Donna's Quilt

The last few days have been intense. My very best friend, Joyce,  from college days came to visit for four days of sewing and quilting.

Another good friend of hers, Donna,  passed away recently having lost her long battle with cancer. Donna had chosen fabric for a thank you quilt some time ago for her daughter, Julie, who had taken her in and cared for her. The fabric and patterned remained in the bag until last Wednesday.

We cut, pressed, sewed, cut some more, sewed some more, and then some more! Suddenly it was pieced. Then it was onto the Voyager to be quilted. Binding was made and sewed on. By Saturday noon it was ready for hand sewing. This was the results:

Although we did not get the hand sewing completed, it is on its way back to Rhode Island for hand sewing, label and delivery!!  I am blessed to be able to help complete this beautiful quilt for a wonderfully sweet generous lady.

Long Arm Ruler Work

I have been accumulating several rulers for long arm ruler work. I had the notion of doing a complete quilt with just straight lines. So .... Here are some thoughts on that!

I need my head examined - lol!!

Here was what I got accomplished on this Christmas Santa Quilt Kit from a LQS that included a panel. I am not generally a fan of panels but this one was cute and afforded me lots of squares that I could practice my straight line ruler work on. The Pinwheels and the square inside a square surrounding the panel were the easiest to decide what I should do on them. They "spoke to me" as just simple outlines - because I wanted to be simple if I needed to undo anythink that got done!!. The squares were 6" finished so not too large and would fare well with not a lot of quilting in my opinion.

The panel was a bit more tricky. As there some printed squares and several Santa blocks, I followed the idea to do a simple outline in those printed blocks following the pattern in the six inch blocks. Again going fro  simplicity and practice!

The Santa Blocks got a simple outline first. Then I filled in the navy background with small to medium stippling. The Santa needed something as well, so I did some free motion quilting on each Santa following clothing lines, beards,skates and the like!

I was pleased with the outcome and here it is - complete!

Snow Day Project

Despite the fact that I have many irons in the fire up in the sewing room, Thanks to Storm Nemo (who knew that Nor'Easters got names - lol), we had very heavy snow the last two days and I was inspired to do some blocks for our Guild. We do Quilts of Valor as our "charity" project and the gal who does it gives out a BOM every month and assigns colors.   She was short on a few so I did quite a few the last two days!! Here is what I have accomplished !!

Progress

I thought that I would take time out to show the progress on my Son's Birthday quilt mande from the Bali Brown Sugar Crackers. I have squared the blocks, arranged them and sewed them together. This is what I have so far:

I am pleased with it. This center will finish up at 48" x 56" before the borders. I have already put the 45 degree Piano Border together ready to cut. 

To do this, I took each Bali Pop strip and cut it in half using a 45 degree cut. I then arranged them and sewed them to arrive at this piece:

Once this is stripped into  four inch pieces, it will become the second border!  I still need to purchase a nice brown for the first and third borders to set it all off. All finished I expect it to finish up approximately 70" x 78". This will be a great size for the couch when done!

A Tale of fabrics

In my last post, I showed a picture of a fantastically fun quilt I made for myself. I needed a great present for my son's thirteth birthday and decided he needed something warm and cuddly for his couch. Solution?? Yup - you guessed it. I am doing him a large lap quilt for his living room. I chose the Bali Brown Sugar ten inch squares. It had wonderful colors in it - beautiful teals to warm browns.

I have just started it but I just wanted to show you all that fabric choice always will change the look and feel of your quilt. Here is a quick picture of the arrangement so far of the squares. I have not even trimmed them yet, so they look a bit ragged but hopefully you will get the feel of what I wish to accomplish with this quilt. 

As you can see - I have a WONDERFUL design wall!! My sewing room has no walls that are floor to ceiling, so I routinely commandeer the bed in the guest room. 

Yes this is the exact same pattern used for the Bright Quilt in my last post. There are a few subtle differences other than the obvious color choices, I made this one from 42 - 10 inch squares where as the bright on was made from 30 - 10 inch squares. This one will be 7 rows 6 columns while the bright one is 6 rows 5 columns. 

In preparing for this quilt, I made 6 piles of seven related fabrics - two piles of light, two piles of medium teal and lighter browns and two piles of the very dark browns, teals and a few blacks. I did add a few additional batik fabrics to make my 42 squares. For the arrangement, I chose to place the lights in the center of the quilt followed on either side the mediums and then the darks. 

The look and feel is so different - but I like them both. I did break down and purchase the jelly roll of the Brown Sugar so that I could add a similar border to the one I used in the Bright Quilt. I will post more when I have the center completed.