11.26.14

:: SALE ::


Black Friday 20%
thru
Cyber Monday 20%
on ready to ship items

at
simpledream2.etsy.com

NOTE: does not include special orders.

11.11.14

give away winner...

Denise

please email me at

simpledream2@hotmail.com
with your mailing address.

Thank you!!

11.9.14

now in the shop...

...finished zippers. Looks good.

...the pillow covers turned out so cute I may just have to keep one.....or two. 

Can't decide.

The table runners all looked good, and fit so well,

on my dining room table.

May have to keep one of them as well.

11.7.14

finish up Friday 

... and ...

a give away

Whew... Today I finished up:

 5 - reversible quilted snowmen pillow covers

6 - reversible quilted snowmen table runners

and

1 - whole cloth quilted table runner that is today's giveaway.

This morning started out bright and sunny for good photos.  The above did not get finished up until about 3:30 and by then the sun was on the backside of the house leaving the front with not so good lighting.  

I was able to get some photos of this weeks Crazy Mom Quilts "finish up Friday" challenge.

The above snowmen items will be photographed and listed in my shop as soon as I have better lighting. I will not always be this productive.  I had a personal challenge to finish up some wip's and be ready for this weeks "finish up Friday" at the same time.  It's nice to have a goal to work towards, kept me on task and productive. 

As mentioned in an earlier post I was able to squeeze in a whole cloth table runner on the Gammill long arm quilter as I was finishing up the snowmen table runners.  It turned out rather nice. This 41.5" x 14" runner is made from a medium green print on one side and a darker green print on the other.  Binding is an interesting print of dark purple, greens and golden yellows.

  

Giveaway open to US residents only. To qualify for a chance to win this whole cloth table runner please leave a comment. Give away closes 10:00am cst on Monday  11/10/14. The winner will be chosen randomly and announced Monday evening and will be asked to email me their name and mailing address.   

11.6.14

wip's...

These  6 snowmen table runners and 5 pillow covers are coming along. I've learned how to load the Gammill quilter with the backing fabric, float the batting (and tops) then pin my smaller tops such as pillow covers and table runners to quilt all in one running item. Thanks to the "quilter man" for using the term "float" during my lesson.

It's very time efficient and is giving me the experience in loading and positioning tops before I tackle a quilt. I am quilting with my favorite design, free motion quilting, and decided to play with straight line quilting.  Hey, on this quilter there is a vertical lock and a horizontal lock feature that makes it a breeze.  It was easy and they look good. 

These wip's will be ready for the "finish up Friday" posting over at Crazy Mom Quilts and should be in the shop by Friday as well. 

In a previous posting I admitted these snowmen centers were cut down from previous projects, but I may not have admitted how long ago these were started. My goal is to chisel down on some pre-cut squares, projects started but not finished that are filling many, many, many storage totes in my sewing room. There will be many, many echo::home goods projects in the future. 

This next photo shows snowmen table runners hanging on one of my shelves in the sewing room.  Can you find the other wip?  It's another quilted pillow cover.  In reality all of that fabric is but a small portion of what I have in my stash....and it is all wip's.

Installing 6 zippers, ugh, my least favorite part of sewing.  I've got hundreds, literally hundreds of zippers that I've picked up over the years at thrift stores so no need to invest a fortune in those notions. I don't really enjoy installing zippers, never have and probably never will. Having the feature of a zipper rather than an envelope closure makes these pillow covers truly reversible. Well worth the effort.

Now that I've taken a break from squaring up the table runners, back to the sewing room and get the binding on the table runners and the pillows all zipped up. 

As I was finishing up quilting on the table runners last evening I had about 20" left of the back fabric and batting left on machine so I decided to cut a 15"x 45" piece of green print fabric to make another, whole cloth, table runner.  

That will be a surprise and may even be listed in the shop, if not I may decide to do a give away. Either way I just could not let that section of quilt backing go to waste.  

Watch for the finish up post tomorrow. 

11.1.14

This w.i.p. has been sitting in a tub in my sewing room for way too long.

Many years ago when I worked for the local school district, at the elementary school, I was making appliqued sweatshirts and tissue box covers for myself, as gifts and for the teachers. Needless to say there were many cut ready to finish snowmen packed away. 

Now that I have time I am taking some of those unfinished projects and either finishing them or recreating them as I did with these snowmen. I finished up the applique and decided to make 6 quilted table runners and 5 quilted pillow covers.  My goal was to get those projects ready for quilting on my Gammill longarm quilter this weekend. Ta-da I met my goal.  

My "finish up Friday" projects are ready for quilting. Guess what I will be doing today?

The plan is to have them all completely finished and posted on next weeks "finish up Friday"....and...to have them posted in the shop.

10.30.14

I'm finding myself following more quilting blogs.  One recent discovery is s.o.t.a.k.handmade where she is featuring a Bloggers Quilt Festival.  If I can figure out how to do this right I will be entering 2 of my quilts. Head on over to Amy's Creative Side, to see the home machine quilted category and for the scrappy quilts category take a look here.  Voting begins on November 11th.

Here is quilt entered into The Scrappy Quilts Category.

I've made several kaleidoscope projects from nap quilts, pillow covers, candle mats and table runners. All from scraps left over from previous quilt projects, clothing projects, thrifted textiles, etc. The back of this quilt and every quilt I make is pieced with larger blocks of fabric, again in a random pattern.  Binding is made from pieced fabrics to continue the randomness of this quilt. The quilting design is a free motion pattern done on my home sewing machine.

This one was entered into The Home Machine Quilted Category.

I call this design "framed square".  I have made I believe 6 of these quilts and find this is one of my favorite designs because I use mainly plaids, homespuns and mini prints in a random pattern while the sashing is a muslin/onasburg.  Yet when photographed this quilt looks very clean and modern. The backside is pieced with larger blocks of fabrics laid out in a random design, binding is also pieced. The quilting design is a free motion pattern done on my home sewing machine.

I think I got these entered correctly, voting begins November 11th. Be sure to look at all the quilts and vote.