Not sure what's happened here...

Pioneer Braid is quilted!

So we've made it through Spring Break around here - took the whole week off to play with my kiddos and get Pioneer Braid quilted. Happy to say, it went great! My folks came for a few days so I could toddle off to the quilt shop guilt-free! First to decide on setting... Finally decided that the up and down pattern didn't make me too seasick after all. Left the 3 inch strip border on the center row and went with 2 inch strips between the remaining rows. I like how that turned out. Now my original plan was a solid navy border and going to bed before midnight. Around 5 PM I got this wild hair of an idea...piano keys. Now mind you, I still had the backing to prep and I didn't have ANY pre-cut bricks left. I'd literally used every single one I had won in the auction, plus many of my own scraps. You can see my "audition border" for the piano keys at the top - I only made it 10 bricks long, telling myself that if I didn't like it, I'd go back to the s...

First Quilt - Swapping Stars

After taking a long arm class last Fall, I quilted 2 quilts in order to get a little practice in. I also gave a top to a friend from the class so she could practice - what a treat to have her hand it back to me so all I had to do was put on the binding! Swapping Stars was a top that was ready for borders. I had a few extra blocks and decided I'd make a pillow tuck as well - they weren't my best blocks but they are made from some of my favorite fabrics and I decided they weren't THAT bad, particularly since I'm keeping this quilt. It's a very bright quilt, made by me and my quilting friends on a Yahoo group as a row robin. I went for a pretty simple block called Swapper's Star from Quilters Cache but I redrafted the instructions since my friends would be making 7 individual blocks instead of strip-piecing several of the same fabrics. I also asked the ladies to do something unusual - set it on point. I drafted instructions for this and they did a te...

Working, working, working...

It's been so great having this goal of 12 quilts this year. Even if I don't make that number, I have thoroughly enjoyed getting back to doing something I love. It gives me a little oasis of calm in my otherwise chaotic life. I have some pictures to add of some recent work I've done but won't get to it today. I got a Kings Cross quilt quilted at the beginning of this month but my phone died so I didn't get a picture of it on the machine. Earlier in August, I also quilted up the brown and blue nine-patch pictured in the previous post. Both of those quilts, along with the Pioneer Braid, now reside on my stair railing awaiting binding and labels. But I will share a couple of (dark) pictures of what I'm working up currently. Sorry about the lighting, I sew at night and take pictures at night, and my room is sort of cave-like which is terrible for doing things like deciding on colors, taking pictures, reading. You know. I'll be taking one of these two in to quil...

12 Quilts

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