A Change in Directions...

The frog quilt is temporarily on hold.  Plans change.  I recently learned that a college friend's cancer is back.  Living half a country away, I was feeling a little helpless.  Then, I decided that she needed a quilt to wrap around her while she deals with this bout.

Knowing that she likes butterflies, I headed off to the local quilt shop hoping to find butterfly fabric in December.  The quilt shop was nearly empty since I got there fairly late in the day the Saturday before Christmas.  And, I accepted the offer of help locating fabric gratefully.  In short order, I had made my selections:

Fabrics for the butterfly quilt

I chose two yards of the purple fabric, two yards of the white fabric, and then several fat quarters of the more wild prints.

When I left the store, I still wasn't sure what the overall pattern was going to be, but I knew I could do something with this combination.

More progress on the frog quilt

I managed to do something that is difficult to do while sewing--I managed to peel off some of the skin off my lip.  I'm trying a new (to me) fusible material for attaching the frogs to the fabric.  While I'm not sure how I like it yet, it definitely is strong.   I held one of the frog legs between my lips to keep it from getting glued to another part of the frog.  When I peeled it off, part of my lip came with it.  Ouch!

Here are the current frogs:

I'm almost halfway there...

A few more frogs

Tonight I finished two more frogs:

Only 13 more to go...

Starting the Frog Quilt

A friend has asked me to make her a frog quilt.  With the help of my wonderful husband, I decided to applique frogs on white fabric and then do a modified crazy quilt pattern around each square.  Here are the first few squares:

The Paisley Bird Quilt Is Finally Finished!

Fall is in the air.  The leaves on the neighbor's tree are falling.  And, it is time to start writing again.

Since finishing the 2014 charity quilt, I have been fairly busy.  I've switched jobs, finished the paisley bird quilt, and started not one, but two new quilts.

Tonight, though, it is all about the paisley bird quilt:

The finished paisley bird quilt

Here are some close ups of a few of the individual squares:

This quilt I have decided to quilt.  I haven't quite decided yet how I want to display it, but I'll figure out something...

Finished the 2014 charity quilt

I'm behind on posting again.  Last week, I was able to finish up the 2014 charity quilt:

Finished 2014 Charity Quilt

Yesterday, we delivered it to the first stage of the quilt's journey to New Orleans.  Before we did, my wonderful husband created a frame for the crew in New Orleans to use to display it:

And, here is the quilt on the frame:

Working on the machine quilting

The quilt top is all together now.  And, the machine quilting has been, so far, relatively smooth.  I'm pleasantly surprised at how fast the machine quilting is going this time--which is especially good since the deadline is approaching so fast.

And, of course, Charlie continues to help.  Here he is inspecting the work up close:

Almost finished with the quilt top

Two more large seams and a bit of trimming and the top of the quilt will be finished.  I probably would have finished tonight, but Charlie was starting to get a little insistent about getting some attention:

This after I moved him from the lower right corner.  Ah well.  Tomorrow is a brand new day.

Local wildlife

This post is definitely off the topic of sewing and other creative pursuits.  I've been noticing a couple of rabbits hanging out under our pine tree lately.  Tonight when I got home, I decided to try to get a couple of photos of them.

This one was just hanging out on the edge of the grass:

I was concerned about this one:

But it was breathing evenly, and by the time I put down the camera and started over to check on it, it decided to move to a position that was more life like.

More progress

While this weekend was busy, I did manage to make some more progress on the quilt.  This was taken this morning:

And, this was taken a short while ago:

I would have liked to have continued sewing, but my back post car accident only tolerates sewing for so long.

But, I should be able to make more progress tomorrow night.

Work continues on the 2014 charity quilt

Tonight was all about the sashing again.  When my back got to sore to continue, I decided to lay it out and see how it is looking:

Part of the quilt with the sashing starts...

I think it has Charlie's stamp of approval.

Building the sashing

The one bad part about doing the sashing with small strips is the time that it is taking to build the sashings to the length long enough to work.  I'm not quite half-way there.

In progress sashing

Work continues on the 2014 charity quilt

I was trying to figure out how to assemble the top of the quilt.  I could go with traditional sashing, but I kind of like the idea of trying something new.  Then, last week, I saw a quilt on Pinterest, and I knew what I needed to do.

I'm working on sewing coordinating fabrics of varying lengths together to form the 2.5 inch sashing.

Working on the sashing

To keep things interesting, I'm working on all seven strips at once.

Building all seven at once

Now, I need to get back to sewing.  The deadline is fast approaching.

Time Flies...

Wow.  Where has the time gone?  I kept intending to do another post, and somehow time just kept flowing by.

Working on the 2014 charity quilt has spurred me into writing again.  I am definitely behind on this year's quilt.  I have to have it finished about a month from now, and until yesterday, I had not yet started sewing the top of the quilt together.  It is definitely time to kick it into high gear.

This year, I chose birds as the theme.  With a gift card to JoAnn's, I purchased a Accu-Quilt bird template.  The template made quick work of cutting out the birds. I've been working on them for the past two weeks and finally finished embroidering their little legs on Saturday.  Here is the flock of birds:

The flock of birds for the quilt top

Yesterday, I started sewing the birds into strips:

The birds sewn into strips

Along the way, I had a little help:

Charlie helped me reconsider my layout

Now, to start sewing the strips to go in between these larger strips.