A couple more quilts and going to AQS Show!

Quilt #33 for the year was this scrappy 16-patch.

Meandering was requested.  No problemo.

This cozy throw is all flannels.  (#34)

I had free reign on this one so I went with the floral theme and did 5-petal flowers and leaves. 

There was a slight problem with this one.  As I got to the last pass I realized that the back was baaaarely long enough, if not a tad short by 1/4 to 1/2 inch.  Oof.  What do I do??  Rip it all out and start over easing the top in better?  Stretch the heck out of the back to make it fit?  Trim 1/4 inch off the entire edge of the quilt?  Noo way.  After consulting with my customer we decided to take it off  the machine and luckily she had plenty of purple flannel left to sew a strip on the back.  And it was no problem to put it back on and finish the last pass.  Phew!  It all worked out, but I hope I never let it happen again.  I always do lay out my quilts to make sure the backs and battings are large enough and oriented the right way, but somehow I neglected to notice how close this one was.  Lesson learned. 

**Also**

I know there is a lot of blogging going on about the Sewing Summit coming up, which I will not be attending.  But I WILL be attending the AQS Show in Des Moines later this week!!  Planning on taking a couple longarm classes from Sue Patten, looking at lots of gorgeous quilts, trying out all the new longarm machines, and maybe just a little shopping too.  But not too much shopping.  :) 

Anyone else going??

A special announcement and a new project!

This is my latest sewing project that I am pretty excited about.  But first of all- I think it could be time to announce an exciting development that I have been reluctant to post about.  And that would be that my husband and I are expecting our first child in January!!  We are very excited!  And it's a boy which we are very happy about-especially the hubs.  YAY!  So instead of sewing and quilting, I've been napping and reading up on pregnancy, birthing, newborn care, and baby names.  I have found that there is a lot to learn!

So now, of course, I needed to start in on a baby quilt.  In the July/August '11 issue of Fons & Porter's Love of Quilting magazine an alphabet quilt was featured in the "This Old Quilt" section.  Hmm, that's a neat idea I thought, an alphabet quilt!  I Googled alphabet quilt images and found THIS.  Go ahead and look at it.  It is awesome!  Loooooove it!!

The original wonky letters blogger wrote a book about them, which looks very cool,  but I decided to just wing it and see what happens.  I printed out my inspiration picture to help me mentally break down each letter and figure out what letter parts need to be sewn first.  I started out with the "I" and worked my way up to the "W".  So far the "W" has been the trickiest for me.

The only rule I have is that each letter is 4.5 inches tall.  I am going to have 3 orange letters.  Why 3? Because isn't that how designers create interest-by using groups of odd numbers??  I couldn't decide on just 1 orange fabric, and 5 would just be too many, so I used 3.  And orange because it contrasts nicely with the rest of the letters in blues (opposites on the color wheel) and greens.   See- I was paying attention in art class!  And orange also because it's a boy color.  (There is such a thing as boy and girl colors you know. At least that's what I thought when I was 6!)  

This will become a wall hanging for the baby's room, which is currently painted in pink and lavender with a princess ballerina border from the previous homeowners...  That will have to change soon. 

Wow, this is a pretty wordy post-for me.  Anyway, that's what I've REALLY been up to this summer!

#32- A Scrap Quilt

Carol made this super scrappy quilt.  She puts together the neatest scrap quilts!  Each square measures 2 inches finished. 

Just a simple medium meander on this one.  This is the 32nd quilt I've quilted this year.  I'm a good 3 weeks behind my goal of a quilt a week.  ack.  Time to get busy! 

Another Ticker-Tape doll quilt and a Quilt for a Sports Fan

I made another Ticker Tape Quilt.  I've lost count on how many of these I've made as gifts.  They are always a hit though!  This will be linked up to fellow Iowan Megan's blog: Canoe Ridge Creations- for Sew Modern Monday.  Check out the much cooler things other people made!

This was my latest quilting finish- A Sports-themed quilt!  This was my first attempt with quilting a sports motif. 

I quilted footballs, basketballs, baseballs, lots of stars and loops. 

And then I also threw in some sports-themed words like: champion, touchdown, overtime, goal, and so on.  I think quilting out words is a lot easier than making recognizable footballs and basketballs.  This was quilt #31 for the year.

Summertime Row Quilt

This quilt has a bit of a story behind it.  One day my mom, sister and I thought it would be fun to do a row exchange where each person involved makes a row, then each month passes it on to the next person on the list.  They add a row to it, and pass it onto the next lady and so on.  Then at the end of it all you get all your rows back and -surprise!  Look at what everyone made for you! 

So we duped some friends and relations into joining in.  8 of us in all.  Each person had a bit of a theme.  One had Christmas, another 4th of July, one had a little girl theme, another was countries they had traveled to...  A couple of us sent fabric they wanted us to use, others said use whatever you have that will go with. 

 Aunt Diane's theme was Summer.  I had fun custom quilting each row. 

Of course I had to do a row of feathers :)

This row is the coolest!

This row had a swirling water theme.



This was the row I did- Flip Flops!  It's not summertime unless you've got on some flip-flops. 

This was a lot of fun to receive a new set of rows to work with each month and see what the quilters did previously.  But it was also challenging to come up with a block to go with the theme.  I'm really glad we did it, but I don't think we will be doing it again anytime soon! 

My  row quilt is still in rows in a box.  Maybe this winter I will figure out how I want to put it all together.  Maybe...

Redwork Table Runner

I found these antique redwork blocks at a fabric/garage sale a while back and knew my MIL would love them.  So they became a Christmas gift and she pieced them together into this tablerunner. 

Just simple meandering in a cream thread.

This was quilt #29.  I'm still working on quilt #30 and its week 32 so I've fallen a bit behind.  :(

I did have a couple of projects that I failed to get pictures of before they were given away.  One was another scrappy baby quilt.  This one was a lot like the others I've made here and here, but with pink blocks and a yellow block in the center; yellow binding; light yellow flannel back.  Project 2 was a simple apron for my MIL's birthday that happened to be a replica of one she she wears all the time and has about worn out. 

Quilt #27 & Thread Recommendations

This is quilt #27.  These Jumbo-sized blocks were made using old shirts.  I love the shadowed 3-D effect it has!

I quilted feathers in the border, a vine of leaves in the black border and over-all swirls in the center.  I used grey Aurifil thread on top and Connecting Threads Silver Essential Pro in the bobbin.  They seem to work well together for me-they are very similar in color and thickness.  I really like Aurifil thread, but it is much more expensive, which is why I used the Essential Pro in the bobbin. 

You can see in more detail from the back.  I did change thread color in the black border to match.  Anyone have any thread preferences out there?  What breaks more than others?  I'd love to hear about it!

A finish!

I actually finished a quilt! A few of you may remember this post when I started this quilt waay back in November.   The top has been done and waiting to be quilted ever since.  Naturally any of my quilts get put at the very bottom of the work list while I work on quilting other people's quilts. 



But I decided to enter a couple things in the County Fair this year, so I whipped it out and quilted some more feathers on it.  That's our raggedy old farm cat we call "Kitty". 

Get off my quilt Kitty!!!

And for the back I used some vintage fabric my sister gave me.  I love it!  She bought it at a fabric garage sale.  A fabric garage sale is what you do when you accumulate sooo much fabric over your lifetime that it takes up an entire garage and you finally realize that there is no way in heck you are going to be able to use it all up.  Then you sell it all really cheap over a weekend to more fabri-holics.

Linking up to Megan's Sew Modern Monday--Check it out!! 

Half-Way Point! #26 Red Tractor Quilt

Well, I've made it to the half-way point! 

The border looks like tractor tires!  I love how that turned out!

(if you click on the pic you can see it better)

Even the back is red Farmall tractors.

As for me and my house- We are like our tractors John Deere Green!  Yep, this happens to be our mailbox.  Have a Happy and safe 4th of July weekend!

Quilt #25

This little scrappy number was made by my MIL.

More feathers!  I'm really on a roll with these feathers-I just can't stop!

The back shows the quilting a bit better.