Gray and Yellow Brick Road

I completed this quilt in December or January but never got around to posting about it. I had several fat quarters of some beautiful gray and yellow prints that I combined with the lovely Lotta Jansdotter Echo fabric bundles I purchased during a trip to purl soho in New York City. I wanted a pattern that would be fairly quick to put together (I had several other big projects I was working on) and would show off the Echo prints so I chose to make a Yellow Brick Road. I loved how it turned out.

Cancun Sunset #1 and #2

I have a dear friend who has always admired my quilts. In fact, she bought my Charmed Stars quilt that I donated to a silent auction and it's now hanging in her daughter's room. When she moved in to a new house two years ago, I promised to make her something for her guest bedroom; she wanted a wall hanging to match the room's new bedspread and pillows. But time got the best of me and it took over a year for me to get back with her about the quilt. By the time I did, she had moved on from her new guest bedroom colors and decided she wanted something for her living room.

Our deal... She continued to insist that she pay me for whatever creation I made her. I cut her a deal instead, saying that if she bought the fabric, I would give her the labor for free. (Some people will go to great lengths to increase their stash!) I suggested she look at my Pinterest Quilt board to pick out a few that she liked. She poured through the pins and even had her husband look through them. They found a few they liked but there was one in particular that they were drawn to. Of course, it happened to be the most beautiful, and most difficult, quilt she could have picked:

This quilt is gorgeous, isn't it? It is a work of art, containing hundreds of hand dyed pieces. I decided to go for it; deciding I could imitate the effect with several different batik cuts. I had no batik's in my stash but I've been wanting to make a batik quilt for quite some time. This was the perfect excuse. I told her I couldn't replicate the quilt but it would serve as inspiration for whatever I made for her.

The improvisational piecing didn't really worry me. I used the method I came up with for my Starburst quilt which basically means putting together a bunch of wonky blocks and laying them out and making more blocks to go in between. 

It takes a long time and it requires a lot of re-arranging and cutting and sewing. And the layouts vary based on the mood I'm in. But it's always fun and interesting. So I really enjoyed the process.

The photo above is version 1 of this quilt. That's right, I made two different versions. After finishing the version #1, I wasn't completely satisfied with the end result. It was a beautiful quilt but it didn't follow the pattern of the original inspiration. The yellow sort of ebbed and flowed throughout instead of making a line through the quilt with the blue along the edges. And since I had so much fabric left over, I decided to try again, thinking I would let my friend pick her favorite and I would keep the other one.

Here is version #2.

I did some very heavy quilting in it.

Version #2 ended up looking closer to the original quilt but my friend liked version #1 better so that's the one she picked. She made a great choice - it was my favorite too. Cancun Sunset #2 is still awesome though and it's currently in my sewing room waiting to be hung up. 

I'm so glad I challenged myself with these quilts. I spent hours and hours on them but I love the way they turned out. It will be a while before I tackle such an ambitious project again but I can't imagine making another quilt that is as beautiful as these.

Here is the photo of Cancun Sunset #1, hanging in my friends living room. It's beautiful, eh?

Covered in Threads Quilt Camp

I usually spend a weekend in January at Quilt Camp at Camp Tecumseh. I've done this nearly every year since I started quilting in 1999. This year, my guild decided to forgo Camp T and organize our own weekend instead. Some of us have had trouble getting in to Camp T (the camp fills up fast!) and others didn't want to spend the money. Instead, Betty, one of our members, invited us all to her house for the weekend. We had 13 quilters!

I meant to get a photo of everyone working but I forgot to do that. I did snap a picture early on Saturday morning before the work room got too busy. There were sewing machines, irons, and cutting mats set up everywhere.

Betty lives in a house overlooks the city and she has some gorgeous views from the work room. 

Our guild challenge in 2012 was to create a quilt made entirely of solid fabrics. I loved this challenge and in the end, most others did too. We all brought our finished (and almost finished) projects for show and tell. Some people even made a second quilt top for the back.

All the projects were awesome and I loved seeing everyone's creativity. We've done other challenges before but this was my favorite. Once, we all made blocks with white and black fabrics and then we exchanged them so that we had about 20 different blocks. Everyone put their blocks together differently. (Someday I'll finish that project. The top is done, I just need to quilt and layer it!) Another year, people were assigned a month and could decide what kind of block they wanted the rest of the group to make. That's the year I received a bunch of blue and lime green blocks that I put together for my blimey quilt.

Over the quilt weekend, we also decided on our next project. We made a list of suggestions and then everyone voted for their top two.

Third place was a quilt using hues of two different colors. Second place was a string quilt using foundation backing. And the winner..... a polka dot quilt. We've decided that our 2013 quilt will feature polka dot fabric. I can't wait to see what everyone comes up.

Uptown Stripes

I saw this quilt pattern in a McCall's quilting magazine that I was skimming through one day. I don't generally buy quilting magazines and I didn't buy this one but I instantly regretted it. It had three patterns I was liked and I thought I would remember them and make them up on my own. Yeah, I'm too cheap. Uptown Strips was the only pattern I remembered. So I began collecting striped fabric and voila!

This is another quilt that I'll be donating. I don't love it because of the difference in values with some of the fabrics I chose. Some quilters would have left those high value blocks out but I thought they would tone down a bit once it was quilted. That didn't happen. I think I'll continue to collect striped fabric to make a bigger quilt like this in the future. But for now, it's also being donated to the silent auction at work. I'm curious to see what the bidding will look like between the two donated quilts.

I do love the back!

Charmed Stars

I purchased a charm pack of a Moda line that I can't remember the name of. I loved the bright colors and it just so happened that a friend gave me a coordinating jelly roll as a birthday present. I used both to make this:

It's so bright and colorful but I wasn't sure what to do with it. It would be a perfect baby quilt for a girl (the back has a lot of lime green and pink) but I don't have any baby girls to quilt for in the foreseeable future. So I've decided to donate this quilt to a silent auction being held at work. Funds will be used to help employee families in need.

I have so many quilts piled up around my house that I'm actually starting to feel guilty about starting new projects. So I've decided to give away some of the less desireable quilts I have. I'm also going to take several of the bed size quilts to our families lake home this weekend. We need more blankets at the Lake and I have lots of quilts to share. They'll stay in the family and I won't have to look at them and feel guilty.

A Solids Challenge

Last February, the Cover in Threads Quilt Guild decided the 2012 guild challenge would focus on solids fabrics. The challenge rules said that we had to construct a quilt entirely out of solids; no prints allowed. There were no size, pattern, or shape restrictions.

 

I LOVED this challenge. It's been my favorite to date. When it was decided I had a pattern in mind, something I'd seen on Pinterest. I considered a few other options but my original pick stayed as my top choice. Below is the result:

I love how the back turned out too. I think it can hold it's own as a top and that's how it's currently on my bed.

I have seen a few other quilts from the challenge and they're all fabulous. I can't wait until we get together again so that we can do a guild wide show and tell.

Traditions Quilt

Another finish! I have been working on this quilt for months. It was made for a friend who so generously gives me IU basketball tickets to games she doesn't want to attend. She won't let me pay her and I've been trying to figure out how to reciprocate in some way. While at her home one day, I noticed a wall with clamps to hold a quilt. I mentioned them to her and she didn't realize what their purpose was. She was excited to finally figure it out. I immediately decided to make her a quilt; she asked that I match her decor and use a traditional block.

The traditional block was hard for me. My quilts usually have a contemporary twist to them. So while I didn't enjoy the process and the colors weren't my favorite, I looked forward to finishing this quilt for my friend.