The huz & I took a trip to San Francisco this month, & while there, I was able to visit the Amish Abstractions exhibit at the de Young Museum. It was amazing.
If you can get there, I highly recommend it. It was fascinating to see the quilts up close & notice the interesting details. For example, they all have machine-stitched bindings without mitered corners; a separate strip of binding was stitched on to each side. The huz also bought me the book while we were there (since photography was not allowed), & it has great pictures, as well as lots of interesting information about the Amish community & their relationship to quilts. I have very few quilt books, because I prefer inspiration over actual patterns. This one will definitely be a favorite.
I have had these cute David Walker fabrics for a while now. My husband works in robotics, so I’m sure you can guess that robots are extremely popular with my little boys. I finally decided to cut into them & make a big play quilt. The design is loosely based on Yellow Brick Road by Atkinson Designs. I didn’t actually use the pattern (I have ADD when it comes to patterns) – but it was definitely the inspiration for these random blocks made from squares & rectangles.
I’m planning to try out a new quilt stitch design on this one. Wish me luck!
Over the weekend, my Cottage Quilt was featured on the Sew, Mama, Sew blog for Quilting Month. How cool is that? I am so flattered! You can click here to see their writeup, & click here to see my original post about this quilt.
A while ago, I read a post @ Crazy House Quilts where Monica bleached her green & orange Birdseed fabric. I immediately knew I had to do it – I’m not sure why I didn’t think of it myself. The fabric is beautiful, but for some reason I just couldn’t work with that tone of green.
The orange didn’t change a bit, & the green became a very interesting shade of ocean blue… Now I just need a plan!
Hello. My name is Jessica, & I am addicted to aqua quilt binding. Please send help.
This quilt was started as the back of this quilt top (which was the result of this stack). Before long, it monopolized my attention. Between bites of Girl Scout cookies, I ended up giving it a life of its own. It is made from new & upcycled cottons, organic cotton batting, & quilted in scales. The back is stripes of leftover patterns & solids. The binding is scrappy aqua. It’s about 36″x45″.
As always, you can click on the thumbnails to see larger photos.
It’s been busy around here lately with birthdays, math tests, ear infections, business trips, yard work, kitchen remodeling, & roof replacing, among other things. However, I did manage to finish some special-order crayon rolls I had been procrastinating.
I made oodles of these linen & cotton bundles (for both crayons & pencils) last summer for the Farmer’s Market & Craft Lake City, so I’ve got it down to a science now. My favorite detail is the tiny covered button & coordinating elastic.
Charity quilts are a good excuse for me to try new quilting designs. I guess this is a freeform clamshell design, but with it being upside-down, it looks more like scales or something. I like it, but feel like it’s missing something…
I think it’s cool, but sometimes I am wrong about these things…
Ever since my husband & I started dating, I’ve always given him a pair of simple jammie pants for Valentine’s Day (we like to keep things practical – this year he got me an awesome antique Fire-King bread pan). I’d always been able to find them easily in stores, in cheesy prints, at a price that was probably less expensive than making them myself. Last year I had a hard time finding a pair I liked, so I decided this year I’d make them.
Plan A… I pull out the fabric I bought for the purpose:
Um… I didn’t buy nearly enough fabric.
Plan B… I raid my stash, not expecting to find anything, because I rarely purchase more than 1/2 yard. But I did find a piece of fabric that I have A TON OF. I don’t even remember what I bought it for. A quilt back? Anyway, here you have it: the weirdest, ugliest jammie pants ever. Poor hubby.
These are my first 2010 blocks for the Common Threads quilt bee. These blocks are for Jacquie. They are 6.5 inches square. I am excited to see the finished quilt, because her idea is cool.
This is the first time I’ve made cross blocks, even though they’ve been everywhere in blogland. They were pretty simple to make, but a little tricky for me because I am not the best at working with very small pieces. I normally press all seams open, but it didn’t seem appropriate for these blocks. I ended up pressing them in whichever direction worked best, so they seem kind of a mess. But they lay flat… I guess that’s all that matters. I had fun with this little project – Thanks Jacquie!
