Crochet Roll Up

Sunday afternoon is the perfect time for napping with a good book or old movie OR for doing a quick easy project.. or both!  This past Sunday, I opted for the quick easy project followed by some fun time online soaking up ideas for an upcoming quilty adventure.

My son dates a rather crafty girl... she loves to do just about any craft at just about any time... the Internet time getting inspired was for a baby quilt she will be making soon. I am her teacher (oh my.. a bit like the blind leading the blind).. her hand-holder.. her enabler.. I have done my part to ensure another generation is addicted to fabric!  She is also a wonderful crocheter (crochetist? crochet-master? what do you call one who crochets?)

On Sunday she dove into the stash here and pulled out 2 purple fabrics (she had been eyeing them for a while) and with a bit of slicing, dicing and stitching.. Voila!  A Fabric Roll up to hold crochet hooks and some scissors was born.

Here is it all rolled up...

And here it is opened.. ignore the ugly ironing board cover (that has to be rectified soon!).. but do notice the pretty red fur under the ironing board.. that is Mac the Magnificent who had slipped into the room to look out the window and sigh as the world passed him by. LOL!

This was a fun, easy and quick project. You can find tutorials for making one of these or numerous other rolls (knitting needles, crayons, makeup brushes, toiletries etc.) online... do a quick search at your favorite search engine or look on pinterest!

"Belle"

Another top becomes a quilt...

The Mad Quilter (a.k.a. my hubby) continues his quest to turn all our seemingly abandoned quilt tops into quilts.. and he is get close. There are 3 that he wants to long-arm at some point. We don't have a machine. He uses one at a local LQS (sidenote: great shop with huge Internet business.. check it out.. Stitch-n-Frame )  Of course there are UFOs that will need to be quilted once they actually become completed tops, but he is determined to take care of those ready and waiting!

This is a scrappy top he made last year. The tiny little 4 patches are some I made of a mystery quilt. I have NO idea why I keep trying mystery quilts. I just never complete them. I get frustrated in the process. I like to at least have an idea in my head of the finished project. I often change things along the way, but I still have an idea of where I am going. Mystery quilts don't allow that luxury.

So he took those little four patches and other scraps and came up with a super scrappy super colorful top. I was not to keen on his choice of fabric for the final border (Also from the scrap box... forget where we got that bit of fabric.. garage sale I think).  He quilted it with some lime green thread... it was cute, but I was still not a fan of that border. Then he added that binding and wow.. I love it!  I have no idea what it is about that bright teal binding, but it just makes that border work for me. Go figure!

This is a very springy quilt to me... and it is lovely to curl up under with the pups and read or watch tv. I know.. I have already taking it for a test spin!

"Belle"

Springy Inspiration...

Right now the Snowman Faces wall hanging is ... well hanging on the wall. But it is 70+ degress here (supposed to hit 81 later this week!) and muggy and just not very wintery. I am ready to transition the house to SPRING (oh that cool Spring temps would come with the transition and stay a long while).  So I have been surfing the web (do we still call it surfing the web?) in search of inspiration and ideas for a Spring WallHanging.  Here are a few I have found..

LOVE these flowers...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lululollylegs/2475941994/

Or how about some birds.. I do love birds...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lululollylegs/2475941798/

Not sure this is truly springy, but my husband would love it!

http://www.generations-quilt-patterns.com/images/lets-all-spring-forward-21376092.jpg

Tulips would be nice...

http://quiltsoflove.blogspot.com/2008_04_01_archive.html

Or maybe we should skip the applique and just make a sinple pattern with amazing springy fabrics.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/30082999@N06/5486775990/

I love looking for ideas... seeing the creative juices flow through others... hope you do to!  

"Belle"

Quilty Happenings....

It has been a busy few weeks here.. lots of non-quilty things going on, but all that changed last week. Our son's girlfriend has a cousin expecting a baby in March (got that!?) and she wanted to make her a baby quilt. JJ (girlfriend) has made mugs rugs and pillows.. and she is quickly becoming the CrochetMaster, but this is her first endeavor with an actual quilt.. and I think she did a great job! She knew the nursery colors.. and she knew she wanted to do something with bunting on it... did a bit of web surfing and found several ideas.  Then we went fabric shopping!  We found the cutest birdie print that worked with the color scheme. added some great Kona Cotton solids.. came home .. cut, appliqued.. quilted.. and voila!  Here we are...

While JJ was quilting away, I decided baby, Eva, needed some bibs to match her quilt. So I snatched up the scraps and went to town....

The Mad Quilter (a.k.a. my sweet husband) had a long weekend. We have a closet with several finished tops and he is determined to get them sandwiched and quilt. So last weekend we sandwiched 2 and he quilted up a storm!

I made the top for this one. Saw a picture of a quilt on a blog and liked it. Could not find a pattern for it, so I decided to wing it. It turned out well. The fabrics are all scraps and such from my stash.  It is a bit country to me, but I still like it. The pups and I have tried it out and it scores high in the coziness factor!

This next one is a scrappy endeavor of hubs.  I love love love it!  We take these random tops.. use them.. but also have them ready to give away if they are needed. I don't know if I will let this one go!  I really love the binding.. especially against that outer border... and the back looks so cool too! I haven't tried it out yet... but hubs has and says it is great for couch sleeping!

And last but certainly not least...  I saw this quilt online also and fell madly in love with it. I am a total nut when it comes to anything with a snow / snowman theme.  This was a mutual labor of love... I pieced the face blocks, appliqued the noses, added the borders and embroidered them.. then hubs created and added that amazing flying geese border.  We sandwiched it and he did some basic in-the-ditch quilting and bound it.  I added the buttons for eyes and mouths (providing more "tacking" down on the top).  It is beyond cute, if I say so myself. And while it is the end of February and right now my husband and son are mowing the lawn and our azaleas are blooming, the Snowmen are smiling in our breakfast room reminding us that winter hasn't left quite yet!

"Belle"

Oh Boy!

Hubby pieced and quilted this for a special little boy born shortly before Christmas.  We made a quilt for his big brother a couple of years ago (http://thequiltingbelle.blogspot.com/2010/06/staying-in-from-heat.html).  So when Hubby started brain storming for this one, he decided to do something different, but a bit connected.  There are some of the same fabrics in each quilt and the thread used for quilting is the same (a great variegated thread in primary colors)... and while there are similarities in style, they are each very much their own.  I think this one looks like stained glass!

And the quilting on the back looks super!

Next stop for Hubs... UFO busting!  We have 6 tops that need to be quilted. He pulled out a top I made for the fun of it earlier this year. I saw a photo of a quilt.. thought it was neat.. decided to see if I could recreate it.  You can see the top here.. it's the 2nd quilt in the post http://thequiltingbelle.blogspot.com/2011/05/catching-up-in-blogville-part-4-all.html

And my next project (other than finishing up some embroidery on my Snowman Faces quilt), well.. here is a tiny hint..

"Belle"

What a Hoot!

Owls are the rage right now.. as they have been many times in the past. Last year my daughter asked me to whip up some bibs and burp cloths for a friend who was having a little girl. She mentioned that they loved owls.  I found the cutest fabric and ordered much more than I needed. Whipped up a bib and burp cloth and set the rest aside for future use.

Well that use arrived.  A sweet young couple in our church had baby #2 in Dec. When I learned the nursery was going to be done in bright pink, lime green, white and sky blue I knew I had just the right fabric.. the owls!  I grabbed it out of my stash, went through my nickle charms and pulled a bunch that would work, sewed a bunch of big nine patches... sliced them into 4ths... put them back together and created this cute Disappearing Nine Patch. I really do like this pattern, especially for baby quilts. It goes together quickly and turns out so cute!

Hubby quilted it basically in-the-ditch, but he kept the lines going from block to block.. creating an implied 9 patch. He used the same petal pink thread he used for Lou's baby quilt (previous post).  I love the way it looks on the back against the lime green!

2 of the 2011 baby quilts down... 1 more to go....

"Belle"

Baby Lou's Quilt

I made this top back in September for my SIL's first grandbaby.. a sweet little girl named, Lou.  Then I got caught up in an 80th birthday bash for my mom and shortly after that she fell and broke some bones (still recovering from that)... needless to say I got essentially nothing "quilty" done during the last part of 2011. 

Well 2012 is here and it is time for new stuff.. but first some of the old has to be finished up. Lou's was first on the list!

The Mad Quilter (a.k.a. hubby) and I got this one sandwiched up and off he went!  Simple in-the-ditch quilting, but on what a difference it makes. This quilt top is now a quilt!  A cute girlie quilt with lots of pink and green.  It will be headed off to Miss Lou this week.

There are 2 more baby quilts in the works.. one is quilted (again The Mad Quilter at work!) and ready to be bound. The other is waiting patiently for some batting.  And I am working again on my Snowman Faces quilt... finishing up the embrodiery so it can be quilted.

Then let the new stuff begin! (OK there are more UFOs to work on, but once these goals are met I am going to work on something new for a bit!)

"Belle"