Recent activities

My husband was on a Poker Run on his motorcycle with the other fellas and
brought this back for me!!! Awesome gift I must say!!! He went into
 Grandma's Attic quilt shop in Dallas Oregon
and the gals there were more than happy to help him find something for me!!! 

And I made this little dress for our grand-daughter who just turned 1 last week.

I love how it turned out!! I will post pictures if the kids take a photo of her in it!!!

Here's our birthday girl in her birthday dress!!!

Have a lovely week everyone!! I will be announcing the winners of the Giveaway on Saturday!! 

Take Care, Happy Quilting, and keep those scissors sharp!!!

Martha :-)

GIVEAWAY TO MY FOLLOWERS-and lets go visit a quilt shop!!!

I want you all to know how much I appreciate you following my blog-Quilt To The Edge!! It means a lot to me and warms my heart.

To thank-you, I am doing a giveway. Two winners will enjoy some fabulous fabric from our local quilt shop, Finally Together, and a couple fat quarters from my own stash AND each will receive a little pattern!!!

The fabrics are a combination of 1/3 yard cuts and fat quarters!!

I will choose a random winner in two weeks!!!

To enter, you must be a follower of mine and leave me a comment!!!

If you are not a follower-join and leave me a comment, that simple!!!

Now, do not fret that your comments do not appear!! I have to OK them first. The reason for that is when my comment box is freely open I get some very weird spam and I just don't like that!!!

OK-so let me hear from you!!!!

(If you are a No-Reply-Blogger, I will not be able to get a hold of you!!! You need to somehow leave me an email so that I can notify you if you win!!! OR fix the no reply blogger. There are many instructions on how to do it!!!)


Now, lets go visit where I purchased these fabrics today!!!! Finally Together Quilt Shop in Lebanon Oregon.

Here's their shop-it is huge!!! Easy to find and plenty of parking!!!

This is a fun shop to visit, LOTS of eye candy for sure!!!

Everywhere you look there are gorgeous quilts and awesome fabric!!!
Their thread, pattern, books, and notions area is wonderful too!!!

This is Claudina, one of the owners. She is as sweet as
can be and always interested in what you are creating!

And if you are looking for someone to finish your quilts,
they have three longarm machines!!!

WOWZA!!!

So if you are in our area, please stop by Finally Together and tell them HI!!
and enjoy their awsome fabric selection!!!

Claudina gave me 10% off when I told her about the giveaway, how nice is that????

I also got some Aurifil thread-love that thread, and some fabrics for cute dresses for the grand-daughter who is turning one soon.

These are the dress fabrics. I just love that house print, so sweet!!!

OK, that is it for today.
I hope to hear from all of you and best luck to each and everyone of you!!! I will let you know in two weeks the two winners!!!

Take Care, Happy Quilting, and keep those minds sharp!!! Martha :^)

The Modern Quilt Guild's Michael Miller Fabric Challenge Quilt

I tried entering the challenge but came up two weeks late on my finish!! Oh well, I gave it a good shot, but work has been so draining for the last several months that I could not muster up enough energy to finish on time.

I will be honest, I am not totally happy with this. I like the quilting, but the design just doesn't cut the mustard as they say!!!???

I started with this design, which is hard to see in the quilt.
I am planning on making another quilt with this, but with
fabrics that will show off the design and shapes!!

Here are the fabrics they gave us. You could use what you
wanted, add any solids and any other Michael Miller
fabrics.

I added this floral. I just loved it!!! And I did not use the
bright orange fabric. I also added gray and white fabrics.

I retraced the pattern

cut it up

decided fabric placement and began paper piecing it back
together

Played around with centers and borders for a bit

I used this awesome stencil from The Stencil Company

I kind of layered the spirals all over the quilt

Then got to work using my free motion foot

It was a bit bumpy when done. I used two layers,
wool and cotton.

So I put it in the tub and let it soak for awhile

Layed it on the guest bed, squared it up
and pinned well until dry!

Now it is lying very flat!!

I did not like the black center after all! Too late now. So I pulled out my white fabric paint and got to work!!

Better

Improving

And finally done. Oh, the little flowers were also painted.
I drew them out when I was working on the spirals, so as
I came to each one, I quilted around them, then painted
them when it was all done.

Well, that is it for today!! Take Care, Happy Quilting and keep those scissors sharp!! Martha

Jelly Roll Race

My Jelly Roll Race quilt top all ready to layer, pin, and quilt!!!

At our last guild meeting we did a jelly roll race after our general meeting. There were only six of us sewing, four guild members and two guests from Hillsboro and Beaverton Oregon. I wish more members had been able to participate because we had a lot of fun, but it is hard to get people in during the summer with so many activities going on!!

So this is how we  did it. I am borrowing a photo from the internet for one of the explanations as I didn't photograph my entire process!!!

Jelly Roll Race

1)  You need one jelly roll. A jelly roll usually is a roll of 2 1/2" strips with around 40-44 strips in it. Here's a really cute one!!!

I did not buy a jelly roll because I have TONS of watercolor, 2" fabric strips, and need to use them up!! I decided to put a white strip of fabric inbetween each watercolor fabric and used 44 strips.

2)  Next, sew your strips together, end to end, either on the straight of grain, or on the bias=you would need to cut your strips on a 45 degree angle, then sew together. You will end up with an extremely long strip of fabric when done, really, really, really long!!!

Some quilters add a square inbetween each strip, like a complimentary color, black, or white.

3)  Press your seams open or to the side.

4)  Accordion fold the entire strip. This will make finding both ends to begin sewing with easier and will help prevent the entire strip twisting about.

5)  On one end, cut half or 18" off the end and discard to your scrap fabric container. This will offset the strips when you start sewing.

6)  Now, find both ends of the large strip and with right sides together, sew your first seam, from one end to the other. This will take quite a while as it is a very long strip. When you get to the end you will have a fold, cut the fold off and press your strip either open or to one side.

7) Accordion fold your strip again.

8) Find the beginning and the end, right sides together, and sew your next seam. Trim off the fold at the end.

9)  Repeat this 3 more times. You will do a total of 5 sets of seams to get to your finished quilt top. I pressed the first seam open, then pressed my seams when I was done with all the sewing, which worked really well!!

One more seam to go and her quilt top will be done

And done!! How beautiful!!!

More photos of the group

This was one, by Megan,  of two already done for us to see and learn from

This is the other one that was on display for us made by Marjorie

Lovely colors

Shirley's quilt top, I love the colors and the way they turned out!!!

Beautiful colors on this one, Alene sewed this with Megan's jelly roll.

Barb's Christmas quilt. I love the white squares on this one, reminds me of snow, perfect for a Christmas quilt!!

It was a fun day and I am really happy with the way mine came out!! Now to get it quilted. I am thinking of doing matchstick quilting, really intense, close quilting,  but I think it will work well with this quilt. We will see and I will let you know!!!

Take Care, Happy Quilting, and keep those rotary cutters sharp!!! Martha