What I'm Working On

I've been busy making "T" blocks lately, at my guild retreat last month and at home. All green and blue fabrics were approved by my 8-year-old ds since this quilt is for his bed (and his name starts with "T"!). He did the arranging, and now I'm busy sewing the blocks together. We still need to discuss the border. I'd like more of the red, but he's thinking of adding a new color.


This little wall hanging was inspired by the reverse applique in the book Reverse applique with no Brakez by Jan Mullen. My fish are created with bits of hand-painted fabrics my dd and I made at a workshop years ago. None of our painted fabric pieces were all that great, but cut up into bits, it's a great way to remember a fun time together. I'm doing some hand quilting as I find time.



I finished up 2 tops for American Hero Quilts. Cleaned out most of my rwb strings with the wonky log cabins, and incorporated swap blocks in the star top.

Puttering along with swap blocks, and getting ready to make a kids art quilt for my dd's teacher and a signature quilt for the retiring school librarian. Should be a busy month!

Cat on the Wall

"The Cat" is now hanging on my daughter's bright yellow walls, a fun collaboration. I did echo quilting around the cat and followed the edges of my wonky pieces with perle cotton. My dd and I are pleased with the results.

I've been making this and that, including a number of blocks for swaps and bees ...







This is my current collection of RWB blocks, most made by me, some from the flickr block swap. I'm nearly to my goal of 20, when I will put them together for a donation quilt for American Hero Quilts. I try to make at least one quilt a year for this organization, and I'm due for another donation!

cats and space

My 10-yr-old dd and I are working on a fun collaboration ... she did the cat stitchery a while back and I found it (among many, many other treasures) in her room the other day. I suggested we make it into a little wall hanging, and she helped choose the fabrics and arrange the strips for the wonky log cabin setting. I will now do a little echo quilting with perl cotton and add a black binding for the "frame." I love that she likes to do projects like me and with me!



Someone made a donation of some space themed fabrics to our Linus group and I made these two tops out of them. It is great to have something appropriate for boys, or non-girly girls, since usually the donated fabrics tend toward girly designs.


And here's a complete photo of my color-block quilt. It's small, only 36 x 42. It was perfect for practice quilting with my new machine and great to have a pile of swap blocks for making something at short notice.

scraps and swirls

A quilting friend from my guild was selling her Juki 95Q ... I had read lots of great reviews and seen her beautiful work on the machine, but never tried one myself. She let me use it for awhile while I decided whether to purchase it and I had lots of fun quilting this little placemat ...



And quilting this small lap quilt I put together from colorblock squares I received in a swap. It was wonderful to have the extra room on the machine, and my free form squiggles, waves and leaves all looked good. I happily took it off her hands and I'm looking forward to taking more time with my machine quilting now that I have a better tool.



I just love making these scrappy strip placemats - they always cheer up the table in such a fun way, and they are a great housewarming gift. These are trimmed and awaiting a black binding. I make them just like quilt-as-you-go blocks, stitch and flip the strips. I made a set for my brother's family for their new lake house, and he recently wished for a few more. Always fun to dig through my string bin and see what I have tossed in there.

a block of this, a block of that

I've signed up for several block exchanges / bees this year and it's fun when I just have a little bit of sewing time to make block. Instead of needing to finish an entire quilt, I can just finish a block and feel completely done. And I love getting blocks in the mail - almost like the "olden days" when I used to receive letters! Of course, putting all those blocks I receive into quilts is a project for another day...

These wonky log cabins are for Ebony in the Coast to Coast quilting bee - she selected the fabrics and I love them! I'm looking forward to seeing how she puts them together.


These blocks are for Carol in the 2010 Quilt Block Round Robin - this envelope of blocks will be sent around to each member for 12 months, each recipient adds one or two blocks. Carol made the top 3 to give an idea what she'd like, I added the bottom 2 blocks.





And these last 4 blocks are my February Quilt Block Exchange blocks - I asked for r/w/b blocks in return and will be working on a quilt for American Heros Quilts when I add some more blocks of my own.

pillowcases and more

It seems this post is my mid-month progress report since I've been creating but not blogging much. This quilt top is my pink and green swap blocks from the flickr quilt block exchange. I requested 9" blocks in pinks, greens and white and received a great variety of 10 blocks over several months. I made the other 10 of the blocks to make it a large throw size. It's fun to get blocks in the mail, and fun to have other quilter's inspirations to add to a top - my daughter is thinking this will look great on her bed!


My kids and I made these fabric kites as a practice for a kids workshop I am teaching in March. I was inspired by this tutorial, but I needed to figure a way without sewing machines since there will be 10-15 kids and me. We fused the fabrics onto fusible interfacing, then used duct tape to fold back the edges and hold in the poles. While I can't guarantee they will fly, they look really cute!


The Heartstrings online group is inspired to join the 1,000,000 pillowcase challenge, and they inspired me to clean out some of the fabrics that were no longer my favorites and give them a new home. These pillowcases will go to several charity groups.


These star blocks are being given a new home in a cheery quilt for a family friend's new baby. It's not a traditional baby quilt, but I think the bright colors will and the cute birds and flowers in the fabric will make a cheerful addition to the baby's nursery!

Happy New Year!

Wishing everyone joy and peace in 2010! As others have commented, I, too, cannot believe it has been 10 years since we all worried about Y2K! Time really does fly ...


I was playing with free-pieced houses and my daughter wished for this one on her wall. She chose the tree fabric, although in retrospect I wish there was more contrast with the background. Guess we'll just have to imagine the tree is lost in the snowstorm of the background snowflakes. I hand quilted it while traveling to and from my grandmother's birthday in November, and added a few beads to the tree for holiday sparkle.



I also finished up two more comfort quilts for the year. The second quilt shown was made from a salesman sample pack featuring all the fabrics of the Cranston Fabric line "Rain Dancing." It was fun to work with all the prints, but I only had a little bit of each. The pieced binding used up the last little bits.


Our comfort quilt group met last week and had a wonderful time visiting and working on whatever struck our mood. Several of us made little felt pins, inspired by one woman's creations, buttons in a button box and also by "fanciful felt pins" in Salley Mavor's book Felt Wee Folk. My 10 yo dd joined us and made a wonderful gingerbread pin. She wants to skip school and join us again next time we meet.