Thank You!

Today is my last day at the reins of 52 Quilters. It has been such a fun week! I have enjoyed sharing my projects with you. Today I want to share this lovely antique quilt I purchased at an estate sale a few years ago.

 Here are some closeups.

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I think of this as my Christmas quilt. It is worn, but so beautiful. I could look at this for hours!

Thank you for following along with me this past week.

Merry Christmas!

A Pinterest Project

I recently found a small quilt on Pinterest and recreated it using some of my vintage fabric scraps. You can see that post here. It was so fun, I decided to do another! This was the inspiration picture I found.

And here is my version done in vintage fabrics.

Here's a side by side comparison.

That was so fun, I decided to do it again in 1930s repros.

How about modern prints?

And solids?

Here are all four together.

Here you can see the quilting on the back.

I have no idea what I will do with these, but they sure were fun to make. It is amazing to me how different they look done in different fabrics.
Have a great day!

Finished Baby Quilt!

And just like that, it's done!

I don't often piece backings, but when I ran across these pieces in my stash, I knew it was meant to be!

The above pictures were taken before washing. The rest are after washing. I love how quilts crinkle up and get soft in the process!

I hope you enjoyed seeing this little quilt come together. I'll be back tomorrow with another fun project.
Have a great day!

Baby Quilt Progress

This baby quilt pattern is so quick and easy and it will soon be done!

It quilted up quick as a wink.

I used this new pantograph to quilt it. Once I started, I decided I wasn't in love with it. But that's one of the great things about baby quilts, they are small!

I'm not great at binding by machine, but I'm working to get better at it. I have carpal tunnel and hand binding doesn't help.

Come back tomorrow to see the finished quilt!
Have a great day!

My Go To Baby Quilt Pattern/Tutorial

It seems like every time I turn around, someone else I know is having a baby! I thought I would show you a quick way to make a baby quilt using just one charm pack and some background yardage. First, here are a couple baby quilts I've made with this pattern and gifted.



On to the tutorial. I got this charm pack free with a recent Craftsy order.

I'm going to cut 2 1/2 inch by 5 inch rectangles from both the charm pack and the back ground fabric. I love my die cutter and use it whenever I can, but I don't have a die this size and shape. No worries. I cut 5 inch strips and placed them on my 2 1/2 inch strip cutter die like this.

That made quick work of things! Next I placed my charm squares on the same die. Those two off to the side were not needed, so I didn't cut them.

Time to sew! I match up one background piece and one print piece and feed them through.

I ended up with 80 blocks to be set 8 by 10.

These blocks will measure 4 by 4 1/2 inches when sewn together. Time to throw them up on the design wall and play!

I think I'm gonna like this one too! Stay tuned.

My Sewing Room

Today I thought I would share with you some photos of my sewing room. When I first started sewing, I had a shelf in the linen closet for my stuff. When we moved, I got a shelf and a drawer and I sewed in the family room. After some remodeling, I got some cupboards in the family room and part of a walk in closet. At our next house, I got a whole room! It was only 6 by 8 feet, but it was all mine! Now I am blessed to have a huge finished room in our basement.

I will walk you around the room from right to left. I use this old CD tower to store some precuts. The vintage tool cabinet belonged to my dad. My toy Jeep collection is on top.

Next is Harry Bell Avante, my long arm. My toy sewing machine collection is above the cabinets.

My design wall! It’s a decent size, but they never seem to be big enough.

I love my vintage hoosier with side cabinets! I store more precuts, long arm threads, and miscellaneous sewing stuff inside. I also collect vintage enamelware and use it to store all kinds of things.

Here is my sitting area that is really only used by my dog!

The door you see here goes to a walk in closet for games and such. The basket system for my stash is from a Ikea.

My Juki is new, but I’m falling more in love with it every day. I bough this steel case desk at Good Will and hubby cut a hole in the top to set a machine in.

Here is my desk and embroidery area.

And now we are back to the beginning.

But wait, there’s more! There is a support post in the center of the room. I created an island around it with two vintage tables, an ironing table, and my cutting table, built from Ikea units and a door.

I love my Accuquilt Studio Cutter. I’ve had it for five years and it might be my favorite thing in this room!

My ironing table was made from a vintage lab table that me dad gave me.

I have a whole herd of vintage machines and use many of them on a rotating basis. Here is one of my Singer 301s.

I hope you enjoyed this little tour! It is most definitely my happy place.

Have a great day!

Week 52 ~ KatyQuilts

Good Morning!

This week it is my turn to take the reins of the 52 Quilters Blog, Instagram, and Twitter accounts. I will be cross posting both here and there this week. I'm starting off the week with a brief introduction.

My name is Katy Sweigart and I blog over at KatyQuilts . I am a former librarian, mom of four adult children, Nana to four sweet boys, and wife of Mr. Wonderful. He gets his name from being such a big supporter of me and all my crazy ideas!

I have been quilting for 29 years. I started when my first child was a year old. As a mom of four small children, sewing became my therapy. It was the only thing I did each day that stayed done!

I think you can learn a lot about a person by taking a look at what they create. So in this post, I'm sharing a few of my favorite quilts with you.

I love all forms of quilting, except appliqué and English Paper Piecing. I've just never gotten along with the A word and EPP is not much better. I rarely use patterns, but often find inspiration in antique quilts.

I enjoy making modern quilts, art quilts, traditional quilts and everything in between. Most of the time I machine piece and machine quilt. My long arm quilting machine is one of the very best investments I've ever made!

I am very involved with the Quilts of Valor Foundation, creating quilts for out veterans and active duty service men and women. Here is one that I made for my daughter, a USAF vet.

Scrap quilts are my favorite! This one was made as a leader/ender project.

Oh, did I mention that I live in Michigan?

I have an Accuquilt Studio die cutter that I love. It makes quilts like this one  so accurate.

Mini quilts are so fun to make. This is one of my favorites.

This next one is called The Journey of the Bride. The design was made with a bleach resist technique. It has one verse from each chapter of the Song of Solomon quilted into it.

This scrappy quilt was another leader/ender project. It has been pinned over 10,000 times on Pinterest!

One of my favorite bible verses was the inspiration for this one.

This little Valentine quilt was a fun project.

And lastly, this was a personal challenge. I wanted to see if I could make a QR Code quilt that would really work. And it does! Go ahead and scan it with your smart phone!

I hope you enjoyed a look at some of my quilts. I've got some fun quilty things planned for this week so meet me over on Twitter and Instagram. I'll be back on the blog tomorrow with a tour of my quilt studio.

Have a great day!