On the design wall

Ever find a picture that just makes you smile?

Well this one sure does it for me =)  I love it!!

Notice something about my design wall?  

It looks the same as last time!   

Well... there are a few more but not many.   I am loving the freedom of this block.  My friend Carol and I are each making an Urban Chicken quilt.  We both keep laughing about wanting to make it matchy matchy and having to relax and mix things that... um... well don't quite go together.  I made one too matchy matchy and it's boring!  I can see I need to add a lot more swagger to my hens.  They're marching in much too straight of a line.  

Next up are the blue, green, yellow, aqua, red and purple blocks.   This is either going to be one massive quilt or few smaller lap quilts.   All I know is once you get over the fabrics clashing its quite an addictive block to make.  I think the pattern calls for more of a contrast than a clash but I'm too far into it now, lol.  

Letting loose is a good thing....right???

Baby Stout's Football quilt

I finished binding the "Seahawk" quilt at 4am, just in time for my sister in law Julie's baby shower the next day.

The look on her face made the lack of sleep worth it.  Julie is a HUGE Seahawk fan.

 Although I'm not sure she had much choice growing up with 6 brothers and a father who were HUGE fans themselves.

 I think my husband Chad (middle brother) is a bit jealous.  I see a few more football blocks in my very near future.

Can't wait to get a picture of baby Stout wrapped in his quilt! 

A couple of my favorite gadgets

I'm really liking my new water soluble white marker from BlueLineEraser.com for marking dark fabrics.  It's not air erase like others but is very easy to remove with water.

 I'm also testing their Blue Line eraser products.  Both in the spray and pen form.   

So far so good =)

I still have a favorite in my old Marvy markers for light fabrics.  Love these!!  Purple is my favorite, I use it 99% of the time.

 I discovered Clover Wonder Clips last year.  Why did it take me so long??? I LOVE these little clips.

They are fabulous and so easy to use to hold your binding in place while hand sewing it down.

I even used one to hold my bangs out of my eyes while binding, lol.  If you don't already use them I hope you give them a try.

Just Monkeying Around

Diane's little Monkeys went home today. 

 

No time to press before pictures.  I just hate to fold a quilt!

Diane's reproduction fabric collection found the perfect home in this adorable quilt.  I hear there are more monkeys to come =)  Can't wait to see them.

Here's a picture of the pattern if anyone is interested. Love the quilted bananas!

And a little sneak peak at the football quilt.

On the design wall

 Putting the final touches on the Mosaic Challenge quilt from last year.  I always seem to be a year or so behind, lol.  Looks like it needs a fresh pressing after being folded for so long.

The football quilt is getting closer to it's quilting day =)  

(Update: quilted and ready for it's binding.  Shower's in 3 days!)

 

The first Urban Chicken block is finally finished.  I'm getting excited to work on this one =)

And last but not least, the circle quilt.  Hmmmm more like very large bra cups, lol.  Flat chested they are not!

After a good starch and press they are...er...nicely puckered.  It will quilt out right??  Something every quilter loves to hear, hahahahahaha.  NOT!   After I had already started this project The Pine Needle's class catalog came out with this quilt offered.  If only I had known, I may have had a flat chested quilt. 

A few from May (that I can show)

I've had the privilege of quilting a few quilts for the Portland Bridge Challenge recently, however we have all been sworn to secrecy until the unveiling later this year.   I can't wait to be able to share these beautiful works of art with you.

Until then here's a few beauty's I can share =)  

First up, Cornelia's lovely bed quilt.

We chose a finger meander with a clean diagonal piano key border.

Next up is Betsy's lap quilt.  

This is one of those quilts where I knew how I wanted to quilt it before it was completely unfolded.  And as usual Betsy let me have free rein.  This one was hard to give back  =)  The funny thing is Betsy felt the same way and decided to keep it rather than donate it as planned.  No worries she has more to share =).   Isn't it stunning?!

It was a mystery quilt.  Nice outcome eh! 

 

And finally Carries wall quilt.

I have to laugh over Carrie's love hate relationship with this project.  The darn thing wanted to have a life of it's own.  Shall we say it had a friendly center...... waving to all.   But she tamed it into submission and is quite happy with it now.

It was fun to work on.  We decided on a feather body to "eat" the fulness.  Her piecing was spot on, I'm guessing the panel was off.    I think it came out great!  Teamwork!

Cross quilt finished!

Boy has time gotten away from me!

I finally finished my cross quilt "O" Positive. It's quilted with a layer of Dream Request Cotton batting topped with a layer of Hobbs 80/20.  I thought I had a king size wool batt on hand but the Hobbs worked great for subtle loft.   The light weight request cotton gives it the perfect amount of drape. 

 By the time I got to the last row I thought I'd rather quit and shove the project in a box than make another block.  So I made a row of scrap strips.  It's my favorite part of the quilt now.   It's huge!!  93x117.

  It's so big that I had to curve the corners so they won't drag on the floor, lol.

I decided to name the quilt "O" Positive after a woman at Muddy Boots was obsessed with wanting to know why Carol and I were making quilts for the American Red Cross.  Nothing we said (over 3 hours) would convince her  the quilts had nothing to do with "blood".  I finally gave in and named it for my husbands blood type and quilted it in straight lines (varying widths) and "O"s.

 I was tempted to applique a massive blood drop on the back, but  fell in  love with this fabric from my sister Teri and had to use it instead.  Good thing eh?  A blood quilt is very fitting for 2 Halloween lovers such as ourselves don't you think. lol

Thank you AnnMarie for the inspiration and Jeri for so generously sharing your pre-cut low volume fabrics with me.  But most of all for giving me 2 finished orange cross blocks to start me off, which led to my color pallet.  And thank you to my sister Teri for the 5 boxes of fabric that showed up on my doorstep and filled my fabric shelves to over flowing.