Design Wall Monday

I'm kind of cheating here because these aren't my quilts. I helped with them, but they aren't mine. Nevertheless, I'm proud to say that the design wall has been home to these quilts during their construction.

These quilts are creations of my brother Gerald. He is a new quilter, but he sure has made up for lost time. He has made probably 6 or 7 quilts in the past year or so. I was excited that he asked me let me quilt these on my domestic machine.

This started as a jelly roll race/1600-type quilt, but with some minor tweaking. He cut his own 2 1/2" strips, added some 4 1/2" strips and just a touch of red. He wanted it wider but not longer so he added the large black border to the left. I love this!

Here's the back of the above quilt. It's basically just straight lines, mimicking the lines of the piecing. Do you see the little bit of red here? That's his label. Click on the picture to enlarge it and you should be able to see it better. Again, I love this! I guess I love everything about this quilt. :-)

Here's a slash type quilt. This was fun to see as it progressed and Jerry learned a lot about what he will do the next time he works with bias.  :-)

Here's the back of this quilt and it's really cool. I used a variegated thread on both the top and bottom and the rainbow color looks exceptionally great on this backing fabric. Check out his label again. How creative! 

And finally, here's the last quilt he worked on at my house and this is pretty cool. He wanted it longer but not any wider so he adjusted the size of the top and bottom borders.This is a cool quilt. Again, I used a variegated thread and I love how it looks!

I wish you could see this great backing fabric. I love it! Again, look at his label.

Don't forget that the Wake Up To Kona! Blog Hop is continuing. Here are today's contributors. Enjoy!! 

(My day was Thursday and in cased you missed it, you can see that HERE)

Creatin’ In The Sticks

Meadowbrook

Cathy’s Chatter

Selina Quilts

Sew Fresh Quilts

The Sassy Quilter

And don't forget to stop by tomorrow for Tip Tuesday! 

Check out what other quilters have on their design walls today.

Go to Judy L's Patchwork Times and be inspired!

Wake Up To Kona! Blog Hop

It's my day!

Thank you Madame Samm - Sew We Quilt 

and

Carol - Just Let Me Quilt

for this fabulous blog hop. You two are awesome!

Of course we can't forget the sponsors:

Amanda Murphy, author of Color Essentials

Robert Kaufman for those fabulous fabrics 

and

Aurfil, whose threads keeps us stitching

Thank you!!

Be sure to check out the rest of today's contributors. 

I think you'll be amazed!

Ridge Top Quilts

Marjorie’s Busy Corner

A Stitch In Time

Freemotion by the River

Everyone Deserves A Quilt (You are here!)

I was so excited for this hop! I knew exactly what I was going to make. Then reality set in and I knew that completing that BIG project (117" x 99") would be virtually impossible for me with my other commitments. So, on to Plan B I went.

Plan B was very realistic considering the time frame in which I would be working. I knew that a full quilt would be quite challenging so I decided to make a pillow to coordinate with a project I had started a while back. If there was still time, I would work on finishing that quilt. 

That was the plan...Here's what happened.

The pillow - I love how it turned out and the fact that it's big - 20"! All of these fabrics were leftovers from the original quilt. That means I used stash, which is ALWAYS a good thing.

I used the pattern Twinkle Twinkle by Me and My Sister Designs. If you've never made a quilt using one of their patterns, you really should try it. They are easy to follow, have great illustrations and are wonderfully set up in terms of graphics. I really love teaching from their patterns because my students like using them. I promise you that it'll be worth your while to browse their site.  :-)

And look. It fits the rocking chair perfectly!

After finishing the pillow, I pulled out the quilt that was my inspiration and got to work on that. All it needed was to be quilted and bound. I completed this quilt top way back in February of 2012, but never got around to quilting it. (Click HERE to see the original post about this quilt.) 

My quilt is patterned after Jodie Davis' quilt Strip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah which was featured in Fons and Porters' Easy Quilts. If I'm not mistaken, this is the first quilt I made using exclusively solids. I loved it and was hooked!

I don't know why it took so long to finish this. It quilted up very nicely and in not much time at all. No matter the reason, it's done now and has been used the last few days in these sub-zero temperatures.

It measures 62" x 70" and is perfect for snuggling

Don't they go well together? I love them!!

Well, since Plan B was done and it was only January 2nd, I decided to pull out the pattern from Plan A and start working on that. So what if I didn't finish it? I have another project that was made just for this hop AND I finished a UFO. I could still start this and show my progress. Besides the original plan was to use this hop as the swift kick in the "you know what" to get started on this project. 

So I took the plunge and got busy. Really, the worst case scenario is that I would have another UFO. It wouldn't be my first and I'm sure it wouldn't be my last. :-)

Well, I finished the top on January 4th! Click HERE, HERE, and HERE to see my progress as it was happening. 

The quilt is called Groove and it's by Emily Cier of Carolina Patchworks. 

This quilt looks daunting, but it really isn't difficult to make. The pattern is very well organized with great cutting charts and assembly diagrams. Also, it has really good instructions and diagrams on how to construct curves. Plus, the pattern includes the instructions for five (5) sizes! Yep, FIVE sizes!!

When I was choosing colors for this quilt, I saw a couple of flower bouquets that had colors that I loved. I took a picture and went on the search for just the right fabrics. Here's a picture of the original two pictures. (I think I deleted the original in my camera.) 

I'm very happy with my fabrics and my husband LOVES this quilt. Now I just have to figure out how to quilt it.

Speaking of my husband. He is such a great guy! On Sunday when I asked him if he thought it would be possible to get a picture of this quilt so I could show it for the hop, he knew exactly what I was asking and quickly translated that into: "Dear, would you please stand on the balcony while it's cold and snowy so I can take a picture of this quilt?" 

It's a good thing we didn't wait a day or this picture would not have happened. We ended up with even more snow, sub-zero temperatures and 30 mph winds.  :-)

I love the coffee can holding down the right side of the quilt and the weeds almost smack dab in the middle of the lower edge of the quilt. But hey, we have the picture! :-)

Thanks for stopping by. 

Enjoy the eye candy you'll see today and the rest of the hop.

Thanks again Madame Samm and Carol. 

This has been so much fun.

Wake Up To Kona! Day 2

The Wake Up To Kona! blog hop has started and I forgot to post the daily participants. Here are yesterday and today's very talented creators! 

January 8 (today)

Stitchin’ By The Lake

That’s Sew Julie

Living With Purpose

Nini’s Patchwork Blog

Quilts My Way

Jane’s Quilting

Quilt Matters

January 7 (yesterday)

Just Let Me Quilt

Sparrow in Flight

Geta’s Quilting Studio

How ART You

Desertsky Quilts

Enjoy the eye candy!

Can You Say Obsession?

I think I may have an obsession! (Ok, you can quit laughing now.)

After all the pieces were cut, and there were a lot of them, I went from this (33 rows, each measuring 117" long)...

 

to this (all rows sewn together and neatly folded)... in less than a week

 

 



 

A bit of the backstory here...Right around Thanksgiving,  I signed up for the Wake Up To Kona! blog hop. I thought that participating in this hop would give me a good swift kick to begin working on a pattern that I've had since winning it way back in August of 2012. While reading one of the blogs that I follow, I became enchanted with the pattern and had wanted to participate in the Quilt Along that was scheduled to help promote the pattern. I started thinking about colors, fabric, etc. and then WHAM! something else took my attention. (Imagine that!)

I did get so far as to buying fabric and I even labeled them so I wouldn't get confused as to which one was being used where in the quilt. The fabric and pattern were nicely folded and put into a project bag, just waiting for me to get started. I always knew where that "kit" was and often pulled it out to look at it, but I could never bring myself to start cutting the fabric, let alone begin to sew.

Fast forward to late November and me signing up for the blog hop. I knew that this was the project on which I wanted to work. That was until I realized that I had decided to make the large quilt (99" x 117") and that there was no way I was going to get it done in time. Heck, I was still teaching and there were quilts to be quilted, Christmas stuff to do, etc. I swallowed the reality pill and came up with Plan B.

I finished Plan B and figured that I would at least begin cutting the fabric for this pattern. Well, once everything was cut, I figured that I might as well do a bit of piecing. What could it hurt? The worst case scenario is that I ended up with another UFO.  :-)

Well, I started sewing the strips for this quilt last week and tonight I finished the quilt top. WOW! I love how it turned out and can't wait to show you. 

Obsessed? Maybe, but I'm ok with that.  :-)

Making Progress

Remember this picture?

That's the stack of rows (33 rows that each measure 117") for the LARGE project that I'm hoping to complete before the 9th when I share my Wake Up To Kona! post.

Here's the stack now.

 

I'm down to 11 rows! Looks like I may be able to show at least a quilt top on the 9th. Stick around. I think you'll like what you see.

 

YIPPIE!

Another Hop!

I had so much fun with the For The Boys blog hop that I signed up for another hop.

Wake Up to Kona!

 

I've been playing around and collecting Kona solids for a while and this is just the kick I need to create something with it. For more details, click the logo on the right sidebar.

 

As you can see, the hop isn't until January so that should give me time, right?

 

Stay tuned...