1/4 of Texas

After having so much fun with the Triangle Quilt Along I have found another quilt along to play along with!  This time it is the Texas Quilt Along hosted at My Fabric Relish.  I loved this quilt ever since I saw the inspiration quilt, but it is especially appropriate since I live in Texas.

I went with traditional red, white, and blue for my color palette.  This is the first quarter of the state, minus the missing city blocks for Ft Worth, Dallas, and Tyler, which will be revealed this week. I can hardly wait!

Linking up to Judy's Design Wall Monday.

Teachers Touch Hearts

Well, this is that quilt that, as one commenter put it, I was "volun-told" to do :)  It is a gift for a retiring school teacher, one of my mom's co-workers.  See, I agreed to bind a quilt.  Turns out that certain non-quilters may not actually know what binding means and may in fact assume it's the same as make a quilt.

This quilt contains the hand prints of (59) 5th graders.  The 60th block got a quote and thank-you message. 

(ETA: several people have asked what the paint used was. I didn't buy it, but was told it came from WalMart and is called "shiny acrylic".  I heat set it thoroughly with a hot iron.)

I quilted the quilt with a wide stipple, avoiding running over the paint hand prints.  (I'm not including too many closeups because blurring out 59 names was not how I wanted to spend my evening.)

Although I wasn't initially excited about doing this quilt, I am proud of how it came out and happy that it's going to a worthy cause.  I was surprised by how soft the paint hand prints are after a good wash and impressed that none of them ran or bled.

The backing is a pretty blue paisley and the binding is striped.  The quilt finished at 60"x72", a generous couch size.  So, at the end of the day, a pretty quilt goes to a good home and everyone's happy. 

Linking up to Crazy Mom Quilts Finish it Friday.

Working Late Wednesday

Tonight I have been basting, that least favorite of all quilting tasks.

First was this hand print quilt, which will be a gift for a retiring teacher.  Someone accidentally volunteered me to make this one (insert indignant sigh here).  With supervision my mom mostly pieced the top (she felt guilty), but I'll be doing the quilting and binding.  I think the design we chose turned out pretty good.

Second was the crumb scrap quilt I've been working on.  The further along this one gets the more I like it.  I've decided it's going to be a wedding quilt for a coworker.  Best of all, the scrap busting continues!

This is a late addition to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.

Bibs and Bags

Lately I have been sewing on a lot of things that are not quilts.  First I made a couple of Noodlehead Open Wide bags for my trips to DC.

Wilson helped with photos

I made a medium sized bag out of suede for my toiletries and a small bag for my electronics.  Both worked great!

In the electronics bag I used elastic and some buttons to put in a few cord tamers.

The other thing I have been making is baby bibs. I am using the Bapron pattern from Craftiness is not Optional.

I bought a few of these a couple years ago from another quilter and every parent I gave one to raved about how they are the best bib EVER!  As you can see, I got somewhat carried away making them, but I am sure I'll have no trouble giving them away :) I've already given away 4 little boy bibs.

Linking up to Finish it Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts.

Bordering (on maddness)

After a week or so of not blogging I am finally working on something again! The Crumb nine-patches quilt is getting a border and, you guessed it, it's made of scraps!  These came from my strings bin, cut to 2" strips and pieced into sort of an endless "Trips Around the World" block/border.

Here's to more progress soon!

Linking up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.

Drunken Circles Bee Quilt {Blogger's Quilt Festival}

It's that time of year again! Time for the Blogger's Quilt Festival at Amy's Creative Side.  This is a chance for all of us who can't be at Spring Market to show off what we've bee working on and have a chance at some cool prizes, too.  This year I am entering my Drunken Circles quilt in the Modern Quilts category.

This quilt was made by my wonderful fellow-stitchers in the Nurture Circle of do. Good Stitches.  You can find the tutorial for the block we used here if you are interested.  Everyone made one block and I set them up 3x3 with the extra one on the back.

Such AWESOME prints turned up in everyone's blocks!

For the quilting I chose to try intersecting spirals about 1/2" apart, which was an interesting learning experience! Ended up doing it FMQ and that worked out really well.  I used half a dozen different brightly colored threads for the quilting.

You can see the quilting really well from the back. I used a nice IKEA print for the back along with the extra block.

The quilt got a do. Good Stitches label and a stark black and white print for the binding. It measured 45" x 60" before washing.

After posing for pictures the quilt was shipped to My Very Own Blanket, a charity that gives quilts to children in foster care.

I love being a part of my circle at do. Good Stitches! If you have every considered joining this bee you really must.  Major props as always to the ladies in my circle who did such an awesome job with this quilt.

Be sure to visit the Blogger's quilt festival to check out other entries and check out my other entry in the Scrappy Quilt category here.

Rainbow Waves scrap quilt {Blogger's Quilt Festival}

Welcome once again to the Blogger's Quilt Festival, when all of us who only wish we were at Spring Market have our own little festival.  This year I am entering my Rainbow Waves quilt into the Scrappy Quilt category.

This quilt was made from a design found on another quilter's blog.  You can find the link to the original design and a break down of the block for this quilt here.

To make this I pulled from my scrap piles, (only prints and brights, and no pinks or purples) and cut as many 3.5" squares as I could.   These paired with 3.5" squares of white and became 768 half square triangles.  Whew!

The top without borders would have measured 60"x80", but at the last minute I decided to add a string pieced border which ended up bumping it up to more like 75"x95".

For the border I pulled from my string box, anything that looked to be less than 1.5". I trimmed them to 3 common widths and then pieced them end to end.  I sewed the border on around and around and around the top until I ran out of strings and ended up with a really dynamic border about 5" wide.

I stippled the whole thing for simplicity's sake, and to tame all the scraps.  Of course it finished off with a scrappy binding :)

Be sure to go back to the festival and check out other entries, and check out my other entry in the Modern category here.