Stars & Strips, QOV and Blogger's Quilt Festival

Since I never blogged about this quilt, I thought I'd go ahead and do Blogger's Quilt Festival.  Can you even be considered a blogger when you post as infrequently as I do?  Anyway, here it is....my festival entry and my first offering for Quilts of Valor!

It's called Stars & Strips, a pattern by Bev Getschel that appeared in the May/June issue of McCalls Quilting.  The pattern is really easy, but it was a lot of fun and I was able to make it entirely from stash.  You can just make out the quilting which is rows of really, really big feathers.  It was a quick project and I was glad to be able to support Quilts of Valor.  Forgot to take a picture of the pillowcase I made for the presentation, but it was pretty cute.  

I don't recall the size of this quilt and I'm too lazy to go find my magazine, but it met the QOV size requirement, so I'm putting it in the large quilt category.  Hope to get a chance to spend some quality time over at Amy's Creative Side this weekend and check out all the festival quilts.  Hope you do too!

WIP Wednesday - These is My Letters

Apologies to Nancy Turner, author of These is My Words:  The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine, 1881-1901. 

Pieced letters.  How cute!  These are for a baby quilt featuring the baby's name.  There are a few more letters to go.  Some vowels would help.  At first I figured the name would have to be appliqued and really dreaded that whole procedure.  Then I stumbled over the Temecula Quilt Company blog and their quilt along aptly titled Little Letters.  Perfect!  I'm not doing the quilt along, although the quilt is great, but the letters are just what I needed for my little quilt.  They're quick and easy.  No applique needed.  Yippee!

Linking up with Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday.

Celtic Solstice

At last, a day with sunlight so I can get a picture of Celtic Solstice.   Here's the front.

I think the triangle in a square border is great, even though I had to do quite a bit of creative piecing to get it to fit!  I'm getting more confident using the Easy Angle and Companion Angle rulers and look forward to making more blocks with them.

The backing is pieced from leftover fabrics and extra blocks.  At this point I was just wanting to get rid of some fabrics!

The on-point blocks bordered in yellow were pieced with the cut off half square triangles from making the chevron units.

I basted this quilt with a home-made basting spray I read about on someone's blog and it worked perfectly! For quilting, I used a pale green Aurifil thread in a free-hand swirly design.  My free-motion quilting always comes out too dense, making for a thread heavy quilt that's hard to maneuver in the machine.  It also makes my swirls less than perfect.  This quilt washed up fine and doesn't seem overly heavy to use though.  Oh!  Now I see I also quilted a hair into the swirls.  Oops!  Unfortunately, it's already boxed up and shipped to it's new owner.   I don't think he'll notice.

I failed to get a close-up of the binding but it's made from old shirts in various small blue checks.  It was supposed to be the binding on a blue and white quilt I made a couple of years ago but I couldn't find it when I needed it.  I thought it was just fine for this project and I was happy not to have to piece a binding.  I was ready to get this quilt over!

I'll be linking up with Bonnie Hunter's Celtic Solstice Mystery Link-up Finale  and Confessions of a Fabric Addict.

Birthday Card!

I painted this card for my husband's birthday.    I think he liked it.  He posted it on the refrigerator, but that may be because it reminded him of a child's refrigerator art!  Hope not. 

 

I went over my drawing with ink and used watercolor pencils for coloring it in. 

Drawing and painting are so hard!  I want things to look like they do in my head without having to work at it.  Funny how that doesn't happen!   I was really interested in Leslie Saeta's Thirty Paintings in Thirty Days challenge and this what I've done so far....by day 17!

At any rate, I'm trying to discipline myself to at least draw for a while every day and I'll see how I get on with that.  

Oh, and since I'm posting I'm going to go ahead and link to Confessions of a Fabric Addict.  It may not be a quilt or even fiber related, but for me to actually do some art and post it is surely worth a whoop.

Ten Little Things....Three Little Things

My nephew and his wife adopted two brothers and then promptly got pregnant with yet another boy.  I have yet to acknowledge even the first two children so I've been in the baby quilt business.   I ordered two fabric panels of Ten Little Things by Jenn Ski and then shamelessly stole the assembly idea from  Seams Crazy (who has lots of other lovely quilts as well) who adapted it from the Moda Bakeshop pattern, Jungle Path by Jessica Kelly at SewCraftyJess.   I wasn't familiar with Jessica's blog till I started putting in these links and I see she must be very, very busy now with a sweet little newborn!  Congratulations Jessica!  If you don't already read her blog, do check it out for a picture of the baby and the wonderful nursery Jessica put together for her. 

Anyway, here's one of the two panel quilts I made.  Just one picture.  The other is virtually identical.

I'm still in the midst of quilting the quilt for the newborn and hope to finish it in the next few days.  I've gone way overboard on the quilting part and it's taking longer than it should.

Now I'm going to go link up with Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict and look at all the other quilts and things.  Happy Friday!

Star Surround Flimsie Finish

I kill myself.  Somehow, I was under the impression that Friday (yesterday) was the last day to get this finished.  I sewed like a mad woman, forsaking all household duties and responsibilities.  Finished the last stitch, ran outside and flung it over the deck railing for the photo shoot just as big fat rain drops started falling.  Snap....got it!  Made the deadline.  Back inside to the computer to post and take a last peep at the instructions.  Oh.  Never mind.  Here it is anyway.

The colors are pretty washed out in this picture, kind of a good thing considering how retina searingly bright it is in real life.  Lots of the fabrics read as solids too, though there are no solids in the quilt.  I like the block and enjoyed learning Melissa's technique for making flying geese.  Don't think I really care for blocks this large though.  Mine is 16 twenty four inch blocks and it's huge!  Now to find nine yards of backing fabric that I can buy and still keep food in the house.

Linking up to Melissa's blog for this portion of the QAL.  Thanks, Melissa!

Star Surround Blocks

Posting a quick picture of my Star Surround blocks this morning.  I decided late to join in on this quiltalong and had to rush selecting and cutting fabrics before heading out to spend a couple of weeks with my mama.  Here are my blocks laid out on her front porch.

Mama thinks my blocks are really pretty, especially the two pink and yellow ones on the top left.  She likes pastels.  I like that I'm using stuff thats been in my stash forever.  I think the blocks are prettier than the picture looks.  I enjoyed learning the method for making the no waste flying geese but have to admit I'm a little worried about how they'll fit with the star centers as they were definitely not perfect.  We'll see how it goes.  I'm home now with lots of clean up to do after leaving hubby unattended for two weeks!

Forgot to mention that I've linked up with Melissa at Happy Quilting...of course, since it's her quiltalong!  And Judy's Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times. And WIP Wednesday, while I'm at it!