Sister-in-law Quilts

I’m a big fan of Gone With the Wind.  Most people who know me, know that.  So a few years back when I was invited to join a quilt swap of Civil War Reproduction 9 patches, entitled ‘A Quilt for Melanie Wilkes’, I jumped in on it without hesitation.

And I LOVE the quilt I ended up with.  It’s huge, about king size, and it’s got such a great assortment of fabrics, so many more than I could collect on my own.  I sent it to Randi Allen in TX to quilt it, and she did a great job with it, an all over swirly star pattern, perfect for the patriotic theme of the fabric.

Anyway, I’m so pleased with this quilt.  It’s really a workhorse quilt.  I often have a hard time using quilts that I’ve made because I’m so afraid they’re going to get torn up, or stained.  And after all the time and money that went into them, I want them to stay nice.  But this quilt is different.  It’s quite pretty to look at it, but understated.  It’s not flashy or showy, but the beauty is in the details; when you notice the quilting, or pick up on a really unique print in it.  It’s been used quite a bit. It’s super warm in the winter, and huge, so the perfect quilt to huddle under with my family to spend time together watching a movie. It’s the perfect quilt to haul to my husband’s ball games.  It’s big enough that all my girlfriends and their kids can sit on it and chitchat.  And it’s such a great blend of colors, no one would ever notice if something got spilled on it or stained.  It really encourages fellowship and friendship.  It’s very soft and a perfect amount of worn-in feeling.

And I think that’s what Melly would have wanted.

 

Several years ago there was a line of Gone With the Wind fabric that came out, and I snatched up a bunch of it.  I didn’t get around to actually making a quilt top out of it until a couple of weeks ago.  I used this great pattern by Violet Craft, that I modified just a bit to accomodate some of my larger prints.  In contrast, I call this my ‘Quilt for Scarlett O’Hara’.

Different from my Melanie Quilt, this quilt will not see a lot of hard work.  This one prefers to just be admired and look pretty.  I think I’m going to have it custom quilted, it needs that special touch.  I want the quilting to be showy, dramatic, definitely something to be noticed.  This quilt will just be draped around the house somewhere, a life of luxury.

And I think that’s what Scarlett would have wanted.

So, PS…I need a long-arm quilter.  Someone preferably who loves Gone With the Wind so they can help me capture the essence of Scarlett in the quilting.  I’m thinking perhaps some of her phrases in the sashing?  Know anyone?  Send them my way!

Au Revoir

I’m a ‘list girl’.  At any given moment, I have a fairly extensive to-do list.  I’m also OCD about getting every item marked off that list.  I get great pleasure from lining through all the things I’ve done, and I get great stress from leaving things undone on the list.  Lately, the latter is where my blogging has been falling.  I’ve been just awful at blogging lately, even though it’s always on my list of things to get done.  I used to love blogging.  It used to be easier.  Now it’s just become stressful because it’s this thing I know I should get done, but I just never get to it. 

I think one reason I haven’t been blogging is because the blog is having an identity crisis.  When it started, it was a quilting blog.  It fit in that nice little box.  But in the last year or so, I have done very little quilting.  Like, maybe one quilt in the last year.  So I really have nothing quilty to talk about.  Now I have baby on the brain all the time.  I could maybe write lots about my baby.  But one, that would be very boring to everyone else.  And two, it seems odd to write about babies on a quilting blog.  So perhaps this blog will evolve into a mommy blog someday.  But now, I just don’t have the time or energy to put into it.  I’m just starting to figure out how to be a full-time mommy/housekeeper.  Then I have a part-time sewing job (which incidentally makes it much harder to sew for fun), and I’m about to start another part-job back at the doctor’s office I worked out before I got pregnant.  So blogging just isn’t there right now. 

So this isn’t a goodbye forever.  It’s just a ‘see ya later’.  This isn’t the end of the blog, it’s just a closing of this chapter in my life.  The blog is going up on the shelf for a while.  And who knows, if I find a way to get back into quilting, maybe this will come back better than ever as a quilting blog.  If I find the desire to blog about other things, maybe this will morph into something else.  Maybe I’ll pop in to blog updates every now and then…

I want to thank all my readers I’ve had over the years, and I’m so thankful for all the friends I’ve made through this little adventure.  It’s truly been a joy to meet so many absolutely cool people.  Hope to see ya soon!!

Whew

What a month.  I had such great aspirations to have a really productive quilting month.  And then we moved.  And then I took a part-time job.  And then I accepted another part-time job to start in the next couple of weeks.  And then I remembered OPAM.  And then I got overwhelmed. 

But, I did manage to finish a quilt this month, but that’s only because it needed binding and tying off some quilting threads.  It’s my quilt from the ’12 Days of Christmas’ line from Moda, I LOVE that fabric!  One of my favorites.  A week before Christmas of 2010, I said, ‘I think I’ll whip up a festive quilt real quick’.  HA!  2 years later I’m just getting it finished.  But, I’ll say, I’m really pleased with it.  It’s hard to make a bad quilt when the fabric is this cute.

So, I now have to figure out how to be a full-time mom, work 2 part-time jobs, spend time with my husband, and still get some sewing in for myself.  I’ve barely figured out how to do the first one and still get a shower in… 

Happy Leap Day!

I know Leap Day comes around every 4 years, but I honestly don’t ever remember having a leap day before.  Weird.

I finished my husband’s T-shirt quilt top.  Thanks to everyone that has commented on the last couple of posts.  I promise I read them all, but I didn’t quite get to the email thank you reply.  One thing I really liked was how Kat tucked some of the shirt tags into her binding.  I saved a couple and am going to do the same thing, neat idea Kat!

I’m really pleased with how it turned out.  This is the second t-shirt quilt I’ve done.  The first one I did for me, and it was much different.  I cut all the shirts the same size squares, and I used much stiffer interfacing.  The thicker stuff made it not so cuddly, and this one already has better drape.  Not sure if I’ll add borders or not, I’ll let hubby decide.  I like the puzzle piece arrangement.  It was a bit like a puzzle trying to figure out how to sew it all together, but a fun challenge.  Something I haven’t done before.

So I now have 3 tops ready to be quilted, and 1 quilt that needs finishing touches.  I’m moving in a couple weeks, so hopefully I can stay on track to get at least one quilt done each month.  And, once I move, I’ll get to start on my new sewing room redo, Yay!

Moving On

I’ve finished another quilt top, but think I’ll wait a bit to quilt it.  I quilt on my mom’s machine, and I think we’re going to have it set up for some embroidery for a while.  We got this great ambitious idea to each make an embroidered Sunbonnet Sue quilt, and so we each have about 1000 hours of embroidery coming up.

So I’m starting on my next top.  My next challenge is to turn this stack of t-shirts…

…into a quilt for my husband.  I showed him several examples on the internet for him to choose between.  He liked the more puzzle pieced looking ones, rather than cutting everything the same size and being uniform squares.  So I’m thinking it’s going to look something like this…

There’s already been a few more edits to this as I’ve cut one shirt wrong (so far that I know about), and then wanted to spread out the colors some more.  But it’s turning that huge stack of shirts into something more manageable and useful.  He loves all those shirts, and now he’ll be able to see them more often, rather then them being stuck back in a box in the closet.

This will be my second t-shirt quilt.  I’m using much more lightweight stabilizer this time, as the first one was pretty stiff.  But I’m always stumped on how to quilt these things.  I want it to be enough quilting, but I don’t think I want to quilt over the design on the shirts.  Any suggestions?

2nd Finish and 2nd 1st

I finally finished the Hideaway quilt. I’m not sure what to call this quilt. It was the ‘Moda Hideaway Had a Lot of Potential but Went Downhill Quickly’ quilt, but that’s an awful big mouthful, so I’m just going to call it the Hideaway quilt. I quilted the middle with an all-over meander in a green variegated thread, which I regret. I should have used a lighter thread that blended in better, but oh well, live and learn.

After machine binding the last quilt, I decided to do it again since this is a monster big quilt. It went much better this time, and I’m pleased with the results. The other thing I really like on this quilt was the quilting pattern I did in the outer border. My 1st 1st of the year was the machine binding on the last quilt, my 2nd 1st was quilting a design other than meander. I did trees, and just absolutly love them. They were fun to do and actually turned out pretty good. It’s a bit hard to see on the front, but easier on the back. I’m much less afraid to try other patterns on my next quilts, so I’m excited about that.

So I have another OPAM finish for February, and quilt 2/12 for 2012. I’ve already got this quilt on my bed, and since our temps have just gotten colder, it’s been great.

Saved From the Trash Bin

About 5-ish years ago, I decided I wanted to make my future mother-in-law a quilt.  I didn’t know anything about quilting.  But, I knew I liked quilts, other people liked quilts, and I knew how to work a sewing machine…..so how hard could it be, right?  I saw a picture of a quilt I liked online, and figured I could come up with how to make it.  So I drew out what it looked like, figured up some dimensions and went down to my local craft store to get some fabric.  I enlisted my mom to help me, who also at the time didn’t know anything about quilting.  The particular pattern I picked had lots of triangles, and I distinctly remember sewing them up and them not being the right size, but we thought, hey…enough steam and stretching and we can make them the right size.  I know, are you just cringing in your seats?  Anyway, I made the top, but didn’t ever do anything with it after that.  I decided not to give it to her for some reason, although I don’t remember why.  I’m glad I decided not to, looking back at it.  I might have never gotten married, HA!  My MIL, who I didn’t know at the time had also made some quilts, would have taken one look at it and told her son not to marry that girl   I did end up making her a proper quilt a couple years ago though, so all is well.

Anyway, I tucked the top away, but never intended to do anything with it.  I was cleaning out some things the other day and ran across it.  I hadn’t seen it since I made it, and it was funny to look back at it.  Not many of the seams match, and most of the points were cut off, but I love the pattern, and I love my fabric choices.  I think it’s actually a really pretty quilt.  I figured I needed to bite the bullet and either chunk it or finish it.

As I continued to clean out my fabric bin, I came across a piece of fabric that worked perfect for the back, and was exactly the right amount, and the same for binding.  I figured it was a sign, and the next day I had it quilted and bound.  I’m really pleased with the way it came out, and I’m really glad I decided to finish it.  It’s pretty small, I’d say about lap quilt size, and will be perfect for Avery to drag around some day.  Since I wasn’t too invested in the finished project, I decided to try machine binding for the first time.  2 sides came out pretty good, and 2 pretty not good.  But the binding step is my least favorite, so I’m glad I did it.  It will take a little finesse and practice, but I’ll definitely do it again.

So, first finish of the month for OPAM, and first quilt done out of the 12 I want to finish this year out of my WIP’s.