Quilt Doodle BOM–Feb Block

 

February’s block is called Garden Pinwheel……what a fun block to make!!

I am thinking that at some point I may bring in some red with the black and whites??  Hence the red button on the daisy!!   Red sashing perhaps……

 

Recovered from Retreat

Another great retreat with Oma’s Quilt Shop at South Beach has come and gone!!  What a great time we had!!  Hours and Hours of sewing, great meals, and tons of inspiration!

Got a large portion of the graduation quilt I am working on done!! 

Here are twelve of the twenty blocks…….don’t have enough room on my design wall to display all the blocks.  It is a 4 x 5 block layout!!    I just need to square up the blocks and sew the rows together.  Feels so good to be ahead of the game….I don’t need this one finished until June !!

Finally got this baby quilt together…..I bought this quilt at the MPQ quilt show in 2010!!

Super simple little quilt…..but still cute!!  This one just needs a piano key outer border.

We also worked on a little organizer bag…..will get a picture of that up soon…..just working on the binding!

Prepping for Retreat

 

Gathering together my projects to work on at upcoming Feb retreat.  My main project will be a Graduation quilt for my great niece who will be graduating this June.

I going with the Atkinson Lucky Stars pattern done in Blue/Green batiks…..her favourite colours.    Inside the center squares of the stars will be pictures of Kennedy and her family. 

Love working with Atkinson Patterns……this is the second one I have done…..the instructions are very detailed with lots of tips and tricks and things to watch out for!!  Also the pressing instructions are very precise….takes alot of the guesswork out of it for me and I can just relax and sew!!  Going to try to get a couple of the star blocks done up before the retreat to make sure this is going to work the way I envision it!!

Here is a picture of my view out the window this morning!!  Love it!!

Quilt Doodle BOM 2013

 

I decided to participate in a BOM this year and found a great one over at Quilt Doodle Blog.   The Jan block is a Monkey Wrench block>

Here is my version:

Can’t wait to see what block we will be doing in Feb. 

Teddy Bear Quilt Done!! With a Week to Spare!

 

Finished up the stitching on the  Teddy Bear Quilt this morning….a whole week ahead of schedule!!    So much less stressful than one of my last minute finishes!!  This was a fun quilt to work on.   I love doing applique and I love working with brights!!

 

 

Another nice thing was that this was made totally from my stash!!  I love when I can do that!!

Teddy Bears On Parade

 

So nice to have some time off after the rush of preparing for the holidays!!  Finally I have some time to spend in my sewing room!!

I thought I would be tidying up and puttering around, but after a conversation with a girlfriend I quickly realized that the baby quilt I thought I had till March to get done, I now needed for the end of January.  They were having the baby shower before the baby was born!!!    Well then…..never mind the tidying and puttering….lets get sewing!!!

 

ReConnecting

All my good intentions of documenting my quilting adventures have fallen by the wayside in 2012.....a home break-in in the fall of 2011 threw me for a loop and kept me away from both quilting and blogging.
As we got things sorted out I returned to my quilting but never quite got back to blogging again....sooooo...Although I don't make New Year's resolutions....I so want to do better with this in 2013.

In a nutshell......this is what I have been working on over the past year.

A queen side quilt for our bed....this is the largest quilt I have done so far....90" x 110".....and my first entry into a quilt show.  I did the piecing and sent it to a longarm quilter to be quilted.  To be honest that feels a little like cheating to me....I want to be able to complete the quilt from start to finish.....but because I REALLY needed new bedding...and because I had plans for four Christmas quilt gifts....I decided that it would be OK to send it out for quilting just this once!!  Overall I was quite pleased with the way it turned out.....still have plans to make a couple of pillows from the scraps.

This quilt was made from the "Labyrinth" pattern from Calico Carriage Quilt Designs.  Great pattern giving four different size options.

Next I started on twin size quilts for my nieces twins,  Anna and Aidan, aged 3 1/2" yrs. 
Their baby quilts were the first quilts I had ever made.

These quilts were made from a modified version of the Five yard quilt pattern on the Mill End textiles website.  Added a couple of extra borders to make them about 60" x 85".

Next were two flannel lap quilts made for my sons for Christmas.  Loved the way these turned out......So soft and cuddly......used wool batting in these which was really nice to work with in combination with the flannels.

These were made from a Pattern called "Scrappy Crossings "  by Calico Printworks.
60" x 72"  Loved the pattern...there is something about en pointe quilts that really appeal to me.
All four of these quilts I pieced and machine quilted.


Another highlight of my year was the opportunity to take a applique class with Karen Kay Buckley.   She is an amazing talent and a wonderful teacher!!  Bought scissors that she has developed.......best scissors ever!!

Another thing that I really wanted to purchase from Karen was her wonderful thread bag!! Unfortunately they sold out so quickly at the classes that I was not able to get one when she was in town.

So I put it on my Christmas list LOL and my son came through :)

The bag holds about twice this many threads.  You just pop the spool in the bag and thread a needle and bring the thread end out through the ultra suede strip....you just pull on the thread end, cut off a length of thread and applique....no more searching for your threads.....you don't have to remove the spool until its empty!!

Have to share a picture of some unexpected Christmas guests that arrived at our home Christmas evening!

Guess the buck stops here!!!