Is it My Turn Yet?

The last week and a half have been crazy busy, but I'm happy to say that I finished a few projects (on time!) and am now able to do spend a little time working on some things that don't have to be finished immediately. The kitchen is painted, the new light fixtures are installed, and I finished a couple more quilts.

This little baby quilt went in the mail today to my friend, Terry. She plans on giving it to her niece who is expecting a little boy in September. It's a cozy little quilt (about 33" x 44") made of alternating flannel and chenille with a flannel backing.

Below is a little mini that I made for the flickr Quilt Swap Boot Camp for Newbies group. Now that it's reached its recipient, locodowo, here's a picture of the finished quilt. I just love that little owl fabric! I hand quilted this with a large quilting stitch because I wanted the quilting to have more of an embroidery feel to it. It's a simple little quilt, but I'm happy with the way it turned out.

Of course, I'm not just sending out quilts, I received a couple of beauties in the mail Monday. The quilt below was created by Olivethebeach and I received it in the flickr Mini QT Swap for July. The quilting is quite lovely. The fabric choices are great too, including the manatee fabric on the reverse.

My other little treasure came from ashleyboccuti and is my take in the flickr Quilt Swap Boot Camp for Newbies group. It's a gorgeous little quilt full of raw edge appliqué and hand embroidery.

I must say, I'm liking this whole swap thing. It's fun to send my little creations out into the world and to receive little works of art from others.

Now, what should I do next?

Finally, A Few Finished Projects

I've been keeping pretty busy lately finishing up a number of projects. I'm by no means caught up, nor do I ever expect to be, but that's just part of the fun. First up is my mini quilt for the Mini QT Swap on flickr. This quilt finished up at 12 inches by 12 inches and went to olivethebeach. The dolphins are paper pieced with a pattern from A Quilter's Ark.

Next up is the baby quilt I made for my cousin Ginger's baby shower. It's a generous size, measuring about 40 inches by 50 inches. I adore the focus fabric - Zoology by Michael Miller. The colors don't scream 'baby', but I really like the look. I decided to make pretty basic (large) blocks so that I wouldn't lose the impact of the animals. I had about a yard of this fabric, enough for this quilt with ten blocks left over. I plan to create a second, smaller, quilt out of nine of the blocks.

Finally, here's a picture of the finished charity quilt that I blogged about earlier. It's for Downy's Touch of Comfort program.

I've got another mini quilt I need to finish and mail out on Saturday for the Quilt Swap Boot Camp for Newbies group on flickr. I guess I had better log off and get to work...

Counting: 1, Amy: 0

I'm working on a little quilt that has 100 one inch squares. 100 different fabrics. This is the second time making one of these, but this time I'm using the technique that I've seen all over the web where you draw a grid of 1 1/2 inch squares on fusible interfacing and then sew it up in strips, trim a smidge off the edges so that you can open up the seams and then sew in the other direction. Works like a charm - that is, IF YOU CAN COUNT TO TEN! See anything wrong with my 10 x 10 grid? Yeah, it's actually only 9 x 10. Oops.

The sad thing is, I drew my grid larger than I needed and then trimmed it down to 10 x 10 (or so I thought). I could lie to you and say the fusible was only wide enough for nine columns, but the fact is that I was bested the kind of counting skills that most pre-K kids possess.

No worries, it's an easy fix and has since been remedied.

In the Pink

Our submissions to the So You Think You Can Quilt project were due on Saturday. This is my submission for the 'Modern' themed quilt - this is our last month for the project. I've had loads of fun creating the four quilts for the various themes: Love, Vintage, Circles, and Modern. I've tried out a few new (to me) techniques and have forced myself to start & finish projects when I might of normally thought I was too busy.

Here's a picture that includes a glimpse of the backing. The front is a mix of cotton calicos and linen fabric and the backing is a polka dot cotton fabric. The binding is a pink cotton that matches the color of one of the polka dots in the backing. This was my first quilting project that involved linen and I'll definitely be using linen again.

My daughter likes to play with my jars of buttons in the sewing room while I sew. She created this portrait of me last night (those are snowflakes falling around me). So, if you've ever wondered what I look like, mystery solved.

Wordless Wednesday

Charity Quilt Preview

Here's what I received at the beginning of the month from Downy's Touch of Comfort program. The kit includes all the fabric for the front and back of the quilt. I just supply the thread, batting, and binding. The kit also includes very specific directions that they require you to follow for the piecing. The strips were cut to size, as were the 6 1/2 inch squares of the focus fabric. Unfortunately, the squares weren't very square, so I had to trim all 15 of them so that the quilt would work up properly.

I started and finished piecing the front last night (it went together very quickly) and will post a picture of it soon. I haven't settled on a fabric for the binding yet. The rainbow fabric you see up there ends up being a 1 inch wide border which is followed by a 3 inch border of the focus fabric. Although pretty, the rainbow fabric seems an odd choice to me, as there is zero purpe elsewhere in the quilt. So, perhaps I'll go with a purple binding to give it another shot of purple. I'm determined to use something from my stash for the binding... I need to send the completed quilt back no later than mid-July to meet their 4-6 week deadline.

Sunstruck

The theme for the third month of So You Think You Can Quilt was 'Circles'. Voting ended last night and I'm happy to say that I'm still in the contest. My entry is a wall hanging, measuring about 25 inches square. To make this quilt I used Caryl Bryer Fallert's free Flying Geese in a Circle paper pieced pattern as a jumping off point, enlarging the pattern slightly on a copy machine. The photo online of the finished quilt indicated that the quilter should trim the circle of geese both inside and out (essentially making a donut of flying geese), but I adapted the pattern so that each of the four quarters was squared off. The four quarters of the circle went together like a dream. I enjoy the contrast of circles and squares in the piecing and continued that with the quilting. I'm pleased with the way it turned out.

Cassidy named this quilt Sunstruck.

I learned a little lesson about continuing to sew when I should be sleeping. As you can see below (partway through my repairs), I forgot to put in some of the black framing and had to unpick stitches and do a little more cutting and sewing. I'm glad I followed through with my original vision, I like it so much better with the black framing crossed at the corners.

Here's a picture of a mama and her little ducklings. This was taken on the day before Mother's Day. It was very windy and the poor little guys were getting blown end over end.

Finally, this picture of mama swan and her cygnets was taken on our Mother's Day walk around the lake on campus. Originally, she was farther away near the little island in the middle of the lake. We were surprised when she came up to the shoreline.