The finished quilt

Yes after two months of barely hand quilting I finally finished the quilt from the quilt along that finished in June. I had a hard time with the hand quilting but only because sticking with that kind of task for more than an hour at a time just doesn't work for me. But I've finally finished it. I also made a lot of mistakes. But in doing so I've learned things that you shouldn't do and things that you should definitely do. Like over baste. Well without further ado here it is.

Finished quilt top

I finished the quilt top for the quilt a long happening here. It's been so much fun so far and I can't wait to start the actual quilting on Wednesday. Here's a look at what I've done.

The Quilt A Long

So far so good. I'm really enjoying the quilt a long at the Mommy by Day blog. If you've ever wanted to learn to quilt this is the way to do it. She is doing one set of instructions per week so that you'll have plenty of time to get each step done. We'll have a completed quilt by the end of the month. Last week we completed all of the cutting and if we chose to we could go ahead and layout all the pieces so we'd be ready for the sewing part this week. Here's mine all laid out and ready to go.

New quilt

Now that I've finally finished that quilt I have the quilting bug. So I'll be hanging out at the Mommy by Day, Crafter by Night blog for a zig zag quilt along. I'm really excited. I've got my layer cake ordered and then I'll need to buy the additional stuff to go with it.

I finally finished it

I finally finished the quilt that I started in January. I learned a lot of dos and don'ts while making it. One major thing that I learned is that I would much rather use patterned fabric on the back vs solid. So without further ado here we go.

One thing funny I noticed today as I was finishing. I've had my machine for 12 years, it's nothing fancy but a $40 machine from Wal-mart. I broke my first needle today. Shows you how much it's been used. In fact before December of last year it had only been used once or twice. These past months have made me realize how much I've missed sewing.

The pillow project

As promised here are pics of the finished pillow. I don't follow instructions well but anyone who knows me would probably be shocked if I did. I found the pattern at Walmart for a quilt and the pillow. So I used scraps from my quilt (that is still not finished) to make the pillow. It called for 16 strips in 6 different colors. I used 15 strips in four colors. It was quite simple to make and only took a few hours to put together. The hardest part for me was sewing it closed after it was stuffed. So without further ado here it is.

The back of it.
The front of it.