Mr.I's Quilt

Here is a quilt for my nephew. The first quilt I made was for my sister - of course it was an experiment.  To make a long story short one of the fabrics was not right.  I was not sure how to fix the quilt.  My nephew came over for me to help him make a pillow.  The frog fabric he had was the perfect fix for his moms quilt.  I quickly went to the store to get more frog fabric.

It took  me forever to quilt her lap blanket - it took me two weekends to cut and piece together.  It took me over 5 months to quilt it!  It became sort of a joke of course I had never quilted anything before so it was a learning process.  When I presented it to her she was very happy ~ until her son saw it.  It has HIS frog fabric in it and it had to be for him. Mr. I even hid her quilt for her just so he could wrap himself up in the blanket.   His birthday was less than a month away so back to the store I went. I did not really have a plan.  I just needed to find fabrics that would match his frog fabric (that they no longer had)  Thankfully I still had some left over.  The pattern I used is called the boyfriend quilt and it can be found in the book Modern Mix by Jessica Levitt.

The quilt took me two weekends to cut out, piece and quilt!  So I did much better on my timing then with my sisters.  Of course who wants to disappoint a 9 year old on their birthday.  I like the quilt much better without the quilting.  I should have used a light thread.  However, I know that he does not care he is just happy to have his own quilt that matches his frog pillow.

Before Quilting

After Quilting

Back of Quilt

Frog Fabric

I am currently working on two quilts for friends.  I don't anticipate getting much done on them this weekend as I am hoping for nice weather so I can work in the garden. 

View inside my greenhouse looking out at the garden.  I don't have any flowers outside as it is still getting down to 37 degrees most nights.  It looks like I am going to see tulips bloom before the weekend is over.  My goal for the weekend is to get my water feature turned on and plants out on the deck.

Bloggers Quilt Festival ~ Spring 2012

I was inspired to show off Bella's quilt so I thought why not enter The Bloggers Quilt Festival - of course this required that I begin blogging... so here is my first blog.  I hope I am able to set it up and post prior to the deadline closing.

I just recently got into quilting- this is my second quilt.  I never planned on quilting. I began sewing with a group of ladies to ward off depression in the dark months of winter.  After finishing an outfit that I had worked on for some time I discovered that I had gained a few more pounds and it was not as flattering as it could be ~ perhaps I should have not eaten so much chocolate while sewing.

I love fabric so I was trying to come up with a way to keep sewing and playing with color - that was when it hit me.  I would not outgrow a quilt and one gets to stand behind the quilt when photographing!

I had just received an order from Pink Chalk Fabrics and in their order was a picture of a quilt.  It was amazing!  My stepdaughter saw the picture and fell in love.  I knew that I had to make it for her.  They were out of the quilt kit and the dimensions were much smaller than I was interested in so I decided I would make my own variation.

I ordered a Kona Solids Card.  I went on line and then proceeded to buy a ton of fabric.
I only needed one strip of each color. I then began arranging them in some sort of order.  I have enough left over to make 4 more of these quilts!  ~its good for ones stash....

 Here is Burton helping change the order of the strips.....

Things I learned when doing this quilt.  It is important to measure all of your fabric.  I thought since all of my fabric was from the same line and same designer it would all be the same width - it is not.  I based my main measurement on the first strip of fabric I cut.  For the placement of the white strips I came up with a formula on Excel to get a random centered look.  This would have worked IF all of my strips had been the same length. I was able to correct this by making little additions here and there.

I forgot to take a picture of it before it was quilted.  I had it quilted by Loretta Tibor; she did a wonderful job. 

The quilt measures  88 X 100

Back of Quilt

Close up of quilting

I hope you have enjoyed my first post and Bella's quilt.  Hopefully I will get this blogging thing down. 

I find so much inspiration each time I look at what everyone is creating.  It gets me wondering if I am able to tackle that or perhaps I can add just one more project to my list.... enjoy looking at everyones quilts.  bloggers-quilt-festival-spring-2012~ hosted by Amy