2011 in review

I guess I was busy this year!

I think part of how I accomplished so much was hubby was deployed 8 1/2  months of this year.

But also in this year, we moved from one coast to the other! (California to Rhode Island!)

Happy New Years my Bloggy Peeps!!

Teacher's Gift

My eldest daughter is in 2nd grade. I decided to make her teacher a Christmas gift this year after polling some of my teacher friends. They all said it would be nice to receive a home made gift, so I made a Christmas table runner for her. 

 This pattern was one that I won on Rachel of p.s. i quilt's blog a couple years ago. I finally got around to making one.

Baby Clothes Quilts D.O.N.E.!!

I am so glad I got these done! When I agreed I'd do these for a friend I really had no idea how much work is involved.

First there is the cutting up of the clothes. Then, if there are outfits made of jersey knit, they need to be interfaced for some stability. Then you end up with squares of all different sizes. So what do you do? It's hard to have a plan for a quilt when you have various sizes of fabric pieces. So I completely improved the whole thing. I realized working with the knits was such a pain that I selected to not use any more than I had to. That being said, there weren't very many cotton prints. So I added lots of my own fabric which was fine with my friend, thankfully! I showcased specific outfits that were set aside for each girl and then the rest of the clothes were worn by all three and incorporated in each. When you are dealing with several different outfits, nothing really all matches each other. So there are lots of colors going on, but I think as a whole it works. 

I can say I will never make any more of these again except for the two I plan on making my girls some point in their lives. They will probably be high school or college graduation, or wedding gifts, so I have some time! And I only saved cotton clothes for theirs. Knits are just really hard to quilt!
Each one measures approximately 54"x62"

ABBY'S

KELSEY'S

LILY'S

December's Mini

Here's my mini quilt for December. I wasn't going to do it "Christmasy", (is that a word!) but then this idea came into my head one day. I think it looked better on paper, but it turned out ok, I guess. I really liked the background fabric. When I saw it, I thought it totally looked like wallpaper which is what I was going for. Then for the quilting, I decided to quilt in all the white lines of the pattern. It's my favorite part of the quilt. Sorry for the crappy picture, it was raining so I had to take it indoors.

I HATE BASTING!! poem

Yes I'm yelling

Yes I'm screaming

What I'll do next, there's no telling

It hurts my back

It hurts my knees

I don't like it, It exhausts me

I absolutely HATE basting quilts

 

 Two down....three more to go. Yep, I'm going to do a little quilting this weekend!

For inquiring minds....I spray baste. I have to do it outdoors....and it's breezy today. 

yep....I HATE it!!