I went to the woods . . .

I recently looked at my blog and realized that it has been since the end of October that I last blogged. I didn't give any explanation, but I'll tell you why now. We moved to the woods. My husband took a job in Connecticut last September, but the kids and I didn't join him until right before Christmas. So instead of blogging in November and December, I was packing. Nine people have a LOT of stuff - especially if one of them is a quilter, scrapbooker, knitter, and all-around crafter. THAT one had the most stuff. Sheesh.

Anyway, because we moved to the woods, it has taken just a bit of time to get the internet back up. I guess I could have blogged at least this explanation at the library, but it has taken us some time to settle in here too. So, now I'm back. Lest you think I have not been sewing, here are a couple of pictures of the two butterfly quilts I finished for my sister's little girls. I actually finished them in time for Christmas but am just blogging about them now.

Yes, they're two different quilts -- one with a pink back, one with a yellow back. I made the tops a LONG time ago for MY two girls, never finished them -- a familiar story, no? Luckily, my sister has two little girls, and luckily she liked the quilt tops. So nice to have older WIPs get finished and have nice homes.

Unfortunately, since I was busy trying to move, I didn't take very good pictures. This is it. These two. I now return you to your regularly scheduled blogging. And hopefully, I will be back to being part of the regular schedule! Here's hoping life doesn't get in the way of my blogging and quilting. ;)

I was modern before I knew it.

I made these quilt tops about 10 years ago back when I had no money and was getting free fabric from a friend's stash. She would go quilting at the senior citizen's center, and all kinds of people would just drop off their grandmother's fabric and UFOs after she died. (Seriously.)

The initial plan was to put them on my girls' twin beds, but I didn't have a machine that could do free-motion quilting, and so they sat in the pile of flimsies waiting to be HAND quilted. Well, that pile grew pretty quickly. I liked to piece more than I liked to hand quilt. Anyway, now my girls are in a full-sized bed, the twin mattresses having been usurped by the boys for their bunk beds. They are not identical. I just made random butterflies. Some of the fabrics are decidedly . . . unpretty, let's say. What did I know back then? Apparently, I did know that bright colors and white were the way to go. (May I just say that the triangle border took longer to make than the whole rest of the quilt top?!)

The idea was that the butterflies were to rest on top of the mattress and the squares to hang down. If I ever get these quilted, we'll see if they work out that way. I wonder what I have that can go on the back.

Freedom!

Freedom from one more UFO hanging over my head. And also, yeah, it's a patriotic quilt. Kinda thinking I'll just call it Freedom.

If you haven't heard me say this before, I LOVE patriotic quilts. I saw this one in a quilting book (can't remember the name or FIND it at the moment -- sewing room is still not completely put back together). I started it a LONG time ago. I had an older friend who would give me fabric all the time when I was first starting out quilting. This quilt is made entirely from scraps from her scrap pile. I think even the white is. I did go buy this lovely toile for the back -- I think it's depicting scenes from the Revolutionary War.

Sawtooth Stars inside Log Cabins. And Log Cabins inside Sawtooth Stars.

It is already keeping us warm. It's on my UFO Challenge list (see sidebar), so whenever that month comes, I'll be ahead of the game. I think I have turned over a new leaf around here. Maybe. :)

Giraffe Quilt

Some quilts I have no problem naming, and others are more difficult for me. And don't even ask me about labeling. I'm terrible at labeling them. =/

I pieced this quilt a good eight years ago. My SIL had gotten some of the giraffe fabric with pink, and I liked it in the green colorway. I let it sit so long before quilting it that I had a hard time matching the back to the front. And of course, I used every ever-loving piece of it to make the front, although, if there were any scraplets left, I wouldn't be able to find them anyway due to their advanced age. Anyway, so I quilted it last year, but I had the same problem with binding that I had with the backing -- the greens were not quite the right match -- all the ones I could track down. Admittedly, it wasn't a hard-fought search to find the perfect binding, but at the same time, even in my lackadaisical quest, I was unwilling to settle for a weird color for the binding. So I finally decided on brown -- I'm pretty sure it's Quilter's Only from Joann's -- that chocolatey brown color. And I think it's growing on me.

Diagonal crosshatch (which has ever been my go-to mode of quilting should ideas fail me). It doesn't make for as scrunchy of a quilt after washing, but at this point I'm going with, "Hey, it's done, and it's another boy quilt to add to my stack." And I really do still like the colors.