Card Trick

When the husband was in Las Vegas, for business a few months back, he stopped at a quilt shop for me (how awesome is that!) and picked up some fat quarters and batiks and a little kit, Card Trick Vegas Style.

I finally pieced it together last night. I haven't worked with triangles before. I think it turned out pretty well for my first attempt.

A closer but wonkier shot.

baby blocks

For my friend's daughter's first birthday, I made little soft blocks and a pouch for storage.

pay no attention to the beer drinking, laptoping husband in the background...

A close up shot of the seams for the pouch.

It's entirely made of recycled fabric. The upholstery shop, next to the playplace where we hang out, periodically gives away older fabric swatch books. I found enough coordinated pieces to make this pouch.

Full of baby blocks. I used 3 inch squares of fabrics mostly acquired from thrift shops.

And the velcro enclosure was left over from a birthday crown I'd made my son last year.

The entire project was basically recycled. The only thing new was the thread, and I already had that on hand. I think I'll do more recycled projects in the future. I have books of fabric swatches after all.

close up of the stippling. my second attempt. Still having issues with thread tension.

A nice stack of blocks. There were 18 in all, just the right amount to fill up the pouch.

scrappy nine patches

2 days ago I decided to start making scraps into blocks. I've got 1 1/2, 2, and 3 inch squares, sewn into blocks.

All random, all made of leftovers from other projects. I read lots of blogs about how much stash accumulates, I'm determined to not let it get the better of me.

I was surprised how much I liked the pinks and blues together.

Not sure if these will be 3 different quilts or a quilt with all different sizes.

They won't be in any condition for assembly for a good long while, so I'll just let it be for now.

fall quilt

I bought a scrap bag of moda fabrics a few months ago. They were all coordinated and from the Gobble Gobble line.

I let them sit in the bin until the right idea came along. Then this idea came along,

http://oldredbarnco.blogspot.com/2008/07/win-this-quilt.html Old Red Barn also did a quilt along recently with the same pattern.

I only had strips and there was only one of each style, but I think it worked out fine.

I used the remaining inches to make the border and i've got a few left that i'll add to the backing to be scrappy.

4 square

This was my first 4 square. Also, was my first attempt at stippling.

Turned out well enough, I think.

It's now a pot holder/trivet.

Disappearing Nine Patch

I got several charm packs of batik samplers a while back, but didn't know what to do with them. They are all different but many have the same color family or are in the same print but different values.

I've also been intrigued by the disappearing nine patch for a while now.

A match!

These came together super fast. made the whole top in about a night and a half. After the muslin sashing was going on, I felt it needed something else, so I went and found a batik in my stash that I'd got because it was on clearance but had no earthly idea when I'd need a pansy print in orange!

I think it gives a nice contrast and makes it look like window panes.

matching pillow cases

I already gave these to my niece for her birthday. i used the scraps from these to start the coin quilt.

so the sashing in the coins needs to not clash terribly with these!

Coin Stacks

Pink and purple quilt for my niece.

there are actually fewer whites than it appears because several of the pinks are rather pale.

I placed some off white fabric under these coins to show contrast.

drunken log cabin

My latest project. Inspired by a couple of different quilting bloggers.

I liked the idea of this quilt over at Crazy Mom Quilts. But I was using mostly a 'cool' color scheme. I also liked this quilt at Oh Fransson. It will end up being a sort of drunken log cabin styled quilt with a fussy cut center and scrappy (mostly) strips.

2 of the finished squares. 18 1/2 in blocks. there will be a total of twenty when all finished.

The scraps came from a variety of places, since I'm still pretty new to quilting I don't have a very large 'stash' (yet). I got a nice bag of smaller bits and a bigger bag of scraps on Etsy.

I also purchased several scrap bags of Robert Kaufman prints, and in batiks, too.

I broke down and bought a yard of Amy Butler's Daisy chain (there was a piece in the first bag of scraps, didn't know who it was, had to search around until i figured it out!) and then I went ahead and got a set of fat quarters in Amy Butler's Midwest Modern series.

I like the colors and patterns very much.

Jean quilt

My husband hates parting with worn out jeans. I declared war on them and told him I could make them into a quilt for him. This was back before I had my new sewing machine and before I'd made any kind of quilt what-so-ever. Needless to say, he was pretty skeptical and assumed I was just going to throw them out once he forgot about them.

HA!

The jeans were cut up into 7 inch squares and I got a flannel sheet from the thrift shop and cut it up into 7 inch squares as well.

a detail.

The brown corduroy actually came from another friend. Her blog is here -->

http://edgeofthesunshine.blogspot.com/

It is now my husband's favorite quilt. Shocking, I know.

lavender travels quilt

My first attempt at making a quilt was to sew 3 inch squares into rows and columns. I sewed them on my old machine (circa 1980's Kenmore) but I didn't understand about thread tension and stitch length. Needless to say it was a mess.

I gradually took apart the columns with a seam ripper. it was VERY slow going, as the stitches were almost impossible to separate. Eventually, I had a pile of strips of purple fabric.

So, I got creative and cut strips of muslin to offset all the purple and just started making a simple layout. About half way through making them, i switched up the pattern - with varying results.

Size is approximately twin/generous lap quilt. The batting is about half inch thick, making it a bit more like a comforter. It is light weight and puffy, I love it.

A simple stitch in the ditch showed off the lines best.

The back and binding are a sheet that was given to me. Friends of mine gave away 90% of their possessions and left Seattle to hitchhike and busk their way across the country. Their blog is here --> http://www.andjuggling.com/

Also, it explains the 'traveling' name of the quilt.

Crazy Quilt

My first quilt. I figured something scrappy and not squared off would be the best place for me to start.

The quilt template for the center of each block came from a Debbie Mumm booklet. My squares are bigger than the ones in the original.

My bedroom as tidy and clean as it gets. The quilt is a queen size, which is a bit ambitious for a first quilt.

another detail.