Friday, August 14, 2009

Quilts for New Sewing Room


We are building a new home and my extra large sewing room is also going to house four built in bunk beds for when the grandchildren come to visit. They will each have a built in reading lamp and cubby hole I decided to trim out the bunk beds in a wonderful chocolate brown. I will have a quilt on each of the beds. Pink and Brown; Red and Brown; Yellow/Gold and Brown, and Blue and Brown.



This pink and brown quilt is from a Buggy Barn.



This is the back of the pink and brown quilt. The backing is light pink and white stripe.


This is a close up the two main blocks, sashing and border.





These are some of the brown and yellow fabrics I will be using in the yellow and brown quilt. The yellows are not quite as bright as they appear in the photo. One of the quilts I am thinking of doing a basket quilt and maybe a mariners compass for the other. Still deciding. I have one grandson and two granddaughters, so one of the quilts will need to be a little less feminine. This is my plan for now. It could change tomorrow. I think it would be nice to give the grandchildren the quilt that was on their bunk bed when they start families of their own some day. (or go off to college!)

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Biscornu Gift

I received a beautiful Biscornu from a wonderful friend today. I was so surprised and shocked when I opened the package. It is so pretty and the cross stitch work is impeccable. This is a side view.



This is a view from the top. I am in awe of the Biscornu as I have always admired them. I never did one myself because the construction intimidated me.




There were also some wonderful fabrics in yellow and red in the package along with some stripes that will be great for the POTC quilt top.


Tuesday, August 11, 2009

New Swags for Inklingo GMFG/Renegade takes a Swim



After much contemplation and a little advice from my friend, I am removing the red scallop part of the swag and replacing it with a smooth edge. It looks much nicer and makes the workmanship easier and neater. I should have all of the pieces ready to sew this evening. Ripping out is not my favorite thing to do but in the long run, I think I will be happier with the results of the new version.

I took my labrador retriever swimming today at a friend's pool. He dove right in and it took me a while to get him out of the water. You can see his joy! He commandeered a little baby floating toy and swam the entire time with it in his mouth. You would have thought I had given him a T-bone steak. It wore him out so he is now sleeping......actually he is snoring!



Monday, August 10, 2009

Swags


I have been back to work on my Starry GMFG. I added the swags on one of the short ends of the quilt. The other short end swags are prepped and ready to go. I still have to figure out the corner swags and add the flower buds on the tips of the swags. Wow! There is light at the end of this flower garden. There was no pattern for this quilt, so there was a lot of trial and error. The hexagons were at least made easier by Inklingo. I just wish there had been Inklingo for the swags. Usually by the time I get to this point in a quilt, I lose interest. I still love this quilt and can't wait to see it quilted.


Thursday, August 6, 2009

Butterflies and Stars




Thank you to Cathi Godwin for letting me use her Inklingo hexagon and diamond pattern idea for a baby quilt for my granddaughter, Ella Ruth. I finally finished machine quilting it - a major feat in itself as that is truly not my forte. I know Ella will love the texture of the chenille and minky border.



Construction - Foundation Prep


The preparation for the foundation continues. I think this stage will last several weeks. At least the ground is changing.



Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Construction begins on my Birthday!





We have finally started on the construction of our home. It was an awesome birthday surprise to get the permits issued by the city and start the very next day. Our contractor has it "all together!" The picture is me with two of my grandchildren, Kelsey and Brendan. They came for the day with my daughter and baby granddaughter to celebrate my birthday. My grandson really wanted to drive the contractor - he didn't say so, but you could tell by the look in his eyes. It was a very fun day.

Cowboy Baby Quilt




I have been working on UFOs this week. One of which is a baby quilt for a friend who adopted a little boy. It is a pinwheel cowboy quilt. The quilting is hard to see and is one of my first machine quilting projects. I truly prefer to have the experts do the quilting but out of necessity I attempted this one. I used coloring book pictures for the quilting patterns on each of the blocks. The design was a free Moda design that I downloaded a while back. The pinwheel pattern is also an Inklingo shape.