GO, Cardinals!

When my sister told me she was involved in organizing a fundraiser to help with her BFF's medical bills I (naturally!) offered to make a quilt to be raffled.  I wanted to make something that would appeal to a large audience so I decided to make a gender neutral baby quilt. Then, I got to thinking about the fact that this fundraiser is being held in Cardinals country.  St. Louis Baseball Cardinals to be exact.   A lot more money could be raised from a Cardinals quilt, right? 

Really simple blocks came together fast .....

..... AFTER washing that red batik seven (yes, seven!) times to remove excess dye.  

Gotta love those color catchers, but it wasn't until the last wash cycle when I added Synthropal that I saw the results I wanted.  Next time I work with red fabric I think I'll use it the first time.  :-(

Once it was basted I wasn't sure what thread to use.   My quilting is decent, but I don't really want it to show up that much!

It's hard to tell when you look at it on the spool, but this variegated thread is blue, red, and yellow so I thought it would work well.  The quilting shows more than I wanted it to.  I just had to work slowly and do the best I could.  Well.  I always do the best I can, but, you know....

Not too shabby!

It ended up about 60" x 70", the perfect size for a snuggle quilt.

Of course, I had to add a little fun to the back .....

..... and get a few semi-creative shots!

So, off it goes in the mail this week to my sister.  Fingers crossed!

A Hypnotic Finish

Well, this turned out to be a very quilty weekend!  On Friday I made a pieced backing for a 72" x 72" quilt, on Saturday I basted it and started quilting it, on Sunday I finished quilting it and made the binding, and today I finished stitching that binding down.  I made this quilt in about three weeks!  I am a happy girl.

I like the back as much as the front.  You might even say this quilt is reversible.

I made a little dent in my stash on this one, using more than nine yards of fabric. 

I'm really excited about gifting this because the couple receiving it has a special place in my heart.  I didn't decide until the beginning of this month that I was going to make it.  Getting it done this fast just goes to show you what I can accomplish when I put my mind to it (AND don't do any housework!)  

Hypnotic

May seems to be going much better than last month as far as goals go.  I'm "this close" to completing the batik quilt I started at the beginning of the month.  

These two blocks make up the design.  The pattern is "Hypnotic" from the Book Strip Therapy 2 by Brenda Henning.   

I tried to lay out the blocks in a different way than the pattern dictated, but I couldn't come up with anything I liked better.  I do like the original design.   

I knew I needed to make 32 blocks, but after they were made and I started laying them out on the design wall I realized I actually needed 36.  I got a big stack of batiks out (again), cut out all the strips for four more blocks, and sewed them up.  Once it was all laid out on the design wall, guess what?  I had four blocks left over.  What??  How in the world??  You know what?  I don't want to talk about it!

Next I found a yard of yellow ombre batik in my stash that I just had to use on the back.  Might as well work in those extra blocks, right?

   






















I usually baste quilts on my king size bed.  It's a little unorthodox, but it works for me.  I just can't crawl around and baste quilts on the floor like I used to!

First, I stretch out the backing.  This one barely fit!

Then, batting (of course) .....

..... and the top (naturally).

Lots of pins!

Throughout the process, I stop about every two or three rows of pins, roll it up,  reach under and stretch the backing at the sides and the opposite end, smooth out the top, and start pinning again.

All basted!

Even though I basted it this morning (which totally wore out my back!) I was ready to start quilting it this evening.  Of course, a lovely one hour massage this afternoon might have made it easier for me to get back to it! 

It's about one-third quilted now, so there's every reason to hope it will be done and ready to gift by next weekend.  

Linking up this scrappy quit with Oh Scrap! at Quilting is More Fun than Housework 
Linking up with Confessions of a Fabric Addict.  I do believe I deserve a Whoop Whoop for that!

Throwback Thursday (on Tuesday)

Only six weeks into the year, and I've blown two of my goals -- sewing every day and blogging more often.   I have, however, done a lot of coughing, moaning and groaning, and sleeping.  Can you say, "I think this might be the flu"?

Rather than keeping my tens of followers hanging, I decided to dig into the depths of Excel and do a little show and tell from days gone by.  Included in my Excel spreadsheet is information on each quilt I've made including whether I've posted pics of it on Flickr or blogged about it. So, I chose a few quilts I haven't yet written about and here goes.

In 2007 and 2008 my designated charity was CASA, a national association that supports and promotes court appointed advocates for abused or neglected children. People love making baby quilts for charity, but teenagers are often overlooked, so my heart goes out to them.   I love teenagers.  They can be real stinkers sometimes, but most of them are good kids.  

I made this quilt using a lot of brights. (Surprised?) A basic square-in-a-square block with black sashing and colorful cornerstones make it a fun quilt.  At 68" x 82" it's a nice size even for a pretty tall teen.  My friend, Angela (Quilted Joy) quilted this for me.  

  















This one is a smaller twin (60" x 72").  I did very simple straight-line machine quilting .....

..... and pieced the backing with leftovers from the front.

The third quilt for CASA is fun, too.  I used batiks this time and a pattern called "Spice Market" from the April 2007 issue of American Patchwork and Quilting magazine.  It's 68" x 83", another large twin.  Angela quilted this one as well.  

That's my Show and Tell for today.  Hopefully I'll have something more current to share real soon.  

Craving Color!

As much as I have been enjoying working on the Old Wedding Quilt I find myself hungry for color lately so I've set it aside to play a little bit.  I had just enough fabric left over from Eloise's baby quilt last year to cut out seven squares.  Some time ago I started playing with them, pulling coordinating fabrics, and making the squares into log cabin style blocks.  Then I got frustrated because I didn't have enough pink to add strips to all the blocks, and I put it away.  

In the meantime I cleaned up my sewing room and found a lot of this same pink in a bag I had never unpacked after getting home from a retreat.  Oops!  So the other day I started playing again.  I thought the block was looking pretty good.

When I laid them out on my design wall I wasn't exactly thrilled.  I don't like working with an odd number of blocks, it's hard to get a decent layout.

I found this beautiful batik in my stash and decided it would be the perfect alternate block.

But, as seems to be the norm lately when working from my stash, I didn't have quite enough.  Time to play some more.  Winging it not only pushes you to be creative, it ends up changing the whole look of the quilt.  Now my blocks look like this.

Since I don't have enough of that cool dotted batik to use AS an alternate block I decided to use it IN an alternate block.  I came up with this one.

Guess what, though?  I'm pretty sure that I don't have enough of the yellow either.   Aarrgghh!   This batik might make a nice alternate block.

Well, that was enough color therapy for this week.  (Actually, I just had other things in my life that had to be done, and that was all the TIME I had for color therapy this week!)   We'll see what happens when I get a little time to play some more.  This may turn into something yet.

A Weekend Challenge

Recently my online quilt group had a weekend challenge to "Make a Project From What You Have on Hand."   You may not believe this, but I have plenty on hand (aka my stash).  So, I figured I could make a great project.  And I did.  

The first thing I did was pull a couple of "Summersault" charm packs by Erin McMorris which I had bought from Missouri Star Quilt Company.   

These are really fun fabrics so I decided to make a quick baby quilt to either put back for a little girl or donate to charity.  (There I go with the baby quilts again!)

After I got the top together I looked through my stash and found a great dark pink batik that worked perfectly for the borders .....

..... and the binding. 

I went digging through my stash again and found this beautiful pink and orange and yellow fabric I had bought sometime, somewhere on clearance, and there was enough for the backing.  

I did some straight line quilting (I'm getting better at it!) and finished it pretty quickly.  Then I put the binding on and finished up stitching that down by hand, a nice relaxing way to finish a weekend of sewing.  

It turned out really cute, and it was a fun weekend project.  

Wouldn't it be nice if I could get that much done every weekend?