Apples

the initial design

So my dear friend Sean has been blogging about various Apples and her objective reviews of them.  I have truly enjoyed reading about her musings and adventures.  I wanted to commemorate this venture (and her birthed day) with a quilt of course.

I found some charming fabric that said the names of all different apples and the perfect stripe fabric.  Thus insuring the completion of my vision.

Things I like about Sean.  She always can make me laugh.  She shares an offbeat sense of humor and never seems to get embarrassed by my antics.  Her Hair.  The way I can go a tremendous amount of time without seeing her only to fall right into our old ways within minutes of a reunion.  Oh, and how she is one of the best friends a girl can have.  Patrick likes that she picked him out for me :)

Anyway, enough with the mush.  Here are more pictures of her quilt.

These are pictures of me playing with the fabric and layout of the different elements.

I also had some leftover fabric and was trying to decide if I should hoard it or make something else for Sean with it....



Easy choice, I made something else for Sean.


It started out as a pillow case but then since pillow cases are such personal things (i'm very particular about mine and I think Sean is as well)  I changed it into a little carrying bag. Figured she can use it to store the quilt or as a pillow case or as an overnight bag on her adventures about Boston.

This is Patrick modeling the bag.

And last but not least.  A picture of the quilt finished, I only lightly quilted the top rather then an allover meandering or something along those lines as I actually wanted it to have a wrinkled well loved look.  Not sure if i chose right in the end... but...there we have it.

...and the pictures Sean sent me of the quilt in her room.  I think it was the psychic connection between her and I that lead me to pick colors that perfectly matched her coverlet and artwork. 

 

Uncanny isn't it

 :-)

Lattace and Car Quilt ... an epic journey

One of the many blogs I follow is Oh, Fransson!and back in February 2010 Elizabeth Hartman posted a pattern (with variation) that I loved loved loved!  Here and Here.  Did I mention I loved this pattern?  And really why wouldn't I?  It is a 9 patch (which you've heard me go on about).  It enables me to have an endless supply of fun regarding colors.  PLUS, and this may be the most important of all, the end result is simply stunning.

Anywho, when I decided I was going to make a charity quilt for 'Quilts For Kids' a wonderful organization. I thought I would make them one form the fabric they sent me (car quilt) and another using this pattern.   So I started cutting up fun colored fabric I had in my stash and went out and got some solid Kona fabric and was very pleased with myself.

Then the fabric arrived from the Charity and I decided I should tackle that quilt first.  And I admit, this was tough for me as the fabric didn't really call to me. Plus some of it was already cut into strips yadda-yadda-yadda so I felt I couldn't deviate too much from what their suggested pattern was.  The fabric was a good quality don't get me wrong. And the print was fun and colors were fun, but the combination of it all was a bit (a lot) brighter then I typically go for. But this is a quilt for a child in a hospital so I understand the wanting of bright cheerful fabric, really I do, it was just a small challenge for me.  Which is good, i mean I can't grow as a a quilt artist if i stay in one little box can I? Anyway. I played. I threw up pieces on my design wall. I drew out one pattern option after another.  And finally put together this quilt top.

Lattice Quilt hanging in my sewing room

Then I got a commission to do a quilt for my mother to give at a baby shower and I put the quilts on hold so I could get that done (Animal Quilt story to come soon) and make some money (sqwee!)

Once I had that done I went back to the car quilt and started (and almost finished!) quilting it only to come down with a terrible cold.  le sigh.

Car quilt, sans quilting and binding, hanging in front of the animal quilt.

When I finally finished the quilting, gave it to my friend Elizabeth to do the binding as she was so much better at that then I so that I could focus on finishing the Lattace Quilt.
But alas my story wasn't permitted to continue swiftly as I pulled out my back something fierce and couldn't quilt for ever so long (months and months it felt like years).  And I thought, when am I ever going to get a chance to work on that Lattace Quilt and mail those both off!

Then we moved to our new house (which I have no complaints about as it is beautiful and I have a much larger sewing room and a gigantic magnetic design wall and am very spoiled)

So I finally got my sewing room set up and I finally banged out a couple of baby quilts I had promised people and finally got a chance to revisit my lattce quilt.  To my dismay I have obviously improved as a quilter since I started as not all my squares were lined up making the pricing of the blocks rather difficult.  But I guess I can't complain too much since I've improved as a quilter and I was ANXIOUS to get this quilt done.

And here it is :) isn't it pretty!! I'm not showing you any close ups as there is no need for you to see the seems that don't match up. I want you to just experience it as a whole and think I'm a superb quilter all the time.

And here is me mailing them off at long long last.  The quilt kit for the Charity only comes with one label so I decided to put it on the lattace quilt.  I think they add a label for any quilts you send that don't have one.. fingers crossed!

Hopefully next time I do a charity quilt things go smoother.  Practice makes perfect and all that. I should note that it wasn't until I get the quilts together to mail them that I saw that they ask that the quilts be mailed back within 6 weeks. Which I obviously went way over.  Trust me I'm very upset with myself for not noticing this as I would have mailed off that car quilt along time ago.  Lesson learned!

Oh, by the way.  Elizabeth Hartman is also is working on another one as she shows here in yellow that I bet is going to be just wonderful.

A simple Quilt with a taste of Tree a 9 patch block composition

I happen to love the 9 patch block. I adore that I can showcase fabrics, use up scraps and put them together in a myriad of ways to create a fascinating variety of pieces. It's simplicity can be used to accent a more complex block or it can be used in conjunction with a solid color or accent fabric block to give a piece more interest. I could go on and on about this block process, and no doubt I will in another post when I create again :) But for now I'd like to introduce to you a quilt I made for my mother as a housewarming gift last Thanksgiving 2009.

I chose fabrics in various fall colors and stripes and used this amazingly soft green fabric that I had in my stash and have no idea from whence it came unfortunately as I would otherwise rush out for more.

Here is a picture of the quilt laid out on my bed as I was basting the layers together.

... I should note here that this was at my last house and I'm not proud at how messy my bedside tables are or that I never found the 'right' picture to hang over the bed there.  So ignore all that and focus on the pretty please :)







One detail you can't tell from the full size pictures very well is that I had fussy-cut and appliquéd  tiny leaves to the tree branch.  I had played with the idea of having some drift down like they were falling but opted not to (this time) because I wanted this quilt to be able to be viewed horizontally or vertically depending on whichever way my mother decided suited her.

This turned out to be a wise choice as she ended up hanging it on the wall horizontally and if I had appliquéd the leaves as falling I would have done so from the vertical position thus defying the laws of gravity and thus endangering my marriage as Patrick feels very strongly about such things (wink)!

The end result, after I quilted and bound it was amazing. And I am happy to say my mother and Linda LOVED it.  I asked them to pretty pretty please let me have a picture of them holding it.  And then I amended that request to ask them to be silly in said picture.  This is the result, I love that my mom went all out for that photo and Linda obviously had no clue she was doing so!