Progress Report

 

Remember this?

I found the perfect binding (stripey of course)…

The table topper is now quilted and semi-bound.  In other words, the binding is machine stitched to the front and it is patiently waiting to be hand stitched to the back.  We’ve had some uber-cold temperatures today and I’m thinking a movie night & some hand quilting sounds delightful. 

A Whole Lotta Pink

 

I don’t sew with pink often.  We’re more of a blue/green/brown house (it’s inevitable - with two sons and 21 nephews…go figure!)  So when I do get to sew with pink, it’s a delight!



When I began this quilt, I called it “baby brellas”  because it uses that cute umbrella fabric by Riley Blake.  However, I quickly realized that because of the size of the stripes, you couldn’t actually SEE the umbrellas.  So I changed it to “baby stripes” and I’m saving “baby brellas” for my next project.  I have enough of the umbrella fabric (from the Rainy Days and Mondays line) leftover to do another baby sized quilt – this time I’ll fussy cut some umbrellas and feature them inside some wonky blocks.

  

The finished quilt measures 44” x 44” and is machine quilted in a meandering pattern.  I added a few loopies here and there throughout the quilting – to make it just a bit more girly.  (Like the pink doesn’t already add enough, right?)



I love just the touch of gray with all of the cute pinks.  For the back I used a kona solid (I think it’s Petal) and I had three little blocks leftover from the front – they found a home on the back.



The binding I went back and forth on.   I originally had another print chosen – one with some gray in it.  But it just didn’t have the pop of this stripe fabric.  This cute stripe is another Riley Blake fabric (can you tell what section of the quilt shop I am drawn to?) and it frames the quilt up so nicely!



“Baby Stripes” is now listed in my shop!

I’m linking up:

More Bee Blocks

There's always more bee blocks....

For this first one, Jazziesmom sent us several shades of purple, all cut into strips. She said we could do any block we wanted, as long as it finished at 12". I chose to do a Box Block. The pattern is here:
www.quilterscache.com/B/BoxQuiltBlock.html

I really like how it turned out and I think it would be stunning as a whole quilt.  I love blocks like this that allow me to really play with color.

These are my blocks for Millions of Thoughts. She sent fabric from her stash, and requested non-wonky rectangles in rectangles. Love the fabric and can't wait to see the finished wall hanging!

And for this last one Mary requested string blocks.  I almost had enough strips!  See that little bare corner down there.... sorry Mary!

Blogger’s Quilt Festival 2010

I  (like most others I’m sure) had a hard time deciding which quilt to choose for the Blogger’s Quilt Festival.  I finally settled on my Jeans & a Tshirt quilt that I made for my son.  I chose this one because for this quilt I did two new-to-me things:  a fleece back and a pieced, scrappy binding.



My oldest son has never showed much of an interest in the quilts I’m making while they’re in the piecing stage. Once I lay them out for basting though, he comes right over to see. After making a few comments or maybe asking a question or two about it, he inevitably asks when I’m going to make HIM a quilt. I put it off thinking he was just being nice, but then I got a great idea for a quilt that would fit my boy to a T.

I called it “Jeans and Tshirt.” In my stash I had a big stack of blue scraps that were given to me from my MIL and when paired with white, they reminded me of jeans and a nice clean white tshirt. (my boy’s favorite school-day outfit.)

I added just a touch of red to add a little bit of unexpectedness…



When we went to the fabric store to choose the backing, my son insisted on fleece.  I was really nervous about quilting on it – I had heard that I would stretch and warp pretty badly.

 

I must say that I was pleasantly surprised by the fleece back. I really thought it would pucker as I quilted it, but it worked beautifully! I did use my usual batting as well as the fleece. I basted it as normal and quilted it as I usually do. Really the only difference was just in how much more bulk there was to work around as I quilted.  In the end I do really love the weight of the quilt.



The finished quilt measures 55x72

October's Bee Blocks

This one was for Bee Crazy.  She sent the fabrics and the specific block pattern she wanted us to use.  At first I was a little worried because it looked so intricate, but she had done all of the cutting for us and the pattern was really easy to follow.

 These little houses were for my Bee Pieceful online bee (where do they come up with these names anyway?)  Sweetteamom sent scraps of her favorite fabrics and asked for houses of any kind.  I have seen house quilts all over flickr but they never appealed to me.  I had read other people comment that these little houses were addicting to create and now I agree.  Once I figured out the first little house the other two were really fun to make.  [want to see more little houses?  There's a whole flickr group dedicated to them.  Who knew?]

These four blocks were for my Sew Bee It group.  Rebecca wanted some wonky square-in-square blocks.  This style has quickly become my favorite to create.  I love these colors together.  I can't get enough of grey lately.  It goes with everything.

A Hidden Gem

This afternoon I was looking through my closet for some red scraps and I found a stack of strips:



This was a table topper I had started last year and wasn’t able to finish it before Christmas.  I had stacked the strips in order and carefully rolled them up. 

Lucky me, I found them today.  I laid them out, stitched them up and 10 minutes later I had myself a quilt top.  I even found enough kona snow for the backing.  Now I just need a piece (about 36x45) of batting and I’m ready to finish this thing.  I figure my chances are pretty good this year considering it’s only November 1st. 



Bring on the holidays!