Christmas gift- Jai's guitar quilt

For Christmas gifts for my sister's grandchildren I made quilts.  The 2 little girls are 7 and got everything in the toy store from Santa, so I made them cute little flower quilts they could use to take a nap (Ha).  My sister's grandson is 14.  He plays the guitar and loves to hunt deer.  His quilt is guitars (and other musical instruments) on the front.

And on the back, camo fabric

He loved it!  And we put it to good use.  As it began to get dark on Christmas night we decided to all sleep over and have a slumber party!  It was so much fun.  Happy Holidays All!

Santa's Elf

I feel like one of Santa's elves on a treadmill.  Why oh why did I decide to give so many quilty items as Christmas gifts?  I've been busy the past few months making wall hanging, placemats, napkins, casserole carriers, wine gift bags, etc. for the church Christmas bazar.  It was over yesterday.  Now on to the projects for family Christmas gifts.  Oh, but I did accept a commission from one of my fellow Sunday school teachers to make a t-shirt quilt for her husband for a Christmas gift.  Did I tell you I got so excited she asked me that it never occurred to me to say no?  Thank God I am off of work until January 12.  Now, if only I can make it to December 25- then I can rest. 

Anyway, here is Aaron's t-shirt quilt.  I just finished the top.  Now to the back and quilting it.  I've never quilted a t-shirt quilt on my domestic machine, so keeping my fingers crossed all goes well. 

 

I just got back from the French bakery where I picked up a baguette.  I love the sign on the wall that says "Look Busy.  Jesus is Coming".  No problem with that here!

Gooseberry Garden

I was looking for a quilt pattern that had a center medallion that could pass as a cross.  I came across this one by Judy Niemeyer called Gooseberry Garden. 

The only problem is that it is 48" X 48" and I want a bed size quilt.  So, I am adding borders.  This is the first  few borders- the tan and then 4 patches.

Today I am working on flying geese for the next layer.  Almost finished those.

Then there will be another border of tan followed by half-square triangles.  The last wide border will be the cream color onto which I will applique the vines, leaves and flowers that are on the center of the quilt on the pattern.  If my measurements end up accurate, the final quilt will measure 105" X 105".  Obviously this one will take a while to get the applique done. 

Wild Women Don't Get the Blues

This is my version of Wild Women Don't Get the Blues.  I took this class with Karen Stone in January 2012 at a GSQA workshop in Pensacola, FL.  I tried to go with the predominant colors of pink and black, but, I also added in blue, yellow, lime green, etc.  It is all paper pieced.  It is 42 blocks total.  Just needs a little long-arming! 

Effervescent Pineapple

I finished my pineapple quilt.  I took the Trash to Treasures class with Gyleen Fitzgerald in March at the GSQA seminar in Baton Rouge.  I made 42 pineapple blocks and completed it with borders from Robert Kaufman's Effervescence fabric I got at my LQS.  It's hard to see in this picture, but the border on the top and bottom are the border fabric.  The sides are a 3" narrower border suggested by Gyleen.  It's not borders as above, it's just bubbles on black background fabric.  Ready for the longarmer now!

Spiritual Tree of Life

This is what I call Spiritual Tree of Life.  I saw a picture of one in a magazine several years ago and adapted it my life.  The leaves are aspects of life that are part of my spirituality.  I machine quilted it on my domestic machine. I hand embroidered the words on the leaves.  The rest of it went together in a weekend.

Leader & Ender String Blocks

I am still working on my paper pieced pieces for the Wild Women Don't Get the Blues quilt blocks.  This takes so much longer than I expected.  I keep telling myself I should have gone for a wall hanging!  Truth is that I think I'm bored with it and haven't seemed to find the time to work too much on it.  Anyway, I have used the Bonnie Hunter philosophy of leaders and enders to make string blocks.  I will need 42 of them for a quilt and I suspect I will have that done by the time I finish the Wild Women Don't Get the Blues blocks done!  The string blocks will be made into a throw size quilt and machine quilted.  It will be a donation quilt.  I can't believe it has hardly made a dent in my string stash!  So, I guess I'll start on another one as a leader and ender.

Quick Baby Quilt

I needed a quick baby quilt for my niece's baby shower next Saturday.  She's having a baby girl and is so excited.  I found a pattern in a McCall's Modern quilting publication.  You sew 3 1/2" strips to the batting and backing together diagonally.  Here is the result!

I used scraps and cut 3 1/2" strips off of fabric in my stash.  When I look at the sample in the publication it has all different width strips.  However, probably for the ease of directions, they went with 3 1/2" strips.  It was so easy.  Within a few hours I had a finished quilt- except to sew the binding. 

Wild Women Don't Get the Blues

Back in January 2012 I took a workshop with Karen Stone for a quilt titled "Wild Women Don't Get the Blues!"  This is Karen's quilt:

Each block has 4 pieces that are paper-pieced.  Yes, I love paper piecing.  I just love getting those perfect points without struggling.  While Karen's quilt features a lot of autumn colors, I prefer brights.  I am focusing on black and pink as my main colors.  Here is one of the blocks I am working on:

My quilt will be larger than Karen's- throw size or so- 70 X 80.  I will need 56 blocks.  That comes to 224 of these paper-pieced units.  I think I will be working on this for the next few weeks!

Trash to Treasures Pineapple Quilt

 

Last weekend I took a class at the GSQA seminar.  The class was on the pineapple quilt- Gyleen Fitzgerald's version called Trash to Treasure.  She has a book by the same name and a tool that makes the pineapple block so easy.  I can't imagine making a pineapple quilt without this tool!  You can see my border fabric on the left.  This is the border on a fabric by Robert Kaufmann called Effervesence.  I'll use this for the top and bottom borders.  On the sides Gyleen suggested a small 3" border of the bubbles portion of the fabric.  Sounds good to me!  And what a way to use up scraps!  Just love this block. 

Vintage

I ran into a friend in my LQS, Mes Amis.  She was gathering Kaffe Fassett fabric to make this quilt.  Well, I just had to have one!  It is the perfect quilt to put at the end of the bed in the summer and pull up over you when the AC gets chilly.  It is all Kaffe fabrics and I just love it!  Lots of 9 patches and half-square triangles.  The pattern is in the Kaffe book Quilts in Sweeden and is called Vintage.

Easy Street is Done!

Easy Street is done!  I finished it yesterday.  Here it is.

Too big for me to hold up by myself for a picture.  I added borders which you couldn't see in the picture above..

Love the name Easy Street and since I live in the Big Easy (New Orleans) I used as many New Orleans prints as I could- fleur de lis, jazz cats, music notes, Mardi Gras crowns, etc. as you can see in this picture.

So glad this one is done!  It is a big one.  It measures 100 X 100!