More progress on the Yo GG quilt

I got the white background fabric quilted last evening on two blocks and the borders pieces too. My plan is to keep quilting all the white areas until those are done. By the time I get all the white done the blue thread should arrive.

My plans for the weekend are to mow and weed wack - my yard is a mess! - of course, work on the Yo GG quilt, and on Sunday take the little girls dresses for a fitting and get them finished.

Have you all made plans? Have a great weekend!

Yo GG quilt

I finally got started on free motion machine quilting the Yo Gabba Gabba or Yo GG quilt. I am using Connecting Threads Essential for the white. I will be using Signature for the black and I had to order some blue thread. You would think that someone with a stash of over 100,000 yards of quilting thread I would have the right color, but no. Along with the blue, I checked my thread for the Elmo quilt yet to be made and found I needed to get some thread for that. I ordered a spool of red, yellow (although I am not sure it is the right yellow), and cobalt blue all from Connecting Threads. I had some red and blue in my stash, but not enough. Connection Threads use to have a dark intense yellow, but they don't anymore so I will have to wait to see what this yellow thread I ordered looks like in person.

A busy weekend

I managed to get the Yo Gabba Gabba quilt top done and pin basted and both of the little girl dress made. I still need to put the lace on the one dress. They will get hemmed once the girls try the dresses on.

Saturday's gig went well despite the miserable heat and humidity. Here are some shots of the crowd and the band

Here is the road case my brother retro fitted to use for the merchandise. Instead of a tote for each size of shirt, one for the CD's, one for miscellaneous supplies, and another one for vinyl records, everything fits into this one case. He put wheels on it too so it will be off the ground if it rains. Saturday was the first day we put it into action and it worked out great. The drawers hold pens, tape, the hot cards, stickers, magnets, and other supplies. Next my brother is going to fit the lid for the case with legs so we can us it for our table and not have to bring the six foot folding table for the display. I will be making a table cover for the lid using the guitar fabric.

Three day weekend - yeah!

It is going to be a busy three days. I was out the door early this morning to do my grocery shopping before work so that is out of the way. Saturday is a haircut then heading to a gig with my nephew's band in the afternoon.

I worked on the Yo Gabba Gabba quilt's border and it will be my goal to get the border tweaked, get the topped sewn together, and get it pin basted.

The other item on the list is getting two simple little girl's dresses made. Yesterday I received the lace, ribbon and zippers I ordered so I am all set with everything I need. All I have to do is draft a pattern and start sewing. I also bought a large spool of black quilting thread from the same company - Home Sew - that I needed for finishing the Halloween quilt. I may be using is also on the Yo Gabba quilt too.

If I have time I would like to get started on the Elmo quilt. Have a great weekend!

MQG meeting

There was a turn out of 9 women. There would have been 10, but one of the ladies couldn't stay because the room was too cold. The A/C was running hard since it is so humid here. We don't have any control over the system. A couple of the other ladies had jackets in their cars which they retrieved. I wanted to see her dye results from her time at the dye-palooza. Hopefully she will bring them next month and a jacket just in case!

Anyway here are some pictures of the dye results.

Then it was on to show and tell. Here are a couple of charity quilts one of the ladies made. She free motioned the drawings which she traced from coloring book. They have minky on the back and were very cute!

Another member was tearing off foundation papers from some half square triangles. She had hundreds of these to do!

Next was a quilt in progress and a plus sign cross top. For the plus sign top this busy sewer bought the fabric on Friday and finished the top before she came to the meeting! She said she needs to come to my house and use my big table to pin baste the plus sign top.

A couple of lovely pieces by another member.

I forgot to take a picture of another members baby quilt. She is expecting in November and made a quilt with a cheater fabric that was 1" squares in orange, yellow and gray for her baby boy. She did a fantastic job of quilting the quilt in a grid following the ditch between the squares. She did quilt every line both ways! The fabric was a linen blend and she put a very wide polka dotted flannel binding on it.

Adding the borders and a tutorial of how I do it

Here is the current state of the Yo Gabba Gabba quilt. I have about half the borders sewn together in sections.

Here are more sections ready to be sewn together.

This is a simple border, but I like the chunky look of it. Here is how I do it.

Lay two pieces of fabric together, one on top of the other, with the right side up for both pieces. Make sure you have a straight edge at one end.

I laid out my cutting ruler on top of the fabric. I wanted the width of the fabric border around 7 inches - that gives me some extra for trimming the quilt once I have the top sewn together.

I turned the strip and now it is ready for slicing.

Now it is time to slice the strip into chunks.

Now take the pieces and sort them. Make sure to keep the pieces in order. After sorting they are ready to be sewn together. Cool chunky borders!

Tonight is our MQA meeting. I am the host and it will be all about the fabric we dyed on the 18th.

Yo Gabba Gabba quilt top progress

I made the last two blocks for this quilt last evening. I will sew these twelve blocks together before I decide if I am going to make the quilt a bit bigger with borders.