Our new little bundle

Have you ever had a day that felt like you got nothing done? That is how yesterday began for me. I was up and at it, hair and make up done, ready to spend a wonderful Family Day with my shorties. By 10 am I was totally spent, and collapsed on the couch for a two hour nap.
I woke briefly at 1230 and made my way upstairs for a quick washroom break which I followed by falling into bed for another 3 hours. I literally could not even force myself to do a thing!
At 330 I finally shook it off and joined my sweet family downstairs for a mid afternoon snack. The teenagers teased me that I only came down because I could smell the nachos and cheese. What can I say?? A nine month pregnant Mama and food are pretty good friends, I am eating for 2 remember?

I must admit, I was caught by surprise at 4 pm when my water broke. I was so happy and relieved that I immediately rushed to my Matty to share the news. He was easily as excited as I, and we were in the car and arriving at hospital by 430.

Long story short, the wee man was born at 807 pm, weighing 7 lbs 15 oz, our biggest baby ever! Now since you’ve been so patient, I will end my story with these…

There’s Daddy holding the newest wee man.

Mama and Babes are tired after a busy afternoon.

Chubs is not too sure that he likes this ‘outside’ stuff.

Nighty night my Quilty friends… We’re heading back to bed. 🙂

Quilty hugs,
Bradie

Something new

So I caved. I began something new. In preparation for baby’s birth and the quiet hours I will have at the hospital, I did all the prep for a needle turn appliqué project. This is my first try, and so far… Not too bad.

I was a little challenged at the deep inner curve on the other side of the leaf you see there in the picture, but I’m hoping it gets better with practice… Anybody know?? Or have awesome tutorials they’d be willing to share?

To stay with my FINISH theme , I am also bringing my grape colored scarf, a knitting project I began ages ago. Just for a little variety you know? 🙂

Thinking baby won’t be much longer now, and will be sure to post pics once the wee one arrives.

Quilty Hugs,
Bradie

The Finished Valentine’s Table Runner

Today, I am grounded. To my bed. Being 35.5 weeks pregnant with Babe #10 and having contractions all day yesterday, and overnight got me here.
So of course I am bored outta my mind.

Which makes this the perfect opportunity to share my little Valentine’s Table Runner with you all! The first one I made was on an impulse I had. There was a muslin quilt sandwich on the Lenni frame and I just began slapping patches down and stitching to experiment with piecing a quilt on the long arm. Within minutes, I had this:

It was awesome! Quilted as I went too. It took a little bit of playing around to get it right, but I was loving the results. Next I added some borders…

And then I thought it needed a little something else. So I cut out a bunch of wee hearts, and slapped those on top, and stitched them down…

In total, with very little forethought and zero planning, my wee quilt took two hours! I was totally hooked!

This also got my Matty pretty excited, and he quickly planned a live tutorial which we hosted two days later. I made the second one bigger, and used appliqué shapes cut with our Go cutter from the Rose of Sharon die. I tell you, when I’ve had this baby, I’ll be doing a lot more piecing projects on the long arm! It is so fast and easy!

We did record the making of the second runner, so if you are interested, you may view it here:
Two Hour Valentine’s Table Runner Tutorial.

This project could also be done by domestic machine, and I hope to whip up that tutorial soon as well. If you feel that you could whip it up sans directions (it IS super simple) here are the deets…

Finished Size 41X22 inches.

This project can be made scrappy. If you have lots of 2.5 or 5 inch strips, they can be used! I will show how to join them as we go.

Entire project, including attaching binding will be demonstrated on the longarm frame. Once we are finished you will only need to trim away excess batt and backing, then stitch binding to back.

Top
9 X (5 inch squares)
4 X (2.5 inch x wof) strips
2 X (5 inch x wof) strips

Appliqué
8 X (3 in squares)

Backing and batting
30+ in by 45 in

Binding
3 X (2.5 X WOF strips)

This is the second runner finished, (aside from stitching the binding that is)

Still on the frame:

All trimmed up:

Well that’s all for today… Would love to hear your thoughts on my cutesy wee runners! 🙂 time for this lil Mama to have a snooze, all this laying around is making me tired! LOL

Quilty Hugs,
Bradie

And the Winner of the Accuquilt Go Cutter is….

Do you remember what your entry number was?

LOL. Just kidding.

I’ll tell you who it is….

“Hey Bradie! Awsome of you do to this girl!
1. Since I dont own any cutter, the 4 1/2 strip cutter may be a place to start.
2. I’d design a Cathederal Windows cutter for hand piecers to get some use out of a cutter! I LOVE that pattern, and someday, I hope to make one for myself.

The UFO i’d like to finish the most, is a “saved” dresden plate. I rescued it off of ebay. Replaced a half dozen of the plates/petals due to holes, etc,..replaced with old flour sack material to match, and the top looks wonderful, if I say so myself!
Reason it’s not done: I have fibromyalsia, and it takes me quite a long time to finish quilts, both longarming with my millennium, and piecing tops. Good Days allow me a couple hours to quilt. Most days NOT.
I’ve been finishing quilts first from friends/family who have quilt tops not yet quilted, and i’ve done theirs first, hence, mine’s taken the back seat!

Comment by sheributler — January 14, 2012 @ 5:16 pm | Edit This | Reply”

Sheri! Are you excited?? I am excited for you. 🙂

Please send me an email to bradie@sparrowstudioz.com and include your email address, mailing address, and your choice of three Go cutter dies. I will forward all the info to Accuquilt who will then proceed with getting you a fabulous new cutter! Congratulations! I hope you love it as much as I do. 🙂

Two Hour Valentine’s Runner Tutorial Announcement – Today!

Hi all!
Just a quick little post to announce I will be having a live tutorial about how to piece a quilt on a longarm today.

This is my Two Hour Valentine’s Table Runner. I will broadcast live at 11am PST with a tutorial on how to make it. (of course this can also be done with your domestic machine as well!) I hope you will tune in to watch and learn!
Here is where you can find us…
http://ustream.tv/channel/long-arm-quilting
See you there!

Quilty Hugs,
Bradie

PS. While you are here be sure to enter my Accuquilt GO cutter giveaway below… Good luck!

Bradie’s GO Cutter Giveaway!

Hi everyone!!
I am so excited to share today’s post with you. 🙂 Let’s jump right in k?

Again this week I broke up my tasks to make the job less daunting. Monday, I pressed the white background fabric so the cutting would be easier. Tuesday I cut the 15 inch squares and marked them for centering the Dresden plates. Wednesday, I laid out the plates and pinned them in place. Lastly, on Thursday, I stitched the first one in place. Being guild night, I had to cut it short, but I am pleased with finishing one.

Oh! Look there it is! 🙂

As you know from my earlier posts, the initial stage of this quilt was made much easier through the use of an Accuquilt GO cutter. I am very pleased with my GO cutter and if it is a purchase you are considering, I would truly recommend it. It is especially useful for odd and unusually shaped patches due to the accuracy and speed. That is why I am so thrilled to be offering you, the opportunity to win one of these great quilting tools!!

To enter, here is what you need to do. First, subscribe to this blog if you haven’t already. Next leave a comment, on this post answering the two following questions…

1. Visit the Accuquilt website and decide which is the #1 GO cutter die you would like to own AND if you could design a die, what would it be?

2. Tell me about the UFO you would like to finish the most, and tell what is keeping you from the FINISH? Binding, quilting, what?? 🙂

Once you have done that, you are entered! Only one comment per person please. The comments will close on Monday at midnight MST and the winner will be announced Wednesday.

I would be very grateful if you took a sec to share this on FB, twitter, or your blogs. 🙂 thanks my quilty peeps! Best of luck to you all.

Quilty hugs,
Bradie

Not completely my Finish…

Today’s finish isn’t exactly my own. It is a beautiful sampler from a client in PEI who shipped three gorgeous quilts to us for long arming. Since I did the quilting, I am going to throw this in as a finish. Keeps the motivation up, you know?? 😉

Here is peek at the whole quilt. I quite like the colors and all the blocks. The blocks below were two that I really liked. You can also see the quilting design quite well in these.

This is the back of the quilt.

I have another pretty sampler quilt on the frame for tomorrow. I’m really liking these pantograph quilts, they FINISH up so fast!!

What have you been finishing? Any freshly done quilts you’d like to share? Leave your links in the comments so we can all stop by for a peek at your UFO’s …finished!

Quilty hugs,
Bradie

Chipping away at Dresden Plates

I began a Dresden Plate quilt earlier this year. Using a line of 30’s repro prints by Chloe’s Closet for Moda, the plate petals were all cut with an Accuquilt Go Cutter. Since that initial effort, this small Dresden plate runner has sat, untouched by quilty hands.

I began so ambitiously, sure I would end up with a queen size quilt. It didn’t take long to see I was limited by fabric and well to be honest, patience! Lol however, I have chosen to see the sunlight at the end of the tunnel, and I am chipping away at this lovely little quilt.

Day one, I took all the pointy tip petals and pinned them all in half with right sides of fabric facing each other.

Day two, I stitched the tips of each individual petal.

Day three, I turned each petal right side out.

Day Four, I pressed each petal flat. This prepared them for attaching to each other.

Day Five, I pinned them in pairs.

Day Six, I splurged time wise and spent a little over an hour to piece them all into their finished plates.
This was when I realized that what initially looked like zillions of petals actually amounted to 3 blocks. LOL funny right??

So there it is! One of my Dresden plates. Now to finish up with some background and a center. I hope to accomplish that by Friday so I will have a picture to share. I’d like to invite you back for Friday’s post which will be the beginning of my Accuquilt GO cutter giveaway! I’m super excited about this one. 🙂 It will be fabulous to cross this project and giveaway off my UFO list.

Quilty Hugs,
Bradie

With a little help from my friends

I have another finished quilt to share with you today! This one has been so patient. It began in Feb. 2010 as a mystery challenge for an upcoming guild retreat. Our friend, Joan E. (quilt)Smith, designed the beginning pattern, which consists of the inner four blocks. I pieced these ahead of time and added the first inner border.

The next step was to take the quilt to retreat where another quilter would add the next border, you know, round robin style. Joan added the prairie point border next. Then the quilt went to Brenda who added the block type border. Lastly, my very own Mommy, Marilyn added the outer chevron or braid type border. I love the borders these fabulous ladies put on my quilt!!

Matty totally rocked the quilting with some gorgeous teeny tiny feathers and neat block designs too. This quilt is truly one of a kind!

I had gotten the binding half ass attached in November, but gave it a final push and finished it up new years day. It is hanging in our son Tash’s room where the colors work perfectly.

I really enjoyed doing this style of quilt, with the center blocks and adding varied borders. I will certainly do something like this again. Have you participated in round robin quilt making? Let’s see some pics or blog posts! Feel free to leave a comment and share about your own round robin experience.

Quilty hugs,
b.

A word to quilt by

My motto lately has been very simple. It’s one word.
Finish.
Simple right??
In times of temptation, when I’m certain that I need to rip into a whole new project, I remind myself.
Finish.
I have to admit, it feels good to finish a project! Here is a runner which I made Christmas 2011. Matt quilted it early 2011, and it waited patiently until October for binding. I’m happy to say I finished it a couple of days before Christmas. The fabric in this runner is Rouenneries, by French General for Moda. I really like this block and think I will do more of these through 2012 in Xmas fabrics. What do you think?

🙂
Quilty hugs,
b.