- Finish quilt for Moda Bake Shop. *check*
- Take pictures during lunch break. *check*
- Write tutorial.
Pretty Little Pouch Swap
A woven pouch I created for the Pretty Little Pouch Swap – pattern coming soon!
Quilted Hexie Pouch
Check out this free pattern I created for Bag Lady Week at Obsessive Crafting Disorder
Showing posts with label quilts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label quilts. Show all posts
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Sneak Peek
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Remaking the Junk Room (aka Guest Room)
As of April 29th, we'll have officially been in our home for a year.
I'm just now starting a quilt for our guest room (which was previously known as the oh-crap-people-are-coming-over-open-the-door-and-throw-all-our-junk-in-there room).
I'm madly in love with the Pinterest board I made for it, and I now own about 90% of the things in it.
My favorite item by far is a custom wall hook I ordered from CountryFolksCreations. I had her paint 'Welcome' on it, because I'm going to put water & fresh flowers in the little mason jar before guests arrive. And I plan on sewing ribbon tabs onto our guest towels so they will be hanging in their room all fresh & ready for them :)
Before we even moved in, I knew I wanted to paint the room a grayish blue color, and that I wanted to make a Modern Meadow quilt for the bed (because it's my favorite fabric line of all time!).
In came Ali with a genius idea for a Flickr group where you could adopt other people's UFO's. Kelly had a giant stack of navy, aqua & green Modern Meadow Mixtape Blocks, which I promptly snatched up.
Instant quilt, right?
...well...except for the part where I changed my mind and decided I wanted to accent the blue guest room with yellow instead of green.
...and let them sit in my closet for 8 months.
...and then decided to remake half the blocks to include more yellow.
...and then had to find 4 more prints and make even more blocks, because I only had enough for a Double instead of a Queen.
...only to discover I was a coordinating print shy, and had to sneak in one DS Quilts print from her first Australian collection.
Here are the first 6 of a total of 9 rows I'm organizing for the top.
Whiskers ran across my blocks and messed them all up no less than 3 times. And I might have shrieked at him and flailed my arms like a crazy red-haired banshee each and every time.
*sigh* Isn't this the most soothing fabric line you've ever seen? I want our guest room to be cozy, happy, and calming.
Because I love making people feel comfortable in my home.
And so does Whiskers, by strewing himself inappropriately across guests' laps so they can scratch his tummy. Welcome to the family! Have some black fur for your pants.
I was feeling too lazy for paragraphs tonight, because there's no time for that when I have Caprese Salad to eat and Parks & Recreations to watch.
Happy Thursday :)
I'm madly in love with the Pinterest board I made for it, and I now own about 90% of the things in it.
My favorite item by far is a custom wall hook I ordered from CountryFolksCreations. I had her paint 'Welcome' on it, because I'm going to put water & fresh flowers in the little mason jar before guests arrive. And I plan on sewing ribbon tabs onto our guest towels so they will be hanging in their room all fresh & ready for them :)
Before we even moved in, I knew I wanted to paint the room a grayish blue color, and that I wanted to make a Modern Meadow quilt for the bed (because it's my favorite fabric line of all time!).
In came Ali with a genius idea for a Flickr group where you could adopt other people's UFO's. Kelly had a giant stack of navy, aqua & green Modern Meadow Mixtape Blocks, which I promptly snatched up.
Instant quilt, right?
...well...except for the part where I changed my mind and decided I wanted to accent the blue guest room with yellow instead of green.
...and let them sit in my closet for 8 months.
...and then decided to remake half the blocks to include more yellow.
...and then had to find 4 more prints and make even more blocks, because I only had enough for a Double instead of a Queen.
...only to discover I was a coordinating print shy, and had to sneak in one DS Quilts print from her first Australian collection.
Here are the first 6 of a total of 9 rows I'm organizing for the top.
Whiskers ran across my blocks and messed them all up no less than 3 times. And I might have shrieked at him and flailed my arms like a crazy red-haired banshee each and every time.
*sigh* Isn't this the most soothing fabric line you've ever seen? I want our guest room to be cozy, happy, and calming.
Because I love making people feel comfortable in my home.
And so does Whiskers, by strewing himself inappropriately across guests' laps so they can scratch his tummy. Welcome to the family! Have some black fur for your pants.
I was feeling too lazy for paragraphs tonight, because there's no time for that when I have Caprese Salad to eat and Parks & Recreations to watch.
Happy Thursday :)
Sunday, April 8, 2012
Tag Team Quilt
I'M FINISHED!!! One year later, and I finally finished this quilt for Ulrike!!! And I hope she doesn't mind, but I went ahead and named it the Tag Team quilt since she made the top, and then "tagged" me to go in and finish the rest :)
For those of you not familiar with the story behind this quilt, about this time last year my friend Ulrike contacted me about finishing a baby quilt for her. It was for a mutual friend who lives in the States, but it would cost a royal fortune for her to ship a finished baby quilt from Germany to the U.S., so she mailed me just the top, and I created the backing and put it together for her :)
The top was so fabulous that it took me MONTHS to decide on how I wanted to style the back, because I really wanted it to complement the front (and do her gorgeous work justice!). By the time I got the back done, the holiday season was upon me, and I was in full-on handmade Christmas present mode from then until the end of the year. I emailed Ulrike at the first of January to let her know finishing this quilt was priority #1, but a week later all my neck craziness started, so that pushed this quilt back another two months.
But I'm happy to say I finally finished binding it this weekend, and this beautiful quilt will be on it's way to a new mom tomorrow morning :) The thought of a chubby, happy baby rolling around on this quilt makes me incredibly happy. I can just picture him staring at all the bright colors and shapes, and finding little pieces in the quilt that will be his secret "favorites" as he grows up - Ulrike did such a fabulous job :)
I free motion quilted this using a cyan Sulky thread. I normally use Gutterman, but Sulky thread quilts like a dream when you're doing FMQ!
And below you can see my favorite bit of the entire quilt! I love that wonky little Owl & the Pussycat block...so sweet and whimsical :)
And here ladies and gentleman, is the back I made for the quilt! Again, the thought of pudgy little baby legs rolling around and pointing at the numbers and letters makes me wanna squeal! (I have a serious case of baby fever right now, in case you hadn't noticed, lol!)
I paper pieced the numbers & letters using templates from Kumiko Fujita's 318 Patchwork book, and I meticulously fussy cut those rainbow strips from an Ann Kelle stripe print. Her fabric is so perfect for kids projects and I have an obscene amount of it hoarded for future babies (not to mention serious yardage of her red & black Scottie print for Sir Whiskers projects!)
For the binding I went with the new gray dot print from Denyse Schmidt's Aunt Edna line for Joann's. LOVE how it turned out - I seriously couldn't be happier that everything finally fell into place with this quilt! I think this is the first time I've ever made a quilt, and in the end felt like there's nothing I would go back and change. And it's the best feeling ever - I feel so creatively satisfied when I look at these pictures :)
And since the letters are a little hard to see from the shots above, here's a closeup of all the paper pieced text. Mmmmm....scrappy goodness!!!
Hope you all had a lovely Easter! I had a beautiful day full of worship, family, photographing quilts in the beautiful sunshine, peanut butter cookies, napping on the sofa with Ray and Sir Whiskers, and Indiana Jones/Jurassic Park movie marathons...all in all, the perfect Sunday :)
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Cherry Blossom Mini
I finally feel like I'm getting back into a groove with my sewing. I'm able to sew for short periods without having to wear my neck brace, and I'm not sore afterward - yay! I still have to limit myself to hour or so sessions, because I don’t want to over-do it and land right back where I was at the start of this whole mess...but I’m fine with that little compromise as long as it means I can sew again!
I started this project because I wanted something small and manageable that I could finish fairly quickly, and because I wanted to feel like I actually accomplished something for the first time in months! Binding this quilt has been slow going because it requires me to look down the whole time, which is the hardest thing for my neck (and it makes some of the fingers on my left hand go numb pretty quickly). So I wanted to start this small, second project so I could work on it when binding the other wasn’t in the cards :)
The finished mini quilt top measures 18" x 18", so each blossom is 6" square, and each "petal" is 3" square (pattern found here). I raided my pink scrap bin for the blossom fabrics, and for the center of the blossoms I used a leftover scrap of a Sweetwater "Sunkissed" print in Gray. The background fabric is Annie’s Seed Catalogue in black. I normally hate pinks and blacks (especially together, because it makes me think of Debbie Gibson and the 80’s), but in photography, art, and other mediums I always see those sweet little pink Cherry Blossoms paired with blacks and grays, and IMHO they just don’t look as pretty paired with anything else!
I have to laugh at myself over my color choices though, because I can’t help but think of what my friend Angela would say about it! I’m picturing her chuckling to herself at her computer as she reads this, since it contains so many colors I have repeatedly professed to hate, lol! I remember telling her on multiple occasions that I hate both pink and black, so she always enjoyed pointing out how much pink was in my stash whenever she came over ;) I told her it was a necessary evil, because a quilter needs a little bit of every color (especially if you sew mostly for other people!).
Well, despite all my protests to the contrary, it seems Angela knows me better than I know myself! Because I truly love this quilt :)
The next hurdle will be deciding on the backing...I have about 10 different ideas swirling around in my head, so I need to sit down and make some executive decisions this week. It's times like this I miss having Angela just down the road from my work - I really need another lunch-break brainstorming session with you Ang!!!
Sunday, March 18, 2012
The great American weekend
I stumbled across this pattern a couple weeks ago whenever I was looking for star blocks, and bookmarked it for future reference. I didn't really have a set plan for using it, but then I had a moment of inspiration a few weeks ago, and thought maybe if I used different fabrics for the center and background, it would look like a little cherry blossom!
I tried it out with some pink fabric this weekend, and I think it totally passes the test :) What you see is just 1/4 of a complete block, so each block will contain a total of 4 little "cherry blossoms". It's intended for a mini quilt for a friend, and I think I'm going to make it 2x2, so the final measurements will be 24" x 24" and there will be 16 blossoms total. I haven't decided yet if I want to use 16 different pink prints, or do 2 each of 8 prints - we shall see...
So. Right about now you're probably wondering why the heck I titled my post "the great American weekend". Well, I couldn't help but laugh yesterday because I did some of the most stereotypically American things possible all within the span of a day. Not only did I quilt, but we had some apples that were spoiling, so I made an apple pie yesterday morning - and what's more American than apple pie? I totally wore my favorite flouncy apron while I was doing it. And gazed out my kitchen window while I made the crust.
It's basically a deep-dish apple pie that you bake in a cake pan (I used a springform pan instead because I thought it would make removal easier, and I was totally right). The filling was so rich and fantastic - instead of slicing and seasoning the apples and calling it a day, you place them in a dutch oven and cook them down into a soft filling with some butter, cinnamon and lemon juice. For those of you from the south, it was very similar to making fried apples. So yeah, imagine fried apples stuffed inside a thick pastry crust - pure heaven!
My husband and brother-in-law are are such good sons and spent the past two weekends helping their dad put a new roof on the house he and my mother-in-law just purchased, so I took this over to their new home yesterday morning. I figured there would be some hungry men coming off the roof for breakfast, so the 5 of us ate it as a sort of breakfast pastry with coffee. It was delish. And it was gone within 2 hours ;)
The recipe is from one of my favorite cookbooks, Nick Malgieri's Modern Baker. I haven't found a bad recipe in it yet!
Item #3 on the list of uber-American things to do on the weekend? Grilling burgers. We made buffalo burgers with fresh basil, avocado and goat cheese. YUM!
So between the quilting, apple pie, and burgers, I should probably borrow Rex Kwan Do's American Flag pants to round out the weekend. "Nobody wants a round-house kick to the face while I'm wearing these bad boys!"
So what did you all do this weekend? The weather has been beautiful in New Orleans the past two weeks, and it makes me excited for summer to arrive! Hope you all have been having similar luck with the weather where you are :)
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Tardy for the Party
Ulrike's Quilt Top
About this time last year, my friend Ulrike contacted me about finishing a baby quilt for her. She lives in Germany, and the recipient is here in the States, so as you can imagine, mailing a finished 60" x 60" quilt overseas would be quite expensive. Therefore she mailed me the top, and I promised to make the back and finish things up. Only, this simple project took quite a bit longer than I anticipated...
Ulrike's Quilt Top
You see....*insert sheepish grin*...I'm just now binding it (these pictures were taken quite a while ago and I never got around to posting them), and I feel really terrible about taking a full year to complete the project for Ulrike :(
Part of the problem is that it took me forever to decide on the backing. I got the quilt in late Spring/early Summer and the top was so completely fabulous that I couldn't just do any old quilt back, and it took me a full 3 months (!!!) to figure out what I wanted to do. I'd decide on one thing - and then the next time I'd walk in my sewing room and see it - I'd hate it! And that's pretty much how things went for a couple of months, until I finally found a combination I loved - some Kona Cyan, Ann Kelle rainbow stripes, and scrappy Suzuko Koseki paper piecing!
Problem was, it was early Fall by the time I got the backing together, and once the holiday season hit, I just didn't have time to do anything else with it. I emailed her at the start of the year and swore up and down I'd have it finished and mailed within the next few weeks, but then the ol' neck started acting up...and here I am...Mid-March and just now in the final stages of binding. Sorry Ulrike :( ...I'll try and track down that nun from Blues Brothers and have her rap my knuckles a few times for it...lol!
My Quilt Back
But for now, I like to pretend to myself it's a good thing I'm super late, because the recipient will be extra surprised about receiving a present this late in the game (it's been a few months since the baby was born and Presentpalooza ended). Ludicrous, I know...but it helps me sleep a little better at night ;)
Front & Back of our joint quilt :)
I wish I'd taken some close up shots of the pieced letters and numbers at the time, but alas, I didn't...I think my camera died on me or something and I didn't feel like fooling with it any more. I'm almost finished though, so once I have it bound and washed, I'll snap a bunch of detail shots.
Oh, and in case you're wondering, I got the patterns for the text from Suzuko Koseki's 318 Patchwork book. That book is a treasure trove of awesomness.
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Swanky Squares Quilt
This block is one of the many new projects currently hanging out on my design wall.
This particular quilt has been a long time in the making. Remember when I posted this bundle last June? Well it's taken me 6 months to actually get started on it because of time, and also because I was having difficulty finalizing the pattern. I knew what I wanted to do...I just didn't know how I wanted to do it!
It all started when I decided to make my friend Amanda a quilt for her wedding gift, and she told me she would like a Mad Men inspired one (to go with the styling of their ubercool city loft). A few weeks after our email exchange, I was surfing through Shutterstock at work looking for images for a flyer, when I stumbled across this image. After that, I became obsessed with finding a way to not only easily piece a square with rounded corners, but with one (or more) squares nested within it.
Now that all my Christmas sewing is out of the way (if I have to sew another bag or pouch I will shoot myself!), it's time to get back to my quilting roots. I already have 3 quilts in the works right now, but this project is definitely my top priority since I'm 6 months behind....*sheepish grin*
I decided the design would look a lot cooler and bolder done in solids, so I edited my original stack down to the following, and I'll be using an additional charcoal gray solid for some background sections, plus (maybe?) this Lotta Jansdotter print for the backing...but I'm not 100% committed to it yet. I wanna wait and finish the top before I make a final decision. More to come...
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Black Friday
So how was everyone's Thanksgiving? I'm still feeling a bit sluggish from all the food I ate - is it possible to have a food hangover?
But more importantly, how was your Black Friday shopping (especially the quilting-related kind)? Are you a rabid shopper that lines up at midnight? Or a sit-back-and-watch-the-mayhem kinda person?
I'm in the latter category - I have more fun wandering around and soaking in the mayhem (by the way - did you all see this crazy story? Hope she enjoys those aggravated assault charges....people are nuts!) The hubby and I had some birthday gift cards to spend, so we woke up at a normal hour and braved the mall to pick up a few items while everything was on sale. We parked far away instead of cruising for hours for a prime spot, and wandered around the mall holding hands and people watching. Then we went home after a few hours, ate Thanksgiving leftovers, and watched Christmas movies. All in all, it was a great day :)
I knew Joann's would be insane on Friday and there was no way I was gonna stand in line at an understaffed cutting table for hours, plus the deal I really wanted didn't start until Saturday ($1.99/yard Quilter's Showcase prints), so I waited until Saturday morning. The place was a graveyard, and I was in and out within 45 minutes. I snagged some seriously good deals:
I had one of those coupons for 25% off your total purchase, so for $40 and some change I got: 2 giant spools of Gutterman thread (buy 1, get 1 free), 2 large buttons (buy 1, get 1 free), 1 24" zipper, 2 yards of gray houndstooth, 4.5 yards of Daisy Mae, and 10 yards of lightweight fusible interfacing.
The houndstooth is for my mom's Christmas present. Love of houndstooth is a genetic trait passed on from parent to child in our family. My grandmothers, mom, dad, sister, and myself all share a robust love of houndstooth.
I had a coupon for 50% off one item, so I grabbed the yardage of the Denyse Scmidt Daisy Mae to use as backing for a new quilt I'm working on....
...and in case you all are partial to Denyse's new line for Joann's, from Dec. 1-3 all Premium Quilting Cottons (including all the DS Quilts lines) will be on sale for 40% off. And if you have a VIP Card, you can get another 10% off that price. Score!
I also ordered these ribbons from Stitch Steals early last week, and they arrived on Friday. Once I figured in shipping, I ended up getting them for $0.75 a spool. Can't beat that with a stick!
So what did you all score on Black Friday? Any awesome deals from Joann's/Hancocks/Hobby Lobby/Local quilt shops you wanna share?!
And as per the fabric policy, here's my "out" pile for the shop. I've got some AMH Garden Party, Amy Butler & Denyse Schmidt Home Dec, Heather Ross, and some out of print Alexander Henry Noah's Ark. Most everything's listed at $5/yard, and as always, you can use the coupon PLAIDSCOTTIE10 for 10% off anything in my shop :)
By the way, since I've started my new in/out policy, I've been getting fewer cracks from the hubby about how, "if it were up to you, all of our money would be spent on fabric and I'd be naked in a corner somewhere" LOL! So yeah, I'm using that as my gauge for success on breaking the fabric addiction ;)
But more importantly, how was your Black Friday shopping (especially the quilting-related kind)? Are you a rabid shopper that lines up at midnight? Or a sit-back-and-watch-the-mayhem kinda person?
I'm in the latter category - I have more fun wandering around and soaking in the mayhem (by the way - did you all see this crazy story? Hope she enjoys those aggravated assault charges....people are nuts!) The hubby and I had some birthday gift cards to spend, so we woke up at a normal hour and braved the mall to pick up a few items while everything was on sale. We parked far away instead of cruising for hours for a prime spot, and wandered around the mall holding hands and people watching. Then we went home after a few hours, ate Thanksgiving leftovers, and watched Christmas movies. All in all, it was a great day :)
I knew Joann's would be insane on Friday and there was no way I was gonna stand in line at an understaffed cutting table for hours, plus the deal I really wanted didn't start until Saturday ($1.99/yard Quilter's Showcase prints), so I waited until Saturday morning. The place was a graveyard, and I was in and out within 45 minutes. I snagged some seriously good deals:
I had one of those coupons for 25% off your total purchase, so for $40 and some change I got: 2 giant spools of Gutterman thread (buy 1, get 1 free), 2 large buttons (buy 1, get 1 free), 1 24" zipper, 2 yards of gray houndstooth, 4.5 yards of Daisy Mae, and 10 yards of lightweight fusible interfacing.
The houndstooth is for my mom's Christmas present. Love of houndstooth is a genetic trait passed on from parent to child in our family. My grandmothers, mom, dad, sister, and myself all share a robust love of houndstooth.
I had a coupon for 50% off one item, so I grabbed the yardage of the Denyse Scmidt Daisy Mae to use as backing for a new quilt I'm working on....
...and in case you all are partial to Denyse's new line for Joann's, from Dec. 1-3 all Premium Quilting Cottons (including all the DS Quilts lines) will be on sale for 40% off. And if you have a VIP Card, you can get another 10% off that price. Score!
I also ordered these ribbons from Stitch Steals early last week, and they arrived on Friday. Once I figured in shipping, I ended up getting them for $0.75 a spool. Can't beat that with a stick!
So what did you all score on Black Friday? Any awesome deals from Joann's/Hancocks/Hobby Lobby/Local quilt shops you wanna share?!
And as per the fabric policy, here's my "out" pile for the shop. I've got some AMH Garden Party, Amy Butler & Denyse Schmidt Home Dec, Heather Ross, and some out of print Alexander Henry Noah's Ark. Most everything's listed at $5/yard, and as always, you can use the coupon PLAIDSCOTTIE10 for 10% off anything in my shop :)
By the way, since I've started my new in/out policy, I've been getting fewer cracks from the hubby about how, "if it were up to you, all of our money would be spent on fabric and I'd be naked in a corner somewhere" LOL! So yeah, I'm using that as my gauge for success on breaking the fabric addiction ;)
Sunday, November 6, 2011
A Family Affair
Maybe it's the impending holiday season, the crisp Fall weather I woke up to
this morning, or a combination of the two...but I'm feeling very sentimental today :)
Since I started quilting 5 years ago, I've managed to rope my mother-in-law, and more recently, my future sister-in-law into the quilting world. We love having a hobby that we can all share together, and every so often we'll get together on a Saturday afternoon and having a Telschow women sewing party.
I feel very blessed, because it's a rare and special thing to share a passion with so many people in your family. Not only because it gives you something to talk about and do together, but also because it provides you with a support group. My mom, my mother-in-law, and my future sister-in-law all sew, and it's amazing having a group of women in my life who understand the technical aspects of what I'm doing, who can critique my designs and push me to be better, and who encourage me in my creative passions when I hit a rough patch.
As the years pass, I find myself looking forward to Christmas and birthdays more and more, because it's so much more fun and meaningful to give and receive handmade gifts from one another. After years and years of my mom making me handmade Halloween costumes, Easter dresses, quilts, and lunches with PB&J sandwiches cut into the shape of a heart, it's wonderful to be able to spend time on her and send her something I made with my own two hands - especially since I'm only able to make it up to Kentucky a few times a year to see my parents :(
So. In celebration of the women in my family, I'd like to share with y'all some photos I have of their beautiful handiwork :)
This is my future sister-in-law Katie's very first quilt! Can you believe how good of a job she did?! - it looks a heckuva lot better than my first attempt, that's for sure! She bought a kit at a local quilt shop and my mother-in-law helped her put it together. I popped by her house the other day, and she was snuggled under it watching tv - so cute!
One of the local quilt shops sells a lot of New Orleans-themed fabric, so my mother-in-law Lana made this Saints quilt for her son's birthday (my brother-in-law). She can't wait to give it to him next week! There's a layer of fleece sandwiched in the middle instead of batting, so the thing is super warm. You could probably boil a kettle of water under it, lol! (which works out well, because both my hubby and his brother are polar bears and refuse to turn on the heat in the winter because they like sleeping in an ice cold house)
And this amazing quilt was my mom's wedding present to Ray and I almost 6 years ago (I can't believe it's been that long...time flies when you're having fun *wink*). She told me a while back that in order to find so many different coordinating prints, she drove over to Hancock's of Paducah and spent the better part of an afternoon there picking out fabric with an employee :)
It makes my brain hurt to think about sewing all of these curved pieces...
...and the real kicker? She did every bit of it on a 30 year old Bernina, with arthritis in both hands.
Yikes! Just look at how intricate her free motion is!!! Thanks mom :)
And bonus, look what arrived in the mail yesterday! My friend Kelly from Kelby Sews is a total sweetheart! Neither of my local Joann's carried them, so she grabbed some of the Merry Main Street and 5 more yards of the Sugar Creek Floral print for me (after I used all mine in this quilt).
And since I'm trying to be extra good heading into the holidays, here is my "out" pile. All the prints you see below are now up for grabs in my Etsy shop. Use PLAIDSCOTTIE10 for 10% off.
Since I started quilting 5 years ago, I've managed to rope my mother-in-law, and more recently, my future sister-in-law into the quilting world. We love having a hobby that we can all share together, and every so often we'll get together on a Saturday afternoon and having a Telschow women sewing party.
I feel very blessed, because it's a rare and special thing to share a passion with so many people in your family. Not only because it gives you something to talk about and do together, but also because it provides you with a support group. My mom, my mother-in-law, and my future sister-in-law all sew, and it's amazing having a group of women in my life who understand the technical aspects of what I'm doing, who can critique my designs and push me to be better, and who encourage me in my creative passions when I hit a rough patch.
As the years pass, I find myself looking forward to Christmas and birthdays more and more, because it's so much more fun and meaningful to give and receive handmade gifts from one another. After years and years of my mom making me handmade Halloween costumes, Easter dresses, quilts, and lunches with PB&J sandwiches cut into the shape of a heart, it's wonderful to be able to spend time on her and send her something I made with my own two hands - especially since I'm only able to make it up to Kentucky a few times a year to see my parents :(
So. In celebration of the women in my family, I'd like to share with y'all some photos I have of their beautiful handiwork :)
This is my future sister-in-law Katie's very first quilt! Can you believe how good of a job she did?! - it looks a heckuva lot better than my first attempt, that's for sure! She bought a kit at a local quilt shop and my mother-in-law helped her put it together. I popped by her house the other day, and she was snuggled under it watching tv - so cute!
One of the local quilt shops sells a lot of New Orleans-themed fabric, so my mother-in-law Lana made this Saints quilt for her son's birthday (my brother-in-law). She can't wait to give it to him next week! There's a layer of fleece sandwiched in the middle instead of batting, so the thing is super warm. You could probably boil a kettle of water under it, lol! (which works out well, because both my hubby and his brother are polar bears and refuse to turn on the heat in the winter because they like sleeping in an ice cold house)
And this amazing quilt was my mom's wedding present to Ray and I almost 6 years ago (I can't believe it's been that long...time flies when you're having fun *wink*). She told me a while back that in order to find so many different coordinating prints, she drove over to Hancock's of Paducah and spent the better part of an afternoon there picking out fabric with an employee :)
It makes my brain hurt to think about sewing all of these curved pieces...
...and the real kicker? She did every bit of it on a 30 year old Bernina, with arthritis in both hands.
Yikes! Just look at how intricate her free motion is!!! Thanks mom :)
And bonus, look what arrived in the mail yesterday! My friend Kelly from Kelby Sews is a total sweetheart! Neither of my local Joann's carried them, so she grabbed some of the Merry Main Street and 5 more yards of the Sugar Creek Floral print for me (after I used all mine in this quilt).
And since I'm trying to be extra good heading into the holidays, here is my "out" pile. All the prints you see below are now up for grabs in my Etsy shop. Use PLAIDSCOTTIE10 for 10% off.
Monday, October 24, 2011
Sweet Caroline Quilt
Remember the last-minute present I was working on last week? Weeeelllll the thing is, I bit off a little more than I could chew when choosing the pattern (the Stamps version of Elizabeth Hartman's More Simple Modern Baby Quilts), so I didn't finish it until Saturday morning.
I finished basting it late Thursday night, and was fully prepared to pull an all-nighter in order to finish in time for the baby shower on Friday. But the hubby intervened and told me I was being a mad woman...and I chose to listen to the voice of reason for a change. My hubby takes such good care of me :)
I did, however, stick the basted quilt in a baby-themed gift bag and bring it to the shower. And before she "unwrapped it", I stood up and yelled across the room "it's not finished! I just didn't want you to think I didn't get you anything!" And when we were all standing around looking at it at the end of the shower, one of my coworkers said "this is an interesting way to finish it *makes face*...what's this weird flannel stuff sticking out of the ends?" Apparently I'll have to scream a little louder next time (which shouldn't be a problem, because I'm pretty much a megaphone with legs).
The binding is Nicey Jane Welcome Road in Pink, and the backing is from Denyse Schmidt's newest collection for Joann's. I'm totally in love with the back of this quilt! I'm not usually a fan of pastels, but this Sugar Creek print is pretty freaking fantastic...I had my friend Kelly run to her local Joann's and pick up 5 more yards for me because it's the perfect baby quilt fabric. I'm kind of regretting not getting the whole bolt.
Aren't the colors delicious? I named this quilt Sweet Caroline because I kept singing that song while I was making it....the colors make me think of candy and sunshine and fluffy bunnies munchin' on clovers :)
