A Look Back at 2011

As I was going through my quilt photos from this past year I realized that I might have finally achieved that delicate and somewhat elusive balance of quilting for others while still finding time to quilt for myself.  My goal was to complete one quilting project a month and I managed 17 this year! So by my calculations....I again have more quilts than I know what to do with  :)   Good thing I gave away 5 quilts at Christmas now I have an excuse to make more in 2012.

Here is a 'year in review' of my quilting projects for 2011. 

January - Seasonal Banner

Hangs in my guest bedroom.

January -Bali Pop Quilt

Now resides in my car after the sun fading incident!

February - Asian Tumbler Quilt

Christmas gift for my brother in law and wife.

March - Half Square Triangle Quilt

Christmas gift to sister-in-law and family.

March - Twister Table Runner
For my kitchen table. (don't seem to have a picture of it quilted but it is done)

 April - Husbands Train Quilt

Lives on the couch in Tim's train room!

April - Twister from Hand Dyed fabrics
For sale!

May - Baby Twister quilt

Gift for friends new baby.

May - Mexican Star

It keeps getting moved around my house, no permanent spot yet.

July - Hopscotch

Christmas gift for my in-laws.

July - Yellow Brick Road

I made two of these for my Moms house. The boys use them when we visit.

August - Summer in the Park

Christmas gift for my other sister in law.

Sept- 3 1/2" Tumbler Runner

Shows up on my kitchen table once in awhile.

Dec - Check out the Stars

It has a special spot right where you see it in the photo :)

Dec - 2011 Mystery

For my son Andrew.

Dec - Scrappy Squares

Not sure who will get this one as I'm not ready to part with it!

Happy New Year!

 *edited on Jan 15 as I forgot 3 quilts!*

Scrappy Squares Quilted

We had a nice quiet Christmas and I was able to quilt my Scrappy Squares quilt this week.  I have been waiting a few days for the sun to shine to take outdoor pictures but it only stopped snowing long enough for me to clear off the rink for this shot.

I did a faux border in the background repeating the design of the scrappy square border. And of coarse lots of feathers!

I used a stencil for the feather wreaths and free hand quilted the border with just marking the spine.

I used two colored of So Fine thread on top and one color of Bottom Line in the bobbin to give the back a wholecloth look.

This is the first time I have quilted this style of feathers in the outer border and even though they are more time consuming they are fun to do.  The border was only 5" wide and it would probably be easier to do in a wider border.

Lizards!

My youngest son has been asking for a new fleece blanket for his bed for a few months now so I was very glad to have had time this month to make it for him.  He picked the design, he wanted the lizard panto on it so lizards it was!   I finished this on Monday but couldn't bring it to the guild for Show and Tell on Tuesday as he wasn't too happy with the idea of me 'stealing' it back for the day. 

The cute panto is called Lounge Lizards and I used two layers of fleece, no batting.

I also made a small fleece baby blanket for the guild. We were cleaning out are guild cupboards and I took some fleece home to make some comfort quilts.  Looks like I have Rae's challenge done!!! :)   She challenged all the guild members to make one comfort quilt next year.  I wonder if this will count as it's not 2012 yet. That's okay as I'm sure I'll be making a few more in the next 12 months.

Ready for Christmas

We got the xmas tree up this weekend and did a bit of baking.  Thought I would share a few pictures of my favorite decorations.

But my most priceless one is this one.

It makes me laugh every year I put it on the tree.  Daniel was in preschool when he made this ornament and as you can see he hated the first few months of preschool.  I love his "I don't like it here and am not amused by you taking my picture" expression.  He loved preschool by xmas time so I was only the mean mom for a few months.

This guy is also responsible for this....

...Lego Zombies attacking our xmas train!!  :)

I asked the boys what they wanted to bake this weekend and they both said Sugar Cookies.  Can you tell which one I decorated and which one Daniel did??

I don't think I could eat Daniels "Snowman" cookie....not that he would let me.   I'm sure this was the first one he ate. Oh to be 12 again!!

I use to be an avid cross-stitcher before I got into quilting and I cross stitched all our xmas stocking.

I did the boys on 32 count navy linen.

Tims was one of the first cross stitch project I ever did and I think we were still dating at the time ( that's 20 years ago!!).  And mine is well the largest but that is only because I couldn't find 32 count linen in navy at the time and had to use 11 count navy aida. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it  :)

My Turn....Mystery Quilt #14

I spent the whole week quilting my Mystery quilt and the hardest part was deciding what to do.  At first I wasn't sure who I was going to give this quilt too but once I decided the design ideas started to flow. I find it so much easier to plan the quilting designs when I know who is getting the quilt, I like to personalize my quilting and make it suit the recipient.

As you can see there is lots of CC's (continuous curves) in the background.  I just marked a grid using my Bohin chalk pencil and my Gadget Girls ruler and used that as my guide.

The chalk just rubs off with a piece of fabric.

I used black Bottom Line in the bobbin for the whole quilt as I wanted the back to have a whole-cloth look.  So when I was quilting the stars with yellow thread I decided to just quilt straight lines so I had better control of the tension on the back. That worked well and any spots of yellow on the backing, like at the stops and starts, I just got out a Sharpie marker and colored them black. I would never do this on a clients quilt, but since this is mine why not!   I think of it as quilt 'make-up'!!

I quilted the outside border with the "Echo Curves" design using a boomerang ruler.

I used black batting so no bearding on the back.

I only had one little panic moment with this quilt and that was went I realized I was running out of black So Fine thread for the top and didn't have a second cone!!!   A quick call to my dealer... my thread dealer and she got it into the mail for me right away :)

We have had more snow fall this week so I have been getting my exercise shoveling the rink.

I still have the binding to sew on but hope to get that done this weekend and then can bring it to our guild meeting on Tuesday for Show and Tell.

I think my son will get a lot of use out of this quilt one day.

That's why there are no feathers on it  :)

Off to the Post Office I go......

The winner of my giveaway is Marlene from New Zealand!!

Marls said "Congratulations on the publishing of your article. I have never seen this magazine in new Zealand and would love to win a copy. Tealy blue would be a great colour to have. Thanks for the opportunity. "

So I see some tealy blue snow dyeing in my future.

Congratulations Marlene!

And thanks to everyone that entered my giveaway, I had 47 names in the draw!

Orange

I wanted to play with the color orange this weekend as I am going to be dyeing a backing for a client in January and she would like a bright multi colored yellow, orange and red backing. It is a very tricky combination to get without the red taking over and making an orange piece of fabric.  

The fabric on the left is a result of using Bright Yellow and Red mixed separately and then poured over the snow.  There is some yellow and red spots but the fabric mainly reads orange. The fabric on the right has the multi-colours I was going for.  To achieve this combination I added the dye powders right into the bucket of snow, each color had it's own bucket, and then placed the different colored snow on the fabric. This prevented the colors from over mixing and producing an all orange fabric again. I used Bright Yellow, Scarlet and Orange for this one.

I haven't abandoned quilting for snow dyeing, I have my Mystery quilt on the machine right now. I have been working on it for a few days and only a 1/4 done!

I also got my Brownie Points for 'Ice Rink Shoveling' this weekend.   Okay the boys did help but when they started pushing the snow towards the side I was clearing and then I had to shovel that snow too.....well lets just say I appreciated their effort but I earned the badge!  :)

And yes the ice is thick enough to walk on.....you can see by the cracks how deep it is.   ;)

And you still have time to enter my giveaway, I'll be making the draw tomorrow morning.

Can I Tempt You with a Giveaway?

My copies of Quilter's Connection arrived in the mail yesterday and I finally got to see our article.  If you look closely on the cover you can see they mentioned the article...."go play in the snow, a fun fabric dyeing technique".  The reason I'm pointing this out is they used the correct spelling of 'dyeing' on the cover but.....not so much in the title on the page!!  Whoops!  But there is nothing we can do and glad it wasn't our mistake :)   I am just very excited that our article was accepted into the magazine.

Anyway I receive a few extra copies of the magazine so thought I would give a copy to one of my readers.  And since it is close to Christmas how about I throw in a meter of snow dyed fabric, your choice of colors!  It can be one color or a mix of colors, I'm always up for trying a new combination so lets have fun with this.   So here is what you have to do to enter.  Leave a comment telling me what colors you would like me to snow dye for you if you win!   I won't dye it until I talk to the winner first, so you can change your mind  :)   If you prefer you can email  me your answer or call or knock on my door...I'm not picky  :)    I'll make the draw on Tuesday Dec 13.

Note- If you comment Anonymous or are a 'no reply blogger' please give your email address with the comment. I need to be able to get a hold of you if you win!