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: