Thirty-six!

Tomorrow is my 36th birthday!

Earlier this year, Amanda Jean from Crazy Mom Quilts had a quilt-along.  She was making a 36-patch quilt because she was turning 36 this year.  I had never participated in a quilt-along but thought this would be so much fun.  I decided to join her and all the others in this 36-patch quilt-along.  My goals were to make a quilt "just for me!" and to finish it before my birthday. 

I did it!!

I used some orange fat-quarters that my mom had given me a few years ago (my favorite color!), and paired them up with some Ricky Tims Convergence fabrics.

It is the very first quilt I quilt myself on the long-arm.

I used a pantograph pattern called Halcyon.

As I have mentioned here, I am a perfectionist.  I must say though that I am quite happy with the finished product.  The more I look at it, the happier I am, and proud to say that I made it ALL myself!

I am happy to say this is MY quilt!

Someone decided to help me take pictures!

I am linking up to TGIFF!  Please head over to Life Under Quilts to see some other great finishes on this last Friday of 2011!

Merry Christmas!

In the last minute rush of things, I finished these mug rugs.

Aren't they cute!

A little smaller than I usually make mug rugs but they turned out great anyways, and my friends seemed really happy with them!

I added some decorative stitches along the borders and cross-hatched the center with invisible thread.

May your Holiday be filled with Joy!!  

(I just had to share this picture of our girls!)

TGIFF - Teacher's Gifts!

I have been showing you sneak peeks of the wall hangings I made for the teachers here and here.  

TA DA!!!  I am happy to say they are done!

They were machine pieced and machine appliqued using a button hole stitch and black thread.

All that's left is to make a small label for each of them.

I am really happy with them!

And thrilled they are done ahead of time!

The patterns are from the Be Attitudes book by Art to Heart.  I love this book and will definitely be making more of these mini-quilts.  They are the perfect little gift!

I am linking up to TGIFF which is hosted by M-R over at Quilt Matters this week.  Feel free to go check out some other great finishes!!  

p.s. M-R is also having a giveaway which is definitely worth checking out! 

A Finish, but not a quilt...

Unfortunately I got hit with a nasty, nasty cold a couple of weeks ago so no quilting got done.  I have had a lot of trouble getting back into my sewing room actually.  Last weekend my husband finally put up my design wall for me and some small bins I bought at Ikea to help organize my sewing room, however, I was called in to work 3 days this week (I do substitute work for the EAs at my girls' school).  No sewing... :(

I have managed to finish reading Jennifer Chiaverini's latest book though: The Wedding Quilt. 

I was lying on the couch, coughing my head off, one night, I thought it would be great to have The Wedding Quilt and get started on it.  I didn't really feel like heading off to the book store to get it though.  Luckily, my husband has a Kindle e-reader.  I kindly asked him if I could borrow it.  He got the book and within 5 minutes I was reading, didn't even have to get in the car!  I think I can definitely get use to that!  

I absolutely love Jennifer's books.  I get so involved and really want to go to Elm Creek Quilts.  It's really too bad it is a fictional place.  If you haven't read her books, I highly recommend them!  

I am off to embroider some labels now!

I am linking up to TGIFF over at Quokka Quilts.  Head on over and check out some great finishes!!

A Challenge - TGIFF

Just over a year ago, my quilt group had a paper bag challenge.

We each had to put a total of a meter of fabric in a paper bag.

We then brought our paper bag to one of our meetings and each pulled one of the bags out of a box.

My bag had a half meter of a black batik with rust colored maple leaves on it, as well as 2 fat quarters of coordinating batiks.

I had quite a few scraps of batiks that would go with the fabrics from my bag.  So I started looking through my books and magazines for a pattern.

I found this pattern in the book Charmed and Dangerous by Heather Mulder Peterson.  

And so was born my Batik Star.

You can see that I used the black batik with maple leaves as the inner border, and points for the star.

My mom did some amazing custom quilting on it.

My mom's feathers are gorgeous!

I love those little pebbles and asked her to use those for the background filler.  Isn't it effective?

And here it is in our living room! 

I am SO pleased with this wallhanging!!  Thank you Cheryl for the lovely fabric!

I am linking up to TGIFF.  Please go check out other fabulous Friday finishes.

Catching up!

I've been trying to catch up on some quilting projects this past week.  Didn't get any quilting done the first week of November as I was working all week and preparing the big Pirate birthday party for my now 6 year old daughter.

It was really nice to get to sit at my sewing machine and get back at it.

With all the UFOs or WIPs I have, you would think the last thing on my mind is starting something new, but, my quilting group is planning an exchange in January so I am starting to work on that.  We will be exchanging strips... anything from 11/4" to 2 1/2" in width.  The plan is to make a "Garbage Quilt".  My grandmother will be giving us a demo on this quilt next week.  She has made a few of them.  It is basically a scrap quilt where you sew strips diagonally to a foundation piece.  I will post more about it as time goes on but for now, here is the small pile of strips I have cut out so far.

There are 6 members in our group so I have to fill 6 large ziploc bags with strips... still have a long way to go!

I also worked on the Christmas gifts for the teachers.  Just a sneak peek of these.

They only need embellishments and labels.  Almost done!!

I also attended a Guild meeting last Tuesday.  I hadn't been yet this year.  I had planned to sign up for this year's challenge but thought for sure there wouldn't be any kits left.  Surprise!!  There was one left!  

This is what was inside!

The theme is "All Creatures Big or Small".  I have to use various techniques to make a wallhanging or wheelchair quilt, and include these 4 fabrics in the top of my project.  After a LOT of surfing on the net and discussing with my husband and mother, I think I have an idea of what I would like to do.  I am actually pretty excited about it.  I need to start drawing it out soon as I would like to do most of it by hand.

So that's what I have been up to!  Think I will head up to my sewing room and cut more strips!

Happy Halloween!

Have a safe and happy Halloween everyone!!

Baby quilt

I love making baby quilts!!

 This one was a lot of fun.  It was the first time I used such a modern pattern.  I really enjoyed making the blocks.

I got the pattern here, and will definitely make this quilt again!!

Of course, we can't forget the label!!

We will be delivering this quilt to baby Eva very soon.  I can't wait to see her!!

 I have linked up to TGIFF!  Please head on over and check out some other fab finishes on this terrific Friday!!

Miss Perfect...

I am known in my family as being a perfectionist.  If I try something and don't get it perfect the first time, that's it, I don't do it again.

I have tried machine quilting before.  I took a course for machine quilting on my domestic machine.  I really like stitching in the ditch or doing straight lines where I can use my walking foot. When using the free motion foot, I couldn't get the stitch length even and couldn't get the curves down.  So I don't do free motion quilting.

My mom has a long arm quilting machine.  She has been quilting with it for 12 years now.  She has been bugging asking me to try it for years.  I did give it a go when she first got her Gammill.  I did one row of apples.  Let me tell you, they were some pretty square apples!!  

So of course you can guess, being a perfectionist, I didn't want to touch the machine again... until today!

While reading all of these blogs where people talk about doing machine quilting, I decided I should give the Gammill another try.  After all, I am so lucky to have this machine at my disposal, and for free!  

I made a quilt this past summer (for me!) and decided I should try quilting it myself.  Of course, I needed to practice first!

So, today was the day!  We had this charity quilt that needed to be quilted.  What better to practice something new!

As you can probably tell, I am not too thrilled with my work.  After the first row it was very difficult for me to keep going, but I did!  I did the whole quilt myself!

To be honest, I didn't really enjoy it.  It was very difficult for me to deal with the emotions I was feeling. Part of me really wants to do this, but the perfectionist in me says, you can't do it right, so just get mom to do it for you.  I was mad and frustrated with myself because I didn't have fun and I wanted to quit.  

I am really happy I finished the little quilt though and didn't give up.

I will quilt on the long arm again... I just need a little more practice and lots of time...

10 years!!

10 years ago I married my Prince Charming!  I swear it feels like only yesterday.

We have made so many memories already and I really can't wait to see what the future holds for us.

10 years ago, quilting was already a very important part of my life.

We had a quilt hanging at our wedding reception.  It was a maple leaf lap quilt that I made.  Unfortunately I need to scan the pictures of it, so hopefully I can post them at a later date to show you.

The quilt pictured in the header for my blog was my gift to my husband on our wedding day.  It is a rail fence quilt made of beautiful fall fabrics.  My mom helped me finish it on time!

We also had people sign quilt blocks, in lieu of a guest book.

I love scrap quilts so my mom and I made up some signature blocks out of muslin and scraps.

We asked everyone to write us a message and sign a block that would eventually become part of a quilt.

Everyone had a very special message for us.

Now this quilt sits on a quilt rack in our room.

I take it off the rack every year and we like to read the messages and remember how much fun we had on October 13th, 2001, with all of our closest friends and family.

Happy Anniversary Marty!  Here's to many more years of wedded bliss, and quilting too!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I have been busy since my last post with the family, work and a little bit of quilting.  

I helped finish Catherine's quilt so that she could have it this weekend.  It is a gift for a friend.  I forgot to take pictures of our masterpiece but she promised to take some of the quilt with its rightful owner!

I have also been working on these little projects...

That's a sneak peek at the gifts I am making for the teachers for Christmas.

It is Thanksgiving weekend here.  This is one of my favorite holidays.  It's a great time to be with family and spend time together.

Hope you all enjoy a wonderful weekend too!!

Sharing!

I am so excited that I got to teach a friend how to quilt this past weekend.

I made Catherine a quilt over 10 years ago.  This blue and white log cabin. 

That's her son when he was just a baby (he's now 5!).

She asked my mom and I a few times this summer if we thought she could learn to quilt.  We told her we knew she could do it.  But no plans were made... until 2 weeks ago when she decided she would like a quilt for a certain someone and that she would like to help us make it.  

I have to say I was so excited at the idea of teaching one of my friends the ins and outs of my addiction passion! 

We met at my mom's and had so much fun!!  Catherine is a natural and really got bitten.  

She managed to finish the top of her quilt.  Because she is in a hurry to get this project done, my mom will be quilting it for her and I will be binding it.

We did send her home with a pile of magazines and she has already picked her next project... a new quilt for her!!  We are all looking forward to our next "quilting party".

Isn't fun to share?!

Farmer's Wife Sampler

Early this summer I looked up The Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt.  I was reading so much about it online and wanted to know what the big deal was.  I just loved it and thought it would be a great challenge.

I told my mom about it and she thought it was a great idea.  We then talked about it with some friends and three other ladies decided they wanted to join us in this project.  So we formed a little group and decided to meet and work on 2 blocks per week for the next year or so, until our quilts are done.  

This was our 3rd week so we have 6 blocks so far.

Here are my blocks.

These are Sue's.

These are Alice's (my mom!).

These are Elaine's.

And finally, here are Joan's.

We are having so much fun getting together every week and working on this project!  I am looking forward to sharing our Farmer's Wife adventures with you!