*opposites attract

You may remember me telling you before, this year I have a number of young people in my life who are graduating and a quilt is in order for many of them.  I have started one. Sigh.  I was on a roll and moving right along there for a while, but sort of hit a brick wall.  All of my blocks for this one quilt are pieced together but not yet sewn together so I can start on the outer borders.  Soon!  I wanted to share with you the amazing things you can do with this one block.  The pattern is called True Blue and it can be found here at The Fat Quarter Shop 

This is in the individual block...

These are 4 of the ways you can lay this out, there were more.  I stopped at four and this is not all the blocks, but was enough to get an idea of how the quilt would look in each lay out.

This one is my favorite and it just so happens that the sweet young lady getting it chose this as her favorite layout too!  So it shall be!

This week it is my goal to get these all sewn together and get some outside border on it, or at least sewn together!


 

*puuuurrfectly finished

 I started piecing this quilt together about mid August for my mother-in-love, she is a big cat lover! This pattern is simply adorable and  you can get more information on the pattern by visiting HERE.

The quilt turned out queen size and I have quilted a number of queen size quilts under the needle of my Janome 6600. However, I decided to take this one to a quilt shop in a nearby town, A Quilters Place.  You can rent one of Dawn's machines by the hour or by the day, I had a blast and I was done in an hour and a half- can't beat that. 

 The whole quilt top besides the borders is all done in batiks, which my mil loves. 

I didn't have the perfect match for binding and as I searched through my fabric I still could not come up with a fabric I loved to finish this up with.   I was in a crunch  and really didn't have time to drive to a quilt shop in the neighboring town to buy binding fabric.  I had to get creative.  I started looking at the backs of fabrics and I found one that worked perfectly.   So the binding is finished up in a lovely "gilded colored" fabric which is the backside of some yardage that I had on hand. 

This is the only picture that I have of Mom with her new quilt.  They have made it back home now and she said the quilt looks just lovely on their California King sized bed.   So glad for the way this project turned out.  This border fabric, that I found at A & E Pharmacy (which oddly enough.. has an awesome fabric selection)works PUUURfectly!

*better late than never, right?

It was more than a year ago that my dear father-n-love brought this awesome quilt to our house for some repair.  This quilt was originally put together, well many years ago, maybe even before he was born.  It may have been someone elses before it was passed on to him.  The binding was torn, tattered, and had been used until it was becoming thread bare all the way around.  When it first came to me this is how it looked.  The outside borders were made of a thicker greenish blue strip of fabric. But the center was covered with some thinner fabric that had began to wear through.

Last week when I was making our guest rooms ready for Eric's parents and our nephew I saw this on the shelf in the closet. I had not looked at it much since that first month that Dad had brought it.  With a week before Eric's parents were to be here for Christmas, I found myself sitting on the guest bed with this quilt spread out. Looking at it. Thinking. Trying to give birth to some awesome remedy.  As I shook it out so I could spread it on the bed, the lights over head shone through the quilt to reveal  that there was more than was meeting the eye. I could see patchwork, like a crazy quilt or scrappy quilt below that quilt top.
 

When Dad first brought it to me, I had no idea what to do with it. I love articles that have been passed down through the generations, I love the history that lies within, the memories that have been made with it and the love that was put into making it.  The idea of touching this and trying to repair it was more than I wanted to take on, because at first I had NO IDEAS at all on how to fix it. As I tossed it up by its corners to spread it out and saw the patchwork somewhere in those layers, Eric and I decided to rip the "quilt top" off. What was below was another quilt top. Many of the pieces had holes like the ones in the pics above.

There is a small hole in the stripped pink fabric that actually went all the way through to the other side.  I used one a small piece of fabric to make a patch over this area. It turned out great.

I have to admit that I love the way this quilt looks, as it is right now in this picture. I love the tattered fabric, the loose threads that are pulling away from the well worn fabrics in the quilt.  I love thinking about what the different fabrics might have been: drapes, clothing, cotton fabric from the fabric store, old clothes or feed sacks (which is what Dad said most of them were).

The quilt got an over haul. New top. New layer of batting. Totally new backing and binding. LOVE!

The quilt originally had a wide binding, which I fell in love with. I will be using this wide binding on some of my quilts in this future as well

This is the two pieces of fabric that was taken off the top of the quilt, which revealed the beautiful piecework underneath.  This is the fabrics that I used to make patches for the large and small areas that needed some mending.  This project was one of the most rewarding I have given my time to. We started just a few days before Mom and Dad arrived for the holidays, but I finished it in time to surprise Dad with it!

This is the finished quilt, everything on the front side is original fabrics. 

The backing fabric as well as the binding was some that had been given to me by Mom a few years ago as well as some from my stash.  It was pretty neat to add that fabric back into the quilt too.  I know this meant a lot to Dad, and it really was an honor to have been the one to add a little life back into this beautiful quilt!

*a new beginning

Yes, this is the last day of a passed year, and tomorrow starts a bright new beginning, but that is not what this post is all about!  There are a number of young people who will be starting a new journey, a new beginning of sorts come this fall.  Graduation with both mark an end and a beginning in these young people's lives.  It is an exciting, frightening time for these young folks.    I have a son, a nephew, an "adopted" daughter, an "adopted" son, and a handful of other young people (who are friends to our family) who will be graduating this summer.  

My most favorite gift to give to graduates is a comforting quilt to carry along with them where ever it is they should go.  I am sure these students might at first be more content and happy to have been given the hundreds of dollars that goes into make a quilt, but in the long run I hope they will end up treasuring the quilt for years to come.  For those loved ones mentioned above, who have never received a quilt from me, will be getting just that, a hand crafted quilt just for them!

 A new beginning...

The young lady this is being made for doesn't normally read my blog, hopefully that is the case today as well.   I love this quilt pattern, by Miss Rosie's Quilt Co.  I have always loved opposite attracts type quilts but never completed on thus far.  

This is the individual blocks laid out but not yet sewn together. I think I am going to go with this layout, which is one of many different ways to create a quilt with this one block.  Think log cabin.  For me, making a quilt from high quality quilting cottons that will last for many years when taken care of properly is the highest gift I give, it may not be on the top of the recipients' list, but it is on top of my gift giving list!

*christmas table runners to give

Each year I pack up our fall decor and put it away in order to pull out the Christmas boxes.  We have three or four different fall table runners for the various tables/side tables throughout our house. Once  I pack up the fall decor the tables look naked!  I give some thought to quilting some runners each year about the same time - first of December when I put away the fall runners. It hasn't happened yet.  Sigh.

When talking to my BFF the other day we both realized that we had tons of fall runners and decor but no winter/Christmas table runners.  Funny thing is, that we both love autumn and all that season holds We are usually together at some point during that season, quilting.  Thus one of the reasons we both have numerous fall runners.
 

With this info in my arsenal, I set out to make this situation remedied!  I went shopping through my wonderful stash of fabrics to find just the right shades of greens and reds to make some Christmas runners.  My dear friends birthday is coming up and I am thrilled to be making these for her.  Her love language is not gifts, not at all. Her love language is quality time, so when she gets them this week, it is my desire that she will just imagine that she and I were working alongside each other sewing away when these were made.  I know she will love them just the same. 

The first one up was to fit a round dinner table.  I gave a quick look through several quilting magazines, but was not able to come up with a pattern.  Then I remembered that I had bought the Nifty Notions, Cut for the Cure ruler set a few years ago which had several wedge rulers. I pulled out my 22.5 Wedge ruler and cut 16 slices out of my chosen fabrics.  This ruler is so versatile (as most are of course) that I could choose how big I wanted the circle to end up being by the size of the wedge I cut.   I am so thrilled with this table topper that will fit nicely on top of my BFF's dining room table there at Hawks Nest.

In my BFF's home they have a large oak sofa table that also needs dressing up for the season.  I had to put in a secret text to her youngest daughter and have her measure the length of this table as well as one other one.  The sofa table has rounded ends and I thought I could  use the same ruler (cutting a smaller size) and make half circles to connect to a rectangular length that would fit the measurement of the table.  It worked out perfectly!  I love it. I did machine applique the words "Merry Christmas" onto the center of the runner. It was a bit difficult to get the two words lined up, but it is good enough.   Binding  on all three of these was really fun and easy.

The last runner to be made was for the cute little chunky oak table that sits in the beautiful foyer of their home.   I continued using the same fabrics so the runners have some kind of continuity throughout their house. I am even sending her the left over fabric just in case she wants to whip up something else.  For this one, I simply sewed strips of fabric together, sliced it up, sewed it back together and then I added a border.  Again the binding was fun and easy.

Once again, all of these fabrics were pulled from my existing supply of fabrics from the shelves.  For backing I chose some unattractive fabric that would have likely never gotten used for anything else but backing on a runner of some sort.  The only time you will see the back is putting out time and putting away time.  I can't wait to hear what she thinks about them!

*cluck cluck (setting it in tomorrow morning!)

Yet another update! I have finished all the machine applique on the "chicken quilt" and will be setting it in tomorrow. I am just happy to be finished. It is not my favorite quilt ever at all, but it is finished. I did put much thought into this quilt and it is fun and whimsy but simple.

My hubby said the wording would look best up by the chicks mouth as if she were saying it.. so that is where it landed.

 

*chicken quilt update

UPDATE to the most recent post Unraveled and Tieing Up Loose Ends 

Yes, that fabric in the center with words says "Chicken Soup" with the recipe, sort of distasteful? Ha Ha. I love it! 

This evening I had some time to work on this quilt a little more.  This is what I got done thus far. Everything has been ironed down and is ready for the satin stitch except the letters C L U C K, C L U C K.  Should I leave the letters up by the chick or put them down on the bottom part of the quilt? I would love to have your opinions. I will of course be asking my dear husband, he is my right hand critique on all of my quilts.