Celebrity Sighting, Kind of.

So I was just at the grocery store, minding my own business, and trying to hurry through my list, when I happened to look over at an end cap and found these darling flour sack towels. On. Sale. I thought, wow, I cannot pass these up, they're SO CUTE! I grabbed some for myself and some for gifts. And I thought I could not have been happier!

Then, I came home and got out my scissors to cut the tags off and I spotted the designer name. Kate Spain. Kate. Spain. KATE SPAIN!!! There is no way that her name would have meant a thing to me a year ago. Maybe it seems silly, but I was proud of myself for 1. scoring Kate Spain tea towels without even knowing it, after all, it means I've got GREAT taste, and 2. knowing who Kate Spain is! Happy Day.

Elijah's Quilt

I had lots of fabric left over from Cullen's quilt, and just went ahead and made another one, this time a decidedly modern version. Half of the front is the striped fabric I used for the back of Cullen's quilt, and the other half is improvisationally pieced in strips. I wanted to showcase as many of those cute little animals as possible.

The back is pieced with the dark chocolate polka dots and a horizontal stripe of scraps, mostly orange. I like the way this one came together, but I don't love the quilting. I tried to do wavy intersecting lines, but I don't think it was very successful. Perhaps if I had used a lighter thread color. Or, maybe if there were more lines? I just might have given up too soon. But. Definitely learning. And I think next time I try machine quilting I'll need a walking foot. I tried to do it without one, and I had lots of bunched up sections. Not super cute. :(

What I love about this process is that every time I make a quilt, I learn something new. It's definitely a trial-by-error sort of thing. Which can be incredibly frustrating, I realize. But I really am enjoying the journey. For once!

Elijah's Quilt was completed on May 22, 2011.

Cullen's Quilt

Okay, so for my next quilt my photography has improved a little. We've got natural light this time. But that back light is killing me! What was I thinking?!

This time I tried out machine quilting for the first time (I quilted squares within squares, nothing fancy) and hated every minute until I realized that I needed to leave the needle down before I turned the quilt! Talk about agony.

I learned a very important lesson about color value with this quilt. You can see how even though the fabrics are all different in the log cabin blocks, they are all very yellow. In the end, I added the orange sashing (before I knew it was called sashing!) for contrast, because I could see that the whole quilt top ran together. Very blah.

Then the backing! Augh! Be careful if you piece the back of your quilt to make sure and give yourself some wiggle room around the edges! Otherwise, you end up cutting off favorite blocks when you square up after quilting. Baby steps...

But I loved the binding. That dark chocolate polka dot. Gets me every time. And since I didn't like the look of whipstitching, I finished the binding by hand with an invisible ladder stitch. Love.

I finished baby Cullen's quilt November 6, 2010.

Meghan's Quilt

The first quilt I ever worked on actually only made it to the finished-quilt-top-phase. At that point I sewed it onto a duvet cover and called it good.

My first finished quilt, a mammoth denim "picnic blanket" made out of my old jeans, was completed shortly after my senior year of high school. (photo forthcoming!)

Fast forward 15 years. This is baby Meghan's quilt. The pictures are terrible. Took them with a flash, indoors, at night! But, this is where my new-found quilting obsession began.

I machine pieced the eight log cabin squares and the piano key border (before I knew it was called a piano key border!) but hadn't the foggiest idea how to finish it off. I knew about tying quilts, but I didn't want to tie this one with yarn, so I embroidered little flowers on it instead to hold the quilt sandwich together.

I completed baby Meghan's quilt on May 31st, 2010.