My New Blog Journey's Row 10 Quilt

Laura from My New Blog Journey is an amazing mom, quilter and sewist.  I was so impressed reading her blog and her love for her son, Aaron, who has special needs.  Her style is so creative and I just love this quilt she put together.  Here are a few of her finishes that our my favorite: Baby Quilt, Star Quilt and Baby Quilt 2! Check them out after you read Laura's story.

My Quilt Story: The Row 10 quilt

Hi! My name is LauraJ and I blog at MyNewBlogJourney. I am delighted today to bring to you the story of
a quilt that is near and dear to me, even though I just finished it recently. It all started back in December
2009 when I was asked to be part of an online quilting bee. We were all friends and this wasn't the first
time we had flickr bee'd together. We wanted to spice things up for our bee in 2010 and decided to work on rows of pieced fabrics in the chosen elements of the Queen Mama's month. We named our group Row 10.

My month was July 2010 and I thought long and hard and came up with the idea of a whimisical forest
theme for my son. Each member was to make a row 6 to 8 inches in height by 60 inches long that could
include forest critters, gnomes, trees, mushrooms. Anything that would be fun and would appeal to
a growing boy. I wanted this quilt for my son who has profound special needs in many areas of his
development. He's in a wheelchair and I can't very well take him to the forest but I can take the forest
to him. He's on his way to being a teenager soon and I wanted a quilt to mark the milestone in our lives
that we're both growing up.

The colours I chose for this quilt to be were bright colours and forest colours of green, blue, brown, red,
orange, aqua. Fabrics consisted of whatever the maker had. I love novelty fabrics and fun fabrics and a
lot of those were included by the members to each of their rows.

As the rows started coming in the mail I started playing with them.

And then I waited for the rest of my rows to come in. I went for an appointment with my son last summer
and I was told he needed surgery immediately. I wanted to have this quilt done for my boy so I put a call
out to my group if there were any members willing to help me make extra blocks to make up rows that
never came. Fortunately for me I had the best group of gals and they rallied the troops and I finally had
enough rows.While I waited for the surgeon's office to call us with a date I put the rows together and
eventually had a top.

I then had to find the right backing for this because finding a backing is just as important to me as the
quilt top. I want it to flow. If you're a quilt maker then you know how hard it is to come by masculine
fabrics. I finally scored some fabric that I just knew would be perfect for this whole forest theme I had
going on. Then I found some more fabric on sale which would complement the whole quilt nicely.

I sandwhiched the quilt and set about to quilting it. I just wanted simple quilting and so I outlined quilted
the main characters, gnomes, trees, houses, mushrooms etc, and I did a bit of free motion things here
and there.

I was going to go with a different binding but thought since I had this at home I might as well just use it
and I'm so glad I did.

Once the binding was on I took it outside for it's photoshoot. I trudged through the snow in the back
yard that was 2 feet deep. Well past my knees but oh so worth it for a splendid quilt such as this.

And the back:

And finally on his bed:

I really like this quilt for so many reasons! First being the privilege of being part of such a wonderful
group of women quilters. Second I love it for it's design, colour, and fun! Third I love that it's for my
wonderful amazing boy who keeps me grounded into my own reality. We did get that date for surgery
and I will cherish the month of February just a little more so than usual before "our normal" changes
completely come Spring.

House Blocks!

Welcome to week 3 of the Modern Rockin' Robin QAL!  It's so great to see all your creations popping up in the flickr group.  Never too late to join...

This week is my week!!  Eek!  It sure was fun, when we initially where throwing this idea around I threw my hat in for the House Block right away.  I really took a modern spin on this...

Week 1: Rectangles

Week 2: Stars

Week 3: Houses

Week 4: Log Cabin

Week 5: Hexagons

full tutorial here

I chose to do two large house blocks and two blocks with three tiny houses.  They make me happy :)

Now of course for you can put the blocks and row(s) together anyway you'd like.  A block with 6 small houses, a block with a large and small house...I think a row with all small houses would be uber cute!!

The "rule" I made for myself in keeping with my theme of cool vs warm colors was the house itself was opposite of the roof.  So here for example the houses are warms and roofs are cools. I am pretty sure that sentences is pretty offensive to English majors.  Anyway, I also decided all the roofs would be polka dots on every house.  

Making these little rules really helped since I was using all scraps.  It gave me a lot more direction.

I was so excited to fussy cut some of my Heather Ross prints to use for the large house blocks.  I absolutely adore these blocks.

I hope you'll try these out!

Again, if you'd like to join the Quilt Along you can find out a little more here, check out the flickr group.

If you want to check out the other bloggers participating and see their blocks see
AnneMarie from GenXQuilters
Jen from ReannaLily Designs
Melissa from Lilac Lane

Click here for the full tutorial on today's House Block by Quilt Story!

A selvage quilt you must see!

If you've considered making a selvage quilt...or maybe haven't heard of one, you will be greatly swayed by this post.  Riel from the Q and the U does an amazing job with these quilts!!  If you want to see if it's for you try out this Selvage Snowflake Tutorial she offers...it's definitely on my to-do list!!

For my last tour stop at the KVQG show, I am posting again about my 2010 Selvage Sampler. Forgive me, but I did want to show close-up photos of the blocks in case anyone wants to try making some that are similar. (If you do, email me, I would love to see them! I am also considering posting some tutorials for a couple of these blocks sometime in the future.) As well, I wanted to share my Quilter's Statement and my judging results.

-

So first the statement: "I am new to quilting but I think I'm already addicted. This quilt was inspired by both the traditional idea that a beginner quilter make a sampler, and the modern trend to use fabric selvages in sewing projects.

I also wanted to make a unique and personalised memory quilt to celebrate the start of my quilting adventure. The selvages are all from fabrics which I used (or plan to use) in other quilts this year. The fussy cuts in the quilt represent my family members and some of our interests.

This quilt is my own design and is free-pieced without a pattern. It was a lot of fun to make and I can't wait to gather more selvages to try another quilt. Thank you so much to Tina Hanson of Town and Country Quilts for the wonderful job she did machine quilting it."
-

Now, for some of the details. In the 2010 section I used only the pieces of selvage that had the numbered colour windows on them. The little blocks making up the numbers are 3 inches square. Some of these little blocks only have 2 selvages on them, but some have as many as 4. I like the look of all the little numbers making up the big numbers.

This is the square representing my husband. The head is cut from a Mer-Man I found on a fabric called Mermania by Blank Quilting. I used blue and green selvages primarily here to keep his block masculine.

A crow is featured in this block because we enjoy feeding the crows at our house. Crows are so smart. In the mornings I throw them the toast crusts that the kids don't eat. I yell "Breakfast Crows!" and even if they are down the street they fly over to our yard as soon as they hear me.
-
I really like the look of the triangle log cabin block. And it was very easy to make!

A butterfly block represents the love of nature that we share with my parents. Some of the selvages on this block say "Butterflies" and "Nest." There are also the "seedlings" from the Flea Market Fancy line in there, spiderwebs, bird tracks, leaves, as well as Woodgrain by Joel Dewberry.

This is my son's block. He plays T-ball so he picked out the little ball player to represent himself. The outside of this square has robots on it for him too.

A heart.

The central scissors here are from the MoMo Wonderland line. The selvage right above the scissors says "Patchwork Fever." Guess who has Patchwork Fever? Hee, hee.

Our provincial flag. The flag of New Brunswick. The selvage above it says "In Love With" as we are proud New Brunswickers. Maybe I should have saved that selvage for my husband's square, but I didn't think of it until too late. Believe me, the selvages were flying around here as I was making this quilt, and they were hard to all keep track of.

My daughter's square. She is peeking out the window of the house. I think this was the trickiest square to make as it has seams that are both sewn together regular as well as those that are overlapped and top-stitched.

I am represented in the triangle here.

An owl fussy cut. Probably the biggest fabric trend of 2010 was owls, I would say. Plus we like birds. The star was really easy to make. If I made a selvage star block again I would make it bigger to use lots of selvages on each point rather than just one.

A simple zig-zag square.

An all-Halloween string block. I made two Halloween quilts this year and had lots of Halloween fabric.

-

Then the butterfly. Not the hardest block, but I did tweak it over and over to get a decent shape.

A simple selvage rail fence block done by colour.

My name is here. (Read down from the top in two columns). This is placed at the end of the 2010 section.

The background fabric is "Rock Star Hero" by Henry Glass. Wow it is bright and awesome "in person!" The quilt is 67 by 92 inches, so twin-sized.

-

It took me about a month and a half or maybe two months to make, just working on it here and there.

-

It was quilted by long-arm with invisible thread (polyester). Tina Hanson, the owner of my local quilt shop, quilted it for me. She hadn't tried invisible thread before. I really wanted invisible though, because the quilt already had so much going on, I didn't want thread lines making everything busier.

Tina was more than willing to try the invisible thread and did some practice sewing on scrap fabric first to be sure it was okay. It seemed all good, but then on the actual quilt it was only about 95% good. As I was sewing on the binding I noticed the thread had caused her machine to skip in several places. And not just little skips, but a few were about 3/4 inch of missed stitches. Anyway, she was great at fixing it up no charge and you can't tell any difference now. We were laughing that she certainly will not be suggesting the invisible thread to her customers in the future.

-

And, finally, my judges results from the show. My design, colour, general presentation, top assembly, and quilting all received "Good." My finishing received "Excellent." My comments "Design is fascinating. Colour is vibrant. Amazing. Quilter should be proud."

-

So anyway, this was such a fun quilt to make and I was happy to have the goal of the show to motivate me to get it done! It was really nice to see it hanging in public and my kids were excited to see it at the show. I'm definitely going to enter something next year and I'm likely joining the local quilters' guild too.

-

The KVQG show had about 300 entries and was attended by over 2500 people.

-

Happy Quilting!

Fabric Tuesday...Part Three

Welcome to FABRIC TUESDAY part 3

We have really had fun with the linky parties...keep em coming!

Here are Meg's darling house blocks for our August girls. We shipped them right on August 31st. Now we should both be getting our September packages of fabric in the mail any time! Just like Christmas! How fun is that?

Meg is in town I was able to help her a bit with her blocks. I still feel like I have alot to learn, thank goodness both of the people wanted freestyle/wonky houses, or they may have been mad at us...

I love the cute girl in the windows... and the cute owl on the roof...

Meg got bold here and went for the double roof. Super cute huh? It is fun to play with other peoples fabric choices...

On to FABRIC TUESDAY... You know the drill, but here is a refresher...

Link up a recent craft project that uses fabric.

Mention us in your post with either a link or make it easy and add the button to your blog sidebar and you won't have to remember each week. ***You can take either of our buttons on the sidebar.***
Psst...there have been a few not linking back to us,(why no love?!) and we don't want to be mean and delete, but we are going to have to start :(

Follow us, we follow back :) But please comment telling us you did so!

Oh and comment on each other, that's so much more fun right??

Fabric Tuesdays!

Welcome to Fabric Tuesdays!! We've been bouncing this idea around forever and we are finally ready to start, and we hope you'll play along and tell your friends :)

First we want to show a fabric finish of our own for the week. Heather and I felt like we had a lot of spare time and hardly anything on our plate, so we decided to sign up for a virtual quilting bee. Essentially every month we receive fabric and instructions from another member, create a block for them and mail it back by the end of the month. This bee happens to be a house block bee. c.u.t.e.

Here is Heather's finish.
This block was totally freestyle. I ended up loving it! It helped that the instructions were for a "wonky" house. I started with the window and put a little gnome and girl with a balloon in it. Then I added shutters...Then I made the little piece with the door and frame. I just kept adding and adding.

The address is just because I felt there was alot of extra space floating on the house. I feel like I should have made it part of her home address, but that genius didn't come to me until I finished the numbers. I hope she likes it!

This is my second block. She wanted freestyle too. At first my house was to tall and skinny and I thought it looked like an outhouse. I added the grass and made it a shorter house and it fixed that problem.

She also gave us some cute owls and little kids playing and wanted them added in. I appliqued them and the tree. I like the final product. Hopefully the lady in my group does too... (if I make them cute houses, I think I will get them back. I am one of the last to send out fabrics) So far virtual quilting bee's are fun!

Now we want to see YOUR fabric finishes!

Here's how our linky party will work.  First, the new button.

<center><a href="http://quiltstory.blogspot.com" target="_blank"><img alt="Fresh Poppy Design" src="http://i947.photobucket.com/albums/ad311/freshpoppydesign/fabrictuesdayfinalcopy.png" /></a></center>

HOW TO PLAY
Link up a recent craft project that uses fabric.
Mention us in your post with either a link or make it easy and add the button to your blog sidebar and you won't have to remember each week.
Follow us, we follow back :)
Oh and comment, because Heather wants to know how great her house blocks look!
Oh and comment on each other, that's so much more fun right??
EDIT NOW YOU CAN SUBMIT! Nothing like starting your first linky party and having the time wrong!

Sew Fresh Fabrics adorable house quilts!

We came across Becca from Sew Fresh Fabrics through the Blogger's Quilt Festival.  And when you see these quilts you'll know why we had to ask for a feature!  We've been seeing these house blocks popping up all over the place online and they are just too cute!  Let me emphasize that there are two separate quilts posted below...Becca is part of an couple of online bees and used their blocks and her own to create these funky whimsical quilts!  (Be sure to click on the bee's links and see all their blocks.)

These quilts are the result of two online bees I am in and will soon be living on my 7yr old's bunks. For the first group- Hip To Bee Square- I sent out an assortment of fabrics and asked for blocks any size and any design- sewer's choice.  

For the second group- Bee Addicted 3- I sent out similar fabrics and asked for houses- again any type - any size. The blocks I received back were just amazing!! So bright and fun and amazingly inspired! (Thank you all!). I knew I wanted to mix them together to get 2 quilts out of them - and here they are.

It's a virtual I-Spy of characters and creatures and where they live. There's a mushroom house, a light house and a kooky witch hat house.

The process of putting them together was so like a puzzle- adding strips and blocks where needed to make them work together as a unit. Then I added a cobblestone border and lots of little blocks around that. One is finished, washed, and on the bed. The other still needs the binding sewn to the back and a spin through the washer and dryer for that soft crinkly goodness. I love these and even more so because the blocks were made by many women around the globe!!

Thank you so much for sharing!  Becca and Peg (from Ivy Arts) share this blog together and have an Etsy shop where they sell to die for fabric, check it out!

Also, check out our Fresh Poppy Blog and help me decide which quilt block I should use for my next quilt!  I haven't done a traditionally pieced quilt before so I am trying to decide the block and layout, come help me!

Linking at amylouwho