College Graduation! Creating to show how Proud you are of them!!

One year ago my daughter Kristen graduated from college.  Being the oldest, she was the first of our kids to graduate.  I began thinking of what I could make her that would show just how proud her Dad and I were of her...  At the same time I realized that this would become the standard as our other 3 children completed their education.  It didn't take me long to decide on a quilt! But I wanted this quilt to be special. Something to keep her warm, to hug her at the end of the day, and to remind her that wherever she is, we're still there for her. During this time she was setting up her first apartment and creating her first home so I wanted her to decide on colors and theme.

So off we went to one of my favorite Quilt Shops - The Quilt Patch :)
 


We walked in the door and Sue, the owner, greeted me by name. After introductions off Kristen went searching through the fabric and patterns for what would make her new apartment more homey.  Kristen is always very fun to shop with as she has wonderful taste and unique style!  She decided on a simple pattern named "Just Can't Cut It"  - but added her own flair with very exciting colors!

Kristen immediately knew the color theme she was after and chose several fabrics right off.  With the help of Sue! a pro at putting different textures of fabric together, Kristen made her final fabric choices and ended up with these 6 - don't they just BRIGHTEN THINGS UP A BIT!

Funny, I have two of these fabrics in my 'stash' and NEVER would have thought of putting this combination together.  I love to work with other people and see new ideas!  Always learning new things.  :)
 
The finished quilt front come together beautifully and after adding the borders and multi-colored binding this is the quilt as Kristen received it:

Kristen's graduation quilt 2010

Kristen loved the quilt! but she was in for a surprise...  I designed the back to also be a quilt!  Using all of the fabrics she had chosen I decided to go with more lights so that she would have two different 'looks' to choose from.  Here are a couple pictures of the back.  Aren't the pinwheels fun?!

close up pinwheel design

Full back of quilt.

Here is the Quilt folded so that you can see both sides.

This past May our son Mason graduated and has just made his fabric choice and being a boy...  looked at the several! quilt tops in process and said 'that one looks nice' to a 9 patch design.  He chose Hoffman's Sangria Bali Pops for the fabric :)      I'm heading out for a retreat mid-September with my girlfriends from SVQG and plan on this quilt to be one of my projects.....  What shall I do with the back???.... 

Girl Friend and Quality Quilting Time!  Can't beat that...  

And I would have to say that I've never seen a Bali Pop that I didn't want to take home and play with!! 

There... admitted ONE of my guilty pleasures!!

Rose of Sharon & Flying Geese?

I took my first machine applique course this past Spring and I don't know WHY I waited SO long!!  This one course taught by Carmen Geddes took ALL my fear of machine applique away :) 

This is a project - my second machine applique piece!, using the pattern from the class.  I am once again using the Hard Candy Batik fabric collection.  This collection just doesn't get boring!  So many colors... So many ideas!!  This is the center piece of the wallhanging which is from the class:

Rose of Sharon

From here it's my own design.
I went crazy making 4 paper pieced strips of Flying Geese with the rainbow colors:

15 colors in this Rainbow Flying Geese strip.

I played around with how to attached them...  Facing down, facing up, Left to right, right to left???  And what to do in corners....  I decided to use Pinwheels in the corners:

4 Colors in this corner Pinwheel (note the pin?)

And this is how I brought it all together:

Now I have to decide how to quilt and bind this wall hanging.


Did you notice the PIN in the pinwheel picture above?  I have become so relaxed with our new place that this project has been hanging on the wall UNFINISHED for over a month!  Maybe I shouldn't be so proud of that?!  Oh well...

Log Cabin 'Barn Raising'

My absolute favorite traditional quilt block is the Log Cabin.

My favorite way of putting together log cabin blocks is to make the center the same on all the blocks then use 3 lights and 3 darks.  

I number the lights and darks 123 then on one block I use the fabrics in a 123 order and the other a 321 order.  

Make sense?  Probably not.

Above is the 123 order and below the 321 order.  Notice that the inside purple above became the outside purple below.  Doesn't look like much yet.

Next is a picture when you put 2 of each of these blocks together.

 And when you add another row all the way around?

This pattern layout of the log cabin is known as 'Barn Raising.'

I have a finished quilt! Actually there is also binding added that matches the center color and brings the whole project together. The quilt seems a bit rounded in it's lines, that is because I made the light strips a 1/4" thinner than the dark and that creates the 'flow'.

This quilt measures only 13 1/2" square.  Looks a lot bigger doesn't it?  This quilt was a birthday gift I made for my wonderful friend Anita who loves purple and green and flowers!  I made her a tote bag to match...  But that's another day!

When I googled 'Log Cabin Quilt Pattern Tutorial' I got almost 500,000 hits.  Below are a couple of links I thought did a great job of explained 'how to'.  

Enjoy! 

Great Online Step by Step Log Cabin Pattern by Quilt.com

This one is for Strip Piecing - A great time saver from quiltingboard.com

Something New!

I fell in love with a game table years ago at Jordan's Furniture.  When my husband and I closed on our lake house last fall we went back to Jordan's looking for the table which would be perfect for our new place.  

Unfortunately the table was no longer available.  Bummer...  

Several weeks later, my husband, the ultimate shopper in our family, phoned me saying "I found your table at a local consignment shop! It's not exactly the same but come and see."  So off to the consignment shop I went!  The table was just what I wanted and had 4 chairs!  Yeahhh!!! This table boast four game boards: Backgammon, Checkers/Chess, Scrabble, & Monopoly, Plus a plain wood piece which makes it just another beautiful piece of furniture.  The set even had all the game pieces intact!  This was quite a find and is even better than the original one I fell in love with....   

Way to go Eric!!

We took the set up to the camp and I gave the wood a thorough cleaning with Murphy's Oil Soap.  Amazingly it looked almost like new with just a few marks for character.  

Only one problem - the chair pads were stained. 

and this was the nicest one!!

 

This brings me to my 'Something New!' 

I learned how to upholster this weekend  :)  I searched for a striped fabric with bright stripes to go with the theme we are decorating the camp with.  I found just the right fabric at Joann Fabrics.  

 

The chair on the right is the BEFORE and 

the chair on the left... the AFTER!!

 

The first chair took an hour or so but the other three went much faster.  The hardest part of the process??  Taking out the old staples!  They were a bear to grab hold of but luckily my hubby jumped in to help :)

 

Don't you just want to sit down and play???

Bright Flying Geese! Mini wall hanging

Welcome to the latest addition to our lake house.
(Pattern - slightly different - is now available)

I have always loved 'flying geese' but this is the first time I have designed a pattern using them.  This mini wall-hanging uses the paper piecing technique.  I love the flow of this piece and of course it's full of color!  I have once again gone with the Hard Candy rainbow color group from Tonga Treats!

Where else will these colors bring me....

Flying Geese - It must be Spring!

Well I was up at our lakehouse at Lake Sunapee over the weekend.  Last weekend we got over 2" of snow and were still seeing ice on the lake.  This weekend there were boats on the water and flying geese in the air.  Both sure signs that Summer's on it's way.

The geese got me to thinking about using the flying geese quilt design and I would like to use the design with the Hard candy bright color scheme for a mini-wall hanging.  Love to work with this bright rainbow of colors!  Will be back shortly with how I made out.

The quilt is Up!

My Rainbow Quilt is finally completed, quilted, bond, and Up hanging on the wall.  I love it in our new space - it adds bright cheery color to the whole room!  Here are a couple of pictures to enjoy...  Doesn't it go great with the stools my husband painted?!

Now what should I tackle...

Played with the Rainbow Colors... A little!

Wow - I really love working with this colors!  They are so far from what I would normally introduce into my home space.  Fortunately I have a NEW SPACE to decorate and COLOR! Lots of color! Is what I am going for.

I used the 2 1/2" strips plus a black with tiny dots and a white to make the center of this Rainbow Quilt.  I used a wonderful black fabric that I have had for years for the border and I love! how this came together :)

 AND! it wasn't as hard as it looks!  I actually created 9-patch blocks with four different bright colors and black dot as the center...  cut the 9-patch into four pieces AND this was the result!  The shortcut idea came from the book:

Two from One Jelly Roll Quilts [Paperback] -Pam Lintott (Author), Nicky Lintott (Author) 

Their website is:  http://www.quiltroom.co.uk/

 

Their sample was this quilt:

 

Adorable in pastels but I have to say...  I like the brights better!  Interested in a "how to"?  Let me know and I'll post it!!

Have already begun cutting into the 10" blocks...  Be back soon :)

Rainbow Colors!

I found the perfect colors for my new projects. Tonga Batik Treats!  It's a rainbow of bright Batik's all ready placed in the exact color order I'm looking for.  The color arrangement is called Hard Candy - I like the way these two pictures show how the colors will play against black and white. 

 I can't wait to get started!!

Quilting Retreat!

I spent last weekend at a Quilting Retreat surrounded by a wonderful group of creative people!  What Fun!  Sat too long and eat too much - excellent!  My creativity 'runneth' over! 

On top of that my husband and I purchased a new get-away place so I have something new to decorate.  The place surrounds us with mostly beautifully finished plain wood so we have decided to bring LOTS of color in and my love started with by taking four plain unfinished stools and painting four different colors!!  Red, Yellow, Blue, & Green.  In going with the same theme I plan to decorate with lots of handmade items and decided that showing my progress and process will get me to blog at least weekly.  We have carpeting moving in next week so I'll post pictures of the stools once they are back in place.  

For now I am working on a wall hanging with rainbow colors.   Back soon!