Very Tiny English Paper Piecing (that will someday be a wall-hanging)

So, ever since summertime (when I had the motivation of Monday Morning Star Counts), I haven't worked on my Very Tiny English Paper Piecing. Until a couple of weeks ago. I guess I got re-inspired. For one thing, I really want to make this into a framed wall-hanging. For another thing, I noticed that at least one blogger has kept up the Monday Morning Star Counts tradition that Jessica started. (And why not, even without the central spot to link posts like this? Thanks for the inspiration, Pamela!) And also - it's such a satisfying thing to make some progress while sitting and relaxing.

I got out the tiny EPP, and worked on it (with my Christmas Hexagon Quilt on my lap!

As it turns out, the kitty liked the Christmas Quilt idea, too, so she sat on part of the quilt near my feet.

I got busy and made a bunch of tiny hexagons, and put a whole row of white hexagons along one side of the soon-to-be wall-hanging. (All those white ones on the right-hand-side of the picture above are new.)

These are very tiny, as you may recall. Last time I posted about this one was this blog post. I think the first time I blogged about this particular tiny hexagon project was here, although I've posted about other tiny hexagon projects in the past (such as here and here).

 Anyhoo, I've got a little progress happening here and there, and that's been nice.

Since I like the chance to share and see quilty progress on quilty blogs, I'm linking this post to this week's Work In Progress Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.

Grape and Leaf Kaleidoscopes

Way back earlier this year, I mentioned starting some new kaleidoscope quilt blocks. (These are in addition to the ones I mentioned last week. Same process. Different fabric.)

These ones look fall-ish, and grape-and-leaf-ish, and I like them! I've pieced all (or most?) of the dozens I cut out. So, now, I've been adding background pieces (beige-y brown), and next up will be sewing them into rows, and adding sashing to the rows, then adding borders. Again, same process as those floral kaleidoscopes from last week.

So, I'm thinking that my dozens of grape-and-leaf kaleidoscopes will turn into a couple of nice throw quilts. Eventually. When I get around to finishing them. (Is it any wonder that the fabric-cutting lady at Wal-Mart raised her eyebrows when I mentioned how impossible it would be for me to ONLY work on ONE project at a time, and/or have ALL my projects finished? She has no idea ... I should mention my blog to her ... Hahaha!)

Baby Girly Quilt ~ with letters, squares, and a bit of custom quilting

Here's a little quilt I recently finished for my newest niece ... 

I mentioned starting a few little quilts in this post last month. This is one of those.

After piecing the front of the quilt, and picking a fabric for the back, I also added some letters to personalize the quilt.

I quilted the middle and the edges with a basic, meandering free-motion design, which is my all-time favorite.

Since I was free-motion-quilting, I decided to try a little something different in the little colored-square border. 

Free-Motion-Quilted flowers and leaves in the squares. I haven't tried this before, but I think it went pretty well for a first try.

(See my Machingers gloves in the picture below? Love them. I may have mentioned that set of quilting tools I got on sale from Leah Day's online store. Really makes quilting easier - especially easier on my hands! Not pictured: the teflon "slider" that's between the quilt and the sewing machine - it makes moving the quilt while quilting SO much easier.)

So, yeah. I like the little custom leaves-and-flowers detail.

For the back, I picked a nifty little waffle-weave fabric I've had in my stash. The colors were great, and the size was perfect.

The flowers and leaves even look good from the back! (If I do say so myself ...)

Cute little baby quilt. For a really cute little baby.

I'm linking this post to this week's Free Motion Friday at Leah Day's blog. It's always neat to get some inspiration and information from the other quilters who post about their latest projects there.

Vintage-Inspired Floral Kaleidoscopes

I've almost finished a new quilt top. 

I love hexagon kaleidoscopes!

I mentioned these kaleidoscopes in my September post about Floral Kaleidoscopes. This quilt top uses about half of the kaleidoscopes I made in September. (Which means I can make another quilt soon!)

 

It's turning into a throw-sized quilt ... Actually, this is a picture before the borders ... Next pictures I take, this'll have some gray borders and a floral border. I'm planning to piece a back out of a couple of grays, and maybe a bit of floral ...

These floral kaleidoscopes are made from a floral sheet. Not exactly a vintage sheet, and not exactly all-cotton. But the floral was just right for this kind of kaleidoscope. The gray background is a cotton sheet I bought at Wal-Mart when I needed just-that-color-of-gray for another project, and didn't have time to get to the fabric store. 

I'm enjoying making this quilt top & looking forward to quilting it soon.

I Quilted the Blue Shirt Quilt!

After so long a time ... I quilted The Shirt Quilt!

As you may recall, this one is made almost completely out of men's dress shirts. (I may have mentioned shirt-fabric in my blog posts about Fabric and on Dress Shirt Quilts.)

The Shirt Quilt Top was finished over a year ago. I posted about it several times ... the process for making the blocks was a favorite, discussed a couple times (see posts here and here), and this was one of the quilts that inspired my posts on my favorite fabric designers (see posts here and here.)

Just a few weeks ago, I figured out what to do with this quilt top: Quilt it for my youngest daughter! 

A few years ago, I made scrap quilts for all my girls. For the older two, I made twin-sized quilts (see a glimpse of the twin-size scrap quilts on the clothesline. *Update: More pics of the aqua scrap quilt, and the pink scrap quilt - and a couple others - are in this post of quilts on the clothesline.) At the time, my youngest daughter was quite small, so the quilt I made for her was quite small, too.

So, since my youngest daughter didn't have a twin-sized quilt made-by-mom, I finished this one up for her recently.

The quilting was SO EASY compared to some quilts I've quilted. This may have been partly due to the lightweight low-loft batting. But I'm pretty sure it's largely due to my new Ultimate Quilting Kit (see it here at Leah Day's shop - I got it on sale a few weeks ago, and I LOVE IT! And, no, nobody's paying me to say so, but it has been helping tremendously with my quilting!) 

Our kitty has a radar-sense for quilts ... she shows up out of nowhere every time a quilt gets put on the floor. She has to come examine the quilt! (Incidentally, the only time this kitty willingly sits on anyone's lap is if the lap has a quilt on it!)

In addition to my usual sign-the-quilt method (my initials and the year free-motion-quilted into the corner of the quilt), I also added some extra personalization this time ... 

Here's the quilted quilt, right before I put on the binding ... The back of the quilt is solid navy blue, and so's the binding. I quilted it with variegated blue thread, which looks great on the front AND the back.

When Friday comes along, I'll be linking this post to this week's Finish It Up Friday at CrazyMomQuilts ... check back for a link on Friday!