Happy Halloween!

I wanted to share with you the quilt that my 4th graders helped make!  They each decorated a jack-o-latern.  The quilt was quilted with a pumpkin design - I love it!  My mother-in-law did a beautful job putting it all together.  Enjoy the pics!

Back from the quilters...and some quilting myself!

Okay so not so much posting lately...but I've been doing lots of sewing.  AND...I got a brand new ironing board...ironing holder, cord holder, extra wide...I never thought I would be so excited about ironing.

Anyway, here are somethings that were finished up in the past few weeks...

My coffee cup quilt is back from the quilters...I just love the varigated (is that how you spell it?) thread!

I quilted the gingerbread quilt myself...I just stitched in the ditch!  You can see that Jango Fett loves this quilt!

My wolf quilt was quilted with a leaf pattern...Jango loves to get in front of the camera!

I also quilted the "Old Fashioned Christmas" quilt myself..I used sparkly white thread and used decorative stitches to add some detail to the snowbanks!

I have some other things I am working on:

Snowman Biker Quilt
Patriotic / WWI Quilt

I'll post new pics soon!

Rock-N-Roll Quilt

So what have I been working on the past few weeks...
this Rock-n-Roll Quilt!

I made this quilt for my Uncle, who has rock-n-roll in his blood!  A few months ago, he was diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer.  He is fighting back with chemo treatment but I wanted to cheer him up with a fun, warm quilt.  Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers...

Back - I love the music note quilting! 

Finished quilt

Don't you love the keyboard fabric?

Close up of appliqued music notes and quilting...

Back to School / Link to Giveaway

No blogging for the past few weeks.  As you may know, I'm a teacher and I went back to school on Aug. 16th (early I know!).  I think I am finally back into the groove of my working schedule (no more late nights sewing until the weekend).  The students in my class are wonderful and we already started this year's class quilt!

Even though I have been quiet in blogland, I have completed a few projects.  I'll post about them later...
But here is something EXCITING!
Sherri from "A Quilting Life" is giving away a GO Cutter!  Visit her blog before September 2nd for your chance to win.  Thanks Sherri for offering this awesome giveaway!

Charity Quilt Finished!

The coffee cup charity quilt for the 2010 Walk to Cure Psoriasis Chicago is finished!  I hope this beauty will raise money for this worthy cause.  I love the coffee cup quilting pattern and the back fabric!

Jango loves it too!

If you or someone in your family has been affected by psoriasis or if you would like to make a donation, please consider sponsoring my family's walk team.  Every dollar counts! 

Click here to visit the Pagano Family walk page

Route 66 quilt done!

It's been a long road this week...

• I had to work on this quilt while my husband was sleeping (yawn...)
• I don't like fussy cutting
• My fabric was from all different places and stretched differently (grrrrrr....)
• I need a real ironing board

But the Route 66 quilt top for my hubby's Christmas present is DONE!  What I love most about this quilt is the border fabric and the map fabric around each block.  I orginally made 16 blocks but realized it was going to be way too big.  The finished size now is around 60 x 60. 

I looked around for awhile for Route 66 fabric and I have some I didn't use on the quilt top.  I think for the back of this quit, I am going to piece together strips of Route 66 fabric and maybe add in some fabric that looks like a road.  Okay, now the hard part...keeping this a secret until Christmas!

Just picked up my sewing machine from the "spa". She is oiled, greased, tuned up, and ready to get back to work. Yay!!!

Sew much to do...

It is slow going for the Route 66 quilt.  I can only work on it when my husband is sleeping or in another room.  I have the blocks bordered twice, so I just need the third border on and then I'll just have to piece it all together.  I'll post pics when the blocks are finished. 

So my fabric stashes are overflowing and I really need to get sewing to have all this stuff ready for Christmas.  Tomorrow my sewing machine is going for a spa day (a.k.a. tune up and check up!).  Here is what is on my list of things to do:

1.  Route 66 quilt
2. Backing of wine quilt
3. Woods / Canoe quilt
4. Motorcycle Snowdudes quilt
5. Kitty Quilt

I'm sure I forgot some projects but I definitely have sew much to do! 

Gettin' my kicks...

Okay so I'm not traveling down the Mother Road of Route 66, but my Route 66 fabric did come in the mail today!  Last summer when we drove to Vegas, we drove on Route 66 for a few miles and visited this awesome roadside diner.  My husband and I are planning on driving Route 66 from Chicago to Santa Monica next summer...the whole stretch!  I thought I would make him a Route 66 quilt for Christmas. 

A few fabric designers make Route 66 fabric but I think they are older lines of fabric and I really couldn't find coordinating fabric.  So I shopped around the fabric shops by my house and online and found fabric that goes together well.  I am not really working off a pattern - just a sketch I drew about what I want it to look like.  The hubby is still off work due to his surgery so I might have to wait to start this quilt (or wait until he's asleep!)

Recycled T-Shirt Bag!

Okay I saw this Pepsi commercial with this little girl who makes recycled t-shirt bags and I just had to look it up.  I found the full story here at Pepsi.com.   If you know anything about Chicago, you know there is a fierce baseball rivalry between the Southside Sox and the Northside Cubs.  Now being a diehard Sox fan, I would normally NEVER post anything with Cubs but it is my best friend's birthday next week so I decided to try and make her a Cubs t-shirt bag...

They are so fan and easy to make!

Friendship is like wine, it gets better with age...

A wine quilt made for a Christmas gift for our good friends...what do ya think?!?

Cute little drawstring bag

I found this link that shows you how to make a very simple drawstring bag.  I am going to try and make one tonight.  Definitely an awesome blog to check out!!!

(Not so) Wordless Wednesday...a few minutes early

Okay, so I found some fabric sales...

Christmas in July

The hubby is still recovering from his surgery so we spent the weekend just relaxing.  I got a lot of sewing done and finished two Christmas presents...



A colorful table runner....

 

A lap quilt...

The best thing about these two projects is that I found all the fabric in my mother-in-law's scrap bin!!! How great is that!!!

Coffee Cup Charity Quilt

Hubby is feeling better but taking lots of naps to recover...and nap time = quilting time!  I finished the top for a charity quilt that will be auctioned off at the Chicago Psoriasis Walk in September.  My aunt is one of the coordinators of the walk and I was happy to make something to raise money for the charity.

I didn't want to make something too colorful so I chose blue and brown, figuring it would match somewhere in most houses.  I love coffee so that was the theme for this quilt.  The thing I love most about the quilt is that the coordinating fabrics were not part of the same fabric line - I just kind of stumbled upon a bunch of fabrics that matched perfectly.  I just love the coffee bean border!!!

I just set up mobile blogging from my cell phone. Just testing it out!

Emergency Room

This isn't quilting news, but I had to bring my hubby to the ER yesterday and he ended up having an appendicitis and a hernia.  :(  So no new sewing news for the next few days...

WolfSong Top finished!

 finished the Wolf Song quilt and I cannot wait until this one gets quilted.  My machine is still making weird noises so I really need to take my machine in for someone to look at it.  Just one more thing to do...


Anyway, here are some pics of the finished top!  I really love the flying geese row on the top and bottom.  Now that I have been quilting for a year, I find myself trying to make sure that everything is exactly perfect so I had to rip out quite a few of the geese and redo them.  I don't have a picture of the back but I just LOVE the back.  Hopefully this will get dropped off to my quilter this week and I'll have it back soon!

A new look...

Here is my updated, redesigned blog!!!  What do you think?!?

Goodies in the mail and a strange sound...

The mailman delivered some goodies today...my WolfSong fabric!  I saw this quilt a few months ago at Fabric Etc. 2  in Elmhurst, Illinois and I had to make it.  But they only had the main panel and one of the complimenting fabrics.  I searched the fabric stores around my house, looked at the huge quilt show in May, and have been searching the internet with no luck.  So awhile back I posted a pic of the panel on my blog and asked if anyone had spotted the fabric anywhere.  Well someone did and I called the quilt shop and it is here today...begging to be cut!

complimenting fabric

woodsy border, panel, and complimenting fabric

And the best part...the back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(sorry it is sideways)

So excited to get started!

Okay, on to the weird noise....my Singer Quilter's Confidence sewing machine is making a weird noise.  I took everything apart, cleaned it, and it is still there.  I heard it last week but when I cleaned the machine it went away - basically it isn't a permanent noise, it comes and goes but now it won't go away.  It sounds like a crackling - and it seems to be coming from the hand wheel.  When I move the hand wheel to move the needle there is no noise but when I use the pedal to sew fast, I can hear it.   Any suggestions????

Happy Scrappy Houses

Okay, so I'm kind of attached to my scraps so I can't throw them away but I really didn't know what to do with a bunch of little pieces.  I found this pattern at Quiltville.com and I knew I had to make it.  Each house is made from scraps from a certain quilt.  I am going to make 20 houses to celebrate making my first 20 quilts.  When I put the quilt together, I am going to start with the house made from the first quilt I made and go in order.  I finished 6 houses tonight - it is a lot of tiny cutting and piecing but they were fun to make.  I trimmed them a little bit to make them perfectly 7 1/2" squares.

From left to right, top to bottom: 

Pinwheels, True to the Red White & Blue, A Blanket for Baby Becket, Full Bloom, Big Jets, & 3 Cups of Tea

Now I just have to find some pretty fabric for the border of the blocks.  Maybe I'll look in my stash or maybe I'll have to go shopping for more fabric...

Quilting with the Cuz!

Sunday my cousin came over to make her first quilt!  She wanted to learn how to make a rag quilt, which is pretty quick to make.  We used the AccuCut machine to cut the rag squares and I will tell you that it is a HUGE time saver.  The fringed edges are perfectly cut and you don't have to do all the snipping when you are finished.

Here are some pics of her finished rag quilt - it is so cute and colorful!  

Quilting with my Little Sis!

My sister finished her first quilt today!  It was fun showing her how to quilt (although she was a pain picking out fabric...lol).  Anyway, we went to the quilt shop to pick out a border and she saw a quilted table runner that she had to have the pattern for.  Maybe she's caught the quilting bug???

Here are some pics of her hard work:

Isn't it beautiful!?!

Catching Up...again

My hubby surprised me and got me a new digital camera for our 3 year wedding anniversary...and I love it!  Two weeks ago, I finished this quilt for my teacher's aide who was a HUGE help this school year.  She was wonderful and I will definitely miss her next school year!  But anyway, here is the quilt I made to show her my appreciation for all her help...

Also, since I am from Chicago, I have been busy watching the BLACKHAWKS who are in the Stanley Cup Finals!!!!   Here is a pic of me and the hubby downtown with the famous Art Institute Lions dressed up in a Hawks helmet and a pic of the Chicago skyline, supporting the Hawks...beautiful, isn't it!!!!

School's Out!!!

Today was the last day of school!  Although it was a bittersweet day, I am excited to get some sewing done in the next few weeks...

I just have to decide what to start on first...

Catching up on the blog....

Last Friday, my mother-in-law came to my clasroom to give my students the quilt she made with them this year.  Last year when she thought of the project and came to my class, I was interested in quilting and after she was finished with my classroom quilt, I asked my mother-in-law if she would help me make quilt.  Yeah, that was 1 year and 20 quilts ago.... You think I'm addicted???

Anyway, the kids LOVED their kite quilt!  They set up museum "exhibits" about quilting - student made websites, book reviews about books about quilts, presentations about secret codes in underground railroad quilts, the tools you need to make a quilt, and more.  Students, faculty, and parents came to visit our "museum" and were just blown away by the kite quilt.  Here are some pictures of the quilt:

Each student wrote a "diamond" poem on a kite quilt block.  Some blocks were embellished like the one with all the students names...

A special touch was added by using fabric you can print on to add a picture of our class...

The kids loved it!  It is such a wonderful experience for them to be part of something that is hand-made.  I feel so lucky to have such a crafty, talented, and loving mother-in-law!!!  Here are pictures of my class looking at their quilt and my mother-in-law with my class...

See, I told you I have to catch up!  Tonight I made a rag quilt with some scraps I had.  My mother-in-law bought the Accu-Cut at the quilt show a few weeks back so I bought the template for the rag quilt.  Let me tell you - what a timesaver!!!  After it was cut out, it only took me about an hour and a half to make this whold quilt.  It was even, easy to sew, and "ragged" beautifully!  What a great investment -  I can't wait to use it again!