Love Quilt

I know it's practically heresy to say but I'm not a huge Amy Butler fan.  I'm sure she's a lovely person and she's definitely been a major influence in the quilting renaissance but her fabric lines never really speak to me.  So that explains why last year I won a Love charm pack.  Since I've been trying to pull stuff from my stash I decided to step out of my comfort zone and use this up. 

My design is based on brick path.  The charm pack only had 30 charms so I stole some Midwest Modern scraps from my daughter (who oddly enough is a huge Amy Butler fan) and added those in with FreeSpirit Designer Solids in Gray for the sashing.  I thought it needed a wide border and pieced the backing.  Looks like more basting in my future but thankfully this one small enough to table baste: )

Valentine Friendship Bag

Valentine Friendship Bag
Originally uploaded by alidiza

Another project with leftover L'Amour scraps. Based on Rachel's friendship bag tutorial with some added ric-rac and raw edge applique.

In the nick of time...

I put the last stiches in the binding of this 30 minutes before guests arrived for our Valentine's party.  I started this last February so I'm so glad to have it finished.  Not sure why I agonized over it so much.  All that it needed was some quilting in the corners.  I finally came up with a loopy heart doodle and after lots of practice went for it.  It came out quite nicely but on the dark brown print it hardly shows.  Of course half-way through the 3rd corner I ran out of thread so that required yet another trip to my LQS.  Lucky for me it's only 7 minutes from home so my emergency quilting supply runs aren't a big deal: )

Turn around

So after lots of agonizing I finished this quilt and it's destined for the auction after all.  I ended up doing some outline stitching around the feathers on the two outer edges.  I fudged it a bit, one side has more rows and they are a bit further apart than the other, so in the end it came out looking fairly balanced.  I added a striped binding and just need to get a label on it and it will be ready to go.  As far as learning experiences go it was pretty painful but it reinforces something I've known for awhile, I should be thinking about the quilting from the begining.  Possibly why I have 14 quilts in my TBQ (to be quilted) pile!

Tick tock

I can just feel Valentine's Day creeping up on me.  I'd totally hate Valentine's day!  I think it's a holiday invited by Kleenex to push product.  It's only saving grace is that it's a holiday devoted to pink, and pink is my color.  Somehow I have not one, but two Valentine WIPs lingering from last year.

The first is an original design using a charm pack, raw edge applique, and ric-rac... all my favorite things in one place.  I was loving this until I got to the quilting.  I've quilted the center but it's been sitting since last February and I still haven't figured out what to do with the corners.

Then I got a Lil Twister template and thought my leftover charms would be a good trial.  This is such a cool technique but it's a true leap of faith to start cutting apart and re-sewing a perfectly fine charm quilt you've made.  Again, I quilted the center but got stuck on those borders.  I tried quilting the borders with scallops but wasn't happy with my quilting and ended up "un-sewing" them.  My machine quilting has improved since then so maybe I'll try it again.  I really want to finish at least one of them so I have something to decorate my entry with and more importantly so I can justify buying this: )