What a Wonderful Feeling!

I just completed tying the sixth quilt.  Now, I am ready to bind all of these six quilts.  I have the binding cut and ready for all eight of the quilts.  I will not be able to do any more on the two Cinderella quilts until I have finished the embroidery work for them.  Each quilt has ten blocks that tell the Cinderella story that will go around the outside of the quilt.  These blocks all need to be embroidered before I can complete those two quilts.  I do not anticipate being ready to finish them for a couple of months.  I am just so happy to have the other six this far.  I am showing the embroidery work on the Cinderella dresses and on the Thomas and Friends quilt blocks.  I showed these blocks before, but the embroidery had not yet been done.  I think they really look a lot better now.

You can't really see too much of the detail that I embroidered onto the trains, but the tracks at least show up now.

Cinderella's dress now looks better with the line detail embroidered onto it. It was very plain before.

I plan to start putting the binding onto the quilts tomorrow.  I am trying to decide if I want to machine sew around the main appliqued figures now so that the outline will show on the backs of the quilts.  It will be just one more thing I have to do before the quilts are finished, but I'm thinking that it might be the thing to do.  We will see after I get the binding on them all before I make my final decision.

What a Productive Day!

Amazingly, I was able to accomplish more today than I thought possible.  I assembled all five of the quilt tops that were ready for assembling. After that, I also managed to cut out the batting and the backs for the super hero quilts.  Since they are the same size, I was able to do both of them at the same time.  That saved so much time.  I'm too tired to do any more tonight, so I am calling it quits for the day.  Here are the results of today's labors.

Lucy's

I didn't put Portia's on the bed to take the picture so that I could show the animals on the side blocks better.

Lexi's

Joey's and Ellis's are both like this.

I need to do some embroidery work before I can assemble the other three quilt tops.  It shouldn't take long to get it done, so I will be back to assembling very soon.  I should be able to start quilting these by the beginning of next week.  I do not do actual quilt stitching.  I just tie them.  My hands will not allow me to do the quilting stitches.  They cramp up too much.  Besides, I have never liked to do quilting.  It takes so much time, and I am so impatient to complete something. Tying my quilts lets me get them done much faster, and I think they still look very nice.  Besides, most of the quilts I do are better suited for tying, anyway.

It's Been Awhile, But Progress is Being Made

I haven't blogged in awhile because I didn't have anything new to show.  I have slowly been working on the last afghan, but I like to save knitting for when I am babysitting.  Now that it is summer, and I have some time to myself, I have been working on another major project for the grand kids for Christmas.  This is something that definitely needs to be done when no little ones are around.

I am making twin sized bed quilts for all of the kids, except for Ezra.  He is still very small and will not be needing a bigger quilt for a while.  I am making the quilts in block style; each with a large center block or four smaller large blocks for the center.  The outsides will have small blocks with alternating colors, prints, or embroidered pictures.  The larger center blocks have pictures appliqued to them.  I have finally finished all the cutting, heat bonding, and appliqueing of these blocks.  That means that I now have something to show.  I still need to do some embroidery work on three of the blocks, but I took a picture of them as they are for now. So, here are the results of the past two weeks of work.

 The first four blocks will go on Lucy's quilt, which has a puppy/kitty theme.  The four large blocks will fill the center of the quilt.  The outside blocks and one row of blocks between the upper two and the bottom two have alternating pattern blocks, which have puppies on a blue background and kitties on a pink background.

The next four blocks will be the center of the Super Hero quilts that will be for Ellis and Joey.  Spiderman and Superman will be on the top, and Batman and  Captain America will be on the bottom.  The outside blocks will alternate with a print material and red block.  The three different print materials have a Superman theme on one (these will be the corner blocks), a Super Hero theme print that has Spiderman and Captain America, along with other heroes on it, and the third print has a Batman theme.  There will be one of each of the super heroes and the Batman print blocks along the top, bottom, and sides, alternating with the red. Both quilts will be identical, so I only needed to show one set.

The next block is a very large block which will be the whole center of the quilt.  This Dora and Boots themed quilt will be for Lexi.  The outside will have blocks of two different Dora and  Boots prints.  One of the prints has a purple background and the other has a green background.  It will be a very bright quilt when it is finished.

The next two blocks are for Dot's and Zoe's quilts.  These are the large blocks for the center.  I showed both because they have a different colored background, although the Cinderellas are exactly the same.  These quilts will have an extra two inch purple border around the large center block, and then, there will be smaller blocks that go around the outside of that border.  These blocks will alternate with a colored block and an embroidered block.  The embroidered blocks will tell the Cinderella story. The color of the first one is really a bright yellow and looks quite different from what it shows in the picture. I still need to do some embroidery work on these blocks to give more definition to the dresses.

Next, is Jackson's Thomas and Friends quilt.  This was probably the hardest one for me to do.  I really have a hard time with perspective drawing.  I had a hard time getting the faces to look like the trains and to get the angles just right.  Oh, there were so many little tiny pieces to cut out and try to get into place.  Sewing them on was very time consuming and difficult.  I still need to do some embroidery on the trains to give them more detail, and though you cannot see in the picture, there are some tracks going out from the back and from the front of each of the trains that need to be embroidered. The outside blocks will alternate with a Thomas and Friends print and with red, green, and white solid colored blocks.

The last quilt is for Portia.  This is supposed to be a model of her family's new farm in Maine.  I took a picture of the barns while standing on the balcony that is outside of the master bedroom upstairs.  The barns are really a natural cedar shingle, but this is the best I could do for the color. Other than the color, the barns look very much like they should.  I found some really cute material with a John Deere theme on it.  The tractors and the little animals were cut from that material.  They do not yet have any cows or horses, but they plan to have some in the future. They do have one John Deere tractor, but it is really just an over sized lawn mower.  It is not very practical for their use, but these are the pictures I could get. The outside blocks will alternate with the print material and yellow and green solid colored blocks.  On the yellow and green solid blocks, I have appliqued sheep and horses cut from the print material.  However, they also have pigs and goats on their farm, but since there were no pictures of those animals on the printed material, I downloaded some pictures of a goat and a pig and copied them onto ink jet printer material and appliqued them onto the yellow and green blocks also. I could not use the cow picture for these blocks, because it was not a full cow picture.  There were no back legs to it.  That is the reason I have the cow sticking its head out from the side of the barn. The last picture shows the four different blocks that have the animals appliqued onto them.

4th Afghan Started

I have started the fourth and last afghan.  It is being done in blocks like the others, but the blocks are sewn in a diamond shape, rather than square.  That means that the edge blocks need to be done triangular.  I kept doubting that it was going to come out looking right as I was knitting the first triangular block.  Much to my surprise, it came out looking just like it should, and the size was perfect.  I just couldn't see how it was going to work out as I was knitting it.  I marvel at the designers of these projects.  I can't see it until it is completed, but they must be able to visualize as they go. I am continually amazed at the ability to create such detailed patterns as some of the projects have.  Here is a sample of the three colors and patterns for the blocks of this afghan.

All the edge blocks and the corners will be done in this azure blue and broken rib stitch. This is an edge block.  The corner blocks are the same, but are smaller.

This Cape Cod blue is the main color and alternates with the sky blue blocks. They are done in a Trinity stitch, which is really the exact same stitch as I used in a previous afghan that was called the Blackberry stitch.

There are half as many sky blue blocks as the Cape Cod ones.  These are done in a cabled pattern.

Afghan #3 Complete

I just finished the third afghan.  Only one more to go.  I will get it started later today.  I am anxious to complete all four and find another project to start.  So far, each afghan has been a bit larger than the one before.  I didn't expect this to happen, but because I am using different patterns, they are coming out that way.  This one is similar to the last one because it has repeated color and pattern blocks that are the same size.  This one is a 5x6 blocks, whereas, the last one was just a 4x5 blocks. Although the blocks of the 4x5 were larger, they still made a smaller afghan. I liked most of this pattern, but I was disappointed in one of the block patterns.  It was just a plain stockinette stitch.  The others all had a little texture to them.  I find the stockinette a little too loose looking. The blocks seem to pucker and not hold a solid shape, as do the other patterns. If I ever make this afghan again, I will use a different pattern for the stockinette stitch blocks.  I really liked the berry and blackberry stitches I used in the last afghan.  I probably would substitute the stockinette with one of those stitches.

Again, my camera does not give a true color.  The darker blocks are actually hunter green, instead of black as it appears to be.   The rest of the colors looks right.

Birthday Over

Well, the birthday party is over.  The shirts look great, however, I did have to fix Lexi's.  I had not gotten a good bond on the top of her picture.  I had to use Cheryl's iron to seal it down to prevent it from peeling off.  The temperature was so hot (both, when I was decorating the cakes and when we served them) that the frosting kept melting.  Nothing I could do about it, but overall, I still think they turned out alright.

This is supposed to be Dora.  It is on a black tray, so the brown hair does not show up much.  Also, the mouth melted too much to look like a mouth, but that is what heat will do to frosting.

Joey's Toy Story cake held up to the heat a little better yesterday, but it was a problem earlier when I tried to write on it. The letters kept melting into each other. The toy figures were part of his gift from Grandma.

This is the best picture I have of Joey in his, "I'm three don't mess with me" shirt and his cake.

Lexi with her Dora cake.  The hair shows a little better in this shot, but so does the frosting melting off her arm.

Lexi in her, "I'm two look what I can do" shirt and her black eye that she got the day before from colliding with her father's elbow.

Joey, with his toys from his cake and the monkey I made for him last year for his birthday.

Lexi, kissing the baby doll that I made for her birthday.

Birthday Time

Cheryl likes to have me design tee shirts for Lexi and Joey for their birthdays.  Both of them have their birthdays in June, so she celebrates them together.  That makes it easy for me to do at one time.  I use iron-on fabric sheets for ink jet printers.  It is fast and easy to use the computer to design them and then just print them out and iron them on.  It allows me to use pictures of them, as well as, use print shop for the writing. Here is a view of last year's and this year's results.

This is the best I could get of the shirt for Lexi's "It's Fun To Be One" shirt.

This is her "I'm Two See What I Can Do!" shirt for this year.

Joey in his "Look Who's Two" shirt from last year.

This is his "I'm Three Don't Mess With Me!" shirt for this year.

Their birthday party is going to be this Sat., so I need to get the cakes decorated.  Joey's will be easy because he wants a Toy Story cake.  I am going to frost a regular rectangular cake and just place Toy Story figure toys around the edges of the cake.  Cheryl wants me to make a Dora cake for Lexi.  I have plans to do it using two circular cakes.  I will use the basic idea of making an elephant cake that I learned to do many years ago while I was in college.  It should be cute when I get it finished and I think it will be fun to do.  I will post the results when I get the cakes decorated.