Kitchen Windows Quilt from Let's Begin Sewing...

Beautiful quilt feature today of Rachel from Let's Begin Sewing... It is called Kitchen Windows a pattern from Elizabeth Hartman. She made this beauty for her mum!  Love the bright colors, so pretty!  Stop by Let's Begin Sewing... to see lots of fun quilt finishes, clothing and other fun projects!  Thanks Rachel for sharing :)

Completed one more quilt. This one is special as I made it for my mum. I really do hope she likes it. This is the biggest quilt I have made so far, completed it measures 85" x 85". I quilted it diagonally and it was difficult to maintain straight lines on a small sewing machine but somehow it worked out. This quilt has definitely made me a fan of linen fabric and I think you will see me use it a lot more often in my quilts. I used stripped binding for my quilt. This is the first time I have used stripes and it does frame the quilt quite nicely. The backing is Folksy Flannel from Anna Maria Horner. It's very good quality and gives a real snug feel to the quilt. I prewashed all my fabric for this quilt so it's got a nice fresh smell about it. Any way without further adieu..

Had to add a little hand stitched note!

Fabric Tuesday...come share!

Heather here. Here is my quilt finish! Yay! Isn't is purdy? I LOVE it! 

Love the colors, love the flowers, love the pattern (which is a bit lost in all the prints I admit)

I just think it is sweet and vintage feeling. I want to sleep under it every night if only my husband would approve!

Hope you all love as much as I do!

What did you create?

Click here to see the "rules"

Can't wait to see, I LOVE being inspired by all of you all week!

Showing off some of my quilt blocks...

Hi. Heather here again. Just wanted to show off some DARLING blocks I have been working on.

DOES YOUR HEART MELT LIKE MINE?

These blocks contain some of my favorite fabrics of all times. Fabrics that I have horded for years. And a stash that I continue to add to. I LOVE vintage florals, pinks, blues, reds, stripes. I LOVE Tanya Whelan, Jennifer Paganelli, Lecien, among others.

It is a good fricken thing that I have 4 daughters, because I have been able to incorporate my favorite fabrics into bedrooms, clothing, accessories. It is SUPER fun for me.

This is going to be a quilt, I am actually nearly finished with it. Will share soon....

Blue Bird Sews a quilt for Grandma!

The best quilts are often the ones we make for people we love.  When I make a project for myself I allow myself to cut corners, but for someone else I'll pull out the ole seam ripper!!  Can you relate??  Today's quilt from Kelly of Blue Bird Sews she made for her Grandmother (in-law).  Such a nice gift!  Make sure to see Kelly's great quilt finishes, as well as this Concrete Cabin Block Quilt Tutorial.  Fun stuff!!


I am happy to bring you my latest finish from a pile of fabric to the finished quilt in it's new home. So sit back and let me tell you the whole quilt story (foul ups and all!)

My Grandma-in-Law (GIL for short) requested I make her a quilt about two months ago. She had only a few requriments: A queen sized blue and white quilt to match her bedroom -- by winter time. Little did she know I had a surprise in mind for finishing this quilt in time to give it to her during our vacation to visit the family in July! (more on that later) She left the over all design and fabric patterns up to me. It was a blast picking some favorites from my stash and rounding them out with just a couple of purchases - mainly a lot of Kona White! 

Fabric chosen, a perfect match to GIL tastes

The design came quickly, saw tooth stars set in an Irish Chain with a medallion in the center. I set about sewing my stars first, and then realized I'd made a big wonky mistake on each block!

First blocks

I thought I knew how to make flying geese blocks, turns out I was wrong! I centered the triangles when sewing them together instead of lining up the edges! How dumb right! I learned a big lesson that day, take a minute and read some directions before starting. But it wasn't the end of world, I just cut a new set of blocks and made 24 perfect Saw Tooth Stars.

A plan, new blocks and ready squares

The rest of the quilt top came together perfectly! And so far in my quilting career, it's the most accurate quilt I've ever made. I did a little happy dance about that! (sorry no picture of that!)

A perfect top ready to quilt

Long arm quilting is my new favorite part of quilting. Taking a top in for a few hours and walking out with a quilt sandwich is so gratifying. I found a great quilt shop close by to rent time on their long arm machine. After an intro class and a practice top session I was ready to try an easy stipple, loopy'd loops and a single flower in the center.But not before I made one whole pass with the tension totally our of whack!  t before I made one whole pass with the tension totally out of whack! Thanks goodness the ladies that run the shop are super helpful, because it took two of us 20 minutes to pick out all the bad stitches. But that's okay because in the end I was in love, look at that smile -- I'm a happy quilter!

I finished the quilting a week before we left for our NY vacation to visit the in-laws and introduce everyone to the latest addition, Baby J.  The quilt came with us so that I could give it to GIL in person! Hooray!

Grandma with her new quilt! She's happy too!

My in-laws live in just about the most beautiful little farming town in up-up State NY. The kind of place where there are old farm house and lots of corn fields. I am in heaven here, I'm a city girl trapped in a country girl's body. And with the most beautiful farm house just up the road we took the quilt over for a photo shoot with the barns, tractors and porches. 

Remember those messed up saw tooth stars? I put them to good use on the back of the quilt. They don't look wonky from here :)

This might be my favorite picture of the quilt!

Does it get anymore iconic? Nope!

A shot of the full front

The whole back

And now it lives with Grandma and she couldn't be more pleased! It ties her whole bedroom together, don't you think.

The quilt in it's native habitat, Grandma's Room!

Thanks for coming along on my quilt journey. This quilt was such a joy to make and to give! But having all the pictures to share along the way is just awesome! 

Cheers!

Kelly

Double Hourglass Quilt from Crafty Cupboard

During the Block Party Heather and I came across these great blocks, so of course we followed link to link to link and soon we were admiring all of Melanie's things from The Crafty Cupboard.  We were looking at all her tutorials she offers, as well as following her "quilts" tags.  It's so fun discovering other crafters.  And here is Melanie's fabulous double hourglass quilt that she made for someone in need of comfort.


I brought this quilt to our Young Woman weekly activity last night to finish up the binding while the girls practiced their volleyball skills. The occasional "Yeah!!! Great effort!!" was all that was required of me, so I was able to finish a side and a half :). I know, I'm terrible.

This quilt is uber cute. Primary colors make me smile, and want to go play at a part and have a picnic. How about you? Especially when you toss in a good stripe for the binding.

This quilt is particularly important because it is for my sister's mother-in-law, Karen, and a longtime friend of our family. She is going through Chemotherapy for a second time after her Lymphoma returned. I guess it missed the memo that it wasn't welcome back.

The double hourglass signifies time. Doubled. The fabric is 1930's reproduction prints, reminiscent of time past. Cancer is a mean, yucky, frightening thing, but the one thing we can be assured of is the time we have spent with those who mean most to us. Like many, Karen's life hasn't necessarily been filled with gilded pathways and gleaming adventures, but she has been a shining example of love for the Lord, and love of family. We are looking forward to many more years with her as our friend!

Something sweet from Aunt Spicy

One of the many reasons I love this blog?   I get to search around hopping from cute blog to cute blog in search of quilts. Fun??!  Yes.  Which is where I came upon Aunt Spicy and her very sweet quilt.  It is so feminine and sweet, I really like it!  Okay okay, you can see too:

Confession. I have an addiction. My name is Aunt Spicy. And I can not get enough of Jennifer Paganelli fabric. Every print. Every color. I just love them.

So when my sweet friend had her second daughter, well I decided it was time to break out some of my favorite JP prints from her Flower Power line.

Loopy Vintage Floral in Fuchsia

Elizabeth Rose in Blue

Elizabeth Rose in Ivory

 

With fabrics in hand I quickly decided to use one of my favorite "go to" patterns, the disappearing nine patch. There are a lot of great tutorials out there on line, but you really can not go wrong with this pattern. Here is one I posted awhile ago, with different Jennifer Paganelli fabrics of course.  And, yes, cutting into a perfect nine patch is a bit scary, but it is so much fun to rearrange the new pieces.

Once I had the top finished, well life got the best of me. I broke my foot. The holidays came and went. And then the East Coast was blanketed in snow.  Which ended up being the perfect time to get projects finished.

photo credits to Lindi at Love The Day

So I sewed the back with more Jennifer Paganelli Elizabeth Rose. I had some fuchsia fabric with little birds in my stash (but don't remember the designer) that also found its way in. Added some bright pink ric rac (how can you not love, super love ric rac?) and voila! It was a happy burst of spring through the seriously cold winter!

photo credits to Lindi at Love The Day

Now I try not to have favorites, but maybe, just maybe, all the other baby blankets will forgiving me for loving this one just a little more!

photo credits to Lindi at Love The Day

A huge thanks to Heather and Megan, for hosting such an amazing blog full of inspiration!

Thank you Aunt Spicy!  Love the quilt, and I super love ric rac too!  It is one of my favorite parts about this quilt, just something a little unexpected.  Make sure to stop by her blog and say hi!

And everyone please come by again tomorrow, we will be hosting (for the second week)

FABRIC TUESDAYS

a linky party.

The rules?  It needs to be some kind of craft/creative project where you used FABRIC!  You could have altered a dress, appliqued something, made new pillows, a quilt, really anything you've created (or changed) with fabric!  So come by, link up and check out the fun projects :)