Green and Yellow Scrap Quilt

Did I ever show this to you?  It sat on my design wall in New Mexico for ages it seemed like.  I finally finished it up here in Washington.

I found the pattern in Sunday Morning Quilts and thought it would be a great scrap buster for my greens.  Funny, I don't remember purchasing so much green fabric, but out of all the colors I have in my scrap bins, green is always overflowing.

After I got everything basted together, I found this.

Ugh!  I couldn't believe it!  Luckily I had some Wonder-Web fusible web tape. 

I put the weakened seam back together with the tape and made sure I quilted that area real good. 



With so much scrap busting on the front, I decided to go simple on the back.  I did not piece the back of the quilt like a normally do, but instead used a dark green flannel that my mother-in-law had sitting in a closet. 

The yellow block was built around a scrap of fabric left over from Logan's quilt.

 So, after all these green scraps, how does my scrap bin look?  It's about half full now.  Time to find another scrap busting project.

Randomn Thursday

School is out for the summer.  The preschool that my kiddos go to have two summer programs and every year we enroll them in that.  This year's June summer program theme is "A Train Tour through Europe."  So that starts up on Monday.  It would be fantastic to actually get to do it don't you think?

 

 

 

 

A few more little random projects I sewed.  This tote bag from Zakka Style. 

And I am working on this quilt from Sunday Morning Quilts.  I still have the right side to piece together. When this top is done, it will be number 3 in my basting pile; I think in the next week or so I'll be doing quite a bit of basting and quilting.

 

Saturday plans consist of putting this little garden together in my courtyard.  I know, it's hard to read due to it be a scan from a piece of notebook paper.  But you get the idea.

 

 

 

 Linking up to: Live  a Colorful Life

 

 

 

 



Amish Quilts Exhibit

We set out on one of the first warm Sunday afternoons this year to the International Folk Art Museum in Santa Fe.  They are currently having an exhibit on Amish quilts, titled "Plain Geometry Amish Quilts."

Excerpt: The exhibition explores the aesthetics of Amish quilts by considering what the quilting tradition grew out of and how they changed in a changing world.

A few quilts.

Strip Quilt, Missouri - c. 1945
Fabric: Cotton

 

Ducks in a Pond, Pennsylvania - c. 1925
Fabric: Wool and cotton

 The quilting is just beautiful, all done by hand (of course.)  I haven't yet done too much hand quilting, okay none, but I can just imagine the hours and patience that went into these!

 

 

Another beautiful quilt is this hexagon one.  I've worked a little bit with hexagons, but am itching to try my hands at more! 

 

 

Flower Garden, Ohio - C. 1890
Fabrics: Cotton, wool, and silk

The quilt below is not a back, but the front of the quilt.  A whole piece of cloth, hand quilted to look like log cabins.

 

 

Log Cabin, Pennsylvania - c. 1885
Fabric: wool

It was interesting to see how the styles differed in each Amish community.  There were 35 total quilts exhibited, a lovely way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Do you attend many quilting exhibits in your area?    

May Goal - Lovely Year of Finishes

Another month already!  My Lovely Year of Finishes goal for the month of May is to embroider all the names on the community quilt my kid's preschool made. 

There are still blocks lingering at the school that haven't been completed yet, but I think I have a good amount to keep me busy!

 

A couple of the students asked if they could embroider their own names, so once I figure out a few good stitches, I will teach those students and let them go!

Star Quilt

I recently checked Denyse Schmidt's Modern Quilts Traditional Inspiration out at the library. 

There were several projects in the book that I would do.  But before I had to return it, I did work on this star quilt.

Mine is not a scrappy star - though I really like the scrappy star.  I did mine with whatever fabric I had enough of.  A print background with some essex linen for the star.  I figure I would do some hand embroidery in the star to add something a little extra.

As I was going through my stash for this quilt, I have decided that I need larger pieces of solids.  Besides white, all my pieces are a fat quarter or smaller.  Definitley need to go fabric shopping!

So Much Going On...

Hello there.  It's been a while I know.  So much has happened in the past weeks, that my poor little blog was abandoned for a bit. 

Our one and only car's transmission went out one day while driving my son home from preschool.  Luckily, we made it home!  So we were out of a car for several days.  As you know, I live on a cattle ranch one hour away from Albuquerque/Santa Fe.  It's half an hour away from a gas station, grocery market, etc.  So, we borrowed one of the ranch vehicles to get us by those few days until we could figure out something else.

My dearest friend from college came to visit with her family.  She drove from Washington State down here to New Mexico with her hubby and three little ones.  We had such a great time, it's like we were never apart. 

Little princess pea (aka my 2 year old daughter), went through surgery and is now recovering.  She's such a little trooper!  Though she is not fond of taking medicines! 

Amongst all this, I did manage to finish my blue and neutral quilt!

WIP - Attacking those WIPS

I feel like I am making some progress on these long overdue WIPs.

My neutral and blue quilt is in the process of being basted.  Here's a photo of the back.  Still debating on how I am going to quilt this one.

A long time ago,  I showed these fabrics from Art Gallery that I wanted to use for Rachel's Colorbrick quilt.

Here they are finally all cut up.  I am waiting on some fabric for the sashing to come (sheesh - I thought I had enough of what I wanted to use, but apparently I used it for some other projects.)

This quilt was to be for me.  Really excited about this one!

And just because I needed a quick project.  I made this pen/pencil holder from the book Zakka Style.  Pens and pencils are always ending up at the bottom of my bags, this at least helps me to find them a little faster.

What are you working on this week?

Linking up to Freshly Pieced.

February 2013 - Lovely Year of Finishes

I don't know where these days are going!  It's ridiculous!

For the February Lovely Year of Finishes challenge, I have decided to finish this quilt...

I originally posted about it here.  This is a quilt top my Mom made roughly 30+ years ago.  She gave it to me to quilt and bind, and since then it's been sitting in my WIP basket.  I have some blue calico fabric that might work for a backing.  It's my turn to add my touch of love to this little quilt!

If It's Not the Kids...

I 've showed pictures before of my little ones crawling all over a quilt I was trying to baste.  If they aren't on it, then I have this...

Look at my Biscuit there, nice and comfy.  Sheesh.

WIP - The Start of an Awesome Lunch Bag

Do you remember this train fabric I showed in a WIP post back in October?

I said I planned on making a lunch bag out of it.  Well, it's not done but at least it's started...

And here is the progress on my neutral/blue quilt.

Quilt/Bind:

Log cabin quilt

No progress:
Beatrix Potter quilt (fabric hunting)
Barn quilt
Husband's shirt
Felt Christmas ornaments
Colorbrick quilt
Baby quilt for Susan (triangle quilt)
Logan's wall hanging
Summer skirt - just need to hem!
Zakka nesting boxes
Community quilt with preschool (waiting on hands to be completed.)

In progress:
Neutral quilt
Train Lunch bag


Stats:
New projects: 0
Completed projects: 0
No progress: 9
In progress: 2


What are you working on?

2013 - A Lovely Year of Finishes

Have you heard of Fiber of All Sorts and Sew Bitter Sweet Design's 2013 challenge?

It's called "A Lovely Year of Finishes."  At the beginning of each month you link up your goal project.  In other words, a project that you want to finish by the end of that month. 



So for January, I chose my triangle quilt.  Yeah, you guys have seen this one quite a bit.  But I want need to get it done!

At the end of the month, you link your finished project back up to the linky party to show all you accomplished your goal!

I have many WIP's (works in progress) that have been hanging around; and me needing a push to get them done.  The encouragement from the others participating is just the ticket!

WIP - New Year, New (and old) WIP's

The holidays have certainly taken a toll on me.  I saw Lee's WIP post and had to check the calendar to see if it really was Wednesday!

While going through my stash to see what I needed to stock up on during all the after holiday sales ;) I came across all these neutral and blue fat quarters.  I have been wanting to make a neutral quilt for quite some time, so thought, what better time than now to start right?

And in case you missed it.  Some of my holiday finishes...

Teacher's lunch bags - blogged here and here

 

 

A purse for Aslyn - blogged here

Doll quilt for Aslyn - blogged here

Quilt/Bind:

Log cabin quilt

No progress:
Beatrix Potter quilt (fabric hunting)
Barn quilt
Husband's shirt
Felt Christmas ornaments
Colorbrick quilt
Baby quilt for Susan (triangle quilt)
Logan's wall hanging
Summer skirt - just need to hem!
Zakka nesting boxes

In progress:
Neutral quilt

Stats:
New projects: 1
Completed projects: 0
No progress: 9
In progress: 1

Wow!  I think I should tackle some of these no progress projects this year!

Last Minute Holiday Making

On Saturday, I had the crazy notion that I needed to battle the mall in order to get my 2 year old daughter, Aslyn, something for Christmas. I had yet to get or make her anything and time was running low. 

Upon this "quest" I realized that the mall has absolutely nothing for a 2 year old girl.  With my 4 year old son in tow, we frantically searched three stores only to come out with a pair of pajamas my son picked out for her from him (it has trains on it,) and a few beaded necklaces.

I think I have mentioned before that every time I have my kids with me at my local quilt shops, they pick out a fabric for their own little stash.  So yesterday, I decided to whip a couple of things up for Aslyn with some of her stash fabric.

 

First was a little purse; she loves getting into mine.  I found this tutorial here.  The outer fabric is Urban Zoologie, handle and lining is A Stitch in Color Little Dot Clementine.

 

Second, a doll quilt.  Currently, she takes her little stuffed animals and tries to wrap them in twin to queen size blankets.  I received the hexagons from my swap partner in the Post-Summit Swap.  

   



 

 

This quilt will more than likely get lots of use, lots of dragging around the house and outside, lots of washing; therefore I quilted it rather densely with straight lines.  I had quilted around the outer edge of each hexagon and skipped over those with my straight lines, so the hexagons kind of pop out a bit.

 

 

 

I had some trouble with the fabric feeding through my machine.  For some reason my feed dogs weren't catching it.  So, it's not the best quality work.  But I don't think Aslyn or her "bebes" will mind.

 









10th WIP of 2012

A couple of projects were finished these past couple weeks.

First the baby quilt.  Blogged about it here and here.

Second, the Zakka Sew Along Hand Warmers.  Blogged about this here.

Almost have all my granny squares done!  My goal was to finish the quilt top by the end of May - I think I said.  Well, obviously that didn't happen!  New goal; by the end of June!

And then there's my summer skirt I just started.  I am using Manana in Clay from the Maya collection by Anthology Fabrics.

Stats:
New projects: 1
Completed projects: 2
No progress: 8
In progress: 3

Linking up to Freshly Pieced 

Baby Quilt

I recently received a text message from a family friend inviting me to her son's, girlfriend's baby shower.  I have met both new-to-be parents at family events (i.e. Christmas, Mother's Day, etc.) but really do not know them all that well.  However, since my family has been friends with theirs for 30 years I feel that whether I attend or not (cattle work is being done so my attendance is still up in the air,) I should have a little something for the new parents.

The baby shower is on Sunday.  Yep.  Sunday!  Not a whole lot of time to put a gift together.  The information I have attained thus far, they are having a little girl and the nursery is in yellow and brown.

I searched through my fabric stash for their color scheme, not a whole lot there in yellows and browns.  It's not that I use these colors a lot, I just don't buy them often, a shame I know!

One of the yellow prints I found has a bit of pink in the center of the flower, so I added in some of Denyse Schmidt's eyelet in pink from the Flea Market Fancy line for a little pop of color.

Obviously, something quick and simple is needed for this baby quilt due to the time restraint.  For babies though, simple seems the way to go anyway.

I decided to do the quilt in a coin stack style.  Here is what is up on my design wall so far.

Another row of coins and a slight rearranging of colors, then I should be able to get my ol' sewing machine a whirring.

Three days to go until deadline!

Do You Believe This?

Seriously?!  I am not sure what happened here.  While piecing the back of this quilt, I double checked measurements.  And before basting it, that all layers had plenty of room for the quilting.   Then, last night, when I finished all the quilting, I flipped the back over to start adding the binding and found this.  Aargh!!

This and That

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!  My house is still a disaster from it all, boxes everywhere!

Speaking of boxes, I still have some I need to mail to family in Washington State.  We got lots and lots of snow out here on the ranch and I never made the 30 minute drive to the nearest post office. But after talking and explaining to everyone on Christmas day, we all decided that why celebrate Christmas on just one day?  Wouldn't it be best to celebrate 12th night?  So technically, I have until January 5.  Right?

That does mean, though, that there are several things I can not show here.  :(

So the ones I can show....

These are the finished tea caddy's I made for my son's preschool teachers.  As I mentioned before, they love their tea!  I was a little shy when they decided to open them right then and there; sometimes you never know how someone will react to a homemade gift.  I should have known though - they LOVED them!

Another gift (which I haven't finished yet - yikes!) is the Princess Pea quilt for my 16 month old daughter.  It's almost complete, I realized I didn't have batting (not even enough to piece together, thanks to using the majority of it in this quilt!)  So, I am at a standstill until I run into town next and can buy some (which will be later today!)

And here is little Miss Princess Pea, crawling all over her quilt while I was trying to get the measurements so I could piece the back together.

Of course, then big brother had to stop by to check on it as well.  Sheesh.  I finally just folded it all up and waited until they went to bed.

More on this quilt when I have it complete, which (keep your fingers crossed) should be in the next few days.