Last piecing project for 2016.... leather crazy quilt

I've been working on this for the last 3 or 4 days...here and there. I wanted to make a leather quilt but figured it would be too heavy. So, I decided I could do every other block in leather. The alternate blocks are brown selvages....each middle strip is the same. Blocks are 8". 

Top is now about 52x62. I will put a border of some kind of brown fabric....mainly so the binding doesn't have to be stitched through leather. I had lots of leather bits and pieces .... and had bought 2 scrap bags of leather pieces from Cathy Wiggins, so the blocks had to be crazy quilt style.

I did 2 blocks on the embroidery machine...then decided I would rather do them myself.

A piece I got from Cathy was a hair on leather piece that looked like a mustache.

I decided it needed a heart on there, too.

Sometimes the leather has holes in it....I just laid another little piece under the hole.  The black piece with the holes came from a purse. I just laid it over another piece of colored leather.

I got the leather horse from Cathy when I bought her leather calendar. I put it on a lime green pocket that came from a jacket. The zipper still works.

The J Smith label came from a jacket. I love thrift store leather jackets. I have 2 thrift stores that I can get jackets for $4.99 each.

Another label....too cute not to use.

Sometimes the leather wants to stretch and doesn't cover the previous piece properly. No problem...just add on a little cover up piece...the little red piece.

When I was getting to the end of the blocks, I took a bunch of the little pieces that were cut off and put them all over a block.

This went really quickly and was a lot of fun. I guess I could make it a tad larger...we'll see.  It is already a bit heavy and after batting and backing it will just be heavier. I guess it could be the winter couch quilt. haha    It might have to be quilted soon...I like it.

Out with 2016....In with 2017

2016 could have been a better year....quilting-wise.  I only quilted 47 quilts this year....seems like much more.

I did manage to empty 79 thread spools.

And used 111 yards of fabric out of the stash.

I have done much better than this in years past...guess i was a slacker this year. haha  

Plans for 2017 include:

Judy Laquidara's UFO Challenge. as in years past, we are to pick 12 UFOs and number them from 1 through 12. Each month Judy will pick a number, and we are to finish that numbered UFO.  I have done this challenge in past years and it is fun and productive.

My 12 UFOs are:
1  Blue and White Manassas quilt from Marilea
2  Oriental Treasures quilt
3  Larry's Texas quilt
4  Blue selvage blocks
5  Red selvage blocks
6  Blue and white one block wonder
7  Embroider Shop Hop
8  Embroider striped alpha
9  Embroider search and find
10 Embroider Christmas town
11 Embroidery Landscape Christmas
12 Embroider 50 states

Some of these projects are huge and might not get finished in a month....and a few are just a few steps away from being finished. If i finish a project quickly and have more time for that month....i have 3 'extras' that i can work on...

1  Embroider pirate alphabet
2  Embroider western alphabet
3  Halloween alphabet

As you can see, there are just as many embroidery UFO projects as there are quilts.

Along with all of this....I want to quilt 1 leather piece each month, too.

The year always starts out well....until garden season arrives...and lawn mowing season. And if i can stop myself from adding even MORE UFOs to the pile....that would be a huge help also. And not find any more graffiti projects to do. .... and stay at home more and work at it.  Life is hard. hahaha

The to-be-quilted cabinet is still pretty full. This year I quilted them in order....oldest first. Next year I am going to do things a bit differently. Instead of continuing the oldest first, I am going to quilt the ones that I like best first.....might as well do what I like and get them finished before I die. haha

Gifts for my son

My friend, Robin, from MQR, sent these to me .... for my son. Thank you, thank you, Robin.  these are all so adorable. 

Robin generously shared some of her goodies with me.....ummm, for my son. haha   he will love them, i am sure. he usually just looks at something and says...i know what i can do with that. 

Here are the treasures....aren't they the cutest?

And...I claim this one for my studio

Because...these 2 already live in my studio and they need company. haha

I'll let you know what my son says in a couple weeks when i go to visit.

Thank you, Robin....that was very generous of you

Slow and Steady Quilt Along

Did anyone else do this? It was a quilt along with Paula Storm. I believe there is still another step where she talks about the border and the quilting. it was over the last couple months. I found it after she had done a couple rows, but i caught up easy enough. some rows were more challenging than others. Still needs a border and quilting (some day) haha

I've done these before and they are fun. 

This looked easy but was trickier than it looks

Never seen this block before...it was fun

These are paper pieced...easy enough...just tedious. and, actually, it's 'paper piecing' but she just folds the paper back instead of sewing through it. much simpler....no bits of paper to tear off. i liked it.

Never done these before either...got to concentrate. 

I'm glad that she made these wonky...i like them

Never done this before either....lots of new-to-me piecing

The clamshells were cut out with the AccuCut die. i had to order one and wait for it to come. these are fused on.

Who knows when it will be quilted. but it was a fun quilt. and quite the scrap buster.

My son't deer head

If he works in metal...and I work in leather...you might think we are a strange family. you would be completely right. haha

Larry's friend, Bob, hunts with bow and arrow. he didn't get a buck this year, so Larry said he thought he would make him one for Christmas. 

It is pretty heavy. He fabricated the whole thing from bits and pieces of this and that. you know how guys hang on to 'cool' stuff. he also has me trained to look for metal stuff and save it for him. haha

Here is a side shot. he says he will send me better pics when it is completed and he mounts it on something. but i couldn't resist a few pics now

The ears are so cool....the eyes are 3 washers stacked up. the horns are rebar.

Even the line on the bow is metal

I love how he painted the end of the arrow

I guess i didn't get the other end of the arrow. it is all so cool.

when my sister and i go to thrift stores, i come back with as much metal stuff for Larry as I do leather stuff for me.

He made Bob's wife a cat out of the tines of a fork, but, dang it, i didn't get a picture of it. 

Frog Bog #itsbetterinleather

I did a little playing the last couple of days.  since I learned i could fuse interfacing onto the back of the leather to keep it from stretching, i decided to see if i could then embroider a large design on it. 

And...it works....it is 17.5" x 14".  It is a piece of the same blue leather that was quilted. i just did some cross hatching behind the design. it worked out easily since i could follow the quilted lines on the leather.

I just love these cute little frogs....especially the one that just has his eyes peeking out of the water

The back was a piece of hand dyed blue that was in the stash.

Top thread was a Glide aqua....that perfectly matched the leather. bobbin thread was a bright blue by Superior called Art Studio Colors. I have several spools of this that have been in the thread cabinet for years. I 'think' they are from Ricky Tims??  

I could just throw away all my fabric and play with leather and be happy. hahahaha

Enchanted Pond

This quilt is made from a fabric line named Enchanted Pond. It is 66x74". Was pieced on June 9, 2014.

Was one of the HST quilts made in Vicki Welsh's challenge that year. 

The back is a muslin. Quilting design is called Whirlpool...fitting for a pond, I think.

Threads used were Glide Cork for the top and So Fine tan for the bobbin. And a striped binding.

A leather tip for you

I am making a leather wall hanging....with leather embroidered blocks. the gray leather sashing is a bit thicker than the leather embroidered blocks. while trying to stitch them together, i was having problems with the thinner piece stretching. i sewed and unsewed several times before i came up with a solution.

I cut about 1/2 inch strips of lightweight fusible stabilizer and ironed it to the back edges of the embroidered blocks. problem solved. no more stretching.

And, yes, you can iron on the leather. i put a pressing sheet on top of it first. just pressed enough to hold the stabilizer on. 

That's all I got...carry on.

Six Pack of Leather Flowers

Quilting with leather is so much fun....if you haven't tried it....you really must.

I cut out the leather flower, stem and leaf pieces with my AccuCut machine. no problem....but i did just cut one at a time. Other fabrics are regular cotton quilting fabrics.

I appliqued the flowers onto the blocks while quilting. It was a challenge to hold down that leather piece with one hand while quilting around it with the other hand without having it stretch out or move around. I quilted the circles in the sashings a bit wonky on purpose.  Cornerstones are red leather.

The blue leather is quilted, so it had an extra layer of batting under it.

I was able to quilt through 4 layers of leather, plus the top, batting and back without a hitch.

I put a 6" border on this quilt purposely so i could use Jamie Wallen's templates once again. they look much better on a larger border. The corners got cross hatching

I love his 2-piece templates for circles and ovals. I haven't managed to quilt over a line without moving sometimes.

More cross hatching in the middle pointed oval. I used a ruler the first one, then just did it by hand, trying to keep the hopping foot right next to the last row. It needs practice, but it will do...just don't look close. haha

The back is a red and white stripe from the stash. It's not a quilting cotton....more like a home dec...or something. but it worked well. You can't tell in the individual flower pictures, but i did lines in the backgrounds with black thread. but it does show up on the back. i marked the block into 2 or 3 sections and quilted half horizontally and half vertically. i did random widths on the lines.

Even with black thread, sometimes you can barely see it on the back in the flower block backgrounds. if the line falls on the spot where the red and white stripe meet, you really have to look close to see the black thread. strange.

Threads were black and white Glide for the top and So Fine black and light gray Bottom Line for the bobbin. More of that great black and white stripe for the border. 

I have a few more leather ideas....so, stay tuned.