Scrap Block Quilt Number Two

Way back here I showed you a quilt that I made from some fabric squares I had been given.  And I sewed it up really fast.  There were still squares left from that project, so I thought I'd better make another quilt.

And here it is!

(I was having some trouble with the wind outside, making it a little bit difficult to photograph this quilt!)

It turned out to be exactly 10 squares by 10 squares.  I had no idea there was such a perfect number of squares left, as I had never counted them.

I decided to make Quilt Number Two a little bit bigger, so I added on a green inner border and a larger, outer border from purple grape fabric.  (A friend of mine said she thought the grape fabric would make it sell well.  I can only hope!)  BTW, I'm not receiving any money for this quilt; the money will go to my guild and Gualala Arts Center.

Here is the pieced back I made for the quilt, using some more of that same grape fabric, and a little bit of a light blue print, from my friend Harmony of Harmony Arts.  The rest of it was a light green.

 I tried out a few free motion quilting motifs when it came to quilting this quilt.  Above you can see some swirly designs.  I took a lot of photos of the quilting, but none of the designs showed up very well against the very randomly-colored quilt top.

So I took some photos of the back of the quilt.  Please be kind, as I consider myself a 

"constantly improving free motion quilter."  That is my optimism speaking!

In the first, smaller border I did a little vine-y or leafy pattern.  I kind of liked doing it.  Gave me some good practice with travel stitching.

In the larger border I quilted these over-lapping circles.  My inspiration for this was that SisterStitches used this design on a quilt that she quilted for me.  This design was actually easier than I thought it would be, and a lot of fun to do.  I'll definitely be using this design again!

I used some more of my scrappy, leftover binding pieces to finish it off.  Sometimes quilts are just so darn easy to make, aren't they!?!

A Butterfly Shirt for GranddaughterStitches

We were excited to go visit GranddaughterStitches (and her parents) over Halloween.  It was fun to spend Halloween in her kindergarten classroom with her, seeing all the kids in their cute costumes, and to witness the excitement in the whole school.  It was also great to be able to assist in DaughterStitches's 2nd grade classroom.  The whole school was decked out in costumes!

Anticipating our visit there, I embroidered a little pink t-shirt for GranddaughterStitches.  I found a pattern on the internet (can't recall where I found it) for a redwork butterfly embroidery.  So I used that pattern, but added my own colors to the butterfly.

Here is a close-up of the butterfly.  I used blue, light green, and light blue for the colors.  Everything was sewn with backstitch except for the dots, for which I used satin stitch.  I backed the embroidery area with a nice soft fusible web to stabilize the embroidery.

It actually went quite fast, and I soon finished the embroidery.  Then I thought, "That was too easy.  I need to do something more."  

So I moved on to the bottom of the t-shirt and proceeded to make little embroidered flower and leaf motifs.  I added some colors to my palette for the flowers!

And here is GranddaughterStitches wearing her new pink butterfly shirt.  

I think it suits her just fine.