Zoo Quilt Progress

I finished one of the blocks on this sweet little quilt. The blocks are 24" x 24".. Here is the one I have completed so far:

I wish I could stay home today and work on this.. its turning out so cute! Can't wait for it to be finished!

Flying Geese

Here is a really cool blog post by Quilt Nut about how to make flying geese. It's such a good idea!!! Thanks for sharing!! You can see it HERE .

Baby Quilt

So here is my newest project. This is being made for my new great-nephew. I decided I was going to use the churn dash pattern in this quilt because the baby's name is Dash. I had to change the design in it a bit because I felt that churn dash was just too boring by itself.. Here is what I came up with:

And then I found the fabric and fell in love with the cute little animals on it... perfect for a baby boy. But the pattern needed something more so the fabric became my inspiration.

After a couple of weeks of searching for cute patterns I decided to create my own pattern. I must say I think I hesitated for a couple of weeks before I sat down and actually drew them out... Here is one of the sketches...


Not only did I create this one, but I also made one of a giraffe, an elephant and a frog. After much preparation here is what the pieced blocks look like. These are far from complete. I still need to do some satin stitching to complete the detail work on the blocks. If you look close enough (and past my stamp) you can see the detail lines.. The frog is especially hard to see...

These little guys are going to be used in the center of the churn dash... I thought they turned out pretty darn cute!! I may have to copyright the pattern and sell them! Once these are finished and put into the quilt I will post it here! What do you think?

Just had to share...

I saw the coolest dragonfly yesterday. He was buzzing past me while I was walking and it caught my eye. The neatest part was that he stopped--as if to show off and let me see him. This is what he looked like: Usually in this area (Pacific NW) you see a blue or green dragonfly. I have lived here all my life and have never seen a striped dragonfly! This striped one didn't have the bright colors like the other ones, but I could not help but notice how different he was! I did not take these pictures, they were ones I found on the net. I wish I had a camera yesterday. It was just too cool!

Autumn Quilt

Wow! Life has been so busy! I finished this one about 2 weeks ago and I'm just now getting it posted on my blog!!! EEESH! This one took alot of 'planning-as-you-go'. There are 22 different fabrics in this quilt. I'm really excited to get this one up on the long-arm to quilt it out! I have always wanted a Fall quilt and I've never had the time during the fall to make one. I love the pattern. It is very forgiving when it comes to matching seams. And this one pieced together very well. It was a little mind-boggling at times because I had to plan for the next row 2 rows in advance, but it was fun!

Too early for Halloween?

I don't think it's too early to think about Halloween. I love Halloween! Check out my paper crafting blog for all my Halloween goodies! I had to share this quilt pattern because it is SO STINKIN CUTE! I'm really enjoying Amy Bradley's quilt patterns! I found a couple of websites with her patterns...
Amy Bradley Designs
Quilt Bus
Sew Thankful

Fabric Addiction

Well, I did it again! I bought more fabric. I had a gift card to Joann's and got some great deals. But did I really need to add to my stash? I have collected fabric for over 15 years now... I'm not exactly sure what it is that provokes that NEED to buy fabric. I have so many projects lined up now that I think it would last 2 lifetimes! I just recently read about an acronym on Quilt Talk (yahoo group). The acronym describes this addiction pefectly:

S stash
A acquisition
B beyond
L life
E expectancy

I think they will have to mummify me with my fabric when I die! But seriously, how do you stop???? I don't know if it is the smell of the fabric store or what! I have even thought about opening a quilt shop just so that I can be surrounded by that atmosphere! Is that totally crazy? If you have any advice please share! What do you do to suppress your need to buy fabric?

Fab New Find

I found this on the net while searching for a color scheme today... I have posted it on my sidebar as well. Go to the Color Schemer here. I also found some other interesting schemers and palette generators too!

Happy Mother's Day!

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I found this on www.thequiltshow.com Happy Mother's Day!

My Baby's Birthday...

This past Monday was my daughter's birthday. No more babies! :( She is so beautiful and becoming such a wonderful young woman. Grandma put together this quilt for her for a birthday gift. Emily picked out the colors with her. I thought it turned out great!! And Emily loves it!!

Back Porch Bouquet quilt

Well, its almost done! I spent Friday quilting this one out. I just need to put the binding on! Hopefully I will be able to get to it this weekend..... The binding will be done in brown. I can't wait to finish it!

Abbey Thread Catcher

Here is the link to the thread catcher pattern...

http://abbeylanequilts.com/portfolio.html

You can see more on Abbey Lane Quilts blog here..

I love this pattern because you can use several coordinate fabrics.. I think these are going to make great Christmas gifts!

Thread Catcher

This has got to be one of the cutest thread catchers I've seen! I bought this pattern several months back along with the fabric (Back Porch Bouquet by Maywood Studio). The thread catcher was very easy to put together. My sewing could have been so much better on this project. This pattern requires Alene's Tacky Glue. I'm not sure what other people's opinions are of the product, but I personally don't like using it for heavy duty things that are meant to be permanent. So for this project I used a liquid glaze product used in paper crafting. I swear the stuff works better than superglue!

You can view another thread catcher HERE

Smelling the roses...

I bought some fresh cut roses a couple of days ago and they are so beautiful!! They smell as good as they look!!! I had to take pictures...

Tragedy Strikes Close to Home

Our whole town is mourning the death of two teens killed last night. The accident happened less than 1/4 mile from my home on the train tracks. You can see the news story HERE. My son was friends with these kids. Our town is a very small town so all the kids here are pretty tight. Last night I heard the sounds of the train blaring--quite a bit more than usual, and even louder than normal. The kids were standing on the double-line railroad tracks on the northbound track. Apparently (according to the local kids) the they were waiting for the freight train heading south on the southbound tracks to go by and were watching the end of the train while waiting for it to go by.. They think they didn't hear the oncoming Amtrak train (going northbound) because the freight train was so loud. The Amtrak train blared his horns for a long time, and the teens did not move. It has just been a hard hit on this community. There are piles of flowers and balloons around their make-shift memorial. Tragedies like this never make sense.... My condolences go out to these families and friends.

Back Porch quilt

I love this fabric!! Since this week was spring break I decided to cut out several quilts so that I can work on a few at a time. This is what I'm currently working on. It took me a while to find a good pattern to display the fabrics...

Diagonal length from a square

To calculate the finished diagonal measurement of a block, multiply the finished size of the block by 1.414.

This was taken from the following site:

http://sentimentalstitches.net/instructions/diagonal-measurement-of-squares/

Quilt by Mom 6/2005

This is a quilt my mom made a few years back. She always has great taste in her color combinations. This one is one of my favorites....

Bear Paw Quilted

I found these pics of this quilt all quilted. The bear paws have bears and moose quilted into them. This is part of a quilt I have posted previously. This is one of my favorite quilts. And as you can see it gets its use! If you click on the pic you can see the quilting up close.

Keagan's Quilt

I made this quilt a few years back for my great-nephew Keagan. I ended up making 2 at one time and gave the other to a friend of mine... I just found these pictures and thought I'd put them up here on the blog. Hope you like!