How did she like the quilt?

I was able to get a few pictures of my son's teacher opening her quilt.
She was surprised to say the least!

I guess I caught her in the middle of saying something!

Ian took this picture of Mrs. T and me holding the quilt. Every time I saw Mrs. T that day she would give me a hug and tell me thank you - again! But how can I tell her thank you for all that she has done for Ian?

Such a great way to start the summer!

Blogger's Quilt Festival

Amy, over at Amy's Creative Side, has been hosting the Blogger's Quilt Festival for the past week. If you are in need of some inspiration, head on over there right away.

My entry for the festival is also my latest finish. I made this quilt for my son's third grade teacher. She is one of those teachers that changes your child's life. Before her, Ian tolerated school. Now he LOVES school. She has truly inspired him to want to learn!

I am a substitute teacher at my children's school and subbed for Mrs. T several times this year. One day I took all the house pieces into class with me and each child got to design their own house. We then put their house into a baggie and labeled it with their name. Even the intern got to make a house! Then I brought everything home and assembled it. I love how each house shows a little bit of the child's personality. (All the pictures are clickable.)

This is a close-up of my son's block. As you can see, I labeled each house with the child's name.


I presented the quilt to her this past week at our end of the year party. She was speechless! She said she is going to hang it in her classroom next year. This group of 3rd graders is looping up with her to 4th grade. We are all very thankful and excited to have such a wonderful teacher for another year!

Thanks to Bonnie Hunter for such a wonderful pattern!

And thanks to you for checking out my blog! I hope you will check back often!

Summer is almost here!

Summer is almost here! Two more days of school and several end of the year/season parties and then two and a half months of freedom. Maddie's 5th grade graduation was on Friday. Grams and Papa came down for the ceremony. Maddie earned a "President's Award for Academic Excellence" for straight A's. My smart girl. Next year is on to middle school. It will seem strange not having the kids at the same school - that won't happen again until Maddie is a senior in high school.

On to quilts - here is my (our) latest finish. Over a year ago, I talked Mom into making these blocks with me. We were each making two blocks and then we would exchange them and each end up with a lap size quilt. We decided about six months ago to combine them into one quilt. I finally got the blocks together and quilted. Me and mom were scheduled to give a short talk/show and tell at my local quilt guild in May- so I was rushing to get it done. I'll share pictures from our talk later. We both love how it turned out.




When Mom and Dad got here Wednesday night, Mom handed me this heavy trash bag and told me happy birthday. When I got inside, I found my grandmother's antique Singer sewing machine. This is the machine my mom learned to sew on. It was originally a treadle machine but was at some point electrified. I looked up the serial number - are you ready?? 1892! Wow! The bottom case need to be replaced and I haven't checked to see if it even runs - but I am thrilled to own it!


And the week's other big score - a Singer sewing table and machine. The machine runs and dates to 1930. What I really wanted was the table. It is in excellent condition. $60 at the thrift store!! I felt like Nina, finding one of her excellent finds! Now to figure out where to put it!


This weekend I need to put the binding on a lap quilt for Ian's teacher. The party is on Monday. I will post a picture as soon as it is done.

Here's to more quilting time this summer!

May??? How???

How did it get to be May already? In 9 more days, my baby boy will be 9. I have decided to stop feeding him in hopes that he will stop growing!

This quilt (above) started life as a baby quilt, but turned out to be too big. So I tried a second time and ended up with these quilts. So this one has been hanging out for about six months with no purpose. Every spring the kids' school has a spring festival and silent auction. I decided to quilt this up and donate it to the auction. The school's art teacher ended up winning it! She was excited and I was happy someone I knew won it. Next year, if I do another , I will do a Auburn themed quilt - simply because Auburn stuff always does well.

This week I am hoping to quilt a top that I have made for Ian's teacher. Only three more weeks of school so I had better get moving! It is another one of Bonnie's wonky house quilts, like I made for Maddie's first grade teacher. I cut the pieces out and then let each child pick out their own houses. I labeled each house with the child's name. The top is ready to go and the back is ready to be pieced. I will show it when it is finished.

I also need to work on the top me and mom are making together, shown below. We each made half of the blocks. I need to add a couple of borders (one skinny and one wider) and then get it quilted. It needs to be done by the 20th when Mom and I are supposed to give a presentation at our local quilt guild. The talk is supposed to be about quilts we have made together - but we are starting to realize that we haven't really made that many together. I have quilted a lot of her quilts for her and we have made several quilts from the same pattern (sometimes at the same time). We have also done a couple of quilts where I have pieced the top and she has hand quilted it for me. It is going to end up being more of just a show and tell.


Nina has inspired me - again! Go check out the quilt she is working on! I drew it up in EQ6 and plan on working on it as a leader/ender project. It should be a great stash buster. I am hoping to make it in colors similar to Nina's.

Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

Three finishes in one day!

This week I have been struck by the mood to finish up some UFOs that have been sitting around for too long. Last Saturday night I went into the dresser where I store works in progress and pulled out these first two quilts. All either one needed was to have the borders put on. This first one is going to go in the mail Monday to some friends of ours in Pennsylvania who just adopted a sweet baby boy. Hopefully they will send me a picture of Elijah enjoying his quilt!


This second one was pieced from leftovers from another quilt. Once I got the borders put on, it was either stick them back in the drawer to marinate some more or bite the bullet and get them quilted. I love having a quilting machine but the Hinterberg frame isn't the easiest thing to use. Lots of adjustments to make every time you advance the quilt. Anyway - I got both of these baby quilts quilted this week, along with another top that my mom had pieced for my cousin who had a baby girl on Monday. Thankfully I didn't have to bind that one! Just stuck it back in the mail to Mom!

Nina - are you sitting down? Today I managed to get bindings on all three of these quilts pictured! Aren't you impressed? Nina knows how I hate putting on bindings. I put it off if at all possible.



This last one is from Bonnie Hunter's Carolina Christmas mystery pattern. It has been sitting in my sewing room, quilted, for about 2 months now. Yes, I hate binding that much! So once I got on a roll today I knew I couldn't stop until this one was done too! I love it! Thanks, Bonnie, for such a great pattern!



Now - will I be as productive this coming week? All the pictures should be clickable for a larger view!

Oops!

Time has slipped away from me again! I have been sewing some, substitute teaching lots, and on top of it all, I got the flu last week.

Here is the latest quilting projects: (All the pictures are clickable for a bigger view!)

This baby quilt is made from the BQ quilt pattern - using the smaller sized blocks. I have got a large version of this same quilt cut out for Maddie. I guess I over-estimated how much fabric I would need for a baby quilt - I had enough for a lap size quilt for Maddie too! I just had to buy a tiny bit more of the green.

This baby is due at the end of March and her name is going to be Pepper. Never heard of that one before!


Then there is Maddie's Paris quilt. Right before I got pregnant with Maddie, Stacy and I got to go to Europe for three weeks. While we were in Paris, we saw the name Madeleine on a subway stop. Stacy fell in love with the name and the French way of spelling it. Since his previous choice of a girl's name was Mathilda, I quickly agreed with the new name. A year later, Madeleine arrived! I started quilting when Maddie was about 10 months old and immediately started collecting Eiffel Tower fabrics. This is the BQ pattern again - using the large block size to show off the Paris fabrics. Maddie loved it. I gave it to her for her birthday last week. We are going to repaint her bedroom and do a whole Paris theme!











Now that that big project is out of the way, I have started on a end-of-school present for Ian's teacher. I subbed for Mrs. T a couple of weeks ago and was able to get the kids in on the project. I cut out tons a wacky fabrics and let the kids put together their own wonky houses from Bonnie's pattern. We put each kid's house into a baggie and labeled it with their name. After I sew each house together, I will label it with the child's name. I made one of these quilts for Maddie's first grade teacher - and she loved it. Ian's teacher this year is a jewel. She has made such a difference in how Ian feels about school. I went in and talked to her right after school started and she was willing to make some homework plan changes to help Ian with his reading. He loves going to school. Mrs. T does such fun, cool projects with them. Can you tell that I love her? I am making myself sew a few houses each day - so that the end of May doesn't sneak up on me!

Carolina Christmas

I have been able to spend a lot of time in my sewing room in the past week or so. As I said in my last post, I have been working on the blocks for Bonnie's Carolina Christmas. I had made all of the pieces for the green pieced blocks when I decided I would never finish a bed size version. So I downsized to a lap quilt. I love how it has turned out! The big blocks are ready to be sewn together and then to add some borders. The gold (yellow) really makes everything pop!



My question to you is - is anyone out there interested in my leftovers from this quilt? I have enough of the green pieced blocks (4 inch) to make another 8 large blocks (16 inch). And I have lots of the background/gold two patches. Also a pile of the 4 patches with the red half square triangles. I would love to send this to someone who will put it to good use! Who wants to claim it?

First finish of 2010 !

For the last several days I have been working on my Carolina Christmas blocks. Very slow going! Ian came into my sewing room Sunday night and kept me company for nearly an hour. Just jabbering and poking around the general mess of the room. At some point he comes across some yardage that we had bought over a year ago to make a blanket for him. Footballs and soccer balls. Ian decided he had waited long enough for this quilt - it must be made NOW! I finally made a deal with him - I would work on the quilt for him as long as he was working on cleaning his bedroom. If he quit - I quit! Monday morning he was ready to get busy at about 8 a.m.! Unfortunately his room only took about an hour to get to a livable state - where as the quilt took slightly longer! It about killed him last night when I told him that I would not be able to get the binding put on until today. Tonight he started buttering me up with tons of kisses - yes - I caved and got back to work! He stood right beside me the entire time I was making the binding and sewing it on. He finally got tired of standing and pulled up a chair. He cracks me up! He was very happy that he was going to get to cuddle up under his new quilt tonight. What more could a mama ask for than such great appreciation! He couldn't resist giving me a cheesy grin for the first picture. What a sweet face!

Overwhelming!

I hope everyone out there in blogland had a wonderful holiday season. We were so happy to get to stay home this year. Usually we are either going to my parents or to the in-laws. This year, the in-laws came here for Thanksgiving and my parents came for Christmas. This means that a much greater percentage of my time was able to be spent in pajamas! The kids still have a few more days until they go back to school so I am sure the laziness will continue.

I got to spend most of New Year's Eve and New Year's Day sewing. I have been admiring Bonnie's Carolina Christmas since she posted the picture of her completed top. I really didn't want to start another project when there are so many unfinished things sitting around here anyway! But the Christmas fabrics were already out .... yes, I caved. I completed step one and was working on step two when I got the itch to see one of the finished blocks. They are huge.... and beautiful... and each one has 88 pieces in it! UGH! I have decided to make a lap sized version - which could also be used as a table topper. Since I have most of the green 4" blocks already pieced, I will probably use the extras in a border.

What are you working on right now?

Less than a month!

Nina has been pestering me for a new post - claiming she checks here everyday and there is never a new post. I finally remembered to get my husband to bring home his good camera so that I can take pictures of the latest quilts.

This first one is still just a top. Not sure if it will get quilted before Christmas. It is approximately 50" square. I am going to bind it in red. Can't wait to see it after it is washed - hopefully all nice and crinkly!


This next one is already a favorite! I think I am going to name it "How the Wrench stole Christmas". Get it? The pattern is from the February 2009 issue of American Patchwork and Quilting. Four different sizes of Monkey Wrench blocks. I think the largest is about 15 inches. I love all the reds and greens together. Click for larger versions of all these pictures!

Here is a close up of the four different sizes of monkey wrenches. I got tired of making these blocks by the end - but when I got top put together I fell in love all over again. I might even be lured into making this one again!


Yesterday my son and I were talking about a friend of his who has gone home to India for the past month. I told Ian that I guess that means he would need to go home to Indiana. He was up for the idea - with the hopes of seeing snow. He was only two when we left Indiana and says he doesn't remember much. I would be up for spending a holiday in the frozen north - especially if it meant spending time with Nines and her family! Wishing all of my quilting friends a very merry Christmas!

Added: SewCalGal is hosting a virtual Christmas quilt show. Go check it out and be inspired!

Oops!

I shouldn't have complained about not posting for a month - because now I have gone two months with nothing new. Somehow the fast forward button on time has been hit and I can't seem to slow down.

As usual - lots of baby quilts to show. This pink quilt is made from left overs! I love the fresh look that the white sashing gives it. This one is for a young Chinese couple that go to church with us. The husband is attending Auburn to get his doctorate in math. Baby Hannah is expected to arrive a few days before Christmas!




Another young couple at services are expecting twins in December. Two boys! We have been friends with Matt and Jana for over six years now and she has been waiting patiently for her turn for a quilt. They moved away for a year or so and when they moved back she told me that one of the big reasons she was excited to be back in Auburn was because now she will get a baby quilt! Little did I know she would somehow scheme a way to get two! I wanted to keep the green quilt for myself, but it was a bit small. Maybe I should make another one for me!



I have another quilt to show you, but I haven't photographed it yet, so it will have to wait. This morning is the Thanksgiving play at school and then I told the kids I would go ahead and check them out. We need to get busy cleaning - the in-laws are coming tomorrow. Looking forward to turkey and dressing! Hope all of you have a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend.

Disappearing act

I didn't meant to disappear for a month - but just haven't been very inspired to post. I have been sewing though! This first quilt has a long story. About seven or eight years ago, my grandma Mimi gave me a walmart bag with these pieced blocks inside. The fabrics are vintage. I don't know if she had made the blocks or if she had somehow inherited them from someone else. They sat in my project closet for a year or so until we started to pack up to move from Indiana to Alabama. I decided life was too short for these "ugly" blocks - so I passed them on to Nina. Nina has an amazing sense of color. She put this top together and packed it away in her box of tops to be quilted. A couple of years later, I am visiting and we are having a little show and tell. She shows me the top and I fall in love, but she won't give it up. A couple of more years pass - I visit again - and we have another show and tell - and the top is still sitting there. This time I managed to talk her out of it. We even managed to go out and find a backing and she quilted it up for me. Check out the amazing free-hand quilting. Now the quilt has been sitting in my project closet for a couple of years waiting for me to finish the binding. Yesterday I had a friend come over to practice on using my quilting machine - so while she did that, I put the binding on this quilt. I love that it is finally finished!




My neighbor hired me to make a quilt for another set of neighbors who were expecting their first baby. The quilt turned out to be bigger than your normal baby quilt - but that way she can use it longer! The middle squares are the fabrics the mommy-to-be chose for her nursery. I hope the baby likes bright colors!


I am working on a Christmas quilt right now - all shades of reds and greens. The pattern is from American Patchwork & Quilting and is made completely out of churn dash blocks. The blocks range in size from 16 inches down to 4.5 inches. I am loving it!

While surfing through my bloglines the other day, I fell in love with another Christmas quilt. Go ahead and click on the link - but be prepared to fall in love! I ordered 7 of the main prints from a couple of shops on Etsy - My Heart & Sew and Spiceberry Cottage . I gotten the fabrics and I love them even more than I did in the pictures! They are silky smooth! I am hoping to visit a couple of local (45 miles) quilt stores very soon and get the rest of the fabrics - so I can get this done before Christmas. This year we get to be at our home for Thanksgiving and Christmas - so I am looking forward to decorating!

Flea Market Fancy

The fabric is all gone now! Good job!

Yesterday while shopping in a small local fabric store, I came across an almost full bolt of the polka dot fabric in the middle of the picture. If you are in need of some of it (at about $9 a yard), email me and I will get you the name & number for the shop.

What happened to my free time?

The kids started back to school last Monday - which should have left me with more time on my hands - but I am still waiting for that to happen. Last Monday we also had to say goodbye to my husband's first full-time employee. She has been with us for over two years. She is now going on to grad school. She loved the quilt I made for her. Her grandmother is a quilter - but Cayce says her quilts look like "Grandmother" quilts. She loved this quilt because of "the cool fabrics".


After giving Cayce her quilt, I had to turn my attention to finishing the latest baby quilt. The shower was on Saturday. As usual, the mother loved it! There was also much talk about my new "one quilt" rule. Everyone said that they would just have to hire me to make their additional quilts. Not really what I was going for, but it might be an acceptable alternative. My mom said it might make them realize what a precious gift I have been giving out.


For the backing, I used the left over fabrics and cut it into 10.5" squares (Bonnie Hunter's suggestion!). I love the patchwork look on the back!


This week I am working on quilting my birthday quilt. I am a member of a birthday block lunch group in my guild. We meet once a month to celebrate someone's birthday and we each make them a block of their choice. My birthday celebration was in July. I love the variety of fabrics the ladies used in their blocks. The quilt is loaded on the machine and will hopefully get quilted tomorrow. I am hoping to have it finished by Thursday to take to the guild meeting for show and tell.

Have a great week!

Latest finishes

There hasn't been a whole lot of sewing going on around here but I have managed to finish a couple of things. This quilt is for a girl that has worked for my husband for the past two years. She graduated from Auburn and started working for Stacy right away. We have loved having her here. She is quite the Renaissance woman. She loves to make up recipes and is a wonderful cook. She makes her own peanut butter and caramel! She also coached Maddie's basketball team this past spring. Anyway - she is leaving Auburn to go to grad school in Texas - so I thought she deserved a special going away gift. Since Stacy only has one full-time employee - this isn't a dangerous precedence to set!

I found these fabrics at Jo-Ann's over spring break and knew they were the perfect thing to make Cayce a quilt.

Aren't the little trees adorable?

I hate having little scraps of left over fabric and since I am not much of a scrappy quilter, I like to use everything up! I pieced the leftovers into the back with some cream fabric from my stash. And I had just enough of the brown fabric to make the binding.

This next quilt represents the end of an era. I have mentioned before that I have made a baby quilt for every new baby born to someone in our congregation. I have had a very busy six years. This quilt is the THIRD quilt I have made for this family. There is another family I have also made three quilts for. I decided that I can not keep up this pace. I don't have time to do any quilting for me! My new rule is one quilt per family. I can do a gender specific quilt or a gender neutral quilt (so future babies can share). This one is for a baby boy due in September.


Again I decided to use all the leftovers to piece the backing. I love the stripes!



I just went back and counted - I have made, at the very least, 26 baby quilts for people from church in the past six years. That averages out to just over 4 quilts per year. I know there have been more than that but I haven't really kept a list. Things should slow down now with my new rules!

My First Quilt

Camille over at Simplify and Carrie of Miss Rosie fame are hosting a look at our first quilts. They want us to post a picture of our first quilt and our most recent quilt. So here goes!

My first quilt was started in the spring of 2000. A couple of ladies from church were going to teach the rest of us to quilt. We met once a week for a couple of hours. I almost gave up on quilting until someone explained how to butt opposing seams against each other. Since I was making a Irish chain quilt, that one little hint was priceless! I managed to finish that quilt and have been hooked ever since! My mom hand quilted the quilt.

This is my latest finish. It is a baby sized quilt made from Bonnie's pineapple blossom pattern. In the last almost ten years I have learned to be more adventurous in my color choices. And I have learned how important it is to be accurate.

So now it is your turn - go out there and post pictures of your first and most recent quilts. And then go back and leave a comment on Camille's or Carrie's blog so we can all go check them out!

Bags-O-Bags

I haven't been quilting much this past week - but I have been working on UFO's. Over two ago Emily over at What's that gonna be? posted directions on how to make a cute little tote bag out of two dish towels. So I bookmarked the page and started keeping my eyes open for cute dishtowels. I found some on clearance at Kroger and stuck them away, waiting for a moment to try it out. Here it is over a year later and I needed several little birthday gifts. So I dragged the towels out and got to work. They are so quick and simple! You can make a single bag in less than half an hour. Now did I take any picture of the 6 bags I made out of the dishtowels? Nope. Forgot.

But all these dishtowels got me thinking! My sweet sister bought me 4 Orla Kiely place mats and some cloth napkins from Target for my birthday last week. I immediately sat down and whipped her up a bag out of two of the place mats. This bag is bigger than the dishtowel ones and stiffer since the place mats were much stiffer to begin with. She had bought three place mats with a blue backing and one with a brown backing. Thus began our wild goose chase to find more of them. Her hubby went back to the Target where she had bought them and found one more with a blue back. He also checked out another Target near by - no luck. Last week when me and Naomi headed back to Nashville, we hit four more Targets. No luck. Oh well - at least I have enough to make me a bag too!



All this sewing got Naomi thinking I could just whip her up a bag out of anything so she went out and bought fabric. The bags are reversible - the picture shows the bags and there reversed insides. Yes - four more bags. I also made my 4 year old nephew Joey a CARS bag. I think I have had enough of these bags for a while.

Today I am trying to get a lap sized quilt quilted up for someone. She does good work - but this time her backing was wonky with a capital W. After squaring it up, it was no longer big enough. So I had to add strips of one of her other fabrics to the sides. Next come adding some strips to the batting! Wish me luck!