The Haul

Here's a collage of the fabrics I bought last week when I got lost in the ginormous fabric warehouse.

Most of these are intended to use as baby gifts someday. The piles with polka dots and letters and the pink pastels are all flannel.

I decided to collect some yellows and grays for a someday quilt for me. I am totally into those colors. I see a guest room with yellows and grays in my future.

I am thankful for...
...fabric
...Hubby encouraging me to add to my fabric collection :)
...my mom teaching me to sew when I was 9 years old. I am so thankful for those skills.
...homemade spicy tomato soup and grilled cheese for supper

Moose

Tonight before we left the Twin Cities we had a wonderful evening with some very good friends. You know, the kind of friends that when you part, you feel refreshed. These are rare friends indeed. I wish so much that they didn't live 2 1/2 hours away.

A few months ago when we were having dinner with them, I made a comment that it seemed like I had made a quilt for everyone I know. Our friend piped up and said I hadn't made one for him. Being the addicted-to-quilting-person I am, I immediately started thinking of what I could make. Since our friends' family name is Moose, I knew I had to find  some fabric with a moose on it.

First, here is the label I made for the quilt:

 The line of fabric is called Trails' End by Holly Taylor for Moda Fabrics.

 One of the fabrics in the line had these rows of moose and rows of bears. I cut the moose strips out and pieced it together for the backing. I love how it turned out!

 Our friend said she loved the colors and it went well with their house.

See the little moose and bears? It was so fun to find the perfect fabric for the Mooses.

I had it quilted with a leaf design which went just perfectly with the fabrics!

Holy Fabric Warehouse!

A few weeks ago I read in someone's blog (I can't remember whose blog it was) about a fabric warehouse in the Twin Cities. It looked interesting enough that I tucked away the information and thought I would try to find it the next time I was in the Cities.  

Hubby has meetings in the Cities this week and I tagged along.  

The warehouse is in the opposite corner of the Cities, but me and my GPS made it there just fine (with a little Travis Cottrell playing along the way).

This place is something like 30,000 square feet and has every conceivable type of fabric there: upholstery, decorator, knits, rayon, QUILTING COTTON, wool, etc. And also all sorts of trim, gallons of buttons, pieces of leather, batting. All the fabrics were 50% off!

I spent two and a half hours in there and my feet are yelling at me now. But it was fun! (Yes, I bought quilting fabric. Grin.)

Only Six Days To Go

I have only six more days until my post-a-picture-every-day project is done. I kind of enjoy doing this every now and then on the blog. Makes me have to be a little creative.

I like to bring a quilt with me when we travel. This morning I forgot to fold it up and put in on my suitcase and when we came back to the room tonight this is what I found:

It made me laugh a little. (The pillows with the colored cases are ours. I just have to have my own pillow with me.)

Binding

I unexpectedly got a quilt back from the quilter's today.  This is a quilt for some friends and since we hope to see them this weekend, I have been busy sewing the binding on.  If I would have had good matching thread, I would have sewn it all by machine, but since I don't, I'm turning it to the back and hand stitching it down with the closest matching thread I have.  At least I get to catch up on the DVRed shows I have recorded. I have about 36" and the label to go. More pictures in a few days. 

I Only Looked

Remember this post when I wrote about my slight obsession with buying quilt magazines? And how I spent several hours sorting through all the quilting magazines I had?

I was in a store and saw quite a large display of quilting magazines. I stopped and looked in wonder at the number of them. Then I walked away without even picking up a single issue!

 

I was very proud of myself. (I know. It doesn't take much.)

This Week's Project

I guess it's a good thing that I have a pretty extensive fabric stash because when I want to start a new quilt, the fabric is already there.

Here's what I've put together this week:::

I used a Jelly Roll (a pre-cut roll of 42 fabric strips that are 2.5" by 44") and followed directions from this blog post I found when hunting around Pinterest. It went together very quickly.

Right now it's about 56" square. My next step is to try to figure out what to do for a border. I'd like for it to be a little bigger.

The little strip on the left is a left-over piece. I'm trying to figure out if I like that look as part of a border. I have some black fabric and some tan fabric that "reads" more solid I'm planning on using for one of the borders.

As I look at this I like the idea of a black border, then the pieced border and then the black for the binding. Any opinions from my readers?

Let's Do a Month of Photos

Here it is October and I haven't had a single month so far this year that I have posted a photo every day for a month like I have in the past.  Since I actually thought of this on the first day of the month, I think I will start this today!

Today's photo is not one I actually took today, but I can make up any rules I want for this Post a Photo Every Day This Month Quest. Because this being my blog and all, you know.

These are photos of a flannel quilt I made for my son-in-law's birthday.  It's measures 56x72.

This was a kit that I bought last spring. I had never made a quilt with flannel before. This flannel was thinner than flannel I have bought in the past to make nightgowns, or shirts.
 

I had left over fabric, so I made a smaller star block for the back. I love how it turned out!

 As usual, I sent the quilt to the Missouri Star Quilt Company for the quilting. (Sandwiching a quilt and then trying to quilt it with my machine is not my favorite.) I was not sure about the square design I chose for the quilting, but it turns out that I really love it! It works for the star design and it works that this quilt is for a man.

I try to make the label blend into the backing. I think I made this one blend in a little bit too well. Oh well, lesson learned.

After I washed it, this quilt felt so very soft. Loved it! I hope my son-in-law enjoys it this winter (and many to come.)

A Small Quilt

Last summer we made a road trip out to North Carolina. One stop along the way was to visit some very dear friends from our college days.

As we were enjoying the evening, I took note of the decor and when I next visited a quilt shop (I hunt them out wherever I am...there should be an app for that), I picked up these fabrics:

I had seen a sweet table runner in a quilt shop near me and snapped a photo (shhhh...don't tell) and recreated a smaller version for our dear friends.

It was so fun to package this up and mail it to our friends.

The friends' name is a college nickname...

Condensing

Last weekend I started cutting out my next quilt. It's all laid out on my sewing table waiting for me to start putting it together.

Then all of a sudden I got the bug to sort through the bazillion quilting magazines and books that I have accumulated over the years. Now that I have gotten into the quilting groove, I know more about what types of quilts I will make and what methods I prefer to use.

In the picture below there are six magazine holders. I threw out probably the equivalent of five of these full. I ended up with a stack of eight or ten magazines, then went through those and tore out the one or two patterns that I really liked. Those went in a binder. I kept six magazines.

My next task was to sort through all the books that I had. While it felt a little wrong to toss those, at the same time, it felt good to weed those out and get rid of the excess. Like I said, I know what types of quilts I am likely to make, and some of those books did not fall into that category.

Then when I thought I was all done with all the magazines, I discovered another stash of a dozen or so magazines. I sure hope I remember all this the next time I am standing in front of a magazine rack! Good thing there is Pinterest. My quilting board on Pinterest has 244 pins. That doesn't take up near as much room!

As I was thinking about writing this post, I remembered some other condensing I did a while back.

I have always had a goal of making a denim quilt out of old jeans. I raised one little boy. That little boy managed to wear a hole in the knees of his jeans. I would cut off the bottom parts of the jeans and convert them into shorts.

I saved those jean legs:::

These are from jeans my son had when he was about two years old!

I loved the tiny flecks of color in the ones on the left and the boat on the jean on the right were so cute!

So how did I condense? I cut the seams off of those pant legs and cut apart the grown up jeans I had kept over the years as well.

As I was thinking about doing this huge task, I thought about how much my hand would hurt with all the cutting. Then I remembered my mom had some electric scissors she bought at a garage sale back in the 70s, so I asked her if I could borrow them. (Good thing I asked when I did because they were in a pile bound for a garage sale...)

It went a lot faster with those electric scissors!

But soon they got pretty dull, and the motor just quit.

So I bought a new electric scissor. This one worked SO much better.

And no cord to mess with!

After I was all done, I had condensed that pile of jeans my more than half!


Now to figure out more storage for all that fabric I keep buying.... :-/

And to actually make that denim quilt! Someday...someday...

Next:

Here's the fabrics for my next quilting project:

(A table runner.)

The Twin Quilts

A few months ago my sister asked me if I would make a couple of quilt for her. She was wanting something bright and fun for a room her grandkids will stay in when they visit.

I went online to look for some fabric line ideas and ended up sending her probably a dozen different ideas. I think I overwhelmed her a bit (grin), but there are soooo many pretty fabrics out there! I kept looking and kept saying, "Ooo! I like this one!" then "Ooo! Maybe this one!" and "Oh! I can't leave this one out!"

Anyway... we finally decided on the fabric line and the pattern for the quilts and I got to work.

The final results:::

 I used different fabrics for the borders and the backs. I also decided the bindings needed to be a scrappy look with many of the fabrics that are in the quilts.

I like how they turned out and I hope my sister does too when she sees them!

Another Finished Quilt

In February I started working on a Red and White quilt (throw size) for one of our guest rooms.

This is the most detailed quilt I've made this past year. I am totally thrilled with how it turned out!

As usual, I sent it to the Missouri Star Quilt Company for the quilting. As usual, they did a great job.

I always wash a quilt when I am finished to wash out the fabric sizing and to make it all nice and wrinkly. I was super anxious about throwing this quilt in the washing machine. I was worried all that red would bleed into the white and I would end up with a red and pink quilt. I tossed it in the washing machine with about a dozen Color Catcher sheets. I am sooo thankful for that invention. The Color Catcher sheets came out very pink, but the quilt was fine!! WooHoo!!

Doesn't it look nice on the guest bed?

Table Runner

I made this springy table runner in April when we kept getting snow and more snow here in Minnesota. I desperately needed a dose of something spring.

I followed this tutorial from The Missouri Star Quilt Company. (Of course.)

May

We've actually had a couple of pretty nice days here in the North Land. The grass is more green, the trees are budding and the birds are super busy building nests.

But today is a chilly rainy day. I'm in the basement under a quilt that I'm sewing the binding on and catching up on Dallas episodes on the DVR.

Spring?

Well, we had a nice spring season. It lasted about 5 days this year. ha. We had several days in the 60s and 70s. The perennials are poking up and our neighbor even mowed his yard. Not sure that there was really any grass long enough to mow, but he drove around his yard last night on his mower.

Today? In the 30s with a chance of snow.

Yes. I wrote snow. Ugh!!!

On one of the nice days last week, I got myself and ice cream cone and took my book to a lake to read for a while. I've noticed these big white birds on a couple of lakes:::

There have been hundreds of pelicans around here for the past week. My guess is that they are migrating somewhere.

In an effort to have the illusion that it's srping here, I made this cheerful table runner:::

I followed this YouTube tutrial from The Missouri Star Quilt Company:::

I'll be hunkering down here as winter sets in again. Guess I'll clean the bathroom. Yippee.

Recruited Random

I've been working on my next quilt project. My sister asked me to make a couple of quilts for a room where her grand-babies will stay when they visit her.  It's fun to work with some new brightly colored fabrics.

I recruited some help in creating that random look. (The random look is really not very random. There's a lot of controlled random going on here.)

(The colors are brighter than they appear in this photo.)

His engineering brain likes working a giant puzzle. I'm blessed to live with that wonderful engineering mind.