National Quilting Day!!!

So pretty much everyone in the US knows today is St. Patrick's Day, but for quilters it is another holiday too.. National Quilting Day.  NQD occurs on the 3rd Saturday of March, so not always on 3/17.

Hubs and I celebrated today by going to a fabric sale and sewing....

Here are the fabrics we bought...

Some bright fun butterflies (the white behind it is Kona Cotton Snow.. bought that today too..)

Some fun polka dots....

A WILD Print that hubby liked....

And one more polka dot.. a big dot.. that the shop owner tossed in as a happy.... 

And here is what was worked on today...

I finished up the house blocks and started making them wonky... the excess fabric gets trimmed off when they are squared up...

And hubs finished up the baby quilt top he has been working on... 

All in all I would say it has been a good National Quilting Day here!

"Belle"

Baby Quilt Inspiration...

Baby quilts seem to be on the upcoming menu here (I love making baby quilts!).  My son's girlfriend has another cousin expecting a baby and wants to make a quilt for the wee one, I want to do another one for a charity Bazaar and we have a young couple in our church expecting girl #2.  All 3 of these will be girl quilts. So lots of pink is expected!  

I have been looking around the Internet and have seen some lovely quilts to inspire..

This one is so simple and sweet....

I love the ruffled edge!

This is one of my faves.. I love the colors.. I will make this one day!

I am not sure a rag quilt is best for a baby, but I do love this. I have Fat Quarters for every fabric in this collection. It is one of my faves.  

Another very simple quilt, but oh so sweet.

The initial adds a cute detail to this one.

Some pretty Spring Flowers for a Spring Baby

Works In Progress...

Sewing Central is buzzing with several projects right now....

Hubby is making a baby quilt. Co-worker asked him to make it for her niece.  She bought fabric and picked pattern.  He has it laid out and is in the process of piecing the top together. I love the colors.. bright and cheery.. perfect for a little girl!

Once he is done with this, he has a quick project for the house... napkins!  These fabrics will be transformed into new spring napkins.  Won't they be lovely!

I watched a video last week on a really interesting technique for making quilt blocks with 2 1/2" strips.  We have a slew of these in our scrap stash, so I pulled a few and gave it a try.

Here is what the block looks like once done...

Here are a couple of possible layouts...

The technique really is cool.  You can watch it here: Amazing Jelly Roll Quilt

I may use that technique and some of our strips to make up another baby quilt for an upcoming bizarre to benefit the family of a little boy in need.  I made this top for it all ready..

It just needs to be sandwiched and quilted to be done.

I am also working on a new wallhanging for the breakfast room. I knew I wanted to use a specific Bible verse that has to do with House.. so a house block was called for... there are many, but one of my faves is found at Quiltville...  Happy Scrappy Houses

The pattern calls for 2" strips. The stash here is full of 2 1/2".. so I adapted and came up with this...

Looks great.. even before being wonkied.. but it is bigger than I want for my layout.

So today I cut down some of those 2 1/2" strips to 2" ones and pulled together some "kits" for house blocks.  They are waiting patiently for me to sew them together.

Plenty to keep us busy this week!

"Belle"

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"