National Quilting Day - Barn #2 ~ Quilty Barn Along

Did you know that the 3rd Saturday in March, every year is National Quilting Day?

 

Quilting is so wonderful that it should be a holiday the 3rd Saturday of EVERY month!

 

In celebration of the day I put together my 2nd barn block for the Quilty Barn Along.

 

 

You can see my first one here.

I am really loving this quilt along and can't wait for barn #3!

Happy National Quilting Day!

A quilt with a confession

I have a confession to make. I have now been quilting for 14 years and I just finished my first quilt with applique on it. I've never appliqued anything, seriously. It was always just a little too intimidating for me. And now that I've done it, it still is.

 

I tried needle turn applique on this quilt and I wasn't overly happy with the results. I now believe that needle turn applique is something that you practice over and over again before you're actually good at it. If you're a newbie to applique like I am, these videos helped me out tremendously. I couldn't have done it with out Jenny and Jan's help!

 

"On the Pantry Shelves" - 2013

 

 

I have another applique project on my project shelf where I'm going to try machine applique to see if I can tackle that with better results.

 

This quilt top will be shipping off to my friend Christa- all the way over in Tennessee- so that she can work her magic on it. Christa is an exceptional quilter and I know that she'll do a wonderful job here.

 

When it's back and I've bound it, I'll share the final masterpiece!

Joining the Quilty Barn Along - Barn #1

As if I don't have enough UFOs right now, I've decided to join Lori and her Quilty Barn Along. Quilted barns...with quilt blocks on them? How could any (country) girl resist?!

 

 

I'm a little behind since I just completed my first block but I'll try and get my next barn done before barn 3 starts.

If you'd like to join along, there's a Flickr group set up and Lori will be sharing her barns on her blog. I'll try and share all of mine here as I get them done.

 

 

 

I also forgot to share this finished quilt. Probably because it was one of those quilts that sat on my dresser for about a year WITHOUT the binding. How is that possible?

Anyway, I got the binding on in January and gave the quilt to a little 5 year old (who loves quilts) and begged me to keep it for her own. (That would be my daughter.)

And today, I found the picture on my camera.

Homespun Houses

This quilt was finished just this past week, so I'm hoping that I may be on a roll of a quilt a month. Well, we'll see come planting time. Then it may turn into a quilt a season!

The inspiration for this quilt came from here. Who doesn't love Schnibbles patterns? They are always adorable. The problem is though, that they are always small. (I mean the finished quilt.) And that's the whole point of the patterns. But it doesn't work out so well when you want to make a larger quilt with the pattern....unless you just want to make a gazillion of the blocks. Or if you're math inclined, size all the blocks up using your super math powers.

 

"Homespun Houses" - 2013
 

I don't have super math powers (AT ALL) and I didn't want to pay for the pattern with shipping (because I am somewhat cheap) so I looked at it and said, "Yeah, I can do that" and went with it. I picked a size that I wanted my houses to be and then created the rest of the quilt from that. The finished size came out to be 49"x60".

 

And if you know me and quilts, you know that I love stars. I wanted to incorporate them in this quilt somehow. Originally my plan was to have all the star blocks next to each other, like the houses did, but the math and the block size got way too tricky so I just ended up putting the sashing in between them instead.

 

I was so proud of myself with this quilt because with the exception of ONE of the fabrics, everything came from my stash. Now that is an accomplishment.

Overall, I'm happy with how it turned out. A friend of mine, Debi, did the quilting. I found the swirl pattern on a quilt in my "Simple Blessings" quilt book and knew I wanted to use it on this quilt.

Until next time, friends!

P.S. I don't think that "gazillion" is actually a number. It just sounds like something really big. :)

P.P.S.  And just as a side note... A special little girl turned 5 recently and guess what she got for her birthday? A new sewing machine. And she's been sewing on it ever since..... That warms a sewing mommy's heart.

First Quilt of 2013

I'm back............sort of.

I will not be blogging about our family, or our homestead, or animals, or baking or homeschool, or anything else that I used to- with the exception of quilts. I'm taking this blog back to where it started....the love of quilting. I'll be sharing, as time allows, about completed quilts.

And that's pretty much it. So if you love quilting, or quilts and you don't mind hanging around as I sporadically share quilts as they are finished, then I welcome you. I'm sure this will take on it's usual seasonal character, while I quilt more in the winter while it's cold outside and we are inside. As spring time arrives with planting and spring turns to summer with most days spent outside, quilting will take a back seat and the posts will be few and far between, if any.

Without further ado, here is the first quilt of 2013........

"Cowboy Stars" - 2013

 

I made this quilt for our youngest boy who, I'm embarrassed to say, only had 1 quilt to his name, that was his baby quilt. He is 3 now and has outgrown that quilt's size....about a year ago. He was borrowing his big brother's quilt until his was done. Now he has this on his toddler bed and is warm under his very own big boy quilt.

I used the Happy Trails Collection from Benartex fabrics, with the exception of the white stars on red print that was from the Rosie the Quilter line from Bayside Quilting. I wanted to add a little more red into the quilt and also wanted a fabric that kept the theme.

Here is the backing fabric and a good chance to see the quilting on it. Unless you're able to see the quilt in person, the quilting disappears in the front of the quilt. The backing fabric is a flannel. Flannel is a must as far as I'm concerned for toddler bed quilts. Usually my kids don't have a sheet at this point, until they move to a twin size bed, and the flannel keeps them warmer than a cotton would.

I'm working on a few more quilts right now so hopefully you'll see me back here soon!