June's Baby Quilt

My sweet friend Faye just had her 3rd grandchild. After raising two boys and having two grandsons, she finally had a girl. 

We picked a pattern from Kim Brackett's book Scrap Basket Surprises.  She used mostly a jelly roll of Sunkissed by Sweetwater.

I quilted an overall swirl flower, perfect for a little girl. 

She picked this fun backing and finished with a red gingham binding.  It's so much fun sharing with my love of quilting with my friends.

Happy stitching, 

Karen 

Almost Finished

I didn't get to the basting part until after lunch yesterday, as I had a commitment.  But the basting went fairly well, and by mid afternoon I started quilting it with an open freehand swirl.  I wanted to keep it soft and cuddly, plus I didn't want to put a ton of quilting into it.

I couldn't decide on a thread color, but opted for a light grey.  Anything else looked too dark on the white blocks. 

The quilt looks fairly dark, but the grey thread looks okay to me.

By 9 PM I was done with the quilting and found something to make the binding - which got sewn on before I went to bed.

All that's left is to hand stitch down the binding.  I worked today, so I'll hopefully sit by the fire tonight and stitch away.

Thanks for all your sweet comments, it means a lot.  I do hope my BIL will feel warm and loved under this quilt.

- Karen

Finding some focus

It is amazing what can happen when you are focused.  Monday afternoon we got some news from my DH's brother.  He has been battling the aggressive form of prostate cancer for about 5 years.  He got some news on Monday that was not good.  I've been planning to make him a quilt for his birthday next month but have decided to get it done and give it to him early.  Along with my DH, my brother-in-law is a huge Connecticut Huskies fan so the theme was a no-brainer.  I knew I had some of this fabric left over from making my DH's UCONN quilt 2 years ago so this is where I started.

After looking through about 10 books, I decided  to make a quilt that I've now made 4 times!  It is fast and fun and it's from Kim Brackett's book Scrap Basket Surprises.

This was the first one,

this was second,

 and this third one was made for my friend's birthday.

This was Kim's original quilt.

When I got home from work Monday, I started pulling blue scraps and was able to get all the 2 1/2" strips cut out that night.  Since it was so scrappy, I decided to make a border of blocks instead of trying to find a single fabric that matched or using the strip border shown in the book.  I was hoping to be able to use stash fabric and not have to buy anything.

I fussy cut four 8 1/2" blocks of the focal fabric and then cut 6 smaller pieces to use in the other blocks.  I then added 8 pinwheel blocks.

Here's my block with the kitties.

This afternoon I finished the top.  I've got some fabric that will work for the backing.  I'm going to prep that and then get it basted.  I hope to be quilting by tomorrow.  It feels so good to be moving so quickly and I'm really happy with the way it's turned out. This was not the kind of news that we wanted to hear and not the way we wanted to start out the new year, but we are the only family he has and we'll take it one day at a time.  

It's been a very productive start to my 2014,

Karen

A Slight Detour

Since I'm out of red thread, and haven't been to the store yet, I switched gears and quilted this sweet baby quilt for a friend's grandson.

I used the motif found in several of the fabrics and just did a freehand overall swirl.

Such a nice change from all the ESS  and custom quilting on Pink Pickles :)

It's amazing how fast this goes, I'm almost done.

I had the perfect variegated thread, yellow, gold and orange.  I love how the colors change as they move over the blocks.

My friend chose a pattern from Kim Brackett's Scrap Basket Surprises - one of the best.

This is made from the line Sunkissed by Sweetwater, such great colors.

It's done and waiting for binding.  Feels so good to have a finish (even if it's not mine) :).

Off to work today, hope it's a great one,

Karen

Soft Breezes

My neutral quilt is finished except for the binding.  I'm very happy with the way it turned out.

These really are "quiet quilts".  So different from the bright, happy fabrics we see so often.

I quilted an all-over design, one of my favorites.  I call it meandering vine feather.  Kind of covers it all I guess :).

It's going to live at someone's else house soon - I hope she likes it.

The back is a soft yellow - you can't really tell from this.

This is the first quilt I made from this pattern, I asked our guild members for yellow or blue strips and created this for a program I did for the guild called "Miagia" which stands for "Make it and give it away". 

It's a summery looking quilt.

This is the 2nd quilt I made, I call this one Autumn Breeze.

It's all batiks, each block usess a different light batik for the background.  It's still a flimsy, I need to finish this soon.  Can you tell I really like this pattern??? LOL

This is original quilt "Summer Breeze" done in soft Robyn Pandolf's early fabric lines.

It's from Kim's first book - so many great patterns.

I'm off to work, have a great day.

Karen

Shopping at My Favorite Store

I bet you thought I was taking a trip, well, I was.... to my stash.  I realized years ago, that buying the fabric I really liked was like starting my own fabric store where everything in it was my favorite.  So when I look at my stash, I think of it as my own store :).   I keep most of my scrappy pieces (and some bigger pieces too) in these plastic containers.  They're folded so I can see each piece.  

I am starting a new project, and decided I wanted to do low volume neutrals.  So I pulled fabrics that I wanted to use and cut 2 1/2" strips of each.

The strips on the left will be the focal points with the lights being used in the main body of the quilt.

Of course, I always make sure I have a kitty that fits into the color scheme.

Here are some of the blocks up on my design wall... I think I'm going to like it.  Recognize the pattern??  This will be the 3rd time I've made this pattern - guess I kind of like it :).

And today I say good-bye to my sweet calendar girl.  How I've enjoyed having her in my kitchen each day, but it's May 1st and I know Tammy and Avis are excited it's their turn now.

Have a great day, I'm off to do some hand quilting on our Opportunity Quilt :).

-Karen

Catching Up - Part 3

Here's another peek at what's been keeping me busy the last few weeks.  This quilt started from a jelly roll I bought at JoAnn's last year. I've been wanting to do a gray, yellow and black quilt for a while.  I added quite a few pieces from my stash to give it variety.

This seemed like the perfect time to do it.

This is made from the same technique as my little happy quilt I started last year. Each block has 3 fabrics and each block is different.  There was no set pattern to light/dark, black/yellow, etc.  They just got put on the design wall randomly, as long as there was enough contrast to see the block.

It looks so different than the one below - in my happy colors.

But it is such a fun block to do.  ( And this quilt is almost finished too !!)

I decided to mimic the block and do a pieced back.  Turned out perfect!

This is a quilt based on a small collection of fabric called City Girl that I bought several years ago. 

I added quite a few fabrics from my stash to make it more interesting.  I had yardage to to the border, the back and the binding - so it ties it all together.

I didn't quite have enough for the whole back, so it got a pieced back too.

Here's the little kid's Christmas out of the same pattern.

And here's what it looks like on the front of Kim's book.  It's a super fun and fast pattern.

This quilt is from a selection of 15 fat quarters that has been sitting on my shelf for almost 3 years.  It's a very random collection of designs and colors, but I decided to trust the designer's choices.  I didn't add any fabrics to it.  It looks kind of "manly" to me.

There's all these animal prints, strips, graphic patterns and whatever!This pattern is Beach Cottage from Scrap Basket Surprises - love those books!!

I used a blue print for the back.

So these are getting added to the stack of things I'm hoping to sell.  I'll finish up the rest in my next post and share the details of exactly why I've been sewing and quilting my little head off!!  But I must say I've been having the best time!

Have a great day,

Karen