Blogger's Quilt Festival

Welcome to my blog from Blogger's Quilt Festival.

This is not a new quilt, as you can see from the Christmas decorations in the back. It is, however, one of my favorites from the past year. At first glance, it is a log-cabinish quilt. But, when you look up close at the quilting, you can see portraits in the center section. I had fun with the quilting on this one, and plan to play with this idea a bit more in other quilts. I wrote about it first here.

Donnie Dinosaur, Pink zigzags, and bees

Though we've been busy with moving, I did get two quilts finished while staying with my parents. This first one was for a baby boy, born early March. Kelly requested dinosaurs or space. My first thought was dinosaurs in space suits, but she clarified the "or." I couldn't resist having one of the dinosaurs at least play with a rocket. These dinosaurs were all inspired by the illustrations of Mark Teague from How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight? and How Do Dinosaurs Eat Their Food? 

Previously, when I've done much applique, I usually turn under the edges of all but the smallest or strangest shaped pieces. For those, I would use an adhesive (heat n bond lite) and then sew around. I decided to just use the adhesive  for all of it this time. For some of the larger pieces, I did cut out the centers of the pieces before ironing them on. Things were a bit stiff, but I knew that would happen. However, I didn't realize how unhappy my machine would be when it came to quilting. Too many thick layers with the heat n bond on the front and back. Many skipped stitches. I ended up having to rip out quite a bit of the quilting stitches and redoing them. Of course, when I searched for help online, I found a great tutorial for using starch for applique, same concept as the heat n bond, but washes out. Good to know for next time. Anyway, I quilted each section around the dinosaurs differently. I wanted to make this a two sided quilt, but the quilting looked kind of odd on the dinosaur on the back. I think that would have worked better if I'd just done an allover quilting design.

All in all, I'm still happy with how the quilt turned out. It was just quite a learning experience for me. Always good, though. This quilt is approximately 48 x 60, made with all kona cottons.

I also made a lap size quilt as a wedding gift. I'd asked the bride's colors months ago, and had this in the plans.

Somehow, I still didn't get it totally finished until right before the wedding. Stipple quilting. This quilt is approximately 75x80.

It would have looked nice staying in my house, too.

I got quite behind on my bees. This is my mini quilt for Adrienne of Quilter bees.

And this is my row (really bad photo) for Tanya of Sew Bee It.