9-patches from my past

Hi! Hope everybody had a great weekend! Some of the things that kept us busy over the weekend:
*Getting things ready for a kids' consignment sale (I get to go shop early, tonight!)
*A mini date with my husband (that included dropping stuff off at the sale, and dinner too.)
*Family bonding=cleaning the basement/tv room.
*Signing us up for my job chart. In just 2 days it's already made a big difference. I read about it on V and Co. a while back. Thanks, V!
*Reading a good book, one that included stuff about sewing! And blogging! I'll share more, soon!

So, since I finished up my most recent 9-patch quilt top, I've been wanting to show off some of my early quilting projects. I have been wracking my brain and can't remember exactly when I made this quilt top, but I did it on my own, with no rotary cutter and my mom's scrap stash, when I was either 14 or 16. It was after my grandma helped me make my "ugly" polyester quilt but it might have been a couple years after, not that same year. Anyway. Here it is:

I know, pretty sad, huh? I think I may have made a template out of cardboard but even then I didn't do a very good job. Oh well. So, do you think I should keep it like this for posterity, or quilt it up and let my daughter play with it? I think it would look better quilted. I do love the memories that some of these fabrics have behind them--a couple dresses mom made for me and a baby toy she also made are all represented in this little beauty. :)

Fast forward several years to when I was starting to be a real, beginning, quilter:

I've liked the 9-patch block for a long time! This is my oldest boy's baby quilt. He's almost 11 and I think I made the quilt in 2001. The pattern for this quilt is from Quilts! Quilts!! Quilts!!! : The Complete Guide to Quiltmaking (affiliate link) by McClun and Nownes, the first quilting book I bought. I quilted a star in each 9-patch:

They are a little hard to see and don't look as bad as I thought they would. They are pretty crooked and I remember being really frustrated at the time that I wasn't able to do a better job. I still feel like every single time I do free motion quilting, I get a little bit better at it, and I want to encourage anyone out there who is afraid to try free motion quilting, to just give it a shot. Make some potholders or doll quilts or just practice on muslin quilt sandwiches that you plan on throwing out later. You will get better with practice. I have a free motion quilting tutorial that I wrote up a while back that might be helpful, it might be helpful if you are new to free motion quilting. :)

No Prints Allowed/Jane Stickle 9-Patch

Last night was the big reveal of our guild's No Prints Allowed quilt challenge. Back in December we were given charm packs of Robert Kaufman's Kona solids. The challenge was to make a quilt using at least a little bit of every color and not adding any print fabric.

Here's what I made:

I had been thinking about making my own version of the Jane Stickle quilt for a while... I decided this challenge would be a good time to try some of the blocks. I made 16 blocks from the pattern book, all 9-patch variations. One of them had a little bit of hand sewing (top right block), all the rest were sewn by machine.

Here's the back:

I thought about hand quilting it at first; I have done that on a lot of the smaller quilts I've made, but in the end I decided that would be crazy and take too long this time. I had fun with the machine quilting and am really happy with how the quilt turned out!

Here's a closeup of the quilting, with a quarter to show the scale (sometimes it is hard to tell from a photo how big these kinds of things are):

I strip pieced those tiny aqua 9-patches! I strip pieced several of the blocks actually. Anina's That Quilt blog is a great resource for the Jane Stickle quilt; she has posted directions for making each and every block on the blog and I am grateful for the time and effort she has put into it!

Here are some other blog posts about last night's meeting:

Deb Rowden's report on our guild, I think it was her first time coming.
Carla talks about her quilt and has pictures of several quilts from last night.
Nikki's entry was an art bag to hold big art projects made by her kids.
Jenifer's quilt "Don't Lead Where I Won't Follow"

The quilts were all so beautiful! Thanks again to Robert Kaufman for the gift of the charm packs!

the one I made

Finally I can show off the little quilt I made for Julie, for PQS5!

For this quilt, I started out just by making some selvage rainbows. Then I trimmed them all down to the same width (4", 4 1/2", I can't remember for sure) and made half-square triangles with the selvages and some Kona crush.

I wanted to do something interesting with the quilting... I think I achieved that. The swirls weren't too difficult, it was the straight-ish line spiral in the colored triangles that was challenging to get right.

Here's a view of the back, another look at the quilting:

These swap quilts are a good chance to try out new patterns, or piecing ideas, or quilting ideas, without committing to something huge and super time consuming. :)

Hope you had a great Valentine's Day! The We Love Jenny auction will be open until 10 pm EST, Tuesday February 15. Please check it out, and help out if you can.

Placemat Quilt Swap Arrived!

I decided to sign up for Placemat Quilt Swap 5 a few weeks ago, and got the mini quilt I made for my partner sent off this week. I'll show a picture of it here as soon as I hear that it's arrived safely...but meanwhile, the one she made for me arrived today!

It was made by Julie aka jgmehlin on flickr. I like it a lot! My main request (I think my only request) was that she use some white in it. I love how bright and cheerful it is. I love those different-sized triangles and the rainbow strips too. Thank you Julie! (I can't wait to show the one I sent to her...)

I also finished up my quilt for the We Love Jenny Auction, which is taking place on February 14-15. The auction will be raising funds to help Jenny Reeder with her medical and housing expenses while she is fighting leukemia. Check out the donated items at the auction blog and see if there's anything you're interested.

Here's the heart quilt front:

and the back:

I had fun with the quilting inside the heart--I got some good ideas from Leah's Free Motion Quilting Project blog. If you are a quilter and are at all interested in improving your free motion quilting skills, you should subscribe to this blog.

I hope you're having a good weekend! I have 4 quilt blocks for my boy's monkey quilt cut out and ready to sew so I might do that tonight. I also helped my 6-year-old set up a blog. He hasn't written his first post yet but I think it might be really cool (and fun and funny) when he does.

The Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative

Back in July, I made a couple quilting bee blocks for Natalie of beyond the reef patterns. She requested that we use the scraps to make a quilt for the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative. I made the quilt top but didn't finish it right away.

Fast forward to 2011--a few days ago I got an email from Rene' at Rene' Creates, asking for help in getting the word out about the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative. Rene' has come up with a challenge and will be hosting monthly drawings for those who make and submit quilts to AAQI.

So the other day I was feeling the need to finish one of my many UFOs... and here it is!

I just got it registered on the AAQI blog and am awaiting shipping instructions. It didn't take too long to finish and the binding fabric is kind of special. It's from one of my husband's grandpa's shirts, that I used to make the shirt quilt for his grandma. I couldn't find any other fabric that matched, and I'm glad I remembered one of the shirts was a dark blueish green fabric.

If you're interested in making (or buying) a quilt to benefit Alzheimer's research, visit the AAQI website. The quilts must be 9x12 inches or smaller, so it can be a quick project if you want (and if you're not a procrastinator). I tried out a new free motion quilting design on this quilt, and I think these quilts would be a great use for scraps, too. The most difficult thing for me is that you must give the quilt a name--I'm not good at naming my quilts.

I'm going to make another one--this time I'll plan on having it done by the end of February. What do you think? Will you make one too?

catching up

Last week I finished some handmade gifts that I can't show yet, and one that I can. Here's Grandma M's quilt:

and the back:

I know I've shared some of this before, but here's the story behind this quilt, really quick. My husband's grandfather died in March 2008 and when his grandma was giving some of Grandpa's clothes to him and my boys, I offered to make a quilt using his shirts.

I got a bit sidetracked along the way--it's been nearly 3 years--but the quilt is finished and she'll get it on Christmas. I really hope she likes it. I started out with these somewhat modern quilt blocks and part of the reason the project sat for so long is that I wasn't sure she would like it. I showed them to a friend who told me to just continue and finish the way I'd started, and I'm glad I did. I chose a more traditional floral fabric for the back and hope she'll like that as well. I didn't buy quite enough fabric for the back (by accident/bad memory) and that's why I added the big square-in-a-square block.

I also got my daughter's Christmas dress finished this past weekend (quilt made by my friend Lorilee):

The pattern is from Ottobre 1/2007, #6. I made it in size 80 with 86 length. It's too wide for my skinny girl, but it will be ok. The fabric is embroidered black mini-cord from Jo-Anns. Here's the back:

I'm glad the ruffles show up in this picture. I think they're really cute! The black fabric was a bit of a challenge to work with, especially when I was undoing stitches that I couldn't see very well. I enjoyed making it though... it's nice to remember that making clothing is so much faster than making quilts!

Finally I wanted to show off this hat. It was given to me by fellow KCMQGer Julie, who brought it over to me and said she reads my blog (and had read about my hat making pursuits) and wanted my boy to have this. It didn't fit the oldest (HEED! Pants! Now! name that movie, anyone??) but it's perfect for my 6-year-old and he likes it a lot. Thank you, Julie!!

Sew and Tell--Finished 9-Patch Quilt!

Here's my 9-patch quilt all finished!

I took another pic after washing and drying it, I love how it shrunk up a bit:

and here is the back:

Here's some info on this quilt:
Started sometime in 2009
Finished November 2010
Measurements after washing/drying: 63" x 84"
Quiltalong info (how to make this quilt) from AmandaJean found here.

I'm so happy this one's done!
I'm linking up at Sew and Tell Fridays ... thanks again, Amy, for hosting!

the weirdest thing I've made all year

This is the skirt (I can't think of a better name for it, sorry) part of a shepherd costume I'm making for part of the church Nativity program this weekend. The fur was much more messy than I had anticipated. I liked cutting it into the ragged shape. It is supposed to match an illustration from the book When Jesus Was Born in Bethlehem. 

Also! I finished the binding on my 9-patch quilt. I went out to take a picture before the sun went down, but it was too windy. 

I'll try to get good pictures of the whole thing tomorrow. My 8-year-old neighbor asked me what day I started it, and I told her I started it in 2009. I'm glad to get it done, ready to move onto the next big thing! I'm glad I asked about straight line quilting here; I think I've learned some things that will help me improve in that area next time I decide to quilt that way.

I'm linking up at Amy's One Thing, One Week Challenge. Finishing this up was my goal a week ago--I did it!

blogger's quilt festival--a charity quilt

I made this quilt for a charity project that the KCMQG has been working on over the last few months. We are making baby quilts that will be given to NICU babies (to be taken home and kept) at a local hospital. I made the quilt top and did the binding on this quilt, and it was quilted by the wonderfully talented Angela Walters, who blogs at Quilting is my Therapy and does lots of amazing things with her quilting.

This main challenge for me when putting this quilt together was dealing with the limited number of fabrics. I like to use lots of colors and fabrics when I make quilts, and this quilt only has 5 different fabrics total. I really enjoyed making the improvised blocks--I wanted to make blocks that looked balanced and went well together, but I also tried to use up my scraps as I went. :)

Here are some close-ups of Angela's quilting. It is so beautiful! I need to find out what kind of batting she used because I really like how it fluffed up after being washed.

Here's a little sneak peek of most of the KCMQG charity quilts. Over the next couple weeks I'm planning on sharing photos of each quilt too. (We will have over 30 quilts to donate when we are all done... getting close!)

Apparently some of the Modern Quilt Guild leaders have some kind of friendly competition going on and I'd like stick my nose in and invite and encourage challenge the other Modern Quilt Guild folks to find a need in their communities and make quilts for a local charitable cause. Let's use our talents, our love of fabric and quilting, to bring some love and comfort to others in need!

Now if you don't already know about this, please visit Amy's Creative Side because she's hosting her 4th Blogger's Quilt Festival this week! It's a great opportunity to see amazing quilts and meet new quilting and blogging friends. Thanks so much to Amy for all your hard work putting this together!

finally, some finishes!

I feel like I've finally made a kind of dent in my UFO pile! I finished up my little leaf quilt earlier this week--love it!

And I finally got this all done for Quilts for Kids. I washed and dried it after this photo was taken and now its all soft and crumply.

This isn't a finish but I'm making good progress! This is half of the rows all pieced together. You can see I didn't press all the seams yet but I will, don't worry. After all 10 rows are together there will be a border of pieced squares and one final 2.5" white border. It will take me a few more days of work, which is going to be interrupted by something else that has a deadline, but I'm going to finish it! Soon!

I was at Target the other day buying a white t-shirt for an unspecified art project for the 5th grader, and I stopped by the dollar area and found these leaves and decided to get them. Yesterday I strung them on thread, with a knot tied in between each leaf to keep them spaced out sort of evenly. I did it in two pieces and used doubled strands of threads. They're tied together in the middle.

I am so excited to be able to link up to Sew & Tell again, it's been a while! Stop by and see what others have finished this week!

Finished Pillow Shams

I did it! It was looking like I might not finish these by today, but I decided I needed to just do it. 

I really appreciate having Amy's challenge this month--I have a lot of things needing to be finished by the end of August and the One Thing, One Week challenge is a good opportunity to choose something that needs some attention and get. it. done. 

I did work on something that was not on my list, I couldn't help it.

My 9-patches now have all their initial sashing strips sewn on. My Kona crush fabric was delivered last week and I couldn't help but cut into it and get this next step done. Now I need to work on the layout... I have a couple more before-September things to do first though.

In non-sewing news, we have a garden photo or two. This is what happens when you don't pay a ton of attention to the garden because of fear of chiggers (I hate them oh so much.)

The sunflower is getting heavy... it's like a mini-umbrella here. (FYI, it's a Russian Mammoth, if you wanted to know.) It was about 7 ft tall before it started drooping. And you can kind of see the front-yard cherry tomato creeping out onto the sidewalk in the background too.

Turtle Quilt Finished!

I kind of drove myself crazy working on three separate projects yesterday (including repairing a very sad, torn out binding on an old quilt) so I decided I needed to finish my quilt for DQS9 today.

I did the quilting over a few days this past week, and at the end I decided to do the little star stitches in the hexagons because they didn't really have any quilting in them and they needed it. All I had left to do this morning was half of the hexagon stitches and the binding. I am really happy with this quilt. I am still not done with the "twin" quilt that I'm keeping for myself; I'm going to work on it though and make myself get it done before I start my 9-patch finish. It will have different binding fabric, and the back is different too. But it's mostly the same.

Here's the back of this one:

I have a couple weeks until I need to mail this, and I am going to gather some of my fabric scraps and maybe a few small things to send to my swap partner along with the quilt. I'm so relieved to have this done! On to the next big thing!

Challenge Week 1--Finished Circle Quilt

Amy of Amy's Creative Side is full of great ideas! Last week she hosted the first One Thing, One Week Challenge. Once a month, participants can choose one project to focus on for one week and see if they can get it done. I decided to hunker down and finish up the circle quilt for my soon-to-be-born niece. I just finished the last few inches of binding hand-sewing this morning:

Here's the back:

I'm still planning to add a label, but I consider it finished anyway.
Sometimes finishing a big project is a bit like finishing a good book... I'm happy to be done, but a bit sad that it's over, too. Does anyone else ever feel this way?

Stacked Coin Doll Quilt

I thought I'd try out blogging from my phone. I had some time the other day to do the handsewing on the binding. It's going to the birthday girl tomorrow; I hope she likes it!

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mini-quilt Monday! (on a Tuesday)

No--it is not Monday! But it feels like it!

I finished up the green placemat-I love how there's a mix of some of my really old fabric in there, some from my nephew's baby quilt I made a couple years ago, and some newer stuff too.

I think that sewing the binding down by machine make the binding a bit ripply. I tried to steam out the wave, but it didn't really work. Turns out that my little girl is using these placemats to wrap her baby in; I need to make a bigger doll quilt for her.

This was my last finish for the Spring to Finish project--I got about 6 finishes done, not exactly the ones I had on my list, but I made good progress.

Here are last week's 9-patches. I'm really going to finish this one up, too! I have the first 3 for this week cut out and ready to go.

I got these fabrics last week for a super secret project. Well, the Blush is for a super secret project; the fat quarters are just for fun. My green selection was getting really sad. Natalia from Piece N Quilt had a great sale--thanks Natalia!

I've got a busy week ahead--my boys start their 4 weeks of swim lessons today and we're still easing into summer, working on routines and making sure they have enough jobs to do and not too much TV to watch. Also need to clean up from the long weekend!

placemat quilt swap 3

My partner received the little quilt I made for placemat quilt swap 3 today. Here's the big reveal:

The photo is a little washed out from too-bright sunlight. I am learning.... and hey you get a good view of the quilting in this shot, right? If you want to see it in better light, click here. Much better, huh?

My partner asked for "romantic pinks and greens" and I really like how this turned out. The star block was improvised, meaning I did not do any math before starting it (or while making it, really). I just started out with a 5 inch square and went from there.  I tried to make the pink triangles just fit the rectangles they are a part of, and because of this they don't have the "proper" angle that is usually found in this type of block.

This quilt was made completely from fabrics in my stash. I think if I did it again I might go get a couple of new greens because a couple of them don't blend really well. But overall, I do like it and think it turned out ok even if some of the greens were a little off. 

Here's the back:

This is my second UFO finish for the spring to finish challenge. I am working on finishing the binding for a 3rd and have the binding ready to attach to a 4th project. It feels good to get things done!

finally... finished baby quilt!

I finally got the last few inches of binding sewn down on this quilt tonight:

I'm going to wash and dry it, get a label on it, and mail it to its owner right away!

The quilting was done in sort of straight lines, some of them doubled up, in a grid. I thought I (pin) basted pretty well and I used my walking foot, but there were still some issues with the layers shifting as I quilted. I am looking for any suggestions or advice about improving my straight line quilting, because I am hoping to quilt my watercolor quilt next, and I was thinking (hoping) diagonal straight lines would be a good choice.

Here's a better view of the block I put in the back.

I also got some other things done in the last couple days:

Blocks for a charity quilt that the bee beautiful group is collaborating on.

And, jam. I made it with the quick set freezer method. My first time. Strawberries were on sale! I'm going to make another batch, probably in the morning.

Things are working out a bit better here this week and I'm actually going to post my link over at sew -n- tell Friday. Go see what else people are sharing!