Finally!

I finally got past the sewer's block and decided on some borders for this quilt. Of course, I'm still working on the backing which is another story. And don't even ask me about binding. But the borders. The BORDERS! They've been sewn on!

Spring...I guess I'm glad you're here

I took some pictures this morning of some colorful improvements that prove spring is here. I've never really liked Spring that much, but then again, I'm glad it's not snowing anymore. I like summer even less because I don't like to be hot. But there's something nice about blue skies and the sunshine. Oh, and air conditioning.

I remember growing up, we never had air conditioning. Well, we had one window unit in our dining room. But no central air or anything for our bedrooms. What a bummer. I used to just lay on the sheets with no covers and pray for it to rain so the humidity would cease for a little bit. Sometimes we would all give in and sleep on air mattresses in the dining room. No wonder we spent so much time at the pool!

Now I'm such a baby when it comes to sweating the minute you walk outside in the summer.

We finally got some chair cushions for out patio chairs and I decided to put up a wreath that I made that's nice and summery. Since I love fall so much, I tend to decorate in those colors most of them time. So adding a little more color into my life is a good thing. Maybe I'll get some sewing done one of these days. Still mulling over choices for the borders, backing, etc. for the green/cream quilt.

Progress

Hey! I found those pictures of the quilt I worked on this weekend. I'm at a throw-size right now and I'm debating whether I want to make it into a queen-size quilt or not. Also, I need to figure out if I want to add borders and what kind would look best. I have some green fabric leftover that I could use or maybe darker brown/tan? I rarely do a quilt without some sort of border, but maybe this one doesn't need one. Hm.

I had pictures to post of some of the work I did this weekend on the green/cream quilt but they are not here. They are...missing? I think they never got saved or maybe Blogger stole them. Anyway, I have instead chosen to put more old projects on here and talk about them.

I made the diamond quilt for a friend. It was my first quilt that used diamonds, and let's just say that I never got in the "quilt groove" on this one. Truth is, I pretty much hated it from the start. Not the way it looked, just the whole process. I neglected to realize how much the fabric would stretch since I did not cut it correctly. Also, I chose to hand quilt Baptist Fans on this and it just took FOR-EH-VER. The backing fabric was cute though. It had angels on it. Just one of those that, for whatever reason, you are glad glad glad to get out of your sewing room!

The "I Spy" quilt was made for friends who live overseas. I was hoping to get some Midwestern accents in there so that she would know what corn, John Deere, and most importantly, the Iowa Hawkeyes were. I think it turned out pretty cute. Kind of busy, but a nice blanket that you can play a game with!

The snowman Christmas tree skirt was a panel that I sewed together and embellished for a friend who likes snowmen. I liked that it wasn't traditional red and green, but still wintery/Christmas-y.
As I can remember, the directions weren't very clear about how to handle the opening or even how to close it up so I sort of did my own thing. I sewed some ribbons on that she could tie closed around the tree trunk.

Baby Boy Quilts

These are two quilts I made a few years ago for friends that had baby boys. The baseball themed quilt was a way to use the remnant of baseball print fabric. I thought the green checked outfield was a creative way to represent all the crazy mowing they do at ballparks. That may be evidence of the only curved seam I've ever done. Seriously. Maybe I should work on that.
I used cool blues on the second one and I'm not even sure where I got the pattern. It reminds me of summer at the beach though. Sort of like waves?
I'm not sure if this weekend will involve much sewing, although I'd like it to. It's hard to find time now that I have a little one. So many other things to do!

Thank You!

I'd just like to say thank you to someone. I don't even know who they are but they make my morning! About a year ago, I got pulled over for speeding on my way to work. I was coasting down a hill and a sneaky cop was hiding out in a parking lot, pointing his radar gun up the hill. Well, I find it difficult to go down a large hill at 25mph so I was coasting a bit. Whatever. For the last few months, I have noticed a white Blazer that parks in the same spot the cop was camping out in. I don't know if they got pulled over too and are saving others from tickets, or they just like to park in the farthest spot from the building. But thank you. No more sneaky cops nabbing me for coasting! It makes me day!

Haven't done a bit of quilting lately. Hoping to get some time in this weekend. But it's hard to park yourself in a small room when it's so nice outside!

Oldies But Goodies

These are a couple of quilts that I made in the past for friends who were expecting babies. I have made a few large quilts, but mostly I have focused on baby-size blankets.

Both of these are handquilted. The first was for a highschool friend. I really liked it and made one for myself after the fact. It was the first time I had made a ruffle border instead of binding. I also added the felt "K" with some flowers, which I thought turned out cute. Now that I look at the pictures, I can see how dirty our carpet was. Gross!

The boats were made for a friend who had been in the Navy. It was a bit of a mess. I had a hard time finding a fabric that would be good for the sky that wasn't too cartoony. I bought the seagull fabric and thought it was perfect. Of course, I jumped right in, which is a failing of mine. I then realized I had cut all of the fabric so that the seagulls were flying "correctly" in half of the triangles. In the other half, they were on their sides. :) Not exactly going to work. So I had to buy more and re-cut it. But overall, I was happy with the way it turned out.

The pictures I posted last time of all the blocks I've been dutifully trimming are for a quilt in progress from Bonnie Hunter's website Quiltville. She has tons of great patterns for using up scraps. The patterns would obviously be great for a planned out, yardage-based quilt, too. But who doesn't love digging into their scrap bins and using some of them up?

I can't decide if I'll make one 90x90 quilt or two throw-sized quilts out of my 100 blocks. I've been thinking of some friends who are getting married as I make this one, but I'm not sure if I'll give it to them or not. Sometimes giving an unsolicited quilt is scary because you know they'll probably like that it was homemade but maybe it won't be something they want to decorate with. Plus, I'm thinking I might just want to keep one for myself after I get all of it done!
Not to mention, I'd have to send the big quilt out to be machine quilted because my little machine won't do well with a big quilt and I do not have time to hand-quilt it this summer!

I've been finding it difficult to lock in a good machine quilter around here. One lady that my grandmother sent her quilts to has quit doing quilts for others. The place in town gave me a bad impression right off the bat. They were expensive and had 2 options: small stipple and large stipple. Let's face it. If I wanted to stipple all my quilts, I could do it myself. I would pay a large sum of money to someone that could really do something great with the quilting but not for just a basic all-over stitch. Plus, I know this is quibbling, but I put a lot of creative effort into sewing and piecing quilt tops. I want a long-arm quilter to have ideas about what patterns and thread would look good, etc. I want them to invest in the creativity of my quilt, too. Not just flat out tell me they can one of 2 stitches, this is the minimum charge....blah blah blah.
Who do you use for long-arm quilting services? Anyone know someone good and reasonably-priced in Iowa? Am I being too demanding of my machine-quilter?

Trimming Up

I'm working on trimming up some blocks so that I can finally sew them into a top. I really hate trimming, but it makes it a lot easier to make things square up. Somehow adding 4-squares and triangles makes all sorts of crazy edges. But I've tried sewing blocks together before trimming, and it is one headache after another plus some seam-ripping. So only 100 of these blocks to trim up...and then more sewing!

In my quilt room

These are the 2 quilts I have hanging in my quilting space right now (also known as the guest bedroom). The pink one is made from pre-cut 5 inch squares that I found for 5 cents a piece at my local Ben Franklin. I am not usually a "pink" person but I love the way this turned out. I hand-quilted it and I like the way that turned out, too. The triangle border was just a whim that turned out okay. I had never done it before so I just sort of "winged it". Next time I might plan it out a little more because I had some triangles that didn't meet up with the corners well. Oh well!
The blue and brown quilt was one of my first attempts at triangles. I'm not very good at them and the blocks turned out much smaller than I thought they would. I ended up just putting them away for awhile and when I was pregnant and nesting, I dug them back out. I am not above seam-ripping but I didn't have the heart to undo all my work so I just sewed it all together and quilted it. As I hand-quilted it, it started to become something I actually liked. It's not square at all, as you can see, and I think it's just fine. Something I have realized as I grow as a quilter is that you learn something on every quilt. I just try to not have it be the same lesson more than once! :) With this one, I had a lot of seams that all meet in one place so it's kind of lumpy. I need to be more careful when I iron my seams, I guess. Hmmm...

My very own quilting blog!

After years of reading others' blogs about quilting and crafting, I'm finally starting my own. I don't know how much I'll post or how often, but I want a place to talk about what I find inspiring and my creative endeavors in quilting. My Grams would be proud!