WIP Wednesday 8/30/17

Wow, after doing 2 blogs for a blog hop for Christa Watson's new book Piece and quilt with precuts, you would think I would take a break. Nope. I love being busy. I love sharing with people things that I am working on. Did you have a chance to enter the drawings? There are 2 drawings each on both of the blogs. You can still enter through today. So here are those links. https://kathyskwiltsandmore.blogspot.com/2017/08/arrows-quilt-piece-and-quilt-with.html?m=1 and
https://kathyskwiltsandmore.blogspot.com/2017/08/piece-and-quilt-with-precuts-blog-hop.html?m=1

 So, what am I doing now, you ask. I am glad you asked.

 I have a beginning quilting class that I am teaching for my daughters Relief Society on September 9th. That is also my anniversary.  My hubby and I will be married 34 years. Hard to believe it has been that long. But, it has been wonderful.  So, back to the class. I will teach some things using the walking foot and some free motion quilting. I will have some different projects on display. If I can inspire even just a few people to try this, I will feel like I have done well.

Next up is my blog hop for Island Batik. I am am ambassador for them, and I love working with these awesome batiks.  I am using a great pattern by Sew Kind Of Wonderful. I love the quick curve and mini quick curve rulers. There will be a fun giveaway involved with that as well.  This comes to you on September 12th.  Just look at this awesome fabric.

On September 14th. I am blog hop stop for a new book called Making Connections. A fun book that teaches free motion quilting.  And you will get a chance to win an electronic copy of the book.

I am currently looking at fabric choices for the quilt I will make, so, I need suggestions. I am using mainly solids but thinking i like the floral print and have found these fabrics in my stash. I need 4 colors. Although I could do more. So look at the 2 pictures and tell me which colors you like best. The only difference is the turquoise fabric 1 is lighter than the other.  The background will be the turquoise.

It is amazing to me, how just the color of the main fabric or background can affect how the other fabrics look.

I post regular updates on instagram, so follow me there at kathyskwiltsandmore.
I am linking up with my friend Jennifer at inquiringquilter.com for #wedwaitloss.

I hope to be back in Friday for TGIFF with a finish of 1 or 2 things from this fabric.

What I get accomplished depends on how work goes.  I love your comments and will try to respond as soon as I can.

Arrows quilt - piece and quilt with precuts blog hop 2

When Christa asked if there were people who wanted to do a blog hop for her new book, Piece and Quilt with Precuts, I jumped at the dance. I did a review on my blog about the book she and Angela Walters had written called "The Ultimate Guide to Machine Quilting: Longarming and Sit down." https://kathyskwiltsandmore.blogspot.com/2016/04/book-review-ultimate-guide-to-machine.html?m=1
 I loved the book. I had also used some of her patterns and know how well she writes them.

When I got the book, I had a hard time choosing which pattern to make. As you know, I chose one, and did the Squiggles quilt, and that post is here https://kathyskwiltsandmore.blogspot.com/2017/08/piece-and-quilt-with-precuts-blog-hop.html, in case you have missed it. I decided this quilt would be perfect as a Christmas gift for a granddaughter.  Well, there is a problem. I have 5 grandkids. My hubby tells me  what you do for one, you do for all. Okay. I will do more. No big deal. So, then my daughter announces another grand baby on the way, and this one is due the first of January. Well, now there are 6 quilts. So, I figured this blog hop would be good motivation.  So, on to the Arrows Quilt.


Again, I used some fabrics from Island Batik.  I love these fabrics and love the fact that you can't tell the difference between right and wrong sides.  I used a few different collections, and I am not sure of where they all came from. The white came from my stash.

This quilt is a fun one to put together. I have pieced by hand and machine on this quilt. I need something to do during lunch, right?

Hand piecing during my lunch break 

I sew at work all day and people are amazed that I want to sew during myour lunch. Oh well.   As with all of Christa's patterns, this one is well written. It is easy to understand and her illustrations are wonderful.

I also like the myriad of Quilting ideas that Christa shares in her book. It gives lots of great ideas and the best part   is that the designs are interchangeable.

As to how I am going to quilt this quilt  I am still undecided. In the colored strips, I think I will do cursive L's. I think I will do Triangles in the arrows. As for the white sections, I am not sure.

Trying to decide on thread color. I have 2 pinks 1 light and 1 dark and a purple variegated.  The purple variegated is king tut by superior threads. Dark pink is Aurifil  and lighter pink is masterpiece by superior threads. These would be used in the colored areas. What do you think?

So, now a question for you. I have 3 grandsons and will have 3 granddaughters.  What have been your favorite quilts you have seen on the hop, that I should do?

Okay, I also have 2 giveaways. One is an ecopy of the book, and@ the other is a stash builder roll that has 4 5" strips of fabric from Island Batik.  For the fabric, U.S. residents only, please. Just leave a comment and you will be entered in the drawing. I will try to respond to comments as quickly as I can.  If you want to purchase a hard copy of the book, you can do that by clicking on this link shop.christaquilts.com Also, for another fun quilt just like this, please visit Lynn  at www.monkeyneedle.com

I have more fun coming up on my blog in the next little while, so stay tuned, because there will be some fun giveaways and great things to inspire you.

Envelope style throw pillow tutorial

This is so fun and so easy to make. For this tutorial I used a 12" pillow form. But, you can use any size you want.

I quilted the front of my pillow using wavy lines. I used the free motion idea in a book from www.christaquilts.com, called Piece and Cut with Precuts. The pattern is also from the book for a quilt called squiggles and I used the cut offs of hst's for the border.

My pillow square is 12". It is the same size as my pillow form, because I like puffy pillows.

I cut 2 pieces of backing at 12 x 8". Along one of the 12" sides I did a narrow (1/4") double fold hem. I did this on both pieces.

Then I put  right sides together on the front of my pillow form, with the hemmed edges overlapping,  pinned it and sewed all the way around.

I trimmed the corners, turned right side out and stuffed the pillow form inside. Then I took pictures of it.

With the pillow sham I made for this post, https://kathyskwiltsandmore.blogspot.com/2017/08/piece-and-quilt-with-precuts-blog-hop.html?m=1, it gives me part of Christmas for 1 grandchild. Now I need to get the quilt done.

Sew Much Fun blog hop - Back to School

The Stripwork Skirt- A great back to school project

Do you sew for your kids or grandkids? I do. Mostly for my grandkids, but there are times I sew for my big kids. Why do I do this? There are a few reasons. 1 is that I can get a better fit. My granddaughters are tall and skinny. To get the right length on a dress, they seem to fall of the shoulders. They also love the things that grandma makes.

Today I want to share a fun and easy to make skirt with you.  A few years ago, I was doing a shop hop with my daughters and granddaughters.  We found this really cute pattern at one of the stores.  Well, grandma decided she needed to make it. The pattern is by Pink Fig Designs and is called The Stripwork Skirt.

  The first one  I didn't make with as many strips as you are supposed to do. It is still cute, but not as full.  You can tell it has been  worn a lot.

The first of these skirts I made. This one I used only half the panels. 

 Well the granddaughter I made it for outgrew it and reluctantly passed it on to her little sister. It is getting too small for little sister, but she puts leggings under it. Now, the best thing about this pattern, is it is cut in rectangles.  So it is easy to lengthen.  You have probably noticed that your kids grow straight up faster than growing wide. This skirt is easy to lengthen, you just cut the strips in the body of the skirt a bit longer, you can cut the hemband a bit longer as well as the waistband. 

I like having more panels in the s

I don't have lace. Darn. I guess I need to go visit a daughter, because there is a shop I like that sells lace for a really good price, and the shop is close to both daughters and a son and daughter in law.  Or I just have them buy me the lace. I think adding lace to the bottom would look so cute.  

I have  been looking for this pattern, to be able to tell you where you might be able to buy it, and it sounds like it is out of print. I found a website with a pdf download, but I haven'the gotten a response that they are still in business. However  for this pattern, they have the chart that shows you how big to cut everything, so I will give you the link www.whimsicaldesignsclothing.com  go to pdf patterns and then click on Pink Fig Design, and just scroll down till you find it.  You can find the size chart on any of the patterns.  This next site has a really good tutorial  http://www.mothergingermama.com/p/stripwork-skirt-tutorial.html

I tried the skirt on both granddaughters and it looked cute. For the older one, I will not fold up the hem band, but I will do a small narrow hem and will add some lace. I hope by the end of the week, I will have a few outfits done, and I will share here  Facebook, and Instagram, so please stay tuned. 

I will also be making a cute t-shirt that she can wear with this. Maybe I will also make a cute button down shirt. Yes, I could just buy some clothes for them, but I enjoy sewing. I can use fabrics they like and fabrics I like. 

Is it less expensive to sew? I don't know. I don't buy a lot of clothes for my grandkids. What I do to make it less expensive is watch for sales. I buy patterns on sale and I buy fabric on sale. But, I dare say the quality is much better in handmade. I grew up with handmade clothes.  My mom sewed a bit for us, but I have an aunt that is amazing. I loved getting my cousins hand me downs. 

I have quite a few things I want to make. Do you remember the Daisy Kingdom patterns from the 80's?  I loved those patterns. I made some of those dresses for my girls.   I found some of those patterns at a thrift store. They are in my filing cabinet waiting for me to stitch them up.

I love your comments, so please feel free to share. What are you sewing right now?

Piece and quilt with precuts blog hop

Welcome, welcome, welcome. I am so excited to share about Christa's new book "Piece and Quilt with Precuts". When Christa mentioned she needed people for a blog hop, I jumped at the chance.  So, when I got a copy of the ebook, I went through it and let me tell you, the decision was very difficult.  I finally chose the squiggles pattern.

I just love this quilt.


 Christa told us we could focus on a block and do the quilting, or create the whole quilt. My plan was to do a whole quilt, and it is coming, but between knee surgery and overtime at work, well, I decided a quilted pillow cover and a quilted pillow sham would work. I was able to get the fabric from Island Batik. I appreciate them supplying me with the fabric. The fabric I chose is Drizzle and I got it in a layer cake. The white is called sprinkles and comes from the neutrals collection. Now on to Christa's book. This is Christa's 3rd book. I love her books. This one gives you great directions for piecing the quilts and then great ideas for quilting. She has a section for walking foot quilting and then a section for free motion quilting. The first project I did is this fun quilted pillow sham.

 You can never have too many pillows, right? It was very easy to do. I used polyester batting, because I wanted the puff, and that is what I had handy. This took me 30 minutes to quilt. I used glide thread, in warm gray, as I like the sheen, and the design is quilted it with is cursive L's, which is explained in the book. I quilted this on my Husqvarna Viking Lily 550.


These 2 pictures show some of the quilting.

This picture shows the finished quilted pillow sham.

I really like the way this turned out.  I want to thank Island Batik for sponsoring me in this blog hop. The print fabrics is called Drizzle. I love it and I love working with batiks and being an Ambassador for them. The white is from the neutrals collection and is called Sprinkles.

This is a throw pillow cover that I made from this pattern, and used the trimmings from the blocks for the small half square Triangles as the border. This will be quilted soon, and will be used in a throw pillow tutorial on Tuesday, August 22nd.

Now for some more fun stuff. How would you like to win this book?  I promise you, you will love it.   Just leave a comment below. I love reading the comments, and I try very hard to get back to you, right away. 1 reader from my blog will win a copy of the e-book.

If you want a signed copy of the book, you can order from Christa at shop.christaquilts.com

I would like to invite you to visit the other bloggers today as well.  So you can click each of their links
Christa christaquilts.com
Sharon www.yellowcatquiltdesigns.com
Kate @seamslikeadream.com


As I mentioned earlier, the fabric for my project was from Island Batik. I would love to give a lucky reader a chance to try this fabric. I have what is called a stash builder roll. It has 4 5" strips of 45" wide fabric. So just by commenting you will be entered into both drawings. The fabric giveaway is only good for the U.S. right now. Doesn't that just sound wonderful?

I would love it if you would follow me. I have a fun back to school hop on Monday, August 21. I will be sharing a couple of things that I have made for my granddaughters for school.  On Tuesday, August 22, I will have a tutorial for how to make a throw pillow with an envelope back, which is the style of my pillow sham. I have had lots of requests for this.   Then on August 29th I will be sharing another project from Christa's  book Piece and Quilt with precuts. Then I have a few things lined up for Septemberand October.  Yes, I like to stay busy.

TGIFF AUGUST 4TH

It is my turn for hosting TGIFF or Thank Goodness It is Finished Friday.  Today I am sharing a quilt I made for one of my sons.  This quilt is also on my finish along list, which you can find at https://kathyskwiltsandmore.blogspot.com/2017/07/2017-quarter-3-finishalong.html?m=1.

This quilt was started forever ago. I would work on it as often as I could. My son chose the fabric for it.

I quilted it on my husqvarna viking lily 550. Very small throat space. It was my first time doing feathers. I traced them from a template, but couldn't follow the lines very well.

This is one of those quilts that you are not sure you want to finish, because it has too many mistakes,  and you know you can't just throw it away, especially when your son asks about it.

Well I decided it needed finished. All it needed was binding. Do you ever have quilts stacking up that just need binding or just a small area quilted, that for some reason we put off finishing? Please don'the do that. My son was very excited to receive this quilt. It was supposed to be a twin size, but it turned out to be smaller, probably because of my math skills. It will work great for a lap quilt, or a picnic quilt.

Please link up your Friday Finish. I would love to see what you are working on.

JUST A NOTE:  I am writing this on Thursday morning August 3rd. I go for knee surgery today, so please be patient if I am slow in responding.  I don'the know what kind of pain medication I will be on.


Linking up with TGIFF.