother would quilt and we would play under the quilting frames, and push the needle back through for her.  My favorite classes in jr. high and high school were the home economics ones.  I also did summer home economics.  

  After getting married, and having my first child, I decided I wanted to do some sewing.  I made him a coat one winter, and also made him a quilt.  It was a transportation quilt and involved a lot of applique which I like.  It was fun to do and I don't know what ever happened to it.  I can't find it anywhere.  I decided I enjoyed quilting that my next quilt was an amish one.  It had a lot of little pieces and I was cutting them all by hand.  I gave up on it, and I think by mistake it got thrown away during a move.

Eventually I wanted to make another quilt.  This time I was able to get a rotary cutter and mat, and wow, what a difference that makes.  It is so much easier to cut now.  I love quilting and I am more the traditional type, but there are some modern ones that appeal to me. You can read more about me by going here.

I don't know why I decided I wanted to blog, but I love it as a way to have a record of my work.  If I try to keep a hand written journal, they get lost.  I needed a name.  I liked using my first name, but when I googled Kathy quilts or Kathy's quilts, there were too many that showed up.  I decided to use the "k" and that is how I came up with Kathy's Kwilts and the more came because I wanted to focus on quilts and sewing.

They asked us to share some of our favorite quilts that we have done.

This is a quilt that I did for a lady in 2013.  I designed the pattern.  This one was quilted with an overall quilting design on my husqvarna lily 550 sewing machine.  It is a twin size.

This is another one done in the same pattern, and I quilted it in the same way.  

Earlier this year, I ran across a blog by the same ladies hosting this blog hop, who did a blog series on writing quilting patterns.  I decided that I wanted to try developing a pattern, so I took my notes from making these and put it together, and it is the quilt that is the quilt along on my page.

This quilt was made for one of my friends first grandson.  it was fun to do and this one was hand quilted.  In every other block there is a heart in there.  Then I outline quilted around some of the frogs.  

This quilt was made for my first granddaughter born in 2010.  I did this one on my machine.  I love doing a 4 patch as they go very fast.  I put hearts in all the plain squares and then quilted in the ditch on the 4 patch.  The border was done with a stencil, that I traced on, and then carefully followed the lines.  

In May 2015 I got my first machine quilting frame.  Things go so much easier now.  I use a grace pro frame, can do up to king size and a juki tl98q machine for quilting.  I love it.  

They asked for a quilting tip and one that has helped me is to make sure that when you are sewing your blocks, take the time to press.  They look much neater and it just makes the whole quilt turn out better.

As for blogging, I link up to different link ups each week.  Sometimes I may do a blog post before the links are open and then forget to link.  I now put it on the calendar in my phone, along with the link.  Just a couple of clicks and it is done.

As for favorite books, I love the classics. One I am reading right now is Education of a wandering man by Louis L'Amour.

As for a dream vacation, how about Hawaii. That would be sure fun. But, I found another dream the other day. There is a gorgeous home for sale in the Blue Ridge Mountains in Viginia. It has been a bad and breakfast. The best thing, there are 4 dining rooms. How about turning 1 into a quilting Studio and maybe selling quilting supplies and another 1 into a classroom for quilt retreats, and let's take a 3rd and turn it into a football room. It would be decorated with Indiana Colts quilts and pillows and of course, BYU. That would make 2 guys very happy.

Question: is there something in the way of quilting you would like to try? I have 2. One is the Mariners compass quilt and the other is I would love to be good enough at quilting and quilt projects for designers as they get ready to go to quilt market.

I hope you have enjoyed visiting my blog. I love comments and would appreciate hearing from you. I would love you to visit my friends who are joining me in this adventure as well.
Shannon @ shannonfraserdesigns.ca
Tami @ sewmuchforfreetime.blogspot.com
Suzi @ websterquilt.blogspot.com
Olusuyi  @ alicesamuelsquiltco.wordpress.com

Q3 finish along - proposed list.

I am probably the queen of half finished projects. I see something that I like, and even if I am not finished with other projects I tend to start a new one. Well, I ran across something fun, so I decided to join in. It is called the 2016 finish along. What is this? It is a fun motivational idea to help you get those projects done. The best part, as you finish one of your projects from your list, you do a link up and write a post about ut. Each post is an entry for prizes. I like prizes, so I have decided to join in the fun. Who knows. I may even get a lot of projects finished.

These are in no particular order.

1. Chevron quilt - I started this quilt in January of this year as a gift for a baby. I put it aside at one point and just got doing other things. The baby was born in February. It is about time to get it done, right? It just needs binding.

2. Froggy quilt - this quilt has been quilted for about a year and just needs binding on it. It was one of the first I quilted when I got my machine quilting frame, and I put it aside. Need to get the binding done and gift it to a friend.

3.  TARDIS quilt - I made this quilt for my son in law. It was fun to do, and now it just needs binding.

4. Teal star quilt - I found this quilt in a magazine, and decided I wanted to do it, but needed to make it bigger to fit our bed. I ran out of a piece of fabric I needed, but found a way to fix it. So, I just need to finish piecing it and quilt and bind it.

5. Blue/Brown quilt - started this a while back, basically because I liked the pattern and thought it would be fun for a sofa or even a camping or travel quilt.

6. Christmas quilt - this is another one I got put together some time ago. It needs to be quilted and bound.  Thinking it may be for a sofa or used as a table quilt. A friend of mine made a quilt with this pattern and I fell in love with it.

7. Dino quilt - this quilt is from a pattern that I designed. My daughter made it to test my pattern, now I get to quilt and bind.

8. Red/blue train quilt - this quilt was made a while ago. I am not sure why I made this quilt or who it is going to be for. Sometimes I just do them for fun.

9. The seashell quilt - this quilt top was started sometime ago. I have done some by hand and some by machine. It was another one that I needed to make larger and I ran out of some fabrics and the fabrics were out of print, so I had to do some changing of plans.

10. Wedding quilt - when my children get engaged, I have them and their fiancé choose a quilt pattern. What fun. I pull magazines and binders and they choose several of the ones they like then they narrow it down to one. Then we all go and choose the fabrics. This is for my daughter and son in law that has been married almost 3 years. I guess I need to get it done, right?

11. The football quilt - I actually have 2 of these to do. This one I'd for my hubby who is a BYU fan. It is less than 2 months to kickoff. Think I had better get it done. Need to finish piecing and quilt and bind.

12. The other football quilt. This one is not really started. This is the fabric. I am doing it the same way as the BYU quilt. I may not get it done for football season, but if not, I will do it for Christmas.

13. The froggy/lizard quilt. I started this for one of my friends grandsons. For some reason I set it aside and he just turned 4 in May. Yes, I need to get it done. Just need to quilt and bind.

14.  I found another quilt I need to finish. This one is a twin quilt that I had made for my daughter, and she got married before I finished it. I jus need to do the borders and bind it.  This one was an online swap that I participated in.

15. This is a wallhanging that I had started a long time ago. I just need to bind it and I want to add some sort of quilting to the dress.  My daughter loves Cinderella.

Yes, I start lots of quilts, and I need to start getting them finished.  This is only a part of what i need to finish. But, it does give me some goals. Sometimes I start them not knowing who they will be for.

As I finish these quilts, I will post about them, and share the stories behind them.  This particular challenge ends on September 30th. Basically, I need to finish at least 4 1/2  projects per month or 1 1/2  per week. Some will go faster depending on how fast I can work. There are more projects that I will be working on that are not listed here. So, we will give it a go.

There may be a chance that once I start getting them done, I may do a sale on them, just to get some of my money back.

Linking up with 2016 finish along and www.rhondasramblings.com