Minecraft Creeper Quilt Top

Minecraft Creeper Quilt Top, a photo by CoraQuilts ~ MrsCarla on Flickr.

I just finished this quilt top today. I have plans for a fleece backing and it just might be up for sale when I am ready :)

I used all Kona cotton solids and 6 inch squares, so it will measure 55" square when finished.

EDITED July 4, 2012:  This quilt is now for sale in my Etsy Shop.  SOLD

Sparkle Punch Baby Quilt

I finished a commissioned baby quilt today that I rather like! It is for a friend who wants a gift for a new baby girl. She asked the baby girl's parents what their "colour scheme" was for their daughter's room and they told her, and I quote, "deep reds and tans with an Indo-African influence and lots of white..." Oooookay! So here is what I came up with!

The pattern comes from Elizabeth Hartman on her blog, Oh Fransson! And it's called "Sparkle Punch"! I embroidered the baby girl's name in the bottom corner in red perle cotton on the white section, and the date she was born. The main prints come from Daisy Janie's line, Tilly, and are organic. I had some white in my stash - a cotton sheet - and a little matching brown print, Zen Garden by Patty Young (just one star). The backing is from Urban Chicks, and their Urban Cowgirl line. The binding is a linen I had in my stash, Essex from Robert Kaufman in Putty.

A Most Excellent Weekend

My most excellent weekend began when my hubby discovered on Facebook that his friend from his days in the airline industry about 15 years ago now worked at a quilt shop!  He gave her my blog address, she commented on my blog, I followed her in pinterest, we both liked a triangle quilt she pinned from Anna Maria Horner fabrics, so she said, "Why don't I come up for the weekend and we can whip one of those babies up?!"  and I replied, "Yes!  Let's!"

Anyways.  I had no idea what a truly delightful person she was, or how wonderful her family was.  Her hubby and their two children came along and did ATVs, bikes and guns with my hubby and boys while she and I sewed the days away!  Pure bliss, I tell you.

And here is one of the quilts produced, my version of an Anna Maria Horner Triangle quilt, with a few other fabrics, I affectionately and oh so creatively have called, "Triangles with Gayle".  Seriously, if you have a more memorable title, please tell me.  Gayle?

So glad I now have another real life quilty friend! Thanks Gayle for the fantastic time and taking a chance on spending a whole weekend with us :)

On a Whim Quilt

One of the most popular quilts, it seems, out there in the online quilting world is "Swoon" designed by Camille Roskelley.  In January, here was a flickr group set up for folks to "quilt along" this lovely, lovely quilt.  I wanted to join but I made my version last fall.  Here it is:

The groups continued on, quilting along with some of Camille's new patterns, "On a Whim" and "Hopscotch".  Many are still doing "Swoon" and that is okay, it is a very easy going and relaxed group.

I decided I wanted to try "On a Whim". I had grabbed a few Civil War Reproduction fat quarters last fall after viewing some beautiful quilts made entirely from reproductions at a quilt show. And my LQS carries a lot of them, so the repeated exposure was doing its magic on me. "On a Whim" has a real antique feel to it, so I thought it might look nice in these fabrics. I just needed some more fat quarters to round out my collection for the quilt. I made a trip (on my own, wheeee!) to a friend's place a few hours from here in the spring and stopped at quilt shops along the way (squee!). Got some more fat quarters. Then I went to another quilt show and a local shop there was having a humongous sale. They had several selections of reproductions in yardage for super cheap. AND at the show itself, a wonderful little shop, Prairie Quilt Mercantile, was offering little plastic bags we could stuff with reproduction scraps for $5!!. And it wasn't just scraps! There were half meters and fat quarters and strips.... I made that little bag stretch and probably managed to get almost 2 meters in there! So that is where my little collection of civil war prints came from if you cared at all! And here is what I turned them into:

 The top.

After quilting.  I took this picture in the afternoon in the shade, so the colours aren't very true.  The one above it is most accurate.

So I stippled it. I know, I am *so* creative! But it is a big quilt, biggest I've ever free motioned! I do have a few wee puckers on the back. But I used a white sheet, so no one will look at it anyways right? I AM happy with how the top turned out. And I LOVE the texture allover stippling gives!

 And yesterday I finished binding! Love a stripy binding. This fabric was from Prairie Quilt Mercantile.

And now it lives on one of my couches.

Curious Nature for Boys

Anyone who has ever tried to make a quilt for a teenage boy knows it isn't easy. I enlisted the help of my sons to design their own quilts. One of them, I finished. Minecraft Quilt. The other, I really should finish... but oh, my creative son. It involves a pieced sword, an appliquéd "creeper" (from Minecraft), trees, mountains.... it is really an art quilt, and I am a patchwork gal. I like chain piecing! What can I say. When I saw man designed Curious Nature by Parson Gray, I immediately decided to make these fabrics into patchwork quilts for my teens that would last for some years and look nice in their (currently shared) room.

I call the blue colorway quilt, Water, and the green one, Woods. Which is where my boys spend much of their time, as our home is surrounded by woods, creeks and rivers. The tutorial I used can be found here, at Jeni's blog called In Color Order. I made my quilts larger, using about 1/4 yard of 24 fabrics for each quilt. I bought a half yard bundle of the entire Curious Nature collection.

 

I used a solid binding, Kona Cotton in Pepper, for both quilts and a dark grey/black scrollwork patterned flannel from my LQS for the backing (it was 108" wide, yay, no seams!).

 

Quilt Stats:
Size: 67" by 90"
Fabric: Curious Nature by Parson Gray for FreeSpirit fabrics
Binding: Kona Pepper
Backing: Flannel from LQS