Little Landscape Finish

Recently I finished the landscape I started in a class I took in July. It was fun to create a little mountain scene from random fabric scraps. I could have finished quicker but was undecided about what colors of thread to use in the green areas.

This is the back. I like the corner triangles with a dowel hanger. Quick and simple.

I put an extra backing fabric on it because I didn't want to see all the quilting on the back.

Now to make some muscadine jam. 

The Real Finish

This is the real finish for this quilt I'm calling 'Woven Words'. The blocks were made by the board members of our state reading association. I am the president this year and the blocks were the idea of my friend Jo. She knows that I love to quilt and thought this would make a great memory quilt.

I took some much loved Laurel Burch fabric to frame the blocks. I wanted to use a striped fabric with butterflies, dragonflies, and hummingbirds for the vertical pieces. To get the most out of my limited supply, I decided to make the framing stripes look like a weaving. Can you see it? 

This is the back. I used some of the leftover stripes.

The quilting is mostly vertical stitch in the ditch with diagonal quilting across the word blocks. The quilting is more visible from the back.

Do you think this can double as the label? Finished Saturday, September 13, 2014.

Very pleased with how it looks.

Kinda Finished Friday

If I didn't have to go to work I would have finished this quilt. Tomorrow I could finish the cross-hatch quilting, cut the binding and sew it on but we are going to Memphis for the day. So here is the kinda finish for this Friday....

This was at the half-way point.

Here is the finished top.

Can you see the over/under woven effect?

It was fun figuring out how to sew it in pieces.

Close ups of the personalized blocks.

More blocks...

Top corner...

Other side...

Soon I will share the real finish. 

I love all these hand-drawn blocks. 

The butterflies, dragonflies, hummingbirds, and cats are my favorites from a couple of Laurel Burch lines. So glad I get to keep this one.

Best part - all of it worked. I planned, sketched, figured, cut and sewed. AND IT WORKED!

My Quilty Secrets

I read a post from another quilter who listed her 10 quilty secrets. I don't know if I have ten or more but here are some that have been perking around in my brain since reading her blog.
1. I love trimming the excess fabric and batting after machine quilting the layers together. It is so rewarding to see the almost finished quilt revealed.
2. I hate unpinning all the pins used to baste the layers together. Ugh. My fingers hurt from pinching open and closing all those pins.
3. I will never quilt a large quilt. I will send it to a long arm quilter.
4. I like the look of all the free motion quilting but I will probably never do it myself.
5. I hate to appliqué. I avoid patterns that have appliqué.

6. I like my quilts loosely quilted, not densely quilted. I go for snuggly not cardboard stiff.
7. I like piecing tops and designing pieced tops. I even like making pieced backs. But quilting, not so much.
8. I like bright colors-like you couldn't figure that out from looking at my quilts! ;-)
9. I think calling soft colors or muted tones 'low volume' is weird. Seems like the wrong term to use.
10. Sometimes an idea for a quilt gets in my brain and I have to draw it in my chart paper journal.
11. I don't get people who just keep making the same pattern over and over, sometimes in different colors but still the same pattern. I have made lots of giant nine patch baby blankets but just because they are quick and I am giving them away.
12. My favorite kind of quilt is a sampler. If I was the judge at a quilt show, that's what I would pick-and no appliqué!

Hat and PJs for a little boy

Last week end I bought this fabric because I know a little two-year-old boy who is crazy about the movie Cars. Yesterday I cut out the pattern pieces and after supper I started sewing. 

The PJs took less than 30 minutes to make. I zigzagged the outside edges of each unfinished piece before sewing the pieces together. When the weather gets cooler he will enjoy wearing these snuggly flannel PJ bottoms.

The hat took an hour to put together. Turning it took about 10 minutes and resulted in a wrinkled hat. 

This morning I ironed out the wrinkles and top stitched around the brim to hold the lining in place. I hope he likes his Cars bucket hat. It is one of a kind just like my sweet grandson.

Half finish-woven words

This is the bottom half of a quilt I'm calling Woven Words. There will be two more rows and two borders. The vertical sashing is a stripy print with hummingbirds, dragonflies, and butterflies. The cross pieces are butterflies. The next row will be little triangles on aqua. Can't wait to see how it looks finished. 

Accidental Landscape & Pink Elephant Quilt

This little landscape is almost finished. I took a class and bought the book. Easy and fun. Need to finish quilting, sew on the back and corner holders.

Made this pink and gray baby quilt for a family who just adopted a baby girl.

I have had the fabric for a long time but everyone I knew had baby boys.

Finally, a baby girl. Hope she enjoys the book that inspired the fabric.