Good morning y'all!! We are in a cold wet spell in my neck of the woods. Some bad weather coming in, or say they are telling us. We'll have to wait and see though. It will also be a good idea to be prepared for the worst case scenario. So, I have on a pot soup beans!! We will have cornbread with that and we will be happy campers for a little while. Thankful and blessed for all that God has blessed us with, and even the weather. He knows what He's doing, so I'll let Him keep doing what He does best and that is meet my needs. And I will continue to praise Him and speak of His goodness at every opportunity. That sounds like a great plan, don't cha think.
(This blog post was started on Saturday Jan. 19th 2019 and we had ice and snow over night. We live in the south, so if you don't like the weather, give it 15 minutes, something you like will come along shortly. hahaha Prayers for those who was affected in a bad with all the weather.)
(This blog post was started on Saturday Jan. 19th 2019 and we had ice and snow over night. We live in the south, so if you don't like the weather, give it 15 minutes, something you like will come along shortly. hahaha Prayers for those who was affected in a bad with all the weather.)
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I was busy late last year, 2018, on some "ufp's" (un-finished-projects) and I did get one completed!!! Woop Woop!!! So happy that I did!! It wasn't but over 20 years in the making. hahahaha And I was so pleased with how it turned out!!!
This is a quilt top from 20+ years ago. I had 2 nieces that was expecting babies at the same time. This was a freebie set of baby alphabet embroidery designs. Sorry I don't remember where it came from, but it was over 20 years ago after all. I figure out who digitized these designs, I will gladly tell you who it was. So, I actually sewed each design 3 times. I sewed the sample first and then tweaked the design colors as needed for the 2 blocks of each alphabet. The samples were actually meant to be thrown away when I was done with the actual quilts. But, I decided to keep the blocks and made a quilt top out of them and put it in a plastic shoebox and then politely put the box up.
The samples were sewn on hacked out squares. They are not all the same size. The ones that I made the quilts were actually cut to one size, all of them, the SAME size. hahaha But for this one, when I sewed them together in strips and then sewed the strips together, none of the blocks matched underneath each other. It really stood out like a sore thumb. On the originals, I sewed a big button between each block to add a little interest. There was probably 30 to 36 each buttons sewn onto these two quilts when finished. That's how I tacked the quilts together. But on the quilt that I am about to share, I sewed a button on all four corners of each quilt block with different colors of grosgrain ribbon, 1/8th of an inch wide, using a large eyed needle that was small enough to get thru the holes and shanks in the buttons. I love how it turned out and I'm so thrilled I found all of my embroidered blocks from days and years gone by. I hope to get a lot of the projects completed sometime soon. It feels pretty good to actually accomplish something.
Let me say this before I show you my quilt. I am NOT a quilter, but I am a seamstress, or I should say, used to be a seamstress. So while I know a lot about sewing in general and a lot about sewing machines, and garment manufacturing, not so much about quilting. hahaha Oh, I "know " quite a bit about quilting, because I came from quilters, so I know some of the lingo and stuff like that. But knowing about quilting and actually quilting are 2 different things. hahaha Trust me, I do know that. So, with all that said, I will share my baby alphabet quilt.
This is the full quilt. If you click on the picture it will bring up a larger picture of it and you can see it better.
This is the back. I used 5 fat quarters of flannel to make the backing and the stripes in the fat quarters match the colors of the grosgrain ribbon I used to sew the buttons on with.
This is just some close ups of some of the buttons and blocks. But if you notice, you can see that my blocks do NOT line up correctly on the vertical line. This was not intended to be a quilt in the first place.
But, I could not bare tossing out these blocks once I was finished with the other 2 quilts, so I did sew together and make the quilt top. But I ignored it for many years.
One of the reasons I couldn't stand the idea of tossing out these quilt blocks is that there is well over an hour, close to 2 hours of machine embroidery time in each block!!! So, with time invested in them, I couldn't toss them out. Right about now, I'm thrilled I didn't.
When I started going thru my buttons, I was looking only for large, 2 holed buttons. I knew I was gonna have a terrible time finding as many buttons as I needed. So, the next type of button I resorted to was shank buttons. And only solid shank buttons. I didn't want any that were 2 or 3 piece shank buttons because they would hold water if it was ever washed and that's not a good thing!! So, I found useable shank buttons, still wasn't enough. Next, I started looking for 4 holed buttons. I didn't want to use them, but I had no choice. Once I got all the buttons on there, I was so stinkin' tickled with how it turned out!!! The buttons more than doubled the weight of the quilt!! hahahaha It sure did!!! There is 120 buttons in total on this quilt. I haven't measured it yet to see just how large it actually is, but it's somewhere in the neighborhood of 36" x 45".
The finishing touch was to put a spot of clear nail polish on each knot and on each end of the ribbon to keep the knots from coming out and the ends from fraying. I will sign and date it on the back and then this will go to my other niece. Since I have only 3 nieces, they all will have one of these beauties. Oh yeah, the blocks are denim and the white fabric is napery material that my husband got for me at his place of employment at the time. They was tossing it out and he asked if he could bring it home to me and they let him. So, I was happy to get the quality material and never dreamed I would use it like that, but it was perfect.
I do love how the buttons add another dimension to the quilt and they distract from the quilt blocks not lining up vertically. Back in the day when I still sewed and embroidered a lot, I always sewed a button every project I made. That was my signature move in sewing and embroidering. Sometimes the button was so small you couldn't find it, but it was there. hahaha If I go back to sewing again, I will pick back up with my signature move. hahaha Hope y'all enjoyed seeing my quilt as much as I enjoyed sharing it with y'all and telling about it. I'm happy I remembered as much about it as I did. hahahaha Tell me in the comments below if you have any un-finished-projects from back in the day and what your game plan is to get them completed.
I hope and pray that y'all stay safe and warm and that you are happy in knowing that God loves you this morning!!! He sure does. If you love Him and trying your best to serve Him with His help, then you can be assured He loves you. If you don't know Him and you don't want to know Him or have no desire to know Him, then that's a different story altogether. But if have love in your heart for Him, then I can assure you that He has more love for you than you can possibly know. Just know that if you are seeking Him, He will make Himself known to you. I pray that every eye that ever sees my blog is actively seeking Him, already knows Him, and can testify about the love of God over their lives.
Have a blessed day today wherever y'all are. Remember that God loves you so much He provided a way for us to be in right relationship with Him thru His Son, Jesus Christ. I love y'all too!!! hugs, patty
This is a quilt top from 20+ years ago. I had 2 nieces that was expecting babies at the same time. This was a freebie set of baby alphabet embroidery designs. Sorry I don't remember where it came from, but it was over 20 years ago after all. I figure out who digitized these designs, I will gladly tell you who it was. So, I actually sewed each design 3 times. I sewed the sample first and then tweaked the design colors as needed for the 2 blocks of each alphabet. The samples were actually meant to be thrown away when I was done with the actual quilts. But, I decided to keep the blocks and made a quilt top out of them and put it in a plastic shoebox and then politely put the box up.
The samples were sewn on hacked out squares. They are not all the same size. The ones that I made the quilts were actually cut to one size, all of them, the SAME size. hahaha But for this one, when I sewed them together in strips and then sewed the strips together, none of the blocks matched underneath each other. It really stood out like a sore thumb. On the originals, I sewed a big button between each block to add a little interest. There was probably 30 to 36 each buttons sewn onto these two quilts when finished. That's how I tacked the quilts together. But on the quilt that I am about to share, I sewed a button on all four corners of each quilt block with different colors of grosgrain ribbon, 1/8th of an inch wide, using a large eyed needle that was small enough to get thru the holes and shanks in the buttons. I love how it turned out and I'm so thrilled I found all of my embroidered blocks from days and years gone by. I hope to get a lot of the projects completed sometime soon. It feels pretty good to actually accomplish something.
Let me say this before I show you my quilt. I am NOT a quilter, but I am a seamstress, or I should say, used to be a seamstress. So while I know a lot about sewing in general and a lot about sewing machines, and garment manufacturing, not so much about quilting. hahaha Oh, I "know " quite a bit about quilting, because I came from quilters, so I know some of the lingo and stuff like that. But knowing about quilting and actually quilting are 2 different things. hahaha Trust me, I do know that. So, with all that said, I will share my baby alphabet quilt.
When I started going thru my buttons, I was looking only for large, 2 holed buttons. I knew I was gonna have a terrible time finding as many buttons as I needed. So, the next type of button I resorted to was shank buttons. And only solid shank buttons. I didn't want any that were 2 or 3 piece shank buttons because they would hold water if it was ever washed and that's not a good thing!! So, I found useable shank buttons, still wasn't enough. Next, I started looking for 4 holed buttons. I didn't want to use them, but I had no choice. Once I got all the buttons on there, I was so stinkin' tickled with how it turned out!!! The buttons more than doubled the weight of the quilt!! hahahaha It sure did!!! There is 120 buttons in total on this quilt. I haven't measured it yet to see just how large it actually is, but it's somewhere in the neighborhood of 36" x 45".
The finishing touch was to put a spot of clear nail polish on each knot and on each end of the ribbon to keep the knots from coming out and the ends from fraying. I will sign and date it on the back and then this will go to my other niece. Since I have only 3 nieces, they all will have one of these beauties. Oh yeah, the blocks are denim and the white fabric is napery material that my husband got for me at his place of employment at the time. They was tossing it out and he asked if he could bring it home to me and they let him. So, I was happy to get the quality material and never dreamed I would use it like that, but it was perfect.
I do love how the buttons add another dimension to the quilt and they distract from the quilt blocks not lining up vertically. Back in the day when I still sewed and embroidered a lot, I always sewed a button every project I made. That was my signature move in sewing and embroidering. Sometimes the button was so small you couldn't find it, but it was there. hahaha If I go back to sewing again, I will pick back up with my signature move. hahaha Hope y'all enjoyed seeing my quilt as much as I enjoyed sharing it with y'all and telling about it. I'm happy I remembered as much about it as I did. hahahaha Tell me in the comments below if you have any un-finished-projects from back in the day and what your game plan is to get them completed.
I am working on another small quilt from another set of alphabet set of fruit and veggies. It will be a lot smaller than this project. It will be the size of a table runner, but it will be cute. So keep an eye for that.
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That's about all I have for today. I do hope and pray that y'all enjoyed your visit here today and that you will make your way back here real soon. I would love to hear from you and if you leave me a message, I respond to each one, so you can check back and see that too.I hope and pray that y'all stay safe and warm and that you are happy in knowing that God loves you this morning!!! He sure does. If you love Him and trying your best to serve Him with His help, then you can be assured He loves you. If you don't know Him and you don't want to know Him or have no desire to know Him, then that's a different story altogether. But if have love in your heart for Him, then I can assure you that He has more love for you than you can possibly know. Just know that if you are seeking Him, He will make Himself known to you. I pray that every eye that ever sees my blog is actively seeking Him, already knows Him, and can testify about the love of God over their lives.
Have a blessed day today wherever y'all are. Remember that God loves you so much He provided a way for us to be in right relationship with Him thru His Son, Jesus Christ. I love y'all too!!! hugs, patty
The quilt is so cute!!!
ReplyDeleteThank you so much Tina, I appreciate it. It was fun getting it finished up after all these years. Thanks again. hugs and love, patty
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