Baby Quilt for July Newborn & Downton Abbey

I probably have more unfinished quilts than anyone in the WORLD!  I guess that is partly because I contract out to quilt individual quilt tops but don't want to put my own down.  This time I have a post of both:  a new baby quilt I just finished and a new Downton Abbey quilt just brought for quilting.

It is so exciting to finally have a baby girl in the extended family so I can quilt a GIRL quilt.  And quilt I will.  She is scheduled to arrive July 4th, but we all know how THAT goes.  So this one will be a priority to get quilted.  I used the My Sunshine line by Riley Blake and absolutely love it.  This little girl will be getting PINK!

AND, this Downton Abbey quilt was just brought to me.  It is quite beautiful; the owner  is an amateur movie maker and is planning to complete a documentary on the program and the fabric line and tie it together with a historical theme.  She is also considering entering this quilt in a quilt show.  So I will not be moving fast on this one:  "awesome quilting" will be my focus.  First steps will be to do some stitching in the block ditches to make sure everything lays flat.  I hope to get this one sandwiched this afternoon.

I will be linking up this week over at myquiltinfatuation.blogspot.com today and crazymomquilts.blogspot.com on Friday.  Join me for some great blogs!

Africa Quilt #2

Today's Fabulous Friday Finish is an "almost".  I worked hard and have one block left to quilt so I decided to end my afternoon with a post.  I love this quilt.  Again, I tend to think too hard on the quilting and it is certainly "quilted" but I really like it.  This is Grandma's quilt for her new adopted boys from Africa.  We are praying they will be home soon.  The process sounds like quite an ordeal.  So.......:

The primary colors are just awesome!  Love it! As usual, the complete quilt is difficult to see so I have included some close ups of each block. 

The blue block done with small loops:

The green block quilted with swirls:

The orange block and swiggles:

And the red block with  some modern triangles:

The border is simple but cute and ties in with the fabric:

I have one red block to complete and I will be ready to lay out the Downton Abbey quilt for sandwiching.  More on that next week.  Have a most glorious weekend and if you have kids, enjoy every moment with them.

p.s.  The bid was great!  I will be getting the cabinet for my stash fabric soon!  (see my previous post)

A gift from a friend, a sneak peek and my fabric stash!

I was so touched recently by a gift that came in the mail from just out of the blue.  Our church hosts a Bible School for young people each year and I had met a delightful and beautiful young lady who lives in another area of the state.  We have had just a small amount of contact over the past year but this recently showed up on my doorstep:

I was so incredibly blessed and encouraged.  All are fat quarters and there are two of each except for the light color, of which there is one.  This is absolutely gorgeous fabric.  I hope to communicate more with her in the future.   She is such an encouragement to me.  So I need suggestions on how I should put this lovely fabric to use.  All total there are two yards and a fat quarter.  I would love your suggestions.  

I haven't finished a project this week but I am making progress on the second quilt for the young boys from Africa.  Here is another peek:

You can see the first peek on my previous post.

And finally, I can't wait!  After remodeling my quilting studio, I still had one area with which I was not pleased.  I'll bet you can guess.  Most of us seem to struggle with this area:

Indeed.  My fabric stash.  I would love to have this in a nice cabinet, slightly larger than what I now have.  When I was brainstorming in the stores a couple of evenings ago with my family, we ran into a couple who are starting a carpentry business.  They attend a Christ-Centered 12-step group taught by my husband and are a super couple.  So they came by last night to get the dimension and give me a price.  We are planning something about 31" wide, 15" deep and as high as that closet it will stand beside.  I can't wait; what a blessing!

Have a great Wednesday!  I will be headed over to help some young ladies sew this afternoon.

Quilts for boys from Africa

For the first time I can say I have a fabulous fantastic finish for Friday!  Not just a tongue twister but a pretty tricky thing for me to do with quilting as well.  However, this week's finish is actually not mine, it is for the grandmother of two young boys being adopted from Africa.  She has made them each wonderfully fun quilts for this Christmas.  I don't think there is any danger of them checking my blog so she was comfortable with me showing them.  So here is one complete done in a block style:

It's a little hard to see but I don't have a place to hang it up inside, no one is home besides me, and I don't want to take a photo outside right now:

So here are some close-ups.  I quilted each block separately as it did not seem to lend itself to allover quilting.  They are still hard to see but I did loops, circles, wishbone, ribbon candy, dot & dash and even just followed the diagonal lines on the multicolor rectangle and square just below.  The blue sashing is all done in swiggles and there was a LOT.  

The back is the bicycles and it is pretty busy so I didn't take a photo of it.  This quilt is just plain fun and it was fun to quilt too!

I am working on the second now but here is a preview of one block:

It may take longer than expected but I like the results.  Have a happy Friday!

Rebecca the String Quilt

I finished my string quilt with the line "Rebecca" by Mary Koval for Wyndham Fabrics!  I purchased the jelly roll  and a background jelly roll  as daily specials but then ordered a tiny bit more of the Rebecca fabric line for the blocks, and some yardage for the border and a backing.  I often piece my backing but the purple was on sale so cheap, and I just LOVE purple, that I bought it to match although I did have to piece in some scraps to make it large enough.

The quilt consists of 36 blocks, each 10" square and each is string pieced:

Check out missouriquiltco.com or youtube.com for the tutorial.  I added a 1" finished inner border of the deep purple and a 5" finished border of the burgundy.

I had to make something up for the cornerstones as I was about out of useable fabric.  So two corners are a simple square.  Love this floral!

And the other two are half-square triangles within a border.  I had to take small triangles cut off from the string piecing and sew them together.  I had just enough of this floral to surround them:

For the quilting, I think this one is screaming feathers!

I just love the fabrics in this quilt; they match my living room sofa!

I am just about finished with a quilt for one of two adopted boys coming to their forever home from Africa.  Hope to start the second this week! Can't wait to show you; they are cute as a button!

Mondo Bag & Placemats!

I spent this past Wednesday morning with my friend Kelly finishing our Mondo Bags.  It's great!  I carried everything I needed for Quilt Club in it this past Friday afternoon.  What a fun bag to make; I think I may make another.  And it was great fun to do with a friend.  I am not great at bags so I usually do some twists on the second one but leave the first in line with the pattern.  I used a jelly roll for the bag and handles but yardage for the lining.

With the left over jellyroll strips, I made these:

four strip pieced placemats.  The fabric line was Floribunda by Moda.  Since it was strip pieced using a paper piecing or quilt as you go technique, I didn't need to do any quilting,  but it was nice to spice them up with some decorative stitches from "My Nina".  So I alternated these stitches on each strip, right down the middle, using the same designs on each placemat.

The backing was a leafy design that came from my stash:

When it came to the binding, "easy"was the word that came to mind.  So I found another decorative stitch that would cover both sides of the binding so I was sure it would catch.  I think this turned out great:

So in summary, from one jellyroll (plus lining and backing fabric) this week I now have one Mondo bag and four lovely placemats to protect my pretty wood dining room table.  I am very pleased!  Time to get those placemats washed!!!

Customer Baby Quilt

Just finished quilting this adorable baby quilt made by Kelly.  It is sooooo precious!  Here a picture before quilting:

A simple panel but the pieced border really added to it.

So the first thing I did was to free motion embroider the new arrival's name and date of birth. Here is just a bit of the embroider:

I didn't take a picture of the date but here are some stars I put beside the date:

So now for how I quilted the panel.  Oh my goodness these were cute:

I treated the panel like it was pieced blocks and stitched around the perimeter of each block.  Then, most of the time, I outlined the large items in the block.  For the most part that was the bunnies.  Then I quilted around the bunnies.

I added a little texture to the washing bucket:

This block was a little harder to decide what to do so I just outlined everything and then added some tendrils on the left and right.

This was probably the most fun block to become creative on.  I had fun with the little purse (bed).

And finally, the borders:

That's it for this time.  Be sure to take time to think about eternity this week and realize some of the people you see today may not be around next week.  Do they know Jesus as LORD?  Where will they spend eternity?  Those questions have hit home again this week.  Time is short and people matter.  Have a most blessed week and enjoy every moment of it.