My Sewing and Quilting Adventures

I had 4 blocks left over from making the Metro Hoops Quilt  and decided to make a pillow . I quilted the center with feathers. Then just SID around the hoop and the echoed just once to emphasize the hoop/circle. For the outer area of the hoop, I was inspired by Jenny@SewKindOfWonderful . I haven't done much of straight line quilting. But like Leah Day says I find it faster to free motion quilt the straight line over using walkfoot/regular foot. Its so much faster and no hassle with pivoting. But I did roughly mark my lines using a disappearing ink pen. And the quilting really go by fast. You're going to see more of straight line quilting in the future :-). My daughter already claimed this to be hers and wanted it to hang in her room. So, this is going to a wall hanging rather than pillow. For the corner squares I used Angela Walter's design which you see in so many of her quilts. I'm not yet comfortable with quilting varying widths of figure 8s. This was fun ...

From making my Metro Hoops quilt top, I had 4 blocks left to make another hoop. Unfortunately I had realized that I had extra four blocks only at the end and had already used all pink for the last 4. I am making a pillow out of this extra hoop. I was thinking of how to quilt it and couldn't think of anything other than feathers. I also liked what Jenny @SewKindOfWonderful did with her quilt. But yet, I wanted to explore myself too. I think I might go with this for the center: Metro Hoops Pillow - with extra block I still haven't gotten bored with quilting feathers. For the outer ring/hoop I might just Quilt-in-the-ditch and then echo it once. The outer most negative space I'm thinking of some straight line quilting. That's all for today! Happy Quilting! Malini

I made this quilt for my 4year old nephew who loves Lightning McQueen. The center of the quilt is a printed panel and I added couple of borders to it. I really enjoyed free motion quilting on my domes sewing machine - Singer Stylist 9960. The "Rolling Tires" FMQ on the red border and flames quilting on the outer most border. I just highlighted the center panel by quilting around the motif/car.  FMQ on the borders Disney Cars Quilt Quilt Dimensions: Width : 43 inches Height: 50 inches Machine Quilted on : Singer Stylist 9960 Pieced & Quilted by: Malini Elumalai Thread: Sulky 40wt Embroidery thread Batting: Quilters Dream Select Now entering this quilt in the Home Machine Quilted category in the Blogger's Quilt Festival. Checkout the other awesome quilts in the Favorite Home Machine Quilted category.

I had the wonderful opportunity to test a pattern for Jenny@ Sew Kind Of Wonderful . She & Helen invented the Quick Curve Ruler(QCR) and they have many amazing modern patterns using the QCR. Here is my Metro Hoops quilt. It was really fun to make. In the last year or so I have used few patterns but I had to always make them simplified for piecing. But with Jenny & Helen's Metro hoops pattern I didn't have to modify a single thing. Everything was so well thought out and piecing was so much more fun. Also there were few squares up to allow room for errors. So, this works for any one from beginner to advanced quilter. Here is the picture of the block itself: Metro Hoops Block Here are couple of pictures of the Quilt top. Saturday after my daughter's piano recital I quickly went out to get few pictures of the quilt top. In-door pic of the Metro Hoops quilt top Outdoor pic of the Metro Hoops quilt top I know I have been blogging a lot lately but hav...

Our Mother's day evening was well spent with friends from BMQG for a sew-in at Gather Here for making quilts tops, quilt backs and blocks for " Quilts for Boston ". I took some 20 blocks to make this quilt top. It was amazing to see how blocks made by different people all around the world came together so well.  Quilt top - Quilts for Boston I will be also quilting this quilt completely including binding. I just can't wait. I am also working on another project and more updates on that next week. Linking up with Lee@ Freshly Pieced blog. Happy Quilting!

I always feel my daughter is crafty like me. My little one(21months) always loves to go into his sisters room and pull out all her books. Last couple of days everytime he went to her room while she was at school, he took out all her stickers near the headboard. What is the consequence? Last evening she just whipped up the above sign and its on her door now. I just can't stop laughing :-), LOL! Kids are fun!

I always have hard time making a quilt label. I feel it should look professional and good especially if you're gifting to a non-quilter friend/family. Not sure, if they really appreaciate all the work that goes into it. I always keep my fingers crossed to see if they really like the gift or not. Recently I finished two toddler quilts for my nephew (4yrs) and niece(2yrs) and wanted a quilt label more personal and as adorable as they are. I really love the Little Stitches book by Aneela Hoey . Here are the two patterns I used for the quilt label. When the first one I traced the letters and the second one I just went for it without marking. Hmmm you can definitely tell the difference: I thought the quilt labels were cute, even though not perfect. Happy Quilting! Malini

I had a really fun afternoon @ Bits N Pieces Quilt Shop in Pelham, NH today. They generously donated all the fabrics for the blocks and had accumulated a lot of blocks by end of the day. I wish I had stayed back to count the blocks. Lets first meet the team who were making blocks while I was there. Alyssa, Alicia and the gentleman in the picture were making blocks after blocks as a team. Me posing for camera Here are the blocks which I made during the sew-in. First one was kind of planned. The other 2 were improv piecing to use up the scraps I created making the block1. Uneven hour-glass, Block1; Measures 12.5x15.5 inches Hourglass-Logcabin, Block2; Measures 12.5x12.5 inches Just Wing It, Block3; Measures 12.5x10.5 inches This was a fun afternoon well spent.  Happy Quilting! Malini