Autumn Leaf Pillow Shams

One year ago, I shipped this quilt to my customer Diane.  In late August, she contacted me; asking for matching queen-size pillow shams.  I'd never heard of queen-size pillows, and after a couple of back and forths, we established that she wanted them to fit queen-size pillows that were 20 x 30 inches and the shams would have a flange.  She accepted my quote and said she wanted them by next summer.

I had some down time, while I was waiting for supplies for two different projects, so I decided to go ahead and make the shams.

I've made two Autumn Leaf quilts, and the leafs are a bit tricky.  I dug out my notes and got everything cut.  I didn't take any photos of the process, but if you're curious you can look at the old posts about the quilts.

A couple of years ago, I decided to use the front of men's shirts for closures of the pillow backs.  I went to Goodwill and got two men's white dress shirts, they were perfect.

Here are the two pillow shams on my bed.  I don't have queen-size pillows, but you get the idea.  

May your bobbins always be full,

The Wonky Improv-Curve Quilt is Complete!

As per my normal M.O., I'm posting WAY too many photos.  I got this quilt back from the long-arm quilter in early September, and just had time to admire the lovely quilting before I left town on a baseball tour.

Then when I got back, it was time to pack for a trip to France.   Travel is great, but so is being home.

I hand-stitched the binding on this quilt. Something I rarely do. I'm going to enter this in a quilt show, and I thought hand-stitching was the way to go.

I always add a pop of fabric from the quilt to the binding.  This time, I added two different fabrics, just because I wanted to!

May your bobbins always be full,

Plus Sugar Skull Quilt is complete

I really love how this Plus Quilt turned out.

A close-up of the quilting and some of the fun fabric.

 I used most of the leftover fabric on the quilt back.  I made this with my daughter Sharon in mind.  She loves the Sugar Skull motif.  I'm going to show it off this week at our TVMQG meeting on Thursday.  And on Friday I'm leaving for a 10-day baseball tour.  I guess she'll be getting this quilt sometime in July.

The quilt measures 60x60"

The quilting is Bubbles.

My LAQ is Janiel Miller.

May your bobbins always be full,

MQG ~ Riley Blake Designs Fabric Challenge ~ Quilt is finished

It's small but mighty!

I seem to say this a lot, about my quilts - I really love this one.  It was such a great challenge from Riley Blake Fabrics, to use their Sashing Stash fabric.  You could make anything, as long as it was quilted.  Me, I made a quilt, of course!  I rarely hand stitch, but last night I hand stitched the binding because it's small 34" x 34".

I had a hard time keeping this as the quilt back.  I almost caved and made two quilts!

May your bobbins always be full,

Northcott's Chip Pack Challenge

Once I got started, it was hard to stop.

I keep making sets of blocks and figuring out where they'd go.

I was pretty happy with what was going on but still needed more blocks.

Now, to figure out what to so with the middle part.

I took some scraps from the previous blocks and got creative.

Then I sewed the "moon" in place.

Now, it was time for the rocket ship.

I used Bob's old handcuffs to make the circles, I couldn't find a protractor.

This is the quilt top all put together and below are the scraps of Pansy that were left, not much.

Two shots of the finished quilt.  (The quilting is hard to see.)  This 30" x 30" quilt took me a total of 10 days, start to finish.  I submitted it to Northcott, today.

Instead of binding the quilt, I faced it.  That was a first for me.

I'd spotted several quilts at Quiltcon with facing and thought I'd try it.

May your bobbins always be full,

Sometimes Quilting is a Lifesaver

I started this QAL one week before Bob passed away.

Being committed to making the blocks, as they were issued each month was a real lifesaver.

I was also doing another QAL, that I started six months earlier and the two QALs, kept me focused when so much was going on.

This is a close up of the center portion of the quilt.  The quilt was the 2015 Mystery QAL with Pat Sloan; its title is Vacation Time.  I started the first block January 22, 2015, and finished the binding yesterday, March 13, 2016.  The quilt measures 62" x 66".

This is the quilt back, and a close-up of the pantograph, Almost Paisley.  I thought it went great with the center fabric.

The last photo shows the San Diego Modern Quilt Guild's Vintage Quilt Revival QAL, that I was working on concurrently with the Vacation Time QAL.  Real lifesavers! 

May your bobbins always be full,

The Any Which Way Quilt is finished!

This is the final quilt I made using Half Rectangle Triangles and the Water Land fabric by Jessica Nielson for Cloud9 Collective.  Believe it or not, I still have more of these HRT's tucked away, but I couldn't bear to make another quilt top!  This quilt top was finished on December 29, 2015, and the binding was put on today.

As you can see, I used the same plan for the quilt back as I did for the other Water Land quilts, but I was lacking a tad of the original blue.  I think the lighter blue adds a bit of zip!

This quilt measures 37" x 43.5".  You can find it in my shop.

May your bobbins always be full,

The Water Land Flying Kites Quilt is Finished!

This quilt went together pretty fast because I'd already made extra kites when I made the first Kite quilt top, plus I had a good idea what I wanted it to look like.  Having a plan is good!

I again used leftover solids for the quilt back and this wonderful script fabric from Wyndham Fabrics.

It measures 37" x 45".  You can find it in my shop.

May your bobbins always be full,