Key West Pillow Cover

I've seen lots of tutes online to make envelope pillow covers and I've been wanting to make one forever. Well today is the 1st day of my "kid-free" vacation so I am trying to catch up on all my sewing and scrapbooking projects while I have tons of time. I got a box of fabric from my dad a few weeks ago. It was given to him by his cousin, who got it from a friend. I think.

Anyway...I found some Key West Hand Print fabric cuts in the box along with two larger pieces. I cut down the fabric pieces, which ranged from 10 x 10 to 10 x 9 to 8 x 9 inch squares, in to 8 x 8 inch squares and then started a disappearing 9 patch quilt top. That's no where close to finished so I will update on that later. The remaining pieces I cut in to strips and the strips that were smaller than 3 inches wide were used for this little project....

Here is the envelope back. It's not perfect but pretty good for my first attempt. I think I may make a couple more :) Please excuse the blue pillow that is stuffed in there, I need to make a couple blank pillow forms but that is a little further down on my to do list.

Oh, and here is a close up of the double needle hem...why did I wait so long to try that?

Tea Rose Link Party

I am still new to the whole blogging thing so to get my name out there just a little I've joined the Tea Rose link party. Nothing too major just yet but hopefully this will increase my traffic a little and get my name out there. I really just want to show off what I make, even though I am slightly outside the box when it comes to quilting! :)
 

Rainbow Scrap Quilt

A while back I found 15 Minute Play by BumbleBeans Inc and I started playing around with my scraps too. After lots of playing here and there I finally have a scrap quilt top to show! It's not as big as I would like so I think I will play around a little more with it. Maybe a rainbow boarder or something :)

My first quilt pattern, test #1

When I was in Yuma a few months ago, I drew up a simple quilt design that I wanted to try someday. I've drawn up patterns before and I've always wanted to try them but this time I actually bought the fabric that I wanted to use and got to work.

The fabric is from Connecting Threads and I love it. I've bought fabric from them before but this is the first time I have worked with it. (I really need to work through my stash, but that's another post....)

This is one of the units. I need to adjust the measurements a little, notice the bottom strip is just a little off...

Here are the other units while I was finishing them up.

All 4 units put together in to one block.

And a couple blocks laid out to see how they look together.

I ended up buying more of this fabric and I sashed the blocks with some tan. I am now thinking about adding a border but I'm not 100% sure about that yet. Once I get home I will add some more pictures of this one, I would love some feedback on any changes I should make. I think I am going to adjust the measurements and pick out some more contrasting colors to do a second test run.

Quilt Tops from the Past #2

This is a top I was working on a few weeks ago. Its made from men's cotton shirts with some tan quilting cotton mixed in. This is one of my favorite "go to" patterns that's not really a pattern at all. I cut a square for the middle in what ever size I feel like. This one was 5x5 I think. Then I cut strips and sew them on each side. Very good for scraps :) I know this block must have a name and an actual pattern but I honestly don't know what it is!

Quilt tops from the past #1

Since I am unable to post anything new or anything that I was working on before I came out to Az I'm going to post some of the pictures that I have on my computer.

This quilt top was something that I was working on when I lived in Tn. There are a few blocks that I put together with scraps just because I was playing around. I had plans to use a pink comforter as the batting but I never got to that part. I was watching a lot of Law & Order SVU reruns while I was putting this together so I will probably call it Persephone Pink after some early episodes when Benson goes undercover. I have been thinking about backing it with some pink fleece like I use on my tee shirt quilts but I am not 100% about that yet.