2017 Row-by-Row, final

Finished and turned in my row-by-row for this year over the weekend.

Some of the specs for the finished quilt -

• More than 80 different fabrics were used in making it
• finished dimensions of approximately 46" by 82"
• Machine quilted and bound
• Rows were from the greater DFW area

Prizes for the win - 

Two FQ's packs (12 in each) of Moda Bella solids and a batik FQ that I got to pick out.  Also got a $25 gift certificate for having used the stores row in my quilt.  

Gratitudes:

1. Cooler, rainy weather today

2. The parents are coming in to town for a short visit

It's Quilted!

My row-by-row is now quilted and I've put the side borders onto it!  All that is left is to get it bound and a label put onto it....woohoo.  

My aim is to get it turned in on Saturday, hopefully at Pieced Together (where I basted the swan quilt last weekend).   If they have a winner before I can get there, then I'll be checking with others that are further away to figure out where I can turn it in.

The quilt is approximately 80" or so long by approximately 46" wide (guestimating on this one...lol).

Three big chunks of scrap batting were used up in quilting it, and the backing came from the stash (and there are still 4 yds of it left!).

Gratitudes:
1. I'm almost done with this!

2. I get to go out to dinner with 50-yr long friends tonight.  Am looking forward to seeing them tonight.

Weekend Progress

The first thing accomplished this weekend was getting the swan quilt pin basted.

And I've made a lot of progress in getting my row-by-row quilt finished.   The final 2 rows were made and attached to the quilt top and the extra needed length was added to the quilt back.  Rows 3 through 6  have been quilted, and row #7 is now in progress of being quilted.

Still to do to finish this quilt up -

• Finish quilting row 7 (with the school bus)
• Quilt row 8 (the bottom row)
• Add 4" cut borders to the sides of the quilt
• Add binding and sew it down
• add a label
• Turn it in at one of the stores

Successes with this quilt:

-- other than the sky fabrics in 7 out of the 8 rows, all of the fabrics for this quilt have come from my stash.

-- Most of the applique pieces have come from my scrap stash.  Only two pieces came from yardage, and one of those was a piece that I had already cut off of for the swan quilt!

-- This one has been quilted in a modified quilt-as-you-go style to make it easier to handle

-- I've managed to meander two of the rows fairly successfully.   Only problem was that the bobbin thread on one of the rows has a few spots where it is a little looser than I'd have like.  Hard to see tho, so i'm not taking it out.

Also worked on and completed over the weekend was getting the commissioned swan quilt.  I did the basting at my local quilt shop - Pieced Together in Mesquite.  The shop is about 7 miles (15 minutes) or so from my house which is really nice.

The owner has said that I'm welcome to do my basting there as long as she doesn't have any classes going on.  =)   She's a great gal and her daughter and daughter in law also work there.   Love digging thru their scrap barrel.  =)  She's got about 5000 bolts of fabric and lots of wonderful stuff.   About the only thing I don't remember her having is civil war fabrics.

Gratitudes:

1. Being able to make progress on projects w/o pulling my hair out.

2. For the rain over night which helped give a wee break in the high temps and humidity this week.

Row-by-Row Row #7

The row pattern for this was from Fabric Fanatics.  The original pattern was of a quilt shop hop bus on the way to a shop.  

I changed the pattern to feature a school bus on the way to school.  Not seen in the picture are the buttons I used for the headlights and for the lights up at the top.   With the exception of the sky fabric, all fabrics in the row are scraps.

And here is the original as the store made it.

Gratitudes:
1.  I finally made it to work this morning after dealing with the traffic mess left over from fatal accident on the freeway in the very early hours of this morning.

2.  It's Friday!

Row-Hopping, Final Day in Dallas

I think I've finally hit most of the stores in the DFW area.....with stopping by the last two just this week.    I picked up two rows.

The store I stopped at was the "Bernina Sewing Center".  This was the store I hadn't been able to find several weeks ago thanks to google directions.  =P     It is a nice looking store and had a nice, but small selection of fabric.  Focus of the store is more on selling machines.

Their row was this cute one with two vehicles towing the little retro campers.  The sample was worked up in two ways (tree machine embroidered vs appliqued as in the pattern).  The shop has a 3D, scalloped awning in the sample which is really cute.

The second shop I stopped at was "Fabric Fanatics" and I love stopping at this shop.   The only fabrics in the store are batiks and they are all lovely, definitely drool worthy.....lol.

Their row is this cute shop hop bus on it's way to the next shop.   The pattern gives the basic pieces for all but the hills and road.   And encourages quilters to be creative when making it.  

This is one of the rows (#7) that I'm making for my row-by-row quilt this year.   But i'm changing it up and making the bus a school bus and doing a little school instead of a quilt shop.  I have the row fused and ready to stitch down with plans to do that tonite once I get home from work.

I'm working hard to get my quilt done so I can turn it in and as of this point I know of 5 stores that I've made rows from that don't have winners yet......here's hoping I can get mine done in time to turn it in.  =)

Gratitudes:
1. for the fun I'm having in finding the right scraps to make each row

2. For the progress I know I'm making with my diet and losing weight, in spite of days like today when my ankles and feet are swollen and hurting.

Weekend doings

Progress has been made on my row-by-row quilt.  5 rows are now complete and sewn together.  I have also started the quilting process, and have the top two rows quilted.

Backing fabric was from my stash.  2nd picture shows the quilt draped over my little cutting table.  It is 36" wide so the quilt doesn't quite fit on it.   But it has not been hard to work with.

Approximate count of different fabrics in the quilt so far is over 50.  =)




Rows 3 & 4 are now pinned and ready for quilting.  Will wait on pinning row 5 until after rows 6 & 7 are completed and attached.

After all the rows are on and quilted then I will be adding a black border down each side the same size as the sashing in between the rows.   Am debating whether to add a border after that or not.

Am going to try to see if I can get it finished up this week and turned in.

Gratitudes:
1. Many of the fabrics have come from my stash of scraps, love working with them.

2. For being able to find fabric for skies to use in this years rows as well as in the AZ rows that I have collected for a quilt for my bed.

Weekend Hop

Wend by two more quilt stores for rows on Saturday.  First store was Texas Quiltworks and there I picked up their row pattern and a license plate for my friend Susan who blocks here.

I was disappointed in the shop, they are discontinuing carrying fabric and going only to selling and servicing Bernina machines.   So their fabric selection is minimal, and mainly older civil war repro's.   No winner turned in here, but then again I wouldn't want any of their fabrics...lol.








Next up was Blue Ribbon Quilt Shoppe.  I picked up their row kit because I'd love to do this one for myself at some point and I wanted the figure for in the car.  =)  However, I also do intend to make it for my row quilt but will need to scrounge through my novelty prints to find some other figure for the car.   Am hoping I have something that will work.

They did not have a winner yet that I saw so it is a possibility for turning it in.   there are still a couple of other stores closer that I haven't seen with winners posted yet, but will  have to call when I have my quilt finished.

Bottom pic shows the figure I picked.

Gratitudes:
1. Safe driving on my travels Saturday.

2. No rain while I was driving.  =)

 

Rows 4 & 5

Two more rows are in various stages of progress for the 2017 Row-by-Row.

The top row is from Minding My P's & Q's in Denton.  bottom row is from Cabbage Rose Quilting and Embroidery in Fort Worth.  The bottom row still needs to be stitched down and the wagon wheels embroidered.  Scraps were used for the design elements.

The last two pics show the two rows as they were done by the stores.

Gratitudes:

1. No rain this week so far.  =)

2. Almost to the weekend.

Row-Hopping, Day 3

Made it to 6 stores this past Saturday in the NW part of the metroplex - only 110 or so miles of driving this time!

In order, the first store I stopped at was The Old Craft Store in Carrolton.   Lots of wonderful fabric, although it was a little bit of a pain to get to because of construction.  Their row has this cute quilter's train on it.

Found another sky fabric and two lovely batiks for block backgrounds.   The two upper fabrics were in the clearance fabrics.  The alphabet one will go with my alphabet fabrics to be used in making kits to sell and the other is a batik.  Might use a bit of that for binding on the flamingo quilt, although I'm not fond of hand sewing batik binding down.











Store #2 was "Minding My P's & Q's" up in Denton.   Not a huge store, but a decent selection of fabric.   They were celebrating the store's 2nd birthday so had lots of sales going on.

Fabrics were buy 2 yds, get one free - So I ended up with part of the tan one for free.   The scrap bag is the size of a typical pattern bag and yes I stuffed it full - but managed to get it closed w/o it popping open.  =)

Smaller scraps here - precut triangles of the same fabric line in the red and blue on the left.  The green and yellow in the middle were just 8" and 7" by WOF, and then some squares and smaller scraps on the right.

The striped piece on top of the pile on the right is earmarked for the flags in this row that I got at Cabbage Rose Quilting.

Next into the scrap bag went this panel featuring different scenes from Texas.

And the last item that I managed to get into the scrap bag was this panel.  The print is by Jim Shore and there's nothing wrong with the panel that I can see.  This panel alone was worth more than the cost of the scrap bag ($5).   Can you tell that most stores who sell their scrap bags don't make money off of me?

Will take and finish this and then sell the quilt.

Store #3 was "Material Girl" which is also in Denton.  It is about 4 miles or so east of the previous one.  Their row was this cute one featuring a family of chickens.

Picked up two 1/3 yd pieces there for teddy bears.














Store #4 was "Quilt Country" in Lewisville.   I loved this store and would be happy living closer to it....ok maybe I don't need to given the size of my stash, but still.....lol.    Close to half of the fabrics that they have are batiks which I drooled over.  There was also a good selection of all the others that are on the market these days.

They also have 4 APQS long-arms that people can rent time on at a reasonable price.....just gotta take the $150 class to learn how to use them first.   Very tempting thought for me as I have some bigger quilts to get quilted coming up.  Their row features sail boats because the town is between two different lakes (aka reservoirs).  I'll probably put this one in my row quilt, but instead of having 'Quilt Country' on the building I'll put either "Bait" or "Marina".

Found a cute little wall-hanging and bought the kit because it was a reasonable price.  Alto got water fabric for the row, a scrap bag (prefilled) with more fabics that will work for the sky in rows, and a FQ that I'm may use in a row with Balloons if I can find something with city buildings on it.








Store #5 was "Must Love Fabric" in Grapevine.  Small store with an ok selection of fabric.    Google maps did not want to route me to the right place for the store so I ended up wandering trying to find it for 15 minutes initially.   Finally made it though.

Picked up another batik for block backgrounds, a blue for skies and blackberries for potholders (planned gifts).   And got a cute little key chain as a gift as well.

Store # 6 was "Quilter's Dream" in Colleyville.  Store was a decent size in square footage, but has a tiny selection of fabric.   There might have been 150 bolts all total of fabric - far less than what is in my stash!  One room was a classroom, and there was another room that I didn't see into that has her long-arm.  Given how little fabric was there I suspect that is what the owner makes a living on doing.  

She also had a room set up as a 'Quilter's garage sale'.  Quilters from the area (or her?) can sell their unwanted fabrics, books, patterns, etc there on commission.  Did find three pieces in there that I bought.

The grey on the right is one that I've had a piece of for years - the grey swirly print makes great fur, santa's beards, etc.  Middle one is a piece of Fairy Frost in a color I hadn't seen before, and then the pink/blue one I thought might make a good border for the flamingo or maybe binding.  Haven't laid it out with the quilt yet so don't know if it'll work or not.

The day of shop-hopping wrapped up with me getting caught in a horrible thunder storm  on the way home (or as I posted on FB - a "bad, bad, ugly bad" storm.....lol).   The best way to describe it is that if you take a blizzard with white-out conditions and then raise the temp so that you are dealing with rain instead of snow, you've got what I was trying to drive in.  I ended up pulling off the road twice because the rain was so heavy I couldn't see to drive.    Was finally able to drive again after about 30 minutes of combined waiting and within 5 miles had driven out of the rain. Texas storms can be so hit-or-miss to say the least.

Gratitudes:
1. Safe travels in the storm I was in on Saturday

2. As bad as it was, there was no tornadoes associated with the storm.

Row Hopping, Day 2 - Part 3

Shop #4 on my shop hop Saturday was Quilt Among Friends.  This is one of three shops within a 1 mile radius of each other.   This was a spacious store and had a good selection of fabrics.  

Will be putting this row into the quilt I hope to turn in.

Found a fabric for skies and one for block backgrounds for my teddy bears.

 Shop #5 was Peggy's Quilt Studio, the second shop in the 1 mile radius of three shops.  A small shop, with an eclectic selection of fabrics.  Never did see the fabric they had used for their row background (basically the entire row), so I did my own thing for this row.  You can see the results in this post - my version is the top row of the quilt.

 Found the bottom fabric on their sale rack and the 10" square with hearts by the cutting table.  The hearts were going to be used for the car in the row, but I space it.   Will see about using it in another row this year.  The pink fabric was seen as I was leaving so I went back and got a  1/4 of it.   Both of the yardages have snails on them.

 Shop #6 was Sew Fabricated and it was the final of the 3 stores that were all together.  This should be a fun row to do, altho lots of detailed work with these signs.  I wasn't impressed with the shop overall- seems they don't have a working bathroom in the shop at this point....

 Found a polka dot fabric that is perfect for the background I needed to complete the quilt I have started.   A good thing since I didn't take the blocks with me and was going on my memory of colors.  The Red/White is also earmarked for a future project.

Shop#7 was Sew It Up Bernina and it was the next stop on my shop-hop.  Nice store, not a huge selection of fabrics though.

 Found a Moda Grunge blue that will make a nice sky for future rows.

Shop #8 was the Richland Sewing Center.  Good selection of fabrics, although tightly packed into a corner of the store.  Half of the store was taken up by the machines that they sell, and 1/4 by the classroom area.  I bought the kit for this row because I didn't have the fabrics needed for parts of it.

Gratitudes:
1. A fun day of shop-hopping was had

2. Friends who help supply information and contacts that are needed

Row-Hopping, Day 2 - Part 2

The first part of my shop hopping was spent avoiding the worst of a thunderstorm that went through the area at the same I'm time I was driving the 43 miles to the first quilt shop that I visited.  Thankfully the accidents were all on the opposite side of the freeway from the direction that I was driving after the worst of the storm had passed by!   Not that I was glad for the accidents, but I was definitely glad to not have been caught in the slow traffic getting by them.

The first shop visited was Common Threads Quilting in Waxahachie.   I've been to this shop several times and like it.  They have a good variety of fabrics across the spectrum.

This is their row.  I did splurge and get the kit because it is laser cut and prefused.  Started not to, but ended up getting it because it was reasonably priced.  I also picked up two acrylic heart templates since I do so many heart blocks.





Next up was this remnant bag.  Bag is the size of a pattern bag and stuffed.   Biggest piece was over a 1/2 yd in length.  Don't have  pic tho of all that I stuffed into it.

Then came a bunch of sale FQ's, 6 of which were batiks.  =)  Several of these will be used for backgrounds of future teddy bear blocks.

And then there were these remnants that jumped into my arms as well.
Not pictured is the really pretty batik yardage that I picked up off their clearance rack.

Next up was a stop by Ben Franklin Apothecary shop in Duncanville.   The quilt shop is in part of an old-fashioned drug store that has a bit of everything in it.  The lady that was there on Saturday was so nice.   She asked where I was headed next and drew me a map telling me how to get to three stores that were all within a 1 mile radius of each other.  And then told me about another shop just a few miles south of Duncanville that had a cute row that I needed.   =)  Fabric selection was good for a small shop.

Found two light blues that will be used in future rows as the sky as I make the rows up.

T

The third shop that I visited on Saturday was Corner Square Quilts in Cedar Hill.  Loved this shop even though it is not very big.  Their main focus is batiks and they have a great selection.   I could have spent a small fortune here had I wanted to.

I ended up with the pattern for their row - this cute frog who is grabbing lunch on the go!  And the only license plate so far this year.  Since I'm an engineer by multiple degrees I thought this one was appropriate for me.   Now to figure out something to do with it.

The fabrics that I got here were mainly batiks.  Did  pick up two non-batiks - a sky fabric and a copper w/metallic copper highlights.

The common theme running through what I bought during the whole day was for the most part either light blue fabrics to use for "sky" portions of rows or light colored fabrics to use for backgrounds in appliqued blocks.

Gratitudes:
1.  For the finances to be able to very occasionally splurge.

2. For finding a skirt to wear to a wedding reception this coming weekend and it's three sizes smaller than I was wearing just this past September.  =)