Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Sister's birthday present....check!

To say that my sister loves horses is a giant understatement. She. LOVES. horses. And a while ago my mom gave me a horse applique pattern that I started right away. Needless to say, that applique took a day to trace, about 5 minutes to iron on, and about six months to cut out! :) One night I was tired of shifting the blue horse part around my quilting room and I sat down, cut the rest out, ironed it on to the background, quilted it, bound it, and then put the hanging sleeve on. To top it off I used a batik on the back that has horses printed on it! To cut out some of it I cheated and used a 18mm rotary cutter for the mostly straight parts.


The spool is just to show the general size. She can either use it for a table topper or hang it up on the wall!


Hopefully she likes it. She lives out in Wyoming and has a couple horses, so I thought this would be neat to put on her wall.

Monday, December 20, 2010

Home-made retreat

How many of you would go to every quilting retreat you could....except you can't afford them? I'm one of you. I'd LOVE to go to every quilting retreat I could find, except my pocketbook would absolutely hate me. It'd probably pack up and leave me high and dry. So, with that foot being put down, I decided to call one of my friends from college (whom I tought to quilt), my mom, and my great aunt and see if they wanted to join in and have a retreat on our own! It finally happened last weekend, December 10th to the 12th!!!

My mom and aunt both had Pinafore purses cut out, and they had a blast getting motivation from each other through their "ordeal". From the time they began sewing, it probably took them a good 10-12 hours...but there was TONS of laughing involved! :)


I was able to begin a quilt for my friend that's having a baby. It matches the burp clothes I made her!


This is my quilting friend from college, Kristi. A few years ago we went into a quilt shop near where we went to college and she bought this batik kit! And the top is finally finished!


When I was in a quilt guild last year I joined in a block exchange and these blocks I made into a wall hanging for my quilting room. The binding is finally on!

Three people sewed at the table, and then my mom had the island and we put the cutting mat next to her.

This of course was the very same weekend it decided to snow two feet in Eau Claire, Wisconsin! My friend and I loved it though!!! Except for getting up by 5:00 am to go out and shovel the sidewalk all the way to our cars. This is Kristi, I'm shoveling in the background. We had 1 shovel between 3 people....so we took shifts! :)


When it finally stopped snowing, this is what the driveway looked like....there are two Buicks under there somewhere! :) I LOVE THAT MUCH SNOW!!! And here in Milwaukee it rained over an inch when it snowed over two feet in Eau Claire! I'm not sure what I like more, quilting, or playing in this much snow!

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Turtle Batik Quilt

Well here I am once again, with another finished product and the voracious appetite to keep quilting. But since I'm half way through my next project, I figured I'd better post my last quilt before it becomes lost in my quilting room and files of quilting photos on my computer! :)



It's a pattern idea I made up off of one of the Moda Bake Shop patterns. If you want to see the one I based this quilt off of, click here. This one is approximately 62x65 inches, so it's perfect for a large lap quilt! And the friend that I'm giving this to really doesn't like pastels, so I tried to use all bright colors, and for my second all-batik quilt, I think it turned out rather well! It was quick, easy, and I like the look of it and it gave me a chance to show off all the turtles in the fabric!!!

Sunday, December 5, 2010

I've been a pillow case making machine lately. Why? I have no idea. But it's a good way to use up some of my stash! I made Scott a pirate one and I have the Wicked Witch! :)