2010 quilts

I was thinking back on this year and feeling like a total failure. I was pregnant for most of the year and I mostly remembered laying around. But I looked at my flickr page (where I keep all my quilty project photos) and was surprised to find that I completed 8 quilts and started sewing together my hexagons. I know I got a few house projects done too. Feels nice to have accomplished something other than laying on my bed playing solitaire.

1. fish in bags wonky star, 2. dachshund quilt, 3. pink and yellow scrap quilt, 4. wonky star quilted and bound, 5. strawberry lemonade hourglass, 6. starting to sew them together, 7. HR dog quilt done!, 8. yellow and orange zig zag, 9. elephant baby quilt

a new quilt for new baby 5

So I started out making one quilt, not loving it, and making an entirely different quilt. All that really matters is that I've finished it in plenty of time before the baby gets here. (I only have 4 - 5 weeks!)

The whole quilt

A bit of a close up of those adorably Japanese elephants

The back is just solid light grey. The quilting is my own design. I did it on my regular old machine. It worked out great and didn't take too long. I think I'll use this design again.

I had just enough of those cute little ladybugs to bind the quilt with them. Cute.

a zig zag quilt

I have been wanting to make a zig zag quilt ever since I saw this one. I also had to have that fish fabric when I saw the same quilt and now it can't be found (unless you're willing to pay an arm and a leg or unless you have something good to swap.) Lucky I got it when it was affordable.





And here is the back. I guess I went a little overboard when collecting my yellows and oranges. I probably have enough to make another twin sized quilt. And in case you're wondering - this quilt is staying with me. Orange is my favorite color and orange and yellow is one of my favorite color combinations.

hexagons again!

Started sewing my hexagons together finally! I have 93 of those flowers - so not enough for the size of quilt I want yet. But that's okay because I like making them.

Here is a tutorial which is pretty close to the way I do it. But I may do my own tutorial - what do you think?

I used paper pieces from here.

These ones are 3/4 inch (measuring 3/4 inch on one straight side).

There is also a good post about hexagons on The Sometimes Crafter with lots of other good info.

heather ross dog quilt finished!

I've had the top done for this quilt for over a month now. Maybe a few months. But I've been stalling because 1. I don't like moving everything out of my living room to baste quilts, and 2. I'm always nervous that the quilting is going to turn out terribly and so I put it off as long as possible.
Last Saturday I met with my Modern Quilt Guild for a sewing saturday. It was a lot of fun AND it turns out that the church gym floor is the perfect place to baste a quilt! I think I will be basting all of mine there in the future.

And since I've been mostly laying around for the past 2 months (since I found out I was pregnant) I figured I'd better get something done this week!

And so - I quilted and bound the dog quilt. I love how it turned out. I did a loopy quilting pattern and I'm not so good at keeping everything even, but there are NO tucks! Amazing. Enough writing, here are the photos.

(Inspiration for this quilt from this quilt and this quilt)

and on to the next quilt

I have been collecting orange and yellow fabrics for a while now. And a few weeks ago I finally cut into it to make a zig zag quilt. At first I thought I'd make a string quilt with it but I somehow changed my mind and it is now a zig zag. Turns out I probably have enough fabric for 2 or 3 more quilts. Oops.

pink and yellow hourglass

I finished this quilt several weeks ago. But I wanted to make sure the recipients saw it first.

I LOVE it! I want to make a bazillion more of them!

I also tried a new quilting pattern this time. It's a kind of a vine and it's on the diagonal. I like how it turned out and it wasn't too hard, but next time I think I'll mark at least some of the lines.

wonky star quilt finished (finally!)

Quilting inspired by this quilt (though mine was not nearly as nicely done).

Wonky stars inspired by this quilt.

Binding is Heather Ross lightning bugs stripe. I love a striped binding.

working on a new quilt

So I have started on my son's twin quilt (since he now sleeps on the bottom bunk with his older brother and is no longer a baby sleeping in his little crib.) I have gone back and forth and back and forth on which fabric to use for this quilt. When I found those stripes for the binding I knew exactly what to do. I love those Heather Ross dogs so much.

Here are all the fabrics. I even used some of my Flea Market Fancy stash (but only a little). And there's the binding again on the bottom. The finished quilt will look something like this or this.

another quilt

Are you guys getting sick of seeing my projects? I hope not. Because I am really on a roll! I'm not going to show you what I've been working on yet, but I will show you a Christmas present that finally got to it's new owner.

I made this for my parents-in-law, who have a dachshund named Libby. My mother-in-law is also a quilter but I don't think she receives many quilts. She's always giving the ones she makes away. It was a really fun quilt to make (and fast, because it's not too large.)






The dogs are hand appliqued and the quilting was done by hand.

pink scrap quilt

This quilt was made up of all scraps. About a third of the blocks are pieced with smaller scraps (even some of the white ones). Then I quilted it with straight lines on the diagonal. It was my best quilting so far! I think because it was on the bias and there's a little easing to be done. I think I may do a lot more quilting on the diagonal. I only had 2 mini tucks! I tried to save on the binding by using the back. I DO NOT like how that turned out, so I will not do it again.