Rainy Wednesday Photos

The baby quilt top is done! Wish my quilt holder was around so I could fit the whole quilt in the photo but you get the idea.  Also, the light is terrible in my house as it's overcast and pouring down rain. The colors are bright and clear primary colors with apple-green polka dot border.  The quilt is not baby-quilt size; it's 68" x 75".  Big enough for laying out on the floor and making a fort out of when he/she is older.  

The pattern is "Alphablocks Quilt" by American Jane.  This was a fun and easy quilt to make.  I used  Moda solids for the letters & solid blocks.  The letters are machine-appliqued with a small blanket stitch.  I have the binding made and need to hunt around in the stash for backing fabric.  I plan to machine quilt this myself.  Not my favorite thing to do, but I need to hold off on long-arm quilting at the moment.  

What was Remy doing on this rainy Wednesday?  

Napping and planning new quilt projects apparently.  Here he is napping with my friend Pat Wys' book Spotlight on Neutrals.  Wonder what project he has in mind?  I think Remy has been closely following Baxter's lessons on quilt making.  Wonder what project he has in mind?  If you haven't been following Mr. Q.O.'s Baxtertoons on Cathi's blog "Quilt Obsession", you are missing one of those little moments that brighten up your day.  Love Baxtertoons.

Happy National Quilting Day & Happy St. Patrick's Day

A fun day to celebrate!  I actually got lots of sewing time in last night and today.  Hooray sewing time.  I went to my Silver Thimbles Quilt Club after work yesterday and for my usual time today and worked on the "T is for Thelma" Schnibble for this month's Another Year of Schnibbles. (the real pattern name is "Bibelot" but it is now and forever "T is for Thelma" to me)

Here are a couple of green T's  

As for St. Patrick's Day, we have been eating corned beef, cabbage, & potatoes all week thanks to S. It's one of the handful or so of dinners he makes and it is great.

Even more great is a finished quilt top!  I braved the pollen today to get a photo of my "Chocolate Raspberry Truffle" quilt top outside so the colors would show (and the cats would not).  The fabric is "Maison de Garance" by French General for Moda and the pattern is "Raspberry Ripple" from the book Layer Cake, Jelly Roll and Charm Quilts by Nicky & Pam Lintott.

I need to dig through the stash for some French General yardage so I can piece a scrappy back and send this off for quilting.

I hope everyone had a great two-holiday day and you all got to sew with some green fabric.

Simple Times Quilt Along Reveal!

Ta da!  Here is my version of the Simple Times Quilt Along quilt hosted by Carol at Brown Quilts and Kelly at Charming Chatter.  Check out the links to see the parade of quilts.  This was a great quilt along and I love the pattern.  Thank you both so much! 

I used my 1930s stash for this quilt and have fabric pulled to make a scrappy backing.  I had wanted to get it put together, quilted, and bound for today but it's way too hot to be doing all that.

Starting the new year

I started off the new year busy sewing. Although I am not making it an official resolution, I am going to be diligent on getting UFOs finished. Starting off, I finally got around to putting the borders on my Mardi Gras quilt (aka Bonnie Hunter's Orange Crush mystery quilt).
(This is half of the quilt--too big to get the whole quilt in the photo--and the backing fabric). This will be the next quilt off to the long-arm quilter...

I also finished another quilt top (photo after it is gifted sorry!) So that is TWO quilt tops finished and it's only January 4th! Yea!

While I was in Michigan, I made a zillion of these for Bonnie Hunter's Double Delight quilt. Still need to make a zillion more I think. I also have pulled fabric for the Carolina Christmas quilt, got caught up on BOMs, and cut all the strips for my fabric swap. Whew! We are on a quilting roll so far!

Hurling Through December....

December is when the year goes from busy, to hectic, to zooming around at the speed of light and doing 2 million things while trying to be cheerful about it. (it's that whole cheerful thing that's hard isn't it???).

Take a mini-break right now and hop over to Pat's blog and enter her great giveaway. She also has a very funny post. I'll wait here for you.

Back? OK now where were we? Oh yeah, ending the first week of December. On Saturday, Melisa at Sweet Home Quilt Co. had a holiday open house. I went early thinking I would beat the crowds. It was packed!!! Only a Sweet Home sale could get all these Georgia quilters out on a freezing cold morning--me included. I picked up a book called "Jelly Roll Inspirations" and some odds & ends fabric and some sale fabric. Just a wee bit. Visited with a bunch of friends and then I hightailed it home to get some sewing time in.

I did finish this top
called "Hidden Stars" from this book. The fabric is a layer cake from Barbara Brackman's Civil War Homefront line for Moda.

Did I mention it was freezing cold? A lot of places around the country had snow. It was cold enough for snow here in GA this weekend although we didn't get any in the ATL. It was 28F at 6AM this morning when I left for SBux. That is really cold for GA at the beginning of December.

The first big cold snap of the year brings swarms of people to Starbucks for hot chocolate and lattes, and everything else. The first big cold snap also is the start of the "Cats sleeping on the heat vents" season at my house.
Here is Morpheus and Gomez demonstrating why it is freezing inside my house too.

So how is your December so far?

Those last steps...

Do you find the last few steps of getting a quilt finished the most difficult? KarenDianne at LeeHaven had a couple of posts about getting 75% done and then stopping and setting the quilt project aside. I enjoyed reading the comments about the points where other quilters get stuck and knowing that we are not alone.

I seem to get stuck at the borders. Quilt top is done except for the borders. (let's not talk about the quilt tops that aren't quilted...that's for another post).

Well I had help getting borders on my Peace on Earth quilt this past weekend Who knew Gomez was so good at measuring???

Morpheus Makes a Quilt--Fini

Pretty much a lazy Labor Day around here. I finished the final borders on Morpheus' quilt.
I will get a better (complete) photo this weekend at Thimbles when I have a couple of people to hold it up.

Morpheus completely took the day off and didn't even supervise. He spent the day sleeping on clean laundry or sleeping in a sun beam.

He did appear for a last inspection.

Pondering his opinion

"OK now let's hurry up and get this quilted and bound so I can shed all over it..."

A Moda Bake Shop project

Take one Figgy Pudding charm pack and two Figgy Pudding fat quarters plus one "Vintage Brick Doll Quilts" recipe from Moda Bake Shop and what do you have

Two cute little quilt tops. These are winter quilts for the cats (I think I can get around to quilting them by then). I'm going to put them near a couple of the cats' favorite places to sleep (sofa back and near the heater vent). I whipped these up this afternoon and they are so cute, I may have to make two for each season. I bet Karin's boys would love these too (and I also bet she has some charm packs laying around needing a project...)

Morph already tested his out to make sure it was OK.
He takes his job very seriously.

My First Quilt

I'm late on adding my first quilt to the quilt parade by Camille and Carrie but I thought I'd throw mine in too (bringing up the end of the parade as spectators are already leaving I guess..) The funniest story is Pat Sloan's. Oh my!
This is my first quilt made in October 2001 at a beginning quilt class at a quilt shop that was located three blocks from my house (!!!!!!) Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look at it), the owner retired and closed the shop shortly after I started quilting. Can you imagine--I could walk there anytime I wanted to. Oh how I miss that shop so much!!! I met some of my bestest quilting friends there (including Sandy, Sharon, and Shannon the no-bloggers).

Sandy helped me pick out the fabric for the quilt. Oh how excited and nerve wracking that was--deciding on the perfect fabrics for my first quilt. The fabrics are MODA! Wouldn't you know that would be the beginning of my neverending quest to have almost every Moda line there is (I think there are a few other bloggers out there that can relate Nicole and Vicky maybe?)

I had the best teacher, which is probably why someone who hated sewing (me) became quilt obsessed. My first sewing machine was a Kenmore that I got for my high-school graduation and I think my mom was the only person who used it. I had the worst problems with trying to get a 1/4" seam and after doing my homework brought my blocks in to find out that they were all a mess with wonky wrong-sized seams. I amazed myself, I guess, by not quitting (which would be the easy thing to do for someone who didn't like sewing to begin with) and dutifully unsewed every block and redid them. Don't look too close though because points were still lost and there are some slightly crooked seams. In the class, we also learned how to pin baste, stitch in the ditch, stitch a border pattern, and do binding. My stitching in the ditch leaves a little to be desired but I'm OK with that. (In the spirit of full disclosure, in the middle of my several week class, I went out and bought a Bernina...)

The quilt is now used for the cat's to sleep on when they feel like sleeping on the dining room arm chair (and there is a lot of cat hair on it right now as well as a whole cat! Hello Stella!).

This is my latest project (although not the best photo...). I finished Glory Bound last night and have a perfect gift-giving opportunity for it.
I am so thankful that I found quilting because it has brought me so many great friends (here and in blogland) and has definitely kept me sane and happy.