"Fabricky" Fun

The past few days have been full of "fabricky" fun.  Here are a few things that have been happening...

A while back I won my quilt group's lottery... some lovely 1930s repro blocks.  This summer I put them together into a top and this past week my husband (a.k.a. the Mad Quilter) quilted and bound it for me. I think it looks great and I have already tried it out for cuddliness!  Mac and Mia think it is wonderful too!






Yesterday I spent the day with a lovely young woman who just so happens to be dating my son.  :-)  She likes craftsy things and being creative with fabric, so we decided to play. We made fabric flowers (used this  tutorial Scrappy Strip Rose ).  The photo does not show off the colors well.


The dark red one and small green one are now in my sweet friend's hair with a bit of ecru crocheted lace to enhance. Looks lovely!


This morning I was picking up our leftover strips and decided to make a purple flower for me....

I love how it turned out!  It will become a pin.


The final thing I did was put together some Yellow Brick Road blocks into a small quilt top.  This will soon become a tree skirt for our Christmas Tree. I made a quilt with the same blocks and fabric several years ago.

I love "fabricky" days!

"Belle"

Quilty Saturday!

Today has been a very quilty day! Worked this week on a t-shirt quilt I am making for my son's girlfriend. It was supposed to be her birthday present but I missed that deadline!  I would LOVE to post pix, but she might look here and see, so I will have to do that after Christmas. I will say it looks great! Cannot wait until it is all quilted and done.

I found some blocks and fabric that I started some time ago for a quilt for a little boy. For some reason, I don't remember why, I abandoned it and did something else. So I ironed everything out. And am going to finish up the blocks and make the quilt for a little boy due in late November.  The fabric is a vintage cowboy theme. Really cute!

I am also working on a pincushion/thread catcher thingie. I made one for myself earlier this year (see A Happy For Myself ) and love it. I use it all the time when working on my GFG quilt.  I am making another one for a quilting friend.  The fabrics are ironed and ready for me to cut (once I get off the computer).

Hubby and I basted a quilted today. Last year I won some lottery blocks .... a group of quilty friends have a quilt lottery every quarter. The blocks I won are mini-bowties made with 30s repros. I put them together.. added a couple of borders and a flange. (see Happy Quilt Day )  Looks so good!  Hubby (the Mad Quilter) is going to quilt it for me. I cannot wait to see it done. It will be lovely on the couch this spring!

That same group of friends (the absolute best Quilt buddies ever!) do a Mystery Swap Box thing every so often. Someone gets a box and over time fills it with fun quilty stuff (and usually a few non-quilty things that she knows we will like). These can be new or things she already has but doesn't use or no longer needs. Once full, she mails it off to one of us. We go through the box.. pick up to 6 things to keep and add 6 new things.  It is a lot of fun to see what folks put in and what they take. SO here are the 6 goodies I got took from the box today...

There were 3 cute patterns that I just loved (well more than 3 but I am limited to how much I can keep!)...

I also took a cute little magnetic notepad with matching magnet. I love those things. Poor Hubby... he dreams of a day when the refrigerator has nothing on it. For that to happen he will have to outlive me! :-)

I am not a huge fan of this next pattern for a fall table topper BUT I really love the fabric. The photo does not do it justice!

And the last thing I kept is a Quilt Panel...

I love Snowmen and Red Birds!  This will make a cute Christmas quilt.

It was an exhausting task! If you don't believe me just ask Mac...

and Mia...

They are such great helpers!

I put some wonderful things back into the box.. but I cannot share what they are. My quilt buddies read my blog and that would spoil the surprise!

Back to Quilt Land!

"Belle"

Happy National Quilting Day!!!

Today is the first day of Spring and we are actually enjoying Spring weather. Temps in the 70s... lots of sunshine and breezes... low humidity (a real treat!)... it is wonderful! I do know others in the US are dealing with snow and cold temps! Sorry!

Today is also National Quilting Day and I felt honor bound to participate! So... the borders have been added to my repro quilt....

These blocks are from a block lottery a quilt group I belong to (online) held last year. I was so excited to win and I am even more excited that the top is done. Cannot wait until it is quilted and bound! It is lovely!

I also whipped to

gether my 2nd top for Quilts for Kids. This one came from my stash. I had some disappearing 9 patch blocks left over from another project. I whipped up a few more and put them together to make this top... along with 2 borders.

Then I remembered this cute fabric that I have had for a while in my stash. It is perfect for the backing

and there is just enough of it!

I will get batting soon (after payday!) and these will be sandwiched and quilted... along with the 1st Quilts for Kids quilt.

No more quilting for me today... I have to finish up some work on Beth Moore's

Breaking Free before Bible Study on Tuesday! So that is the afternoon task.

It has been a grand National Quilting Day! Hope you've been doing something quilty!

"Belle"

Great Day Quilting

Next Saturday is National Quilting Day... but we celebrated like it was today. The sewing machines have been humming... rotary blades flying... steam iron hissing... hubby and I are covered in threads... it has been a very good quilty day.

I am part of a small, wonderful, close-knit online quilting group and we do a block lottery every quarter. Last summer I won! 36 really cute repro-blocks. I finally got around to putting the blocks together and adding a single border. I am going to add another border or two, but I am waiting for some repro fabric on order. I love how it looks and evidently so does my fabric loving pooch, Mac. He decided to hop up on the bed and take a good look at my work and added some lovely smudges from his muddy paws. Oh well... it'll wash out and he is so darn cute!

Hubby is working on a quilt for our DD. Her brother has one made by dad, but she doesn't. Hub and DS have a thing about bugs.. especially dragonflies.. so her quilt has fabrics with dragonflies, lady bugs, butterflies and the likes. Very colorful and very cute. He got a lot done today. Here it is laid out in sections on the bed:

The last quilty project of the day was another one of mine. A friend is adopting baby #2 from Taiwan. Jeremiah is a special boy with CP just waiting for his mom and dad to come get him... SOON! They have been affectionately calling him Froggie boy based on the Acronym F.R.O.G. (Fully Relying On God). God has shown up and shown out in providing the funds and means to bring this sweetie home. Just like he did with big brother, Noah. So, of course, I knew Jeremiah would need a Froggie quilt. I have some Chinese Coins in the works using lots of colorful fabric... several with Frogs on them. Not sure where I am going after that, but I am sure it will be cute! Here is the beginnings of it...

Happy National Quilting Day.. a week early! Maybe we will celebrate again next week too! :-)

"Belle"

I LOVE REPROS!

I really do love 1930s repro fabrics. Maybe it is because the quilts I grew up with were made with feedsacks and such. NO I am not that old... but most of the quilts I grew up with were older ones made by my grandmothers and one great-grandmother in the 30s, 40s, and 50s. My mother remember a large chifforobe (Southern for armoire) full of feed sacks that her mother saved over the years. Whatever happened to them no one knows.

So when my quilting groups spring block lottery was announce and I saw that it was a cute block using repros, I knew I had to play! Here are the 6 I have made... aren't they cute!?

(This is the mini-bow tie block from Quilter's Cache... http://www.quilterscache.com/M/MiniBowTieBlock.html )

I also decided to play with one of my favorite blocks.. the Churn Dash.. I have always made it with 2 fabrics... one for the background, one for the dash... this time I used 3 fabrics... solid white for the background, one repro for the HSTs and one for the rectangles. I love the look! I am certain I will be whipping up more of these blocks soon!