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!

New and Improved Sewing Room

This is cross-posted from my regular blog here.
It continues to be proven how very blessed I am as Steve's wife.  He designed and built a fabulous addition to my sewing space over the last few days.
It went from this:

To this:

Which then allowed me to make it like this:

Which means that what once looked like this:

Now looks like this:

Almost every bit of fabric I have is now organized on this massive shelf wall along with space underneath for notions (zippers, trims, etc), shelves for current projects in process, and even a floor cubby for one or more cats to nap in while they keep me company.  All the shelves are adjustable too! 

My husband loves me so!

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.