Paisley Bird Quilt

After being inspired by the Denver Quilt Festival, I spent much of the evening last night and most of the day today at the sewing machine.  The top of the paisley bird quilt is now finished for the most part:

The top of the paisley bird quilt

I have definitely had fun with this one.  And, I'm always pleasantly surprised when the idea in my head looks similar to the end product.  Although, I'm still trying to figure out if it needs a border around the outside edge...

Regardless, I think there will be some more embroidered birds in my near future.

Back Again

I'm not really sure why I stopped posting for a while.  I was definitely still working on projects the past few months.

One of the projects that I was working on was finishing up some of the lap quilts for the veterans program.  The lap quilts were distributed to the veterans at the Winter Sports clinic in March.  Here are five of the finished lap quilts.

Two of these I started before I stopped posting.  The other three were ones that my husband designed.  All in all, I'm pretty pleased with the way that they turned out.

This lap quilt was a Stack-in-Whack quilt that another quilter had started.  It was pretty obvious that she had intended for it to be a full-sized quilt.  But, she never had a chance to finish it.  It was a pleasure to be able to finish two more squares, and then turn the start into something that could be used to keep someone warm.

It is also a reminder to me that life is short...

And Yet More Fun With Scraps

I've been too busy lately sewing to post.  Here are photos of the first two quilts after quilting:

Quilt 1

Quilt 2

There is a quilt 3--another log cabin quilt.  I'll post a photo of it once I finish quilting it.

Quilt 4 is from a concept that I saw on the All People Quilt (allpeoplequilt.com) site.  It involved a lot of little squares:

Quilt 4--So Many Little 2.5 inch Squares!

But, tonight, I finally finished sewing the top together (well, except for the 3 inch plain black border that I have yet to add).  Here is how it is looking now:

Quilt 4

Some of the corners are a little off, but I like the over all way that it turned out!

Still Having Fun with Scraps

Tonight I finished the top of the patriotic scrap quilt:

Finished Lap Quilt Top

Next up will be a very similar quilt.  I'm planning on using scraps of dark fabrics:  greens, maroons, blues, browns, and scraps of light fabrics.

In the meantime, I am finishing off some other squares for the project.  A woman who has passed away had started making some "stack and whack" squares and were in with the donated fabrics for this project:

Square 1

Square 2

Square 3

Now, I need to figure out how to turn this into one of these squares:

Already Cut Out Pieces

Digging Through the Scrap Pile

I was excited to hear about a project that one of the Lodges closest to where I live is doing:  making lap quilts for wounded veterans who attend the winter sports clinic in Aspen.  Fortunately, they were willing to have another volunteer to help them out.

Rather than use some of the fabric that has been donated, I decided to first go through some of my stash and see what I could come up with.  From the 2011 charity quilt, I had 11 left over blocks, and enough left over fabric to make 25 more blocks:

Left Over Squares for the 2011 Charity Quilt

This was a quick lap quilt top to create:

First Completed Lap Quilt Top

After I finished this lap quilt top, I wasn't sure what to start on next.    Last night, I finally had an idea.  Whenever I work on a project, I wind up with extra fabric, including small scraps.  I have a tough time throwing out fabric, especially since I frequently need just a small bit of this color or that color.  So, I tend to keep any piece of fabric more than 2 inches square.  I keep them in a plastic container.  And, the container has been over filled for a while:

Scraps in the Scrap Container

In honor of the Fourth of July and in consideration that this project is for people who served our country, I decided to go with patriotic flair.  I picked out the red and blue scraps.  With a couple of extra strips that I took from larger pieces of fabric in my stash, I decided that I'd have enough fabric for a patriotic log cabin lap quilt top:

Strips of Fabric Ready to be Sewn

I now have four squares finished:

First Four Six Inch Blocks...

Only 32 more to go...