Finish it Friday - No Bake Jolly Bar Quilt

This Friday's finish is a scrappy quilt based on the No Bake Jolly Bar pattern.  

It was made as part of the 2016 Hands to Help challenge and has already made its way to Covered in Love.

Next up is a bright and scrappy Lolly quilt that was sent to Happy Chemo.  This quilt was made with many gifted scraps that I received last Christmas.

I have lost track of how many Happy Scrappy Houses quilts that I have made.  No matter what type of scrap, each quilt always seems so happy!

I am hoping that I can make more next year!  

Linking today to Finish It Friday and to Whoop, Whoop Friday.

Finish It Friday - Lime Spider Web

Woo hoo, I finally have a finish!  Finishing my lime spider web quilt was on all my to-do lists in 2015 and now its completed.

This is my second spider web quilt.  If you have a scrap problem, try this quilt pattern as my scrap boxes were emptied several times.  

Every time I had enough scraps, I would make up wedges.

But then it took awhile for me to find the time to hand quilt it.

I think that the red quilt is still my favorite.

Linking today to Finish it Friday and Whoop, Whoop Friday.

Design Wall Monday - Crossed Block

I joined my first bee last year, and May is my month for the Quilter's Bee Mod.  My goal was to choose a block that was modern, easy, and scrappy.  I chose the Crossed Block by Ellen Baker.  This block has been on my to-do list for some time.

These sample blocks were made using low volume backgrounds and I added my favorite color, dark blue, somewhere in the block.

I can't wait to see what all my bee mates create.  I think this block meets my criteria of modern, easy, and scrappy, but it's also fun!

Linking today to Design Wall Monday.

Back in the Game

2016 so far has been the year of the missing sewing mojo.  But, I think I may have found one reason why I dont want to sew lately.  My Janome 8900 has been skipping stitches, which is so frustrating!  This problem has been on-going and I have tried using all sorts of new needles, different brands of threads, cleaning the machine, and switching out feet.

This weekend I was determined to quilt up the tops for this year's Hands 2 Help Challenge.  It was a frustrating mess of skipped stitches everywhere.  It got so bad that I started looking at new machines. I googled the problem and found that the Janome purple tip needles may be the answer.

I spent all day Saturday searching for these needles in different shops and bought the last pack in the 4th shop I searched.  Could this new needle really be the answer to all the frustrations?

YES!  I started testing the needles first by sewing together a stack of scrappy house blocks with no problems.

Next it was time to quilt.  Just simple straight line quilting.  So far, so good.  Everything was working great, but then came the big test,  Could I attach binding without skipped stitches?  It seems that this is where there is always a problem with the machine.  There are always skipped stitches sewing through multiple layers of fabric no matter what type of needle, thread, or foot that I used.

The binding was sewed on great without any skipped stitches, and I have one finished quilt for the H2H Challenge.

The quilt pattern is Lolly from Tula Pink which I have made many times.  It was made with scraps I received last December, when I wished on Instagram for scraps.  This will be my first entry into this year's Scrap Quilt Challenge.

Linking today to Oh Scrap.