Happy Valentine's Day....

Happy Valentine's Day!

Part of a crazy quilt I am working on with a block for each month.

Fire and Ice quilts.....

I just finished binding the edges of the Blue and White quilt and it will be going to its new home this weekend, so I thought I had better get some photos.

These two quilts are based on the same quilt block....Delectable Mountains.  I made the orange quilt first....I call it "Fire on the Mountain" :-) 

 I was feeling "cold" and wanted a nice "warm quilt.  Then I decided to make a blue and white version, which turned out to be a very "cold" quilt.  I had snowflakes quilted on it.  Haven't thought of a good mountain inspired name for it yet...."Snowfall in the Mountains"??

 So.....Fire and Ice....not sure which I like best.  Both have their attractions depending on whether you feel hot or cold at the moment :-)  Both are about twin size....a nice snuggle under quilt for watching TV or reading or having a lap full of cats, which is what usually happens to me when I get the orange quilt out.

(Because Blogger makes me shrink down the size of the photos, it messes up the way the fabric patterns look.  I hate that!  I have better photos of the orange quilt in other places in the blog when I was posting full size photos.  I used a slightly larger size in the header photo and it looks a bit better, but I have very little space left to use for larger photos.)

Winter snowflakes and fall leaves....

I seem to be doing seasonal quilts at the moment :-)

I have not put the binding on this yet....you all know how I hate to bind edges!.....but it came back from the quilter looking just beautiful!  I asked for a snowflake design, and Avery did a wonderful job!  If you look at my sidebar and the "orange" quilt.....this is the same basic pattern.  I guess I could call them "hot and cold".

 Small snowflakes in the border...

 ...large snowflakes on the blue and white areas.  This is a gift for a nephew and niece.  Their wedding theme was blue and white and snowflakes last December.  Just a large lap quilt to snuggle under.

 And....looking back at Fall.....a maple leaf quilt!  I made a maple leaf quilt many years ago...one of my first quilts.  I look at it now and wonder why I chose the fabrics!  I just looked it up and I made it in 2002, so this is 10 years later and my taste has changed a lot in fabrics!  So I thought I would do an updated version in batiks...my favorites!  

Some of the leaves up-close.  I just love batik fabrics and how they look!  I'm trying to make myself cut them up and use them......I have a tendency to hoard them because they are so beautiful and I don't want to cut them up.  Must break that habit!  Maybe this is a new beginning for me in using my batiks!  Now to get some backing fabric and get it to a quilter.  I want a warm cozy flannel on the back.

UFO updates.....

The UFO project at the Quilter's Nest has been a big help to me!  I have finished a UFO for each month so far, although I was slow on the November one and just got it done in December.  But I have also completed two others that they haven't called the number for yet!  

 September was my Batik Fan runner.  It is a bit odd, but it is finished.  Now what to do with it???  It measures 53 1/2 " x 25".....pretty long and wide.  Too big for my buffet.  It was a tough project to finish.  I liked making the fans using coffee filters....I show how somewhere else in this blog....but then I didn't know what to do with it since I didn't want to make a whole quilt.  I decided on a runner but had to add some applique to make it come out more evenly shaped.  Oh, well.....it's done!

 This was my November UFO.  I started this circle project with my sister, Margaret in Seattle in 2007(?)  or there about.   About 29 x 31 finiahed.  Based on the book Circle Play, by Raynola Pakusich.  It is an interesting idea that I need to spend a lot more time on.  Working with the backgrounds and the circles takes some thinking.  I made it harder by deciding to make my circles 3 different sizes.  That made it impossible to make it come together right.  I was going to make 3 separate hangings, but changed my mind.  I want to try another one and think it will be better.  At least I did find a way to finish this one, and I'm not unhappy with it.  I was limited on fabric when I began this, since I wasn't at home with my stash!  The thing that saves it is the white stitching that I did....I think.  Turned out OK. Again....what to do with it now?

 My December UFO.....a cat quilt....literally!  I made this little quilt for my cats to lie on when they are in my lap.  I was also using up the strips from my other "strip" quilts I did....still not all gone!  I call it "Cats in the Cabin".  I messed up and got two identical greens too close together and it bugs me.  I may sew another strip on top of one of them to change the color.  A lot of trouble for a cat quilt....so maybe not!

 Cat tested and approved!  Mouse taking up more than her share.

Ozma.

Hopey haven't tested it yet and she is the one who will spend a lot of time sleeping on it probably!

Binding the edges.....

.......Love it? hate it? tolerate it as a necessary evil of quilting?  Sooner or later every quilt project comes down to that boring task of binding the edges.  Some people find it relaxing and like to watch TV while they finish their projects.  Others like me, can't do that ( I need glasses to see the TV but don't wear them for close-up work), so I usually listen to music while I sit and bind quilts.  

Most of my current projects are at the edge binding stage.  This "Three Chickens and a Dozen Eggs" runner needs the edges bound and I'm also still hand quilting the eggs and have a few little buttons to sew on.  This was my UFO for the month of October, so I have one week to finish this before show-and-tell time on the last Saturday of the month!  Should be able to do that without much problem.  The harder parts are done.  This will be a gift for a friend who raises chickens when it is done.

 Another UFO that is almost finished now....except for binding the edges!  First you have to make the binding. Sewing the binding to the front of the quilt with the machine is the easy part, but the back side has to be hand sewn with a blind hem stitch.  Not hard....just tedious and boring (for me)

 Three little hex table toppers for Christmas gifts.  These I haven't even made the binding and sewn it on by machine yet! I hate doing corners that are not 90 degrees.  Hope to add the binding soon and then add them to my pile of projects that need the hand sewing done.  At least they will be done by Christmas!

And finally, my little log cabin lap quilt.  

All done except.....you guessed it....binding the edges!

Whether you love doing it or hate doing it....the finished project is always worth the effort when you see it done!  The perfect finishing touch to every quilt.

Catching up and the UFO Challenge.....

  I don't think I ever posted a photo of the strip quilt when I finished it, so here is a photo of it draped on the end of my couch.  I'm looking forward to putting this on our bed when the weather turns cooler.  Too hot right now!  I made 2 pair of pillow cases to go with it.  I call it my "M&M quilt" because it reminds me of a bowl of M&M candies with all those bright colors in it!  (or maybe jelly beans?) And also because it will go on our bed ........we are Mike and Mary...2 M's!

M&M Quilt done

I decided to make a little log cabin quilt....lap size.....out of the left over strips from my M&M quilt.  

I just finished the top except to add a small border.  I think I can put this one together myself and do some stitching in the ditch to quilt it...I hope!  I sure wish I was better at the quilting part of quilting.

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The UFO Challenge

Every quilter has lots of UFO's....admit it!  All those UnFinished Objects sit around in a drawer or bag and never got finished because we got excited about some new project or we got bored with the old one or couldn't figure out what to do next!  Well a local quilt store....The Quilter's Nest....decided to help us take care of this problem by issuing a challenge to register 12 UFO's at their store.  Each month they will draw a number between 1-12 and that is the UFO you are to try to finish in that month.  If you finish it you can bring it for Show-and-Tell on the last Saturday of the month and also be registered for some prizes!  I had no problem finding 12 UFO's to register and so I signed up.

 The number drawn for August was #4 and that was my "butterfly project".  

I think I started these in 2008. 

 I had made these two small butterfly pieces with the idea of doing more and them making them all into a big wall hanging or "something". No real plan in mind.....just wanted to applique butterflies!  Well, after two butterflies and flowers, I put them in the drawer and they had been sitting there ever since.  So what to do with them??????   I decided to make each one into a small wall hanging and will give them to my sisters for Christmas.  I had to add the borders, hand quilt around the butterflies and flowers, and then I machine quilted around the borders and a bit of rambling quilting on the background.  Added the bindings and my first UFO is FINISHED!  Yeah!  

September's UFO.....#11 was drawn.

This was a workshop I took in January 2011 to learn to make the little coffee-filter batik fans that are on this runner.  It was a lot of fun, but I didn't want to make a whole quilt of them!  So I arranged mine into a rather large runner.  Because of the nature of the block, putting them in rows like this makes it asymmetrical in appearance.  To combat that I have decided to add an extra strip of fabric on the two odd ends which makes it symmetrical again, but now it seems "unfinished".  

My plan is to add applique of some sort on the fat parts of the two border ends.  Then I will have to layer, quilt, and bind the whole thing.  OK.....I have a month to do this!  I can do this!

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(Not off to a good start.  I spend all morning looking for the fabrics I used to make the fans and found all but the reddish one....which is rather important for what I wanted to do with the applique.  Darn!  I have no batik that matches in color.  Hmmmmmm.....thinking.)

Update next month when the next UFO number is announced and hopefully this is finished.

Links for Grand Rapids, Michigan Quilt Show photos....

We went to the Grand Rapids Quilt Show earlier this month and the quilts were fantastic!  So were the extra exhibits.  Here are links to web albums of the photos that I took at the show.  The first link is for the main quilt show:  Grand Rapids Quilt Show

and the second link is for the extra exhibits that I have some photos of: Grand Rapids other exhibits

And here is a link for my post on the Quilt Barn Trail in Vicksburg, Michigan.

I hope to get something new posted in here, soon.  Have been working on some UFO projects mostly and a log cabin from the scraps left over from my strip quilt.  Just need to take some photos!