Watercolor Window

For My Mom's birthday I decided to make this quilted wallhanging called "Cat Nap". It is actually from a kit by Whims Water Color Quilts. My mom had purchased this kit at their booth during our local quilt show a few years back, but never got around to putting it together. She passed it on to me and got it back for her birthday!

The kit came with plenty of precut 2" squares (plus some) to create your "masterpiece". They recommend using this Quilt Fuse, a fusible nonwoven product that already has a pre-printed grid that you can lay out your 2" fabric squares on. Once you lay it out, you iron them to the quilt fuse, turn it over and fold on each grid line. Using a 1/4" seam allowance you sew them all in one direction first, press, then sew in the other direction and viola!

A cool trick that I never thought about before was reversing the fabric and using the back side. It gave a much lighter value and worked perfectly for this style of quilt.

This wall hanging was simply quilted in the ditch around each window pane in nylon thread so it wouldn't show. I also did some straight stitching to look like the sun's rays which they suggested in the pattern.

Here is my beautiful Mom with the finished product.

Happy Birthday Mom!

Quilt Along Sampler

Drumroll please... I have finally finished my quilt for Crazy Mom Quilts Quilt along Sampler. I used my 1930's reproduction fabrics for this quilt in pink, green and yellow. There are 12 different blocks, and we made one each week.

This was alot of fun to put together and I kept up with the quilt along for most of it. Since I don't know many people in my area that quilt, it's nice to join an online quilt along and feel like I am a part of something. It is amazing how the internet brings people together.

I really like this pieced border. It gives it a scrapy look. It took me awhile to get to quilting it because I always seem to be distracted by a new project. I was determined to get to the pile of quilts I needed to quilt. I quilted it in an all over meander pattern and washed it up for that crinkly antique look.
Once again I pieced my binding. I just didn't have enough of one fabric to do it. That's what happens when you collect fat quarters and not yardage.

Thankyou to Amanda Jean for the wonderful quilt along!

Christmas in July

I have been feverishly stitching this wonderful Block of the month pattern designed by Gail Pan Designs. The pattern called "A Christmas Wish" is offered on her blog for free! You just have to pop on over and check it out.

This is the first time I have added hand embroidery to my quilt. I created quilts with machine embroidery many times before. This kind of embroidery actually stitches up very quickly and is so therapeutic to just sit and hand stitch. I was an avid cross stitcher several years ago, and I have to say I think I have found a new love.

This pattern was a great way to use fabrics I already had on hand. Can't beat using up those scraps! I made all of the quilt blocks already and just wait each month for the new embroidery design.July's block was just posted... I'm off to stitch!

Quilt Bug

My sister, and her husband and kids came for a visit as they were passing through moving from Kansas to Germany. They stayed with us for 3 wonderful weeks and it went all too quickly! While she was here she asked if I could help her quilt her bug quilt. She did such an awesome job putting this quilt together, and it is only her 2nd quilt! She has definitely caught the Quilt Bug!

There are so many cute little frogs, snails and bugs that she paper pieced together. She added extra batting to create some depth in the design.

Besides meandering on the black fabric around the jars, I stitched a spiderweb in metallic thread following hand drawn lines my sister made. If you look closely I also quilted a wood grain on the brown batik fabric that makes up the bookshelf. That was great fun!

The picture above is my sister busy adding the binding onto the quilt. Maybe I will be lucky and she we send me a picture of the finished product! I can't wait to see it.