[ purple ]

Look what I found last week.

It's a skirt and I found it at Goodwill. The fabric jumped out at me mashed in between all the clothes and I dug it out.

It's a size 18, which is a little large for me. No bother, I didn't plan on wearing it anyway.

I am just going to attack it with my scissors and rotary cutter.

Purple is not on my list of comfortable colors. I like it plenty, I just can't seem to use it to my liking (although, my friend Jessica did this FABULOUS string quilt using purples, can I post a picture of your quilt Jess ? )

Purple. I like saying the word.

I like that this fabric/skirt has a touch of green and robin egg blue to offset the purple. I keep looking at it. I want to cut into it, I just don't know what to do with it yet.

Purple, purple, purple...

[ Christmas placemats ] a posting for Jessica !

Okay. I had this Christmas fabric, and I really, really like it, but I didn't feel like making another quilt. My solution ?

Christmas place mats. We aren't really a place mat kind of family, but I decided to through caution to the wind and got busy on my machine.

Look at my naughty four year old. At lunch today he kept trying to wipe his face on his place mat. " That big napkin, momma !" No Gavin.

One picture at my attempt to decorate my fireplace mantle. This one is just for Jessica, so she has something to read and stops yelling at me all the way from Maine...

baby clothes quilt [in progress]

Oh well !

This was another attempt at doing quilt-as-you-go. This quilt was meant to be twin sized, but it didn't quite make it all the way there. I am pretty sure that I am getting close to "taking a break" on quilting, this one might have done me in.

I was happily sewing along for awhile and then I started to get anxious over getting it finished. I calculated how many more blocks I would need for it to be twin sized and right then and there changed my mind.
Then to add insult to injury I had a hellish time trying to add the backing. In fact my second attempt was so bad I just ripped all the stitching out and tied the quilt. Which made me even more frustrated. In fact I was racing just to get this one done, so I could stop looking at it all the time.
It was going to be for sale, but then due to my loss of patience with the finishing I decided to keep it and I threw it on the end of Gavin's bed.
Oh well.

do the polka dot !

Howdy y'all !

Guess its been awhile huh ? Feeling a little burnt out lately on the quilting front. Not so much on the design and inspiration, I am always pulling out various fabrics that I want to put together. More like the actual act of sitting down, cutting, sewing, pressing, sewing, basting, quilting. All that.

I finished this one a few weeks ago. Made from two coordinating fat quarter stacks. Then I free motion quilted it in a wide meander pattern.
I almost love the back more than the front. The multi colored polka dot....
...and the fabulous striped fabric for the binding.
The finished size is 43 inches by 51 inches and it is for sale. Contact me if interested.

birthday stars

This quilt has been done for a few weeks. I had to keep it "secret" since it was a gift for a special 4 year old girl in South Carolina. She opened her quilt yesterday and now I can share it !
I have been wanting to do the wonky star thing again. I NEEDED to keep it small this time. So instead I made the stars different sizes and in random spots. The back of the quilt is from a sheet set that I picked up on clearance awhile back. I tried to match the star colors to the polka dot colors.
Once again I forgot to measure the finished quilt. It was around toddler size. Now it lives with my niece !

POP !

Like a big wad of Bubbalicious bubble gum, goes POP !

blue, blue, blue !

It's another oldie but goodie. This quilt top is another from the blizzard of 2010. It's been waiting in my closet for months and months. Patiently waiting.
It's finally done. I kept the quilting pretty simple, more straight lines.
I have more of these blocks made up, so I can see another one of these quilts in my future. I always say I have a hard time with boys colors, but I love this.
The back was a happy surprise. The fabric is a mixture of blue colors to mimic the front, and to spice it up a little I added the strip on the side with fabrics from the front.
It ended up being around 42 inches by 42 inches. It is available to purchase and Kegan has already asked if he can buy it. "With what money ?" I asked him.

[more] quilting-as-you-go

I was down to 2 projects, not anymore. I decided to do another quilting-as-you-go project. This one will be bigger ( I am thinking twin sized ?) and I do believe it will be a birthday gift for my almost 4 year old. I love that it makes me think outside the box and I use up all those pesky fabric scraps !

[ swish, swish ! ]

Ah. Remember this one ? From the back to back blizzards of 2010 ?
I finally pulled it out and finished it. The fabric is Nest by Tula Pink for Moda (swish, swish). I decided to quilt it on the diagonal, like oh a million times. Actually I need all the help I can get with my straight quilting. Mostly I just need to S-L-O-W down.
The back and binding is from this awesome fabric I found at J's for $1.99 a yard. NO JOKE ! I bought everything that was left on the bolt.
Finished size is 51.5 inches by 62 inches. It is for sale, but I am itching to keep it !

I have one more "oldie" that needs to be quilted and finished and I have a birthday quilt in the works for a very special almost-4-year old.

woof ! woof !

This quilt was from a pack of fat quarters I snapped up when they were 50% off at J's. Doggie fabric is impossible to pass up. I added the black and white polka dots.
The pattern is just a random nine block. The back is a really cute paw print fabric that I somehow managed to NOT get a photo of. Slacking. Shame on me.
The finished size ended up being 38 inches by 49 inches. Perfect for that "little person" who loves doggies and puppies.

[romantic]

I picked up this pack of fat quarters on a whim awhile ago. Not my usual colors or pattern, I just thought they were so pretty I could not pass them up.
Which was good for me since I was "commissioned" to make a quilt for the ailing mother of a family friend (that was a mouthful) The fabric was perfect for her, just perfect.
I did my favorite patchwork blocks set with wide sashing. I really love this one. It's awfully romantic (and I don't usually do romantic) Calming colors and the free motion quilting blends into the background making the fabric the focal point, which I like.
I forgot to take the final measurements. It's smaller than a twin, but more than enough for your lap. It was well received and I enjoyed making it.

bright and happy squares

Believe it or not the blocks in this quilt were done a long, long time ago (maybe more than a year ?) I can't remember the initial "vision" for them, but in any case I pulled them back out, made a few more and put them all together and, voila !
I love the fabric in the middle of each wonky square. It's this cute birdie fabric, with little trees and it's just cute ! So I decided to piece the back using colors from the front and of course the cute birdie and tree fabric.
I really like how bright and happy this quilt is, also the fact that it's pretty gender happy. I know I tend to lean towards "girlie" quilts and I am trying to broaden my quilting range (so to speak). Anyway, the finished size of this quilt came out to be 41.5 inches by 41.5 inches. A perfect square.

It's also for sale, contact me if interested !

a partial string quilt

This is another sewing technique I have been wanting to try.

Paper piecing. Essentially you cut some paper (I used regular copy paper) and you then sew your fabric directly onto the paper and it acts as a stabilizer.
To make this string quilt, I had to use small strips of fabric (anywhere from an inch to two inches thick) sewn together, the paper makes it easier. After you get all the fabric sewn on, you flip the paper over to the "wrong" side, trim off the excess fabric and then you peel away the paper.
Theoretically the paper should be perforated from the needle of the sewing machine and fairly easy to tear off. Of course that did not happen for me. I think if I had used stitches that were closer together that might have been the case.

Instead I used some seldom used curse words, slivers of torn paper everywhere and eventually dug out some tweezers to pull out the small scraps.

Each block ended up being 8 inches in size, and I made 12 blocks total. I was going to make a quilt, but I am debating on whether to make a wall hanging for my youngest sons room.

sweet and sassy

I based this next quilt on a pack of jelly bracelets that Gavin picked out for me while we were on vacation. I looked down at them all stacked on my arm and I thought " I should make a patchwork quilt using these colors."
This is it.
It's sweet and sassy.
It's the exact same size as the patchwork quilt I made for Kegan a few months ago.
It is available for sale, contact me for more info.