BIG NEWS!

Announcing....  Applewood Quilts Etc. real presence on the web!

I took the plunge and now have my own domain & site for my sewing!

A Block of the Month Project

I've never done a block of the month project from the web before, but stumbled on this one that begins this month and thought I'd give it a try.



I will post updates as I work on this new project!

Happy Sewing!

 

For Our Kitchen

Steve has encouraged me lately to have some fun with what I work on and wanted me to make a wall-hanging for our house.  So I opted to do something to hang in the kitchen and really wanted to make it country-homey looking.
Out of my head I decided to combine a few different elements to work on some skills at the same time.  I dug around the web and found some things I liked and created a rough 9-block plan in my mind. From Forest Quilting I used a paper piecing pattern for my 4 corner blocks.
Paper piecing can be tedious and fussy, but this worked up pretty easily and I was very pleased with the results.

Then I decided to make an applique block for the center and wanted it to be simple but fitting to our home, so again I turned to the web to find a simple line drawing to use for a template.
I used the freezer paper method to hold things together while I appliqued the apple, leaf & stem and then removed the paper. Nothing fancy, but since I don't do much applique, I was pleased with my efforts.

For my last 4 blocks I wanted to go with a sampler look of traditional pieced blocks and found a few ideas at Quilter's Cache as well as just some standards of the quilty world.

These are what I came up with:

Now for the fun part!  Jess helped me plan the layout and I sashed everything together with a green allover print.

Trying to decide how to quilt it was a challenge as I didn't have much in the way of small scale pantographs to use but I did find one free leaf vine pattern that was just slightly larger than my sashing width.  I like the way it came out sort of overlapping into the edges of the blocks.

Steve hung it in the kitchen for me and I snapped this quick photo with my phone (which is why the lighting and angle is a bit wonky).

All cotton fabrics from my scrap bag and stash, machine pieced, quilted with King Tut thread on my Janome 1600P and New Joy frame. Each block is 6" finished.

Happy sewing!

Make a Joyful Noise

My dear friend Lisa has 3 daughters that are all very special.
For her middle daughter's 16th birthday, my daughter Jess helped me choose things to create a very special quilt.  Jess & Julie have been friends since the 1st grade (I think).  So I was very thankful for all the insight and suggestions she offered to make sure the quilt would be something her friend would love.

As Julie is a music lover and plays more than just a few instruments as well as writes songs and performs in church, it made sense to use that as a theme.  Jessica helped me choose a pattern (Metroplex by designer  +Tony Jacobson from the ( +Fons & Porter  Easy Quilts Summer 2014)

Then she helped me hunt around the internet to find the right fabrics to fit our theme.  We found a large number of them from FabricShack.com and I was very pleased with the quality and prompt shipping.  We chose materials from the "Let There be Music" collection by Whistler Studios for Windham, "Music to my Ears" collection from Blank Textiles, and "Maestro" collection by Barb Tourtillotte For Clothworks, as well as a white on white print from one of the local quilt shops in our area.  All 100% cotton quilting fabrics - machine pieced.  The backing is Windham Essentials tonal scroll-work design wide back flannel so that it would be a snuggly and warm quilt for our NH winters.

I machine quilted it using a variegated thread - Riverbank - from Superior's King Tut line.  The pattern is a pantograph design called Celtic Braid by Patricia Rutter from UrbanElementz.com. The quilt finished to 64" x 84", and the binding is double fold with the flannel and hand stitched to finish.  I created the quilt label and named the quilt "Make a Joyful Noise" including the reference to Psalm 100 as it is most appropriate.

This was a fun project and given that I spend a fair amount of time praying over my work when it's for someone specific, I know that Julie is covered literally and prayerfully with this blanket.

**Photos mostly by my amazing husband Steve

A Phone Clutch Bag (for me!)

Sometimes I get a pattern just because it catches my eye and it takes me a while to get around to actually MAKING whatever it is.  Not really too long on this one as it looked like it would be a quick little project.

I bought the pattern here: Sew Thankful - I've also purchased quilting thread from them in the past and am happy to recommend them!

I decided late one evening to begin this little project for myself and hunted up some left-over fabrics to use as well as a random zipper from the stash I keep on hand.  The pattern called for using a 9" zipper (cut down) but since the size I made (middle one) didn't need one that long, I used a 7" one I had hanging around.

The fabric is all 100% cotton quilting fabric and I used the fusible fleece and interfacing I had on hand (no idea what brands).  It came together fairly quickly and after one small alteration of direction on my outside pocket (because I accidentally reversed the dimensions on the pieced panel) and the alteration on the strap (I didn't have a swivel clasp), it only took a few hours to complete and I'm pleased with the result.

Two outside pockets and 3 inside (2 for cash/cards & 1 little one for a lip balm)

In looking at these photos I suddenly realized that I have fabric from 3 projects represented here - one quilt and 2 different table runners. Gotta love not wasting the scraps! 

Tangible Love

I often feel like I don't have a lot of gifts that God can use to bless others, but a quite a few years ago a dear woman offered me the chance to use something I love (quilting) to bless others and it changed a lot of things in my life.  It gave me the opportunity to make love & prayer tangible through thread and fabric and a bit of time.
It also taught me that a 'yes' to God is never wasted and even when we think it small, He can transform it into so much more.
So I said another small 'yes' and made this quilt - with more prayer than probably any other one I've made - perhaps because of the size it allowed more time to pray.  There was the piecing of the top, the pressing, the quilting at the frame and approximately 270 inches around by hand for the binding - many hours of prayer poured out at the Throne of Grace on behalf of people I don't know well but that God has put on my heart in a special way.  Time very well spent and fervently offered as service to the One who can touch hearts, minds, bodies & souls in ways we cannot know or imagine.

Scrappy version of a pattern called "Take Five"

The top is machine pieced cottons and the back& binding is flannel.  Machine quilting done on my New Joy Gold Frame w/ the Janome 1600P using King Tut variegated threads -- "Freedom" (blue/cream/red) on top and "Sands of Time" (cream/beige) on bottom -  in an edge-to-edge leaf design. 

As this was my last project for the quilt ministry at our former church, I am praying it will bless the people who will receive it in a very real way.

First quilted projects

Since I was blessed with my new quilting set up, I have been practicing as I mentioned and finally decided to try a real project.  First up is a table runner I was making from scraps for myself.  I love the Fall and leaves and have a thing lately about trying to use up what I have for fabric, so I decided to make myself a new table runner.  I managed to get it finished just in time for Thanksgiving and brought it down to my mom's house for dinner and then brought it back home again.
I took these photos after having washed/dried it so the quilting looks slightly different from when I first finished it.

The top is a linen-like center fabric with machine appliqued leaf shapes made from a bunch of different scraps I had on hand.

The border is an all-over leaf pattern fabric and the back and binding is a different all-over leaf fabric.  The quilting is a free-hand meander/stipple using King Tut Superior thread (purchased from Sew Thankful) in a variegated cream/sand color tonal color.

My second project was a challenge and a labor of love for a very special man.... my Dad.  He rarely asks me to make things for him, but he just had a knee replacement done about a month ago and is dealing with feeling cold a lot right now.  He had plenty of crocheted afghans thanks to my amazing mom, but also likes the feel of cuddly fleece sometimes.  At Thanksgiving he asked me if it was possible to make a double layer fleece blanket with batting in between and quilt the entire thing.  I told him I really wasn't sure if it was possible as fleece stretches and if you put in on the frame I wasn't sure how it would work.
The more I thought about it my mind started considering possibilities, so I started doing some web searches to see if I could find any information on quilting fleece on a frame set up.  Surprise!  It can be done!  I found some posts on various quilting sites and after doing some reading, decided to give it a shot.  I figured if nothing else, I'd have something that could be used for one of the dogs or cats to sleep on.

I used 2 lengths of the same pattern fleece - an all over cardinal print that came from some of those tied blanket kits my Mom had bought a few years ago and never used.  I loaded the backing piece of fleece on the frame rails and stitched the top edge of a piece of cotton batting to the top end of the backing.  I then 'floated' the top piece of fleece over the batting.  This just means I didn't pin it or stitch it down but let it rest freely on the top allowing me to smooth it as I quilted.

I used a pantograph of a simple leaf design and using the same variegated thread as above, I quilted edge to edge on the fleece. 

It was a bit challenging to keep things smooth and I did have to adjust the height of my rails toward the end as the the take-up roll was getting large!  Two layers of fleece plus batting is a lot of bulk on a roll.  Thankfully I'd loaded the fleece sideways otherwise I think I'd have had to take the whole thing off half-way and turn it upside down to finish since my quilting area is limited with my machine.  In the end I was pleased with the way it came out and my Dad loved it when I gave it to him this week.  It was exactly what he'd had in mind and I'm sure it'll be warm for him as he rests in his recliner chair.

Not mine - but Awesome!

I stumbled on this sweet blog and this amazing quilt!   It's a wall-hanging - simply marvelous!

Christmas Auction Quilt

Our church (Riverside Christian Church) is having a fundraiser auction to raise money for a short-term missions trip to Guatemala.  I decided to make use of a batch of beautiful Moda fabric Christmas fat-quarters I'd purchased from The Bunkhouse Quilt shop a while back and create something to donate for such a good cause.

As I posted before, I had the opportunity to take a long-arm machine quilting class and was very excited to be able to finish this quilt as my very first long-arm project.  Steve took the photos for me today after I finished the hand-work on the binding.
These two are cropped close-ups of a few different blocks to show the quilting & fabrics.

This shows the backing fabric & my 'tag' for identifying purposes.

Clever!

This is so very clever!  I really want to try this soon.
Would be great with some of these fabrics I think.

They have TONS of quilting tutorials over there at Missouri Quilt Co.  Worth some time to watch!