Bow ties

I think it's about time to update about the teal bowties.  Last time I posted about them was last year!

When I posted last year (here) I had 113. 

And here they are recently:
 

There are 221 (give or take).  I found one on the floor of my sewing room after I took this picture, and I know I sewed a few more up. 

I love how this quilt looks.  I especially love this one because it's got both of our fabrics in it.  Christine uses different colors than I do.  I am not exactly sure how big I will make this. At least close to the size of mine.  My quilt was 24 blocks by 28.  So 672 blocks.  So only 400 more to make :p

My quilt took 6 years to finish.  At this rate I will definitely finish Christine's sooner than that! It helps that I have two people contributing scraps.

Making masks and having my cricut has helped! Since I cut out masks with my cricut there is some waste, but I can set it so that in the negative space it cuts out pieces for the bow tie quilt (2 - 2" squares, 2 - 1.25" squares.)

 

S family memory Quilt 2 - finished

 Jordan likes red, so we added a red border to her quilt, used red for the backing AND red for the binding.

Here is the binding being sewn on.  This is a 99 I gave to Jordan so she would have a sewing machine to use.  I would like to update it and get her a machine that has back stitch.  I shall keep looking.  But it's been a good machine for her.  And I showed her how I back stitch by turning the item around and taking a few stitches.  Not the easiest, but it's a work around.

And here is the full quilt all finished!  I love it.  And the best part is that Jordan loves it!

S family memory Quilt 2 part 2

 

Jordan did a great job of figuring out exactly how many squares we would need for the hearts and then the background. 

While I was at school she laid them all out on the design wall. 

I love her placement and patterns. This is one of the reasons I’m so glad she was able to help work on her own quilt. If I would have done it, the squares with stripes would not have been going the same direction. I would have made them more random. But since she is helping she got to lay them out in the way she prefers. 

 

I chose to sew this a little differently than I have in the past.  Before I would have sewn each row individually, then sewn them together.  I chose to do something called webbing.

So I sewed the first two rows together.  Then I added the third row to it, so they were all connected.  It makes it big but then also kind of easier to put together.

Monthly sewing check in

Here is my month of March colored in.  I was able to do some sewing almost every day!  Course it doesn't hurt that the end of March is my spring break :)

Most of March has been sent working on a tee shirt quilt (which I cannot share yet).  It's really large. So to make the tee shirt quilt:

* I cut the shirts

* I put interfacing on the shirts

* I trimmed the blocks so they were all the same size

* I sewed the blocks together

* I quilted it

I am now working on trimming and binding it.  But like I said, it's a large quilt so I spent some time this week cleaning up my sewing room, putting some fabric away that I had just been piling up.

I did take a little break from working on the tee shirt quilt to help Jordan with her quilt (more about it later this week).

This weekend is my first craft fair, and I have been slacking on making my microwave bowl cozies!

Here is a pile I started!  I don't know if I will get 30 made before my craft fair on Saturday.  My goal has been to make about 10 a month, which would give me a good number for my craft fairs.  I have a wide variety of patterns, sports teams, colored fabrics and some that are more specific like the musical instruments at top.

I personally love listening to audiobooks while I quilt, either that or movies I have seen a million times and don't have to watch.  But I listened to 2 new audio books.

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

The face of deception by Iris Johansen

Both were good.  They are both a series, I did not listen to more of Bardugo's because it wasn't online and I hadn't looked to see if the library had it.

Johansen's I started the second one tonight.

April will definitely be me showing some more finished things! I have Jordan's memory quilt & my really big tee-shirt quilt that I will have pictures to show.  I have a few other tops I just need to get on the long arm.