Grace Embroidery & Quilts – Kelly's Kwilts

Happy New Year!

It’s January 2nd, and we had a great New Year’s Eve! The kids wanted to see the ball drop, so we let them stay up until midnight. OMG were they cuckoo crazy! Running around the room, and just being goofy. We played some video games and watched the ball drop and put them to bed just after midnight – let them sleep on the couch, which they’ve been asking to do for awhile.

I try this every year, maybe this year I can stay consistent and do something every month! I start every year out with good intentions in participating with the One Monthly Goal at Elm Street Quilts and after a few months I just get so busy that I fizzle out and never get back to it. So let’s try it again! 🙂 This month I want to get the rest of my pentagons put together, there’s 18 of them left, and then pinned to the background and ready for applique.

Need to finish my inventory today so I can balance my 2020 books for the business and I really want to start some quilting today if I can. So I’m out of here! Good luck on your goals this month!

January OMG

I know I haven’t been around for awhile, I kinda skipped the month of December when it came to sewing. I had exactly 1 project that I made for Christmas, however I spent a couple of days stitching out candy cane holders for the kids to give their friends at school. I made ornaments for the teachers, but it looks like I didn’t get any pictures of them.

For January, I have 3 items I want to get basted and quilted. 2 table runners that I’m not yet sure what I want to do with and a table topper that will be listed for sale in my etsy shop. I want to start out the year with some small wins before I get into the larger quilts I have left to finish. Not sure if these 3 items will be on my 2018 UFO challenge yet, depends on if they are done before the next guild meeting or after. 🙂 I have the table topper basted today and hope to get started quilting it in the next day or so.

Linking up to Elm Creek Quilts OMG.

Dear Jane EPP – Commission Quilts

I finished 2 more Dear Jane EPP blocks last night while catching up on shows with the hubby. Kids spent the night at Grandma and Grandpa’s, so we had lots of time to do all our show watching. Even watched a movie! A4 was an easy block, there looks to be a bubble in the middle, but that will ease once the papers get taken out. A11 was a bit harder to get everything to fit in together, again I think it will flatten out more once all the papers are taken out. Down to 6 blocks and this row is complete!

I also finished the commissioned quilts I’ve been working on, they need to go through the wash so I can get them shipped out. I will take pictures once they are out of the dryer in the next day or so.

Back in October I joined a hexie swap. All the hexies needed to have words on them. I had gone to Miller’s Dry Goods and bought 3 fabrics that I loved and sent all my hexies in. We just got our hexies back, I have 120 individual hexies with words! She sent some awesome goodies with them, I love the little button! I’m waiting on 2 more swaps to get sent and I just signed up for another one! I don’t know what I’m going to do with all these hexies yet, I can wait until I come up with a plan though!

More EPP Finishes

I finished another Dear Jane EPP block the other day, and almost finished another last night. So right now I have 5 of the 13 blocks in the first row completed, soon to be 6. I’m a little behind, but that’s ok, this is totally a long term project! I’m enjoying the process!

Everyone in the house, except Alex, was sick over the weekend and I couldn’t get into my office to prep another Dear Jane EPP block, so I worked on hexie insanity instead. Just 3 more of these to do and I’ll need to restock my container with more hexies. Still a LONG way to go on this project too, but it doesn’t bother me in the least!

Today I’m working on the labels for the 2 commission quilts and attaching the binding to the front so this weekend I can work on hand stitching it to the back. I’d like to get these shipped out next week if possible! So back to work!!

Happy New Year!

Wow! What a year we’ve had! I so did not get much sewing accomplished this year! Tons of camping, fun with the kids, the oldest is now in Kindergarten, we got a puppy the beginning of December…I could go on and on!

I only made one Christmas present this year, with the help of my sister and kids (just a little) we made our mother a memory quilt. Unfortunately I didn’t take a picture of the finished quilt, I’ll have to try to remember next time I’m at their house. I was working on the binding on Christmas Eve, washed it and wrapped it as soon as it was out of the dryer. So taking a picture totally slipped my mind!

My etsy business is doing ok, I’ve had lots of views of the shop and items, just not many purchases. Only a total of 7 for 2016. I’ve recently created a Facebook page for the business, not sure if that’s helping yet or not. I have 4 commission quilts that need to be done in 2017, the first 2 tops are already done and ready for basting which I hope to be doing tomorrow or Monday.

Our quilt guild is doing a UFO Challenge for 2017 – I’m running it! I have 27 items on my list. I know I don’t have a chance of finishing them all, but I’ll do anything to get that push to finish them. Most of them just need quilted and bound, I just don’t know what I’m waiting for!

I don’t have any other pictures to show in this post, so I’ll just add 2, my little munchkins with Santa and a picture of our new baby, Raven Skye.

Have a wonderful New Year and be safe!!

Etsy Shop

A few years ago I created a shop on Etsy intending on putting items up for sale, and I just never got around to it. Last year I started listing items that I make on the embroidery machine and every couple of weeks I add new items. Today I listed this cute Love Bunting. It ends up about a foot long once it’s on the ribbon. Come on over and check out what’s available!

Shopping and Hexie Insanity

We were camping over the weekend down near Millersburg so mom and I decided to take a trip over to Miller’s Dry Goods on Friday. I found a few things that I could use 🙂 The panel is for the back of Alex’s bed quilt (that I need to get working on!) and so is the Thomas yardage. The white on white (hexagons!) and the Moda Marbles is for the hexie insanity quilt. My mom bought the rolled up fabric for Cassie, it’s an ABC book I need to put together for her. I also got some Aurifil thread in white for hexie insanity, but it’s already in the workbox. It was a nice shop but it’s almost 2 hours from our house to get there, it was only a half hour from the campground we were at. They have TONS of Moda Marbles colors, I simply loved the one I bought called Sea Glass. I’m debating buying more of it to use for the solid border in hexie insanity, I only need about 3 yards of fabric for that border alone, but I’ll decide that later, at least I know where I can get some more colors!!

So I already cut up that half yard of Moda Marbles on the Studio so i can start using it. Didn’t take but 15 minutes to cut into 760 2″ squares and a small amount of waste. Now I can baste and make some flowers and diamonds with it! Planning on cutting up that new white as well, get it mixed in with all the other whites I have prepped. I finished adding the white path on another diamond and have a second almost done – both worked on during the camping trip.

I have a few quilts that need backs and quilting, I need to get the commission quilt finished before the end of the month and that is at the top of the list. Looks like this week is going to be busier than I thought so I don’t know if I’ll get to work on it or not. Certainly going to try!

Commission – Wedding Quilt

Wedding Quilt 053115 So one of my very good friends asked me to make a signature quilt for her to give her niece. She wanted something like what I made the kids when they were born, a quilt that was a remembrance of those at the wedding. So after designing a few ideas, we came up with a plan and I started looking for the fabrics. Found everything I needed at fabric.com and was ready to start sewing. Didn’t take long to sew all the blocks together, the longest task was getting it pinned so I could quilt it! I was very happy with how it turned out and from what I was told the bride loved it!

Now I have a baby one to make for her in pinks and grays!

I’m back!

UGH! I can’t believe it’s been so long since I’ve posted! SO much has been going on around here and I really haven’t had time to work on projects. Cassie turned one in March and yes, mommy made her onesie! I found the design on etsy and stitched it out twice – because the first one I cut the applique wrong and the satin stitch didn’t cover the edges. It was a wonderful party and she looked beautiful!

I started working on the end of school year gifts for Alex’s teachers, both teachers are getting alphabet/number magnets out of felt that are done in the hoop on my embroidery machine. These are pretty quick to do, just need time to work on them! I’ll take pictures when they are done.

In the last 2 months I also created a shop on etsy. I used to have my own website with a shopping cart and never got any hits/business. So I did some thinking and decided that since anything I make on the embroidery machine is custom, and there’s no shortage of items that are decorative that I can do in bulk that I’d create a shop and start filling in items. The listing fee is pretty cheap and are good for like 4 months. Please visit my shop! 🙂 I need to come up with a logo, but I’ve needed that for a long time!

Earlier in the month at guild we had a speaker from a semi-local quilt shop and I bought a pattern for a Mondo Bag by QuiltSmart. I had previously made some Lone Star quilts using their interfacing panels and I really wanted something different for a diaper bag. I wish I had realized how BIG this bag would turn out! It wasn’t too hard once I figured out the instructions, and I do like how it looks. I’m planning on using it as a diaper bag until I can see what size the Midi bags turn out to be. I’m going to get some of those panels once hubby gets paid.

I’m still slowing working on my knitting and my hexies, I’ll have to do some update posts of those soon!