Quilts of 2010

Since this seems to be the thing to do, here are my quilts from 2010.

The Wild Play quilt is finished and bound... I'm just waiting for a nice day to take it outside to photograph!

Today I started my next quilt - a cathedral windows quilt.  It's a very new technique for me:  lots of origami folding and ironing, which leads to a highly textured quilt.  When it's done, it will look similar to this:

Happy New Year!!

Wild Play Quilt Top (Minus border)

Chelsea took this beautiful photo!

This afternoon Chelsea and I got together for a busy day of last minute Christmas shopping, pho-slurping, and quilt... quilting.

I finally finished piecing together the main part of my latest quilt top.  I'm using two charm packs of the Wee Play line from American Jane (which were not easy to track down, by the way!).  I love this line so much, and am sad that it's going the way of the buffalo.  I used the Wild Thing quilt pattern again.  I like the movement of the blocks, and the way you can showcase lots of different prints.  I also used some different whites from the Bella Solids line and Kona.  I wanted the quilt to have a scrappy, vintage look - like the quilt you find in your grandma's atticf, which you find out used to sit on the foot of your mom's bed in kindergarten, which has been pieced and patched over the years.  Or something.

I'm a little stumped about what to use for the border and binding.  I'm thinking maybe some Kona Ash for the border:

Something fairly neutral, I think.  And maybe a pretty red polka-dot for the binding.  If anyone out there has any ideas, I'd love to hear them!!

2011 Owl Love Calendar

I love buying new calendars for the new year, but I'm extremely picky about size/shape/theme/artwork for my calendars, so I always have a hard time finding just the right ones.  Shivani, the author of the blog My Owl Barn, has put together the owl-inspired artwork of 30 different artists to create a customizable 2011 calendar.  You go in and select the 12 pieces you love most, decide which picture you want for each month, then download the calendar as a free PDF.  It will print as one of those small, desk-sizeish calendars.  Perfect for my entryway!

Go HERE to make yours.

Wild Betty Quilt Finished!

Last September I started a quilt top using a Hello Betty layer cake and the Wild Thing quilt pattern from Thimbleblossom.  Remember?

Well, I finished it!!  All these snow days gave me the perfect opportunity to put in the last few hours this quilt needed.

For this quilt, I used freemotion quilting... which is both very fun and takes a lot of shoulder muscle!  The freemotion pattern is far from perfect, but I just love this quilt.  The candy striped binding makes me smile every time I look at it.  This quilt looks perfect draped over the end of our bed, but now I want to make some matching pillows... 

Summer Love Quilt Top

This is a quilt top I started last spring, using fabric from Amy Butler's Love line.  At the time, I stalled out because, once the quilt top was finished, I had no idea how to go about turning it into an actual quilt.  Now, my skillz are a little more developed and I know what to do... but since I will probably continue to procrastinate with this particular quilt, I thought I'd go ahead and take some pics to show you now.

 This is my wonderful husband being a good sport and helping me hold the (very large) quilt up.  He is sporting a look that I like to call, "The Handsome Hobo."

A little bit of summer on a wintry day!

Blue Owl Baby Quilt

On Monday Seattle got its first snowstorm of the year, so I've had two snow days to quilt and sew to my heart's content!  I finally finished the quilt that I bought fabric for back in September. When I finished the quilt, I still had blocks left over (although not enough to add a row and still keep the pattern of the quilt), so I made a little matching pillow.

I really do love these colors together!!

Jungle Baby Quilt

My wonderful friend Rosann is having a baby boy in March, which was the perfect excuse for me to make another rag baby quilt!  I tried, with increasing obviousness, to find out what colors/themes/whatever she was planning for her son, so that I could get started on a quilt. 

Here's how the conversation went:

Me:  So, have you started buying things for the baby?

Rosann:  No, not really!

Me:  Well, have you done any window shopping?  Maybe you've seen some blankets or bumpers or something that you thought were cute?

Rosann:  Not yet!

Me:  Well, if you were to start thinking about it, what colors do you think you'd be drawn to?

Rosann:  I don't really know... maybe nothing too bright?

Me:  So like, pastels?  Neutrals?

Rosann:  Ha ha, I'm so not a visual person!  I don't really know!  I like monkeys!

Me:  (giving up)

So I went to the fabric store with "nothing too bright, monkeys" as my criteria, and amazingly, I found the perfect fabric!

Not too bright!  Monkeys!  Hooray!!

From there, it was easy to find some coordinating fabric, and I love the way the quilt turned out:

Now the plan is to maybe make a pacifier clip or embellish a onesie with the same fabric to create a little gift set.  I'm super inspired by the ones sold at The Red Pistachio:



I have several quilt projects nearing completion, so hopefully more posts very soon!