Good Things Are Coming!

Have I ever been busy!  I have finished one whole quilt from start to finish, and am getting another one ready to be quilted by a professional.  Not that I'm not a professional (totally not), I just don't exactly have the facilities to quilt a bed-sized quilt.  YET. OK, Fine. You've caught me.  I really just don't WANT to quilt it myself.

• A: my machine is too small and it is a pain.  
• B: doing it by hand takes FOR. EVER.  I need this puppy done by June, y'all.

I have some pictures of my accomplishments.  First, the FINISHED project:  Ta-da.....

How stinkin' GORGE is this quilt?  If I do say so myself.  I used the Pennsylvania Keystone template from Jeanette Kittlan of the former Endless Mountains Quiltworks.  (TOTALLY have more of this type of quilt coming down the pike) The fabrics from the center of the quilt also came from EMQ - she was going out of business and I pretty much fell in love with both the modern gray and the fun bicycle print.  ADORBS.  The orange border, polka-dot border, and cozy flannel back are all from Joanne's.  I am SOOOOOO glad I decided to go with the orange.  I almost went with blue, but the orange spoke to me.  Plus, I made it for a couple and one-half of said couple claims orange as their favorite color, and the other half claims blue, so this makes the quilt quite perfect, IMO.

It seems every quilt has a story behind it and this one is no different.  Quite early in the process, I was sewing along when my machine beep, beep, beeped...and then all my buttons refused to work.  So from that point on, I only had one stitch - straight, and I could no longer even use the "needle down" feature.  Nothing.  I felt lucky I could use the machine at all.  

Unwilling to switch machines in the middle of a project (because, anyone who sews knows this could be a really bad idea), and unwilling to pause the project while I was feeling inspired and energetic, I plodded forth.  I believe I was sewing on the last border when the machine again beep, beep, beeped and VOILA!  All my stuff works again and I was even able to put a decorative stitch on the binding.  Weird.  

I should probably have that looked at...

The second quilt is much bigger.  I made it for my niece using materials that her mother (my sister) used to make clothes for her when she was a baby/little girl.  Since the fabrics from my sister were very juvenile in nature, and my niece is graduating high school this year, I wanted to temper that feeling with something more modern.  Confession:  Not my favorite choices.  The fabrics for this were chosen YEARS ago, before I discovered my love affair with dots.  I did the best I could with what I had, but if I did it NOW, it would look slightly different.

I designed the layout of the quilt all myself.  It turned out square, even thought I tried to lengthen the ends.  Oh well.  It's the thought that counts right?  As I said before, this is only a top.  I have enough material from my sister to do the entire back, so I will be putting that together soon.

Backstory:

This quilt took YEARS to finish.  I designed it on graph paper.  I cut.  I counted, I measured.  For some reason I got bored and put it aside...when I came back to it, I finished cutting the gray material for the top....THE WRONG SIZE!  Instead of 4.5" strips, I cut 4" strips. To be honest:  I think tears were shet. THANKFULLY, I was able to find more of the exact same fabric at Hobby Lobby (where I got the black and gray fabrics from).  Then I lost the fabric in my ridiculously disorganized home.  TWICE.  I found said material three times, though, and eventually cut it correctly and finished up the quilt.  There were lots of "moments" with this quilt, which could be why I kept putting it down.  By "moments" I mean blocks sewn backwards, needing to stop half-way through piecing to cut more blocks, OH, did I mention that at one point I transferred my "old school" pattern on paper to a computer program...and then my computer crashed HARD, and I lost it...after I threw out the paper copy?  Oh yeah.  Tears, I tell you. Many tears were shed during the making of this quilt.  MANY rookie mistakes.  It will probably be awhile before I attempt to design a top myself again.  But my niece will be able to claim that she has the first and possibly only quilt designed by MOI.  So there.

I actually do not have a picture of the complete top because I am waiting until it is all pretty and finished.  But you can see about half of it here and imagine the rest...;-)

I need to get some close ups of the adorable scrap fabric that will mean so much to her.  Some of it is really adorable.

So that is what I have been up to all these months.  I have some new fabric coming to my mailbox soon...not soon enough for my liking, but it's on the way.  I have plans to make a Keystone quilt in a lavender colorway using a chevron print and a polka-dot print...I also have a wonderful Amy Butler fabric in my stash that I will be using for another one in a burgundy and green colorway...I have a really pretty Amy Butler print coming my way that I will also be pairing with green...  and a sweet mint green rose print that I have not yet paired, but I will most likely go with pink.  I want to do a mint and navy quilt because that is actually my favorite color combo of the moment....but Navy is a hard color to work with on the computer, so I am going to do that one in person.  Hobby Lobby, here I come....All that, and I am also quilting a t-shirt quilt for my sister-in-love.  For the past two years.  See?  FOR. EVER.

And what have YOU been doing lately?