Blogger’s Quilt Festival: Spring 2011

Welcome to my entry in the Blogger's Quilt Festival!  I can't believe it is already here again. I really don't know where the time goes.  I have no skills in getting buttons in the post but it is on the side bar!


We have dear friends that have been waiting for eight years to have a baby and this past March they were blessed to adopt a beautiful baby girl. Her colors for the nursery were eggplant and lime green! So awesome! I have had a piece of purple paisley sitting in my stash for a few years just waiting for the perfect project. The fabric was given to me by my mom who passed away in December 2009 from cancer. I thought what better place to use this than to welcome a long awaited baby into a loving family. I know she (Mom) would have adored this quilt.

I had all of the fabric in stash with the exception of one. The light green lattice was a new purchase just for this. Just a little extra pop.

The quilting was inspired by Film in the Fridge diamond quilting. While I strayed far and left some a little farther than I planned I love the way it turned out. I love how quickly it came together. I haven't made a quilt in two days in a very long time. AND I didn't have to stay all night to do it!!

I wasn't able to go the baby shower (actually a big party) because of family commitments at home. She loved the quilt and I am thrilled. In spite of all the imperfections it will be used and loved and washed and dragged around and that is perfect.


Part of the process of this quilt was drawing out the quilting in the order to quilt the lines. It changed after I started and I added more to fill in a bit. While straight line quilting is fast it doesn't mean that all the lines will actually be straight! Getting in a hurry to get this in the mail I would occasionally blink or get distracted by one of the kids. Imperfection makes a handmade gift individual and I've learned over the years that I'm okay with imperfections. If I wasn't I would never make another gift or meal or anything else for that matter! I had to mentally go through the process several times before I was ready to put the needle down. I really love it. Because the proportions of the quilt were a little different than the drawing I had to adjust as I went along. A good learning experience. Thank you Film in the Fridge for the inspiration to keep it simple!  At first I didn't understand why she had drawn the lines in different colors.  But it became clear very quickly that it was necessary to know which lines went where!

And just a couple more pictures of the quilting.

Blogger's Quilt Festival Fall 2010

I am so glad that I saw this happening again! I have been very absent from blogging this year. Thank you, Amy, for hosting the great Blogger's Quilt Festival again! I love seeing everyone elses amazing work. It is always inspiring.

This quilt started as a small idea, two teachers retiring and somehow involving all of the students. I donated the time and material to make this quilt (and the next) and the PTO helped to cover the cost of a long-arm quilter to do the hard part! I had a short time frame, I think it was about a month.

Orginally I thought I would have each student do a 6" block but that was simply too daunting to prepare and sew with the time I had given myself. I chose a garden theme because it lends itself well to childrens creativity and both like to garden. I love this quilt because of it's long garden rows spaced by a great batik grass. Then surrounded by water/sky.

The garden spaces are made up of two classes each and the last row with the thank you block. It was great to watch the children put something in the garden and show their love for these teachers. It was great to work with the fabric pastels. I've used them on a couple of projects since then.

This was a great exercise for me to give over the creative license to the kids and even more to hand over the quilts to be quilted by someone else. My friend did a fantastic job and worked fast to help me meet the deadline. I could see myself getting carried away with the quilting and that would have taken away from the beautiful art.

Wrapping up the quilts I used the extra from the backing (there was a lot!) and made cases for them. We hung the quilts up at school for a couple of days for the kids and teachers to see the final project. They loved how it all came together and so did the recipients. Lots of love shared and tears shed.

Blogger's Quilt Festival--Spring 2010

I have been out of the blogging loop for a few weeks and just now see that we are up again for another fantastic round of quilt inspiration with the Blogger's Quilt Festival Spring 2010!

Thank you Amy for organizing us again!

I have had a hard time choosing a quilt for the round. One of the beauties of blogging is its journalistic effect. I had to go back through all the older posts to see what I had made. I have chosen my Dad's quilt that I made last summer.

I have been quilting for eight years and haven't made him one yet. So this is it. I chose batiks because he spends his winters in Mexico and I wanted something cheerful and fun. This is also one of the quilts that I made with the Old Red Barn Co. quilt along last August.

I adore this quilt. I've never really worked with batiks before and their vibrancy really gave the quilt the feeling I was going for. The back is by far the biggest departure for me. I love the way it turned out. The only thing I would have changed is that I wish I had made it one row wider. It is just a bit short for their bed (which I had only intended it as a throw!)

Fall Blogger's Quilt Festival

It's that time again. Amy at Park City Girl is hosting a fall Blogger's Quilt Festival. Get ready to be inspired and make new friends.

I was going to put the button (which is super awesome) right here but my skills at blogging are very slim. I really should stick with quilting production instead of typing about it!

I've chosen a quilt this time that gave me a very hard time. This quilt was for my In-laws and I asked for color samples for inspiration. It took me two years to find the right fabric and get the pattern sorted out. Did I mention it's King sized? I have friend in Nashville who has a long-arm machine at her in-laws and she was kind enough to let me spend an entire day working on the quilt. Her in-laws actually fed us dinner to because we were there for so long!

This quilt was designed using EQ5. Many, many drafts went into finding the right one to highlight the fabric and take my love of diamonds to a new level. The quilt is made in quadrants which made the assembly much easier than it could have been. It was essential that I labeled each fabric and where it would go when I was sewing the strip sets together.

An introduction to my life as a quilter and fabric collector can be found here. Hope you enjoy.

Bloggers Quilt Festival

I just heard about this fantastic online festival. What a great idea. Click the link in my sidebar to join or just to be inspired. April 17-24 2009.

For my favorite quilt I've chosen my John Deere inspired baby quilt. I often ask the mothers-to-be if there is some favorite color or design (modern, traditional etc.) or look at their baby registries to get the inspiration for the quilts. I love the 1/4 black sashing and how it came together. Green is one of my favorite colors. I experimented with some new quilting. Wave-like and 'X' in alternating squares and really like the effect. The back of the quilt reminds me of fields in various states of growth. There is also the token JD fabric. I absolutely love the way the quilt folds up. I also made the tiny quilt (about 5x7) with scraps from the baby quilt. The yellow squares measure 1/4"!