Shayla's baby quilt

I'm really behind on blogging here lately.  Here's what I did a month ago...

I came across a blog asking for these simple blocks to be made into a Quilt of Valor by the end of November. So I whipped up 5 blocks and sent them on their way. Actually, I ended up having to rip out several seams and re-sew them because they were just short of being square. So a quick simple project ended up being not so quick.

Shayla made this cute baby quilt.

I had the perfect variegated thread that had all her colors in it.  She requested swirls or flowers. I did both. 

Thanks for the fun quilt Shayla!

Countdown to Christmas

I made myself a Countdown to Christmas calendar last year and a friend mentioned wanting one herself.  So I made her this one this year. 

I used a charm pack plus a few squares out of some of my stash and this 'Gnome for the holidays' fabric. Its pretty adorable.

I used fusible web on felt for the numbers, but some of them came off or were peeled off by a certain munchkin. So I used some fabric hot glue to put them back on. Which ended up looking kind of messy. That stuff hardens up fast! And I burned my fingers a little in the process. Why I ended up buying hot fabric glue sticks instead of regular fabric glue I don't know. Ah well.

We have ours up and going, but we sometimes forget about it. I still have a few goodies and things to put in some of the pockets too. But it is a fun tradition to look forward to each year.

katies rectangles

This one is my sister Katie's quilt.

I quilted a paisley feather and filled in a few spaces with large pebbles.

The back!

This was my block for November for Do.Good Stitches Haven group.  Courtney made up a tutorial for this fun and easy block.  We have December off (yay!) and then we will start up again in January.

Fancy 9-Patch. 2.0

Norene put together another 9-patch quilt and wanted it done like her last one.  I love how the last one turned out, so I was happy to do it again.

I did the borders differently this time.

Ooh.

Ahh.  

Oops.

Has this ever happend to you? Yep, I quilted right through a flower head pin and kept on going.  I thought I heard something funny!  I failed to get a picture of the completed quilt, but as you can see it is a farm themed baby quilt.

Joan made this quilt top.

I did freehand feathers inside and swirls in the inner border and another feather in the large gray border.

Going around the bend.

Thanks Joan!

AQS Show Des Moines: A Teeny-Tiny Sampling

So the AQS Quilt show in Des Moines was a month ago already.  But I thought I would share a little bit of the quilts I saw there. Better late than never!  This one is called Diamond Dust and was made by Doris Brunette and quilted by Trina Kirkvold both of Des Moines.  It won the Wall Quilts- Modern category.

A peek at Margaret Solomon Gunn's 'Big Bertha'.  Winner for Bed Quilts-Machine Quilted 

This one was adorable and soo creative! Made by Terri Jones and named after her favorite Beatles song.

Lots of dimensional flowers and leaves around the octopus and it took me a while to even notice the flower headdress.

Millefiori by Sherry Rogers-Harrison. A wholecloth that she painted

Amazing.

This is a different quilt than the one above. Such precision quilting! I might have to try that ying-yang border design out sometime.

All Together by Hiroko and her husband Masanobu Miyama of Japan.

Amazing.

I really liked this sampler and how the quilter quilted each block in the background. 'Blue and White Sampler' by Kimberly Einmo and Judi Madsen.  Oh. Judi Madsen quilted it. That explains why I like it so much! 

And that's all I've got for you!

tumblers

Norene made this tumbler quilt.

Feathers and paisley swirls.

Backside.

Do. Good.Stitches Haven

These were my blocks for my DGS Haven group in September.  Emilee had us make two separate blocks. Another scrappy trip block using lights.

And this one (I don't know what its called).  She just wanted us to use black and bright colors for the 4-patches.

And then it was my turn again for October's quilt. I had purchased several yards of this zig-zaggy fabric at Hancock's a while ago knowing I would use it for a DGS quilt eventually. But what to do.... Something with lots of angles... hmm.  Arrows! I came across a neat block, but there was no free tutorial for it. So I eventually settled on this block called Quills and Arrows from Quilter's Cache.  

(spoiler alert: I made one pinwheel red just for the heck of it. Noone else is allowed to use red :P )

They are paper pieced, but pretty easy to do. I managed to get mine all sewn together in less than an hour when *miracle of all miracles* both kiddos were napping at the same time!  That never ever happens!  Blocks are about 5.5 inches square so everyone is to make 10 blocks. And they are already slowly trickling in.

If you decide to try this block out these are the sizes I used for cutting out each piece.

1- 2.5 by 6.5 inch rectangle
2&3- 5.5 inch square on diagonal
4- 4 inch square on diagonal

I made a paper template of the triangles so I could quickly see if a scrap that wasn't big enough to get a whole square out of would work for a single piece. 

And that's what I've been sewing on lately!

Raincheck Quilt

Jessica made this adorable quilt using the April Showers fabric line from Moda. The pattern is called Raincheck.

I outlined each umbrella and did a little inside echo in the solid fabric umbrellas and in the pieced ones, I made lines going down and back from the top. It's hard to see in these pics.

The background is paisleys. My thinking was that they kinda looked like raindrops.  Her umbrella handles are raw edge applique, but the umbrellas are turned and then machine appliqued just perfectly.

Love these adorable fabrics and this adorable quilt!

Some Small quilt projects

Here are some small projects I've quilted recently. (Over a month ago still counts as recent right??)  Linda made this cute little wallhanging.

I did a little custom job to it.

Jessica made this adorably sweet baby quilt.

A custom c2c design for this one.

And then here's one Jessica's mom made. 

I stole quilting designs from the flannel print.

A super high loft batting really shows off the quilting.

Katie's lone star

This Lone Star quilt was made by my sister, Katie.  I love it!

She did needle turn applique on the corner blocks. I kept it pretty simple with the quilting here by doing an echo inside the orange flower, and outlining the inner flower. Since she fussy-cut the centers, I just stitched around the center circle and added a few protruding wiggles around it.

Leaves in the border, and a fancy feather. In the quarter circle, I had a hard time thinking of what to do there, but ended up doing a paisley feather. Angela Walters has the video demonstrating it here.

The center star I saved until last. Because I struggled to come up with a design. But I found this in Sue Patten's book and decided it was one I could do and looked pretty cool.  perfect.

The orange flowery fabric was pretty busy and decided to quilt something simple there because it would be hard to see it anyway. 

The back!

The AQS show was a couple weeks ago already.  I took a class with THE Angela Walters and it was pretty fun.  She covered a lot of stuff from her new book 'Shape by Shape' which i bought and had her sign it.  I didn't get to spend a ton of time at the show like i usually do. I had my 3 month old along and so between feeding her, myself, and my quilting class, there was barely enough time to spend all my money! But I did just in time though ;) I finally bought a ruler base and foot for my machine! I've been wanting one for a while, but finally bit the bullet this year. I have yet to actually try it out, but someday I will. I might have to stay up super late to be able to try it without being interrupted by some little one needing fed, help with the potty, help hooking up a wagon to a toy tractor, or some other random thing. But I'll get there!