I Survived! (and I Quilted!)

Hey there!  It's been quiet from me for a bit.  I was single mothering for almost 10 days while all the mature male members of my collection were away to Orlando.  My older sons are very talented Minecraft artists and went (with my husband as chaperone) to Minecon, a Minecraft convention/trade show.  And took in the fun sights of Florida, too!

I stayed home with the younger boys and tried to keep my head above water by quilting late into the night.  Wait, I do that anyways.  Well, it was harder this time!

I finished this:

There are a few things going on in this quilt that I shall comment on.  One, I machine quilted most of it with Aurifil 50 wt, in beige on the bottom (bobbin) and ivory on the top.  Then I hand quilted the "snowballs" around the insides (roughtly 1/4 inch in) with various colours of heavier Aurifil and DMC threads (8 and 12 wts).

You know how when you quilt something different on the border than you do in the middle, there is a reckoning that has to happen between the two motifs where they meet?  Well, my motifs were weird about it.  I did straight lines following the diagonal in the middle and then a cross hatch following the plaid on the border.  Sometimes I ended up sewing over the same lines twice and sometimes I left a blank spot on the back of that border/middle seam line.  It just depended on what my crazy brain was doing and where I thought it made sense to sew.  Well... on the back it looked weird.  So my solution was to go over the whole thing with a thick decorative machine stitch that looks like a blanket stitch.  You can see it in this picture: 

The quilt came out to 54" by 71".   All the fabrics are American Jane, from the lines ABC 123 and School Days.  I should mention that I used an Ikea sheet on the back of this one as well.

And the other thing I did was to attempt some swirly, whirly loops on this quilt here.  Slow, slow going as this one is making me pull my shoulders up to my ears and I need to take frequent breaks to un-knot.   But I'm learning, so "yay!".

American Jane 9 Patch Baby Quilt

Another little baby quilt!  I love doing these little projects to play with some favourite fabrics and practice some skills.

This time, I worked on my hand quilting skills.  Again.  Because it is soooo much fun!

I used several colours of DMC perle cotton in size 8, and an Aurifil in size 12 to hand quilt around all the 9 patches.  I machine quilted first, using Aurifil 50 wt. in the ditch, just to give it some strength, and then sat all comfy-like in my chair, or outside, or where ever I wanted to be, and stitched happily.

The fabrics are all American Jane, from a charm pack of ABC 123, and some yardage of the tossed toys on the back, and the lovely print of flowers on a blue background for the binding.

The batting is Warm & Natural and the dimensions are a little 27" x 32".

Little Quilt on the Prairie

Here is a little quilt I am in love with! I felt like I was channelling Ma Ingalls when I made it, with the hand stitching, yellow calico-y print, and old fashioned 9 patches! I was a big fan of the books and the show growing up.  True confession, it was MA Ingalls I wanted to be from Little House on the Prairie! She was so elegant and beautiful and capable. And didn't go blind. I was decidedly not a Laura type, I was and still am, happy to sit inside and sew (or read)!

Anyways, back to the quilt. I used a charm pack of Urban Chik's line Urban Cowgirl, plus yardage of the same line for the front. The back is more Urban Cowgirl squares and some yardage from Hometown by Sweetwater. I bound it with Painter's Canvas in brown. It reminded me of the side of a barn, so I felt it was a good match!

The quilting was done in straight lines with my favorite Aurifil 50 wt in colour number 2000. I added some embellishing hand stitches to each square on the front using DMC perle cotton in colours 725 (yellow) and 712 (cream).

Finished dimensions are 32.5" by 40.5"!

 
PS.  This quilt was completely inspired by this quilt by Jolene at Blue Elephant Stitches.  I pretty much adore ALL her quilts!!