Sigh . . .

I have been working on this quilt for at least 7 or 8 years. It is one of those long-term projects for someday finishing. There are 64 appliqued sunflowers. A couple of weeks ago, I had finished all the blocks! I laid it all out, and found that I was missing one. Did I only make 63, or did I lose it? Who knows. So I had decided to make one more.

So I sewed them all in rows so that when I finished the one more, I could just stitch it on and be ready to go. Then I found this one day.

And this. And this.

So I guess I'll be making four more instead of one. Maybe it's five. I don't know. Now it will probably take another year, because I don't even want to look at it. Ah, children who are trying to help. He was so proud of himself, because he "made" my quilt. No, buddy, you kind of UNmade it. Truly, I'm surprised this hasn't happened before now with all the kids I have running around here. Good thing I enjoy the process, right?

Reformation.

So it's clear I'm not all that reformed. Corey started one of these, and I realized that I had some of that red polka dot. So it had to be done.

I have almost all the blades cut and sewn for 20 Dresden Plates. I'm not sure what to put in the center, but it will be a larger circle than the hole that is currently there. In the interest of actually finishing this one, I will be machine appliqueing. I know how I am with applique by hand. I love it, but I'm not that diligent. I have enough handwork projects right now anyway.

In which I make some actual progress . . .

For some reason, blogger won't allow me to move my pictures around once I've uploaded them, so this post has the pictures backwards from how I intended them. Phooey. I'm too lazy to delete and reload them. Do you see my lovely pedicure again? It's three weeks old -- from my brother's wedding. A few chips, but better than usual. Ach! I just looked at it again, and it doesn't even look like a French manicure -- just regular toes. But, I digress.

Amanda Jean just posted her applique, and it made me feel gutsy enough to show mine. You see how she inspires me constantly. This is one I have been working on FOREVER -- although that is true of many of my quilts. Let's just say, though, that I started it before we bought our house five years ago. It could be more like 7 or 8 years old (the quilt -- not the house).

Very traditional pattern and colors -- still needs borders. I found the pattern in a magazine and liked it. Now I feel like it's too matchy-matchy. The blue background was supposed to be one solid piece, but I decided to patch it. I love it that way! I love when the backgrounds are scrappy. Anyway, I still like (but don't love) it. This was before I moved to more modern fabrics and styles. I do like so many of the traditional quilts still, though.

And this is the top for Cathy's Charmed Whirligig quilt-along. It had just been awaiting borders, and I finished them yesterday. Obviously I still have to make the back, quilt it, and bind it, but I am making progress on my goal of 13 -- albeit minor progress. Look, I do what I can. 30 hours a week in my husband's office is cramping my style (not to mention the seven kids). =) Here's hoping I can get in more quilting time on vacation.

Fall-inspired Mini Quilt

I was in Quilting Gallery's Fall-Inspired Mini Swap. Of course, it started in the fall, but the deadline wasn't until January. So I made it in January after all the holiday hubbub was over.

I wanted a fall-looking tree, but I wanted the brighter colors, since I'm all about the brighter colors these days for some reason. With these mini quilts I always try to make them from scraps. They're so small, that there's no reason to go buy something specific (especially given the size of my stash and scrap basket).

I feel like the quilting interfered with the look I wanted to achieve with the back. I should have put the squares along the side so the brown quilting didn't overlap on them. You can't see too well in this picture. It doesn't look too bad from far away, I guess. Ashley has been doing these little squares on her quilts, and I just love the look, so I thought I'd give it a shot.

I may have mentioned how I love Kellie's stuff. Once or twice on the blog. All the time when talking to people. Anyway, this was my own pattern but inspired by her. I wasn't brave enough to do all the quilting swirls she does. Plus, I was pressed for time since I saved it until the last minute (what? gasps), so I defaulted to stippling the background. The applique pieces were attached with Heat N Bond and then stitched with a straight stitch two or three times around for a raw-edge applique.

I LOVE how this turned out. My kids were sad to see it go. I hope my partner likes it too. Her etsy shop had a tree with a bird in it for her logo, so that was part of what inspired this as well.

So now I'll start a list for finished quilts of 2010. For Jacquie's Joy in the New Year challenge, I did end up finishing the binding on one more just past the deadline (12:12 a.m.), so I didn't count it. I haven't posted it yet, because I decided it needed some more quilting in some blank spaces. I haven't done it yet, because people are having babies by the truckload in my neck of the woods, and I have to get caught up on that situation. They're all boys too, and I really don't have a lot of boyish things ready to go. Oh, no! I have to start new quilts. Fun, but defeats my whole finishing-up-WIPs goal. 2010 is my year to catch up. I hope. How are you all doing in the new year project-wise? I'm afraid I started a number of new quilts already.

You also may have noticed that my list of current projects expanded. I decided that in the interest of full disclosure I would list every quilt that is under construction in my house (not the garage yet). I kept going back and forth about whether to put things that were just awaiting quilting or only quilts I was actively working on. It seemed inaccurate the way I was doing it, so I just went to my sewing room and found them all, wrote them all down, and gave them pseudo-names (which may be changed at any future point, some of them). All right. It has been a while since I blogged, so apparently I had a lot to say. Hoping to have more to show on a regular basis. Have a great day!

P.S. I cannot get blogger to allow paragraph breaks. I have no idea how to adjust my settings to fix this. If anyone knows, I would appreciate the help. It's obnoxious to have this huge pile of paragraphs together. Thanks!

All evidence to the contrary . . .

This quilt actually got finished Thanksgiving morning, but I was giving it to my SIL that day and it was a mad dash out the door. There was also a double-sided flannel blanket that went with it. I finished that too, but alas, there is no pictorial evidence.

You're just going to have to trust me on this one. I'm trustworthy.

As an aside, I used a new-to-me technique on this for which I can take absolutely no credit. You know I steal all my ideas from others, right? Okay, okay. The pattern of this quilt was mine, but the construction, the applique was from this website. Isn't her stuff amazing?!

Applique Sunflowers

I was on a huge applique kick (and sunflower kick, for that matter) a few years back. I started many projects (shocker!) that took a long time. I have been working on this one for about 6 years. There are 64 hand-appliqued sunflowers -- all from scraps. I finally finished the applique on the very last one last week. Hee hee, I'm so excited about this! Now I just have to put the blocks together. I hope I still like this quilt when it's done. I also went through a phase where I did a bunch of yellow, red, and green quilts. Here's to finishing REALLY old UFOs. I'm so proud. It's only a milestone, but it was the biggest portion of it.

DQS7

Look at this beautiful quilt that I got from DQS7! Thanks to Sara Homeyer who sent it to me. She also sent me a load of other goodies -- including the scraps. I love batiks and have been slowly collecting them.

Look at all the intricate work she did -- both front and back. I can't believe all the tiny pieces she stitched together. I just love this! Thanks, Sara!

Now, here is my finished quilt for DQS7. I can't say who it's going to, because I just mailed it yesterday (right under the buzzer -- procrastinator, me).

She said she liked bright, funky fabrics and geometric blocks. I think this qualifies. Don't you? I only quilted on the white, because I wanted the dots to pop. You can kind of see that in the picture of the back.

I used clear plastic thread to zig zag it on. First time for that. Usually I do hand-applique. I love applique quilts and am so drawn to them, but I never seem to finish, because they are so time-consuming. I have multiple applique quilts that are not yet finished because of how long it takes. Maybe I need to do more machining. Hmm . . .

DQS7 peek

Fear not. It's farther along than this. It's actually finished and ready to ship -- well, it needs the label still. I hope my swap buddy likes it, because otherwise, I'm going to want it back. I love it so much!

Applique Hearts

So I saw a little snippet of a picture on an ad in a quilt magazine (wow, LOTS of prepositional phrases there) of a quilt kind of like this. Now, I am still on a fabric fast (although, thanks to Jill I was able to break that fast with no injury to my bank account), so for this quilt I just dug into my stash. I had some Shangri-La (by Moda) and some Anticipation (old Sandy Gervais for Moda) that matched perfectly. I also used a piece of pale pink flannel that I had left over from making somebody pajamas a number of Christmases ago and a couple of red fat quarters from Joann's. Don't know who made them. Probably going to regret that because of the fading factor, but I always remember that in hindsight. The squares are 15 1/2 inches cut. I just freehanded the heart on a piece of 12x12 chipboard that was the front cover to a paper pack. I did the large one, and then cut the smaller one out of the middle of the larger one, so I only had to use one template for both. I just machine appliqued them -- little zigzag. There are actually 12 squares altogether, so 3x4, and then I will put sashing in between and a couple of borders to make it into a throw-size quilt. I'll give finished dimensions when it's . . . well, finished. This is a fast, simple quilt. I typically do such complex quilts that they never get done (see my lengthy current projects list), so I'm trying to change that.

Now, on this quilt I did trim the hearts out of the backs of the large hearts and used some of them to cut out the smaller hearts. The rest of the small hearts that I didn't do on the front I am saving to applique onto the back of the quilt. It just seemed like such a lot of fabric (and fabric that I LOVE, too!) to waste in layering. I know you're supposed to trim out the back on applique, but I'm so random with when I do and don't. This time I did.

This is my favorite one, I think. Enough contrast, but mostly subtle blending. I just love it!

My three quilts

These are the three quilts that hang over my various couches that my children use to snuggle under while watching TV. They don't remotely match each other, nor do they match any of my furniture. It doesn't really matter, though. They still keep us warm, and they're soft -- which my children vow is the most important thing. The first is a Wrapping Paper quilt from the Chez Moi fabric and some Moda chenille. I machine quilted it with various stitches on my regular, old, non-quilting machine.

Next is my Raggy Roses quilt. I used the leftover scraps of my Paris Flea Market (3 Sisters for Moda) fabric to make the roses, just put on regular, unbleached muslin. I machine appliqued the layers, leaving the unfinished edges so that I could get the raggy look. I washed and dried this quilt twice. It will get more raggedy as I wash it more often.

This last one is a quilt that was designed by Peggy Waltman (Hopskotch Designs). Truthfully, I just saw it in an ad in a quilt magazine and figured out the design myself, so it may not be exact. The flowers ended up to be more star-shaped than flower-shaped, and I think the green appliqued edge was supposed to be more rounded than triangular to match the flowers. I'm not great at applique. I'm still learning, so I didn't do so hot on getting it perfect. I do love the colors, though. I had gone through a green/red/yellow phase for a while there. I pieced this a long time ago, but it took me till just a few months ago to finish quilting it. The right-hand side shows the back -- a black and white floral. I didn't have quite enough of that piece (it was given to me by a friend), so I put a strip of red along the two opposite sides to make it fit the front. I'm afraid I do that alot, because when I buy fabric, I don't always have a plan for it.

Peggy Waltman says that the quilting design is as important as the design of the overall quilt and to not be afraid to make your quilting fun too. So for this one I did A LOT of quilting -- A LOT. I echo-quilted the flowers. However, I changed thread colors for each layer of the applique to match the color of the fabric. Hence, the back is sort of a kaleidoscope of color. On the white/black flower border, I echo-quilted the green zig-zag edging.