Rainbow Afghan Finished

The whole thing is together. Now all I have to do is finish weaving the ends in. I can't believe that I forgot to post a picture. 
In total there are 16 blocks. They're each bordered with white, then stitched together in white.  Then there is one row of a white border done in double crochet and the last bit is dark blue for a border wave design.

Its been so cold we've slept under this for a few nights even without having the ends woven in.

Shades of purple

So this is for my friend Sandi. She loves purple and hates pink. So.. Shades of purples it is.  Not one drip of pink to be seen. 

I'll have to quilt it over the summer when I have a bit more time to dedicate to the custom quilting I want to do. :)  I do have a few different shades of purple thread, but haven't decided on the specific color to quilt it with.  I'm thinking that I may want to quilt some feathered hearts in the large squares, or maybe some feathered squares. Oh the decisions!

Please excuse the bad cell phone picture.  

Coast Guard Lone Star

My mom has a big birthday coming up this year, but she's sworn me to secrecy about her age.

So, I won't say her age, but I will say that she's getting a quilt for her birthday - and it features the super hard to find Coast Guard fabric!!

I've been looking for Coast Guard fabric forever, and finally got my grubby hands on some.

Now, all I'm waiting for is the stencil of the Coast Guard emblem so I can quilt that in the large squares and anchors in the triangles.  This still has to be trimmed up, but I'm waiting for daylight to do that so I don't screw it up.

And I'm still trying to decide on the thread color to quilt it in, I'm looking for a varigated thread, perhaps in red, white and blue.  Still undecided on that.

This is a close up of one of the points in the lone star.

 

And here is the whole star.  It really is flat, I'm just lazy and didn't want to lay everything out perfectly, when I'll just have to press it again before I trim. :)

For the Saints Fan in my life

My husband is a Saints (American) football fan.  Its funny that he's a Saints fan because he didn't grow up in the US.  When he moved here to the States, I gave him a year to learn the rules of American football and another year to learn the different teams. 

So the one year, he watched all the games and declared that "Whoever wins the Super Bowl will be my team." 

 2009 - Saints won. 

And that is the story behind this quilt. 

I'll be quilting it with a fleur de lis this summer.  I'm also not sure if I'll be adding another border or two. Perhaps a skinny solid black, a medium size yellow border and then a wider Saints border.  :)

 

And here's a close up of one of the blocks.  I fussy cut the helmets so they'd be the centers of the stars.  Can't wait to see my guy cuddled under this one watching football this fall and winter. 

Cracked Pots - Fabric Received

I finally decided on what fabrics I'll be using for the Cracked Pots mystery quilt. It starts September 1st.

Top Row:
Black Numerals - the dark
Grey with Black and Yellow - the blender
The Black - binding

Bottom Row:
Yellow Flowers - the medium
Grey Scroll - the light
Black and White - the border

Ohh I'm excited. I had hubby take the test too and he's also an INFJ. Maybe as a surprise I'll make one for him. (Just because you know I need another project!)

Hello Kitty LoneStar

One of my friends has an adorable little girl named Juliet. Juliet loves Hello Kitty.

This one will be for Juliet.  I'm waiting on a fabric order for a border for this one.  The first border is going to be a thin red border and then Hello Kitty for a wider border.

It's up on the design "wall" and I'm just not tall enough to get it wide enough or high enough on the wall for it to lay smooth.  But, rest assured that it is smooth.

Show Quilt - Top done

My quilt Pieces of Me is going to be shown with Stretching Art and Tradition exhibit at the Philadelphia National Quilt Extravaganza XX held September 19-22, 2013.  I'm so excited to be participating in it.  My quilt won't be judged, just exhibited.

The theme is Hi, it's Me!  so I've been working on Dresden Plates because of the circular nature of life.   I wanted to start out with larger ones and work towards smaller ones, all with things that represent who I am.

My husband helped me come up with the center idea of putting my silhouette in the center and as the Dresdens go from larger to smaller have a piece of the silhouette covered up.

So, let me share a bit of what each Dresden represents.

Pink and Purple - my DD's favorite colors and represents me as a woman.
Blue and Anchors - my Dad used to be a commercial fisherman, I grew up at the NJ shore and had a boat before I had a car.
England and Red Paisley - my love of travel, DH is from England originally and I was in Puerto Rico studying Spanish.
Coffee Beans and Blues and Browns - One of the things I love, coffee.  The blues and browns represent my love of Mother Earth and Nature.
Pencils and Cream Crosses - My profession as a teacher and my faith.
American Patriotic - I'm American, part Native American, and where a lot of my roots are.

I'm not showing off the final outcome with the quilting.. but I will share that it's bound in dark green. :)

Spring/Summer Runner

Made this one earlier today.  I know it's a finish the UFO year, not start a new one, but I just had to. Major quilting add.. it needed to be made. Just needs to be sandwiched, quilted and bound.  I'm going to be quilting it with flowers. It'll be so pretty!

Basketball & Football = a quilt?

My daughter and I share the same Godmother.  When we decided to baptize our daughter, we wanted to pick someone who meant a whole lot to the both of us. The only person that we could decide on was my Godmother. We asked, and she said yes!

As I was thinking about it, my daughter and I can now do joint gifts for our Godmothers birthday and mothers day.  Since Godmother is a *huge* fan of Duke and the Patriots, off I went shopping for some new fabrics. The goal is to get the whole quilt done by Mothers Day in May.

I got some Duke fabric, and Patriots.  The Patriots has a pinch of red in it, so I'll do a skinny border in red, and then more blue and white.

I'm making WhirlyGig blocks! :) So much fun. Here's a close up of the blocks before I trimmed them to size.

 

And after playing with how to lay the blocks out, this is the layout I decided on, with a ton of help from my husband. Please excuse my toes.

And this is what I've gotten accomplished so far. All the blocks but 3 are sewn (those will be going on the backing which will be pieced just because a pieced backing is so much more awesome in my opinion).  I still need to add a larger blue and white border, then sandwich, quilt and bind.  I'm still debating on colors to bind, red or blue. Any suggestions, feel free to leave a comment!

Until later my friends!

The year of the UFO...

No, not that kind of UFO silly.  Un Finished Object.  You know, quilty things. :) Ones that I make and then lose interest in because it's taken so long to get to the quilting or binding or .. oh shiny!!  My attention span gave out.

This is the year of the UFO. I'm getting them completed.

What?

Stop laughing.

I'm serious!!

See - it's January 3, 2013 and I have my first UFO done. :)  It's an old one, and it's finally done. From this post - Week 1, 2012!! But still, it's quilted and bound. Feels good to get it off my UFO list.

 

Till next time - Happy Quilting and HAPPY NEW YEAR

Progress on Mom's Christmas Gift

Making some progress on my mom's Christmas gift.  I figured that if I started it early enough it might actually be done by Christmas.

So, while Netflix was on and I had Magnum PI on, I pressed all the seams open on the back of these blocks.

Moms favorite colors are blues and browns.  Found the pattern in one of the "Easy Quilt" magazines - will look for the specific edition later.

Cheerful Garden, a Lap Quilt

It's still un-named, and unbound - but it'll be getting bound in a dark pink. If anyone has some name suggestions I'm open for a name. I'm leaning towards Cheerful Garden for the name, but I'm not sure.

My mom went to AC Moore for something for Christmas and called me and said, "They have fabric, I picked you up something round." I had no idea, but it was a Fabric Expressions jelly roll. Since Mom doesn't quilt or like working with fabric this was so impressive. (and the Jelly Roll was the 'round' thing)

I decided to whip up a lap quilt with it. I'm so happy with how it came out! My DD picked out the backing fabric - it's actually leftover seersucker from when I made her a dress. The quilt is 40"x40" and I didn't have a pattern, I just made it up as I went along.

I had a few issues with the FMQ - the thread kept breaking, but it might have just been the June Taylor basting spray. I think where the thread broke it was on too thick. I did spray it thick in a couple spots.

It was FMQ'd on my Singer Confidence. I'm not the biggest fan of the machine, but I'm starting to like it more, especially for FMQ. Please ignore some of my boo-boos, I'm not the worlds greatest at FMQ.

Best view of the quilt: It's 40x40


FMQ Close Up #1


FMQ Close Up #2


FMQ Close Up #3


Best shot I got of the backing:

I'm just BOOMING

From OATW13, she sent me a huge surprise, not one block, but TWO:


From OATW13 - the SECOND one she sent!! How cool is that!


From Nancia. It's called Stepping Stone and was her first time doing anything like it. :) I think it turned out just lovely!


This is beautiful, and it's from NanaKathy55.


And I received this one, but had a slight mishap with the paper label falling off it. :( Soon as I figure out who made it, I'll be in good shape.

So he got a pillow..

The wife got the apron as a hostess gift. Her dear husband, another good friend of ours has his birthday on June 10. His wife loves the Broncos, and he loves the San Fransisco 49ers. The SF49ers happen to be my favorite team too. He's not a huge fan of aprons, and I wanted to do something nice for his birthday but not an apron. I found some pillow panels that I've had for ages. My father gave me the panels before he died. Dad died in 2007, and I don't honestly remember when Dad gave me the panels. I knew our friend would appreciate something with the 9ers.

This is the pillow I made. My DH took it into work and gave it to our friend there. Apparently it sat proudly on his desk all day.