Two Babies, Two Quilts!

This past fall, near the end of the semester, two of my colleagues in my department had babies! Within about a week of each other! SO of course, I took the excuse to make a couple of wee quilts. :)

The first quilt I finished I made using a kit that my own Z and Mr gifted me for Christmas, back when Z was 2 (she's 6 now, if that gives you an idea of how long this kit has been in my closet!):



Crayon Confusion
40" x 40"

A finish and a goal

Hello, lovelies!

I've been sewing, but I haven't been talking about it much, alas! The semester went well, and I'm enjoying the lull in between by doing some more sewing. (I'm in Wisconsin, where we're hunkering down for some serious cold. What better way to deal than by quilting?)

First, a major finish to share! It's been done for a while now (since mid-October, 2013), but it's the biggest quilt I've yet made, a sizeable queen-size that we've been enjoying on our bed. Based on the Line Art pattern, I adapted it to a giant queen size and used Origins jelly rolls to make:

Forest in the Air



I don't use all the panels on my sewing table all that often, but for this beast, I did!



I'm also hoping to join in with the Lovely Year of Finishes for 2014 -- I think it'll be a great way to keep myself with some sewing momentum on a more regular basis!



So, for the month of January, I am hoping to finish this baby quilt, for one of my friends who recently had a new bundle of joy:




It's pin-basted and ready to quilt; I hope this will be a fun and speedy finish. I hope y'all are staying warm!

Finishes galore!

WOW -- when I decided to put energy into finishing quilts this year, I wasn't sure I'd get this many projects out of my closet, but I managed! In the past couple weeks I've finished one, and I've got photos of another that I finished back in March.

Here's the Kaleidoscope quilt, made as a top right along with Don't Call Me Betsy's Kaleidoscope QAL :



I'd had the top complete and hanging in my closet (for an embarrassing amount of time) before I decided I should just quilt it by checkbook and get it DONE. I'm so glad I did!



I love the stripy border, and the summer's other big project has been our deck. My husband has been hard at work on that, and I repainted our chairs. Sweet, eh?

The other big finish is the Quilt of Valor I've been working on -- although it's not quite ready to send, as I have a label issue that I'll need to address:



I really love how the quilting turned out on this one:



I've got a few more things in the works, but the queen-sized line art quilt is off to the quilters, and so my big projects are now mostly DONE! Which means I can start some NEW stuff.

...Yeah, this is going to be dangerous.



Linking up with:

FINISH! YAY!

I had vowed, this year, in my head, that now I am getting back into sewing I need to finish some of the projects that have been weighing on my consciousness, and I'm pleased to announce that I've got one done!

Here it is, the Layer Cake QAL quilt: Dream Cheerful!



I wasn't 100% thrilled with the border, when I added it, but after I got it back from the quilter's I decided I liked it! The quilting really made the difference with this one.



I replaced a couple of the blocks in this one with blocks from other sources, and I love how they turned out. Here's a close-up of the quilting, which was done at Loose Threads in Milton.



The back is a cheater print, and I like how it turned out, along with the stripy binding.



It's going to its new home tomorrow. I'm so glad I finally got it done!

Happy Mother's Day, and hello again!

Hello, quilt-blog-land! Miss me?

*crickets chirping as everyone goes, "You were gone?"*

Hee! It looks (from catching up with blog posts) like I missed a bit of a quilting-world storm, but that's OK--I've had storm enough at home! (I'm not done with the semester yet, but since today is Mother's Day, I'm taking a breather. :)

In between the craziness, I've had just enough time to finish a couple things. First and foremost, I present:

TweetyGigs



~70" x 88"
Fabric: Tweet Tweet by Keiki, Spirit by Lila Tueller, and Bella Solid Bleached White
Batting: Hobbs 80/20
Quilted at the Backyard Quilt Shop in a loose swirl with pale pink thread

Follow the cut for more TweetyGigs, and some mug rug goodness!

Finish! Blue Canary (Sliced Coins Quilt-Along)

Amazing! I actually finished a quilt-along, on time!

Flashback: Fireworks Quilt

Today I'd like to share, for Fabric Tuesday, a little bit of a blast from the past: My Fireworks quilt (click for bigger).



This is a generously-sized lap quilt, begun at a stack-n-whack class and finished in fall 2004. It goes with absolutely nothing in our decor (or probably anybody else's), but I love the way the pinwheels turned out.

I have fond memories of creating the pinwheel blocks in our tiny apartment kitchen, in the evening time after a day spent working on my dissertation. Since I hadn't peeked at the triangle stacks after I'd whacked them, I didn't know how each block would turn out, and it was always exciting to see! I'd take them in to the Mr to show him, too. :)



To get the layout I liked, I took photos of each block, rotated and cropped each photo so it was 'on point', and then I made several test arrangements on the computer.

The quilting was done by a local long-arm quilter, using a computer-driven machine and a stars-n-loops pattern. I kind of wish she'd used rainbow thread instead of red-white-blue, but I still like it.



We've used this quilt for all kinds of things--like going under the 6-month-old so she could play without spitting up on the carpet--and now it lives in my sewing room as a spare blanket for the guest bed.

What I really want to remember from my experience with this quilt is that when I first started quilting, I was confident in my ability to mix colors and fabrics, to envision what a quilt would look like and to trust my instincts. I knew this fabric would make an awesome stack-n-whack quilt, and I surprised many of the other, older ladies in my class by picking it. I don't ever want to forget that confidence, that trust in my eye and my instincts--there are so many inspiring quilters out there, but there can be one in here, too, if I listen to her.

Please head on over to Fabric Tuesday and check out the other wonderful projects!

Finish! Dad's Sawblades

I'm so excited to share: My fourth big quilt, ever, finished! I present: Dad's Sawblades, the coziest lap quilt ever!



51" x 64"
Flannel front and back, cotton batting
Quilted by Jan Johnstone at Adopt-A-Quilt



A little detail! I love the way it scrunched up in the wash, although I must admit I was surprised at how much it shrunk. I think it lost 8 inches or more...



Don't you love my new labels? *g*

I began this quilt in 2004; I bought the fabric from the quilt shop where I learned to quilt on our visit back to Ames for my Ph.D. graduation. It sat stagnant for several years until my dad delivered my beautiful handcrafted sewing cabinet and we agreed on a price that included a quilt for him. So finishing this was perfect!

My dad's a master woodworker, and my sewing cabinet is gorgeous. He's not the kind of dad who is particularly demonstrative, but how he feels is obvious from what he makes, and I only hope he gets the same message from my quilt for him.