Baby Jane Quilt-Along

For Jill's birthday last year I got her this.  And I got one for myself too.  

The idea was that I would finish my Farmer's Wife Quilts, and then I would start this.  Well, that was a lovely ambition, but they're not done, and Jane is tired of waiting.  So in we dive.  We will be starting the week of March 4th, doing one a week.  Or maybe two.  We didn't completely decide on a number.  I realize we're not the first to do this.  Anina has an entirely separate blog devoted to her Baby Jane.  So I guess you could say we're jumping on the bandwagon.

I have decided to do mine out of Bonnie and Camille scraps/fabrics with Kona White as my background.  I'm hoping that now that I am past my technical difficulties (new sewing machine) and past my gigantic move (TX to CT), I will be able to be more devoted to my second love.   (My first love is my family, people.)  

So my plan is to post my block(s) on Thursday.  I have not discussed this aspect with Jill yet, but I hope she's amenable to that.  If you'd like to work along with us, that would be great.  You can purchase the book directly from the Dear Jane website, or you can go on Amazon.  If anyone -- or even someone -- joins in, maybe I could start a Mr. Linky on here.  If it's just Jill and I, we're okay with that too.  See you in two weeks for the reminder post!

A Masculine Quilt . . . Finally

I know I am slow.  I take FOREVER to finish things.  I can't say exactly why.  Maybe I just enjoy the process so  much.  Once a quilt is finished, then I don't get to continue to savor it.  I don't know if this is true.  I'm trying to figure out what my issue is.  Quilting ADD?  Anyway, here is a finish that has been a long time coming.

In fact, it has been so long, that I no longer can give you the source for this quilt.  I made it from a pattern in a magazine using all my different blue plaid scraps.  Which magazine it was, I cannot tell you.  If I find it at some point, I will add it on here.

This is for my oldest son's bed.  I made another top just like it to go on the bed of the brother he was sharing a room with at the time I started these (four years ago, maybe).  They were both twin-sized.  Well, now he shares a room with TWO brothers who are on the full-sized bottom bunk.  So I had to make the other flimsy a little bigger.  Now it needs a back and some quilting.

 My son loves it, though, so I guess it was worth the wait.  He's 16, and it's still a good size for him.  Whew!

Straight-line quilting in the middle of the quilt, with low, wide stippling around the border.  The straight-line quilting always looks nice and always takes forever.  As much as I don't want to, I'm going to have to do the next one the same way.  I'd better go make the back for it today and get cracking before they all grow up and move away.

I'm linking up with Amanda Jean's Finish It Up Friday.  Again.  I'm so proud of myself.  This is three times now!  This might turn into the year of the finish after all.  Dang.  Did I just jinx myself?

Happy Quilting!

Re-finish

I cannot for the life of me find the "before" pictures of these dressers.  Let's just say they were stained a medium brown.  Not that pretty -- and the knobs were white ceramic.

I picked a blue that matched the baseball quilts in this room and just painted them.  I was planning to try to make my own blue stain, but since the previous stain didn't come all the way off, there were going to be darker patches in some places than others.  So paint it was.

I couldn't find any vertical pulls with the same measurements as these, so I didn't replace them.  They're not my favorite, but I just found some brass knobs with a similar patina and called it good.

The two little boys were previously using two (extremely) old two-drawer end tables and a plastic three-drawer storage thing.  Free dressers, $25 paint, $12 knobs = no more problems with space.  And no, their room is never this clean.

Rainbow Sherbet

This is an oldie.  The peach/orangey (large inside border) stripe was one of the first high-quality fabrics I ever purchased.  I bought it at the Dallas Quilt Show from one of the vendors.  My friend Judy is the one who took me, who helped me hone my quilting skills, who turned me into a fabric hoarder.  Okay, okay.  She gave me the nudge.  The hoarding was latent inside of me.

Anyway, I used that stripe as a jumping off point to choose colors for the rest of the quilt.  It started to remind me of rainbow sherbet, but now that it's all finished, it reminds me of fire (minus the green)

This center medallion was a Block of the Moment from Judy Martin.  It's not there now, but I printed it when it was.  Just to clarify, Judy Martin is not the Judy who took me to the Dallas Quilt Show.  (Ha!  I wish!)  She is amazing at putting patterns/blocks together.

I quilted a flower in each of the stars and spirals in the rest of the blocks.  I just did a loopy meander around the outer borders.  Sometimes I get in default and just do a stipple or a loop, but I really enjoy the quilts where I do deliberate things that accent the blocks themselves.  That just takes longer, and I have a ridiculous volume to try to whittle down.

In the name of using what I had (and also because by the time I got around to quilting it, the top had been finished for YEARS), I just found whatever matching random strips  that I had.  I don't love the back, but it'll do.  And it's one more quilt that I can take out of my brain.

This was a quilt where I mixed quality of fabrics, so we'll see how they fade.  Usually the cheaper fabrics fade more quickly, so I'm sure I'll see differences in that.  I made this at a when I didn't know better.  ;)  It feels really good to finish an older project, though, and it will still keep us warm!