If Its a BOY

These are the receiving blankets that I have made for a future cuddly little boy baby. The giraffe fabric is one of my favorites. On a couple of them you can see that I tried using a very fuzzy yarn. It was much harder to work with because it wasn't one compact thread. The hook seemed to grab parts of the woven threads sometimes and I had to go back and make sure I had pulled all the threads through the tiny hole each time. I'm afraid they may tickle the baby so will have to be folded back away from his face.

I found this inner border fabric and thought I had to have a quilt with it. I added some yellow chenille squares also. Laura Erickson quilted this one too.

Now I think I have shown you most of the receiving blankets and quilts that I have made for Nicky's baby. Guess I'll wait to make more until I find out what it is!

Happy is the quilter! Lynda

I Love You

I got the February 2010 Quilters World magazine and fell in love with a quilt in it. I ran out to the fabric store and purchased the fabrics for it yesterday after work. Today I thought I would start it. I love black and white fabrics and red always looks great with them. So I enlarged the lettering, started cutting out, ironing down and found I just couldn't stop! Here are the fabrics below. I really love the one with people and dogs and cats on it. I was afraid it might be too busy to show the letters but it looks great.
And here is the finished top! I have been sewing most of the day but I just couldn't stop until I had it done. The pattern called for a pieced border but from the picture and the reds that were used it hardly even showed that it was pieced.....so.....I took the liberty to change it and just put a solid red border and I like it just as well as if I'd spent several hours piecing blocks.

Isn't it just the cutest!! I can't wait to get it quilted now. It is almost 60 inches square so I just don't want to try to quilt it myself. I love this quilt.

Pink and white and purple all over

OK Here she is. I worked most of the day trying to machine quilt this thing. I thought a nice echo quilting would be fun. I didn't quite plan ahead for the area where the echos would bump into each other. But all in all I'm happy with it. It sure wouldn't take any prizes tho. My hoped for flowing curved lines around the flowers, and loops in the borders, turned out to be a bit more jerky non-circles and uneven echos..... but it is finished! I think I really like the bright purple flowers with the green centers. Livened up the blandness.

Trying to machine quilt a baby sized quilt has made me realize that either I should start with very small wallhangings or leave the quilting to professionals. I have heard that practice makes perfect but I'm not sure I will live long enough to practice sufficiently.

Thanks for stopping by. Lynda

I'm going to be a Grandma again

A few months ago I purchased 4 Charm packs of this Butterfly Fling fabric to make this quilt for a future granddaughter. I fell in love with all the fabrics in the pack. There are 36 flowers all made from different fabrics. A couple of the fabrics in the pack were used for the center of the flowers and the background. It is just such a happy quilt. It started out as a baby quilt but just kept growing and growing. Now it will fit a regular bed. I must really like this pattern because this is the 3rd quilt I have made from it. It is just so easy. You sew connecting corners onto 3 sides of a 5 inch square, put 4 of them together, and it makes this cute little flower block. Of course, I did have a couple of mistakes where I sewed the corners onto the wrong side and ended up with a funky looking flower. Those didn't make it into the quilt. The quilting on this quilt was done by Laura Erickson in Orem. She did an amazing job with lots of quilted flowers.

It is official.....my daughter, Nicky, has said I can now tell people they are going to have a baby. Of course, we don't know what it is yet but I'm prepared with pink and blue. I was really hoping for twins...a boy and a girl...but Nicky is happy to report that it is just one baby. I am so excited to hold a warm, soft, cuddly baby again but I will have to wait until June.

Yesterday I decided my 3 hour wonder girl quilt was too bland so I machine appliqued 3 large purple flowers to it. Today I will try my hand at machine quilting again and hopefully in a couple of days be able to post it here all finished and ready for a cuddly baby.

Keep on quilting! Lynda

Woohoo!!

O.K. Here is the 3 hour wonder boy quilt done. I quilted it. I know....I can't believe it either! I put a wavy line down the seams as suggested by a quilting blog friend and then tried to meander the border. Not bad...not great either....but finished. After I looked at it I thought I should have been more adventurous and quilted something in the white squares. Maybe next time. Can't tell if you can see that the back got a little ruffled in a couple of areas but I sure wasn't going to pick all those stitches out. I used flannel on the back so it would be nice and cuddly. Now to attempt the pink wonder girl quilt.

In my last post I showed a kit that I had purchased on Thursday. Here it is all put together. I love love love the fabrics. They are Moda Glace (I think). Sure is nice to use a line of fabrics so I know that they all go together. Also sure is nice that someone else cut out all those pieces and labeled them for me so all I had to do was sit down and sew. I really love the border fabric. This is the first of 2010 Christmas projects. Hope I keep up this momentum!

Boy I sure love quilting, documenting my addiction in this blog, and reading blogs from all of you and your experiences with quilting. Thanks for stopping by. Lynda

Sale shopping

My friend, Janine, and I went out to lunch on Thursday, December 31, to celebrate her birthday a couple of days late. She asked if I minded if we stopped at a fabric store on the way home.....was she kidding! Do any of us need an excuse to stop at a fabaric store? I wasn't looking for any fabric for myself but when I saw this Crazy 8 fabric from Moda on sale for 60% off at American Quilting I couldn't pass it up. The kit was 40% off so I had to get it too. Yesterday I thought I might start the kit since everything was cut out already and marked. So I started sewing the squares together and with only 1 break to eat I finished sewing all the 187 squares together and adding the first border. Today I will sew on the outside border and it will be ready to quilt. One Christmas gift almost done for 2010!!! Hope I can keep up this momentum so by October I'll be done sewing for Christmas. Of course, that is my plan every year ......but never accomplished. Love to quilt! Lynda

Christmas is over for this year

Christmas may be over for this year but I thought I would take a couple of pictures of some of the Christmas decorations that I have made. The above Nativity is one I made a few years ago. I also made one for my friend, Janine. They were fun to make and I really enjoy hanging this in my entry way each year. The star above Baby Jesus is a cookie cutter. You can't see them very well but Mary and Joseph are each attached to small sheep.

I love Santa. Over the years I have collected a few and made a few. The above Santa just hangs around wherever he feels like it. His hands and feet are weighted so he can just be hooked over doorknobs, chairs or someone's shoulder. When my grandchildren are here you can never tell where you might find him hanging. I made one for myself, one for each of my children, and one for several friends one year. It was quite a project but so much fun to see several of them hanging around my sewing room waiting to go to good homes.

This group of Santas is made from one piece of red felt strip sewn onto a flesh colored fabric. The sewing forms the shapes of each Santa. I used different yarns for the beards. The black boots are painted on and each of the furs for the hat and suit trims are just glued down.

These 2 Santas came from 2 different sisters-in-law. They are both very talented and make lots of fun things. The Santa face was made from a plastic jug with lots and lots of holes punched into it and yarn attached. He hangs on my front door every year greeting guests. The other Santa is dressed for relaxation after the rush of Christmas is over.

They have been put away for now but I'm already looking for another Santa to add to my group for next year.

Happy New Year to everyone. Keep on quilting. Lynda