My Sewing and Quilting Adventures

Have you ever gotten into an awkward situation when one of your close friend or family or even acquaintance asks you to mend something for you? Just because I sew, people think that mending other people's clothes is a fun job for me. I don't even mend my own families clothes then, why would I stay up late or wake up early in the morning to mend someone else clothes? Image Source:  http://etc.usf.edu/clipart/69800/69826/69826_lady-mend.htm Its like just because you can cook, people ask you to cook all the time or for that matter any other thing. How do you handle this in a polite manner? I am afraid of mentioning to my non-sewing or non-quilting friend that I sew or quilt.

This past Wednesday I started quilting my textured solids quilt, blogged here . I knew I wanted to quilt all straight lines inspired my original quilt from the book which was quilted by Angela Walters . But I am still a novice when it comes to long arm quilting. Sometimes I have hard time translating my ideas or the right approach for long arm quilting. I wanted to use different color threads for different area. So, I started with the outer white: Quilting on the outer borders - or white background Closeup of the quilting Before unloading the quilt from the long arm I decided to quilt a straight line through the center seam and now my quilt is all bunched up from the back. So, I have to unpick my stitches before loading it again for quilting :-(. Not my favorite thing to do. Any ideas of how you would have handled this on the long arm machine? Now linking up to Leah Day's FMQ Friday .

Last week I finished couple of projects. The textured solids quilt top and the warm & cozy car seat cover for the little one. Textured Solid Quilt - from Quilting Modern book by Jacquie Gering and Katie Pederson Honey do list - A car seat cover for my toddler using fleece fabrics My LQS Bits N Pieces had fabulous sale over the weekend and I got more of Simply Style FQs. Right now, cutting into these beautiful fabrics. Simply Style fabrics by V & Co Now linking up to Lee's freshly pieced blog .

Here is what I brought home from the swap. This lovely pillow was made by Laurie . Isn't this pillow so adorable. The colors are same as my daughter's Ariel themed bedroom. Here is one happy little girl: Happy quilting!

For our BMQG December meeting we all have to bring something quilty stuff for gift exchange. I decided to make this little mug rug, since I knew I will be short of time and wanted to pick something which I can finish before the meeting. This is probably between 6 to 7 inch finished hexagon. Also this was my first attempt at finishing the little quilt with hexagon binding. I did have to fiddle with closing the binding right, took me a while. Here are some pictures: Hexa Mug Rug - Simply Color Fabric line by V & Co Binding - I used ombre fabric in Aqua from same fabric line Back of the mug rug - I even attempted to label it this time ;) The binding was machine stitched to the front and hand stitched at the back. This little thing took me little over 4 hours to make. Either I am very slow or detailed oriented. Now linking up to Leah Day's  FMQ Friday. I will be back again with another post on the gift I got to grab. Yes, I used the word grab since it was a Yan

I am so excited to be part of Kona Blog Hop @ Sew We Quilt . Over the past couple of years I have been collecting lots of solids especially Kona cottons. Here is my stash, I have a few FQ bundles and the lots of half yard cuts. Are you wondering which colors I will choose? Come back in January to find out more about this project. Now linking up to Lee's@Freshly Pieced blog.

I am so excited to share another tutorial for Riley Blake Designs cutting corners: Boy Crazy Cabins . I really fell in love with this perfect boy color fabrics. And have been wanting to make a wonky log cabin quilt for a long time now. Boy Crazy Cabins So, this was just perfect. So, head on over to Riley Blake Designs to checkout my tutorial. Hope you like it! Happy Quilting! Hema (a.k.a Malini)

Last week I showed you a peek of all the HTS I was making. I am using striping piecing to make these HTS and its so much fun. Probably will have to do a tutorial sometime. I quilted this quilt with feathers FMQ and free-motion straight line designs called "Dot to Dot Quilting" by Angela Walters. I loved this class, but there are mixed reviews about this since Angela demonstrates this on the DSM. But she is just awesome as always. Woodland trail baby/toddler quilt Feathers & dot-to-dot FMQ Close of feathers FMQ I rented the longarm at Bits-N-Pieces to quilt this and I was pretty happy with how my feathers turned out. Definitely a great improvement from last time. For me, still long arm quilting experience is surprise every time I go there. Sometimes my quilting turns out the way I expected and sometimes it doesn't. Now linking up Lee's W.I.P. Wednesday @FreshlyPiecied blog.

Something cute is cooking up in my studio today. I will have more pictures to share this Friday. HTS and some trimming Aren't those dreamy deers cute! or are they unicorns? Now linking up to Lee's freshly pieced blog.

Welcome to our 2nd day of a very special blog hop - "Just for the Boys". My project involves a very special little buddy of mine, my son who is 2 yrs old. A while ago he took over his big sisters doll stroller, now he completely owns it. We slowly take over big sister's stuff....first borrow it and then never return. It becomes ours ;)...LOL. Here is the picture of the stroller before the make over: Toy Stroller Makeover - Before pictures Toy Stroller Makeover - Before pictures with Little K He is very tiny and so sometimes he can make himself comfortable in this toy stroller. He loves puppies and always carries his little puppy & blankie around. So I decide to make a stroller cover using some of my favorite puppy fabrics - "Spot's Favorite Color". For the back of the stroller I did a wonky modern log cabin block and for the seat I just used a square fabric trimmed to half circle. I quilted in the ditch for both the back and the seat.

This is my third entry into the Blogger Quilt Festival @Amy's Creative Side . I am entring my "Blind Co-pilot" quilt which I made for my husband in the bed quilt category. This was my long time UFO which I started in January 2013 and Finished August 2013. I totally love this pattern from Jacquie Gering and Katie Pederson's "Quilting Modern" book. Blind Co-pilot This is one of my other favorite and my hybrid quilt. I really love the story of this. This was my first attempt at long-arm free motion quilting. When I went for quilting this in February of this year I was already pretty quilt with free motion quilting on my domestic machine and had a pretty good idea what I wanted to quilt on this. All these sections was finished on my domestic machine But to my super surprise things didn't go as planned. All my swirls were boxy than circular. By the way, I also took my then 19months old son along with me for quilting. At times in those 2-3 hours I

Blogger Quilt Festival @AmyCreativeSide is lot of fun for all the quilters to get together online. This entry is for my throw/lap quilt I made for Riley Blake's Cutting Corners College: Cute and Spooky Spider Web Quilt . This tutorial was using just the require 6x24 inch ruler no special rulers. I also wrote a tutorial using the Creative Grid's Spider Web ruler using Moda's Boo Crew fabric line by Deb Strain. Check out the tutorial here .  This is the modern version of the traiditional Spider web quilt. I love the asymmetry of the quilt which creates two different sizes of spider webs. Cute and Spooky Spider web quilt Not sure why this is sideways...can't figure out blogger Check out the other throw quilt in this category: Blogger Quilt Festival- Throw quilts Quilt Statistics: Dimentsion: 59 x 76 inches Quilted on: Long arm machine - HQ Avante Quilted by: me(Hemamalini Elumalai) a.k.a Malini Thread: King tut 40wt thread Blogger Quilt Festival

The pattern for Modern Pods quilt is from Elizabeth Hartman's Craftsy class " Inspired Modern Quilts ". The fabric line I used is "Little Black Dress" by Basic Grey for Moda. I was totally in love with this fabric line and used Moda's mini charm packs, also known as Moda candy's. I am totally addicted to these. This quilt was made with all my favorite things, the background fabric is Robert Kaufman's Yarn Dyed Essex in Flax. I used Angela Walter's wood grain free motion quilting on the background and swirls in the pod blocks. Closeup of Wood Grain FMQ from Angela Walter's first book I love the back of the quilt as much as I love the front. Check out the other quilts in this category: Blogger Quilt Festival -Baby quilts Quilt Statistics: Dimensions: 40 x 52 inches Quilted on: HQ Avante Long arm machine Thread: So Fine 50wt thread Fabric line: Little Black Dress by Moda Blogger Quilt Festival Category: Baby quilts

Welcome to the Wicked Blog hop brought to you by Wicked Wendy and Madm Samm . Looks like I am diving from one Halloween project into the other since September. After 2 spider web quilts I wanted to do something different. How about WICKED ONE HANDLE BAG. My inspiration was the one eye monster Mike from the "Monster University" movie. There triangles where left over from the Boo-crew spider web quilt below. I don't like to waste any fabric ;). Quilted the white triangles with radiating rays Wicked Bag with Spider web quilt Here are my 2 "Cute And Spooky Spider web" quilts along with link to the tutorials:  The first one is my most recent Spider web quilt just finished last week using Moda's Boo crew fabric line. Click here for the tutorial using Spider Web ruler Cute and Spooky Spider web quilt - tutorial here This one I made it for Riley Blake Design's Cutting Corners College. It doesn't require any special ruler for