Charming Girls' Quilt Club

It's time again to announce what I would like to finish this month for the Charming Girls' Quilt Club.

I forgot about it last month, but that's probably because I had just gotten back from our trip to Louisiana to see our families at Christmas. 

I am invited to a baby shower this coming Saturday.  The mother-to-be, Fallon,  used to take care of my grand-babies when they stayed in a day care center while my daughter was at work.  She loved the diaper bags that I made, so I decided to make her a diaper bag for her new baby girl.

Amy Butler's pattern, Nappy Bag, is roomy, has lots of pockets, and it's easy to make.  Fallon likes black and pink, so I thought these fabrics were perfect.

The black and pink swirl will be the outside of the bag, and the pink polka dot will be the inside.

My next project I need to finish this month is another "Butterfly Love" designed by Elizabeth Scott of

Late Bloomer Quilts.

I taught this as a class for my Quilt Guild this past June.  I posted about it here.

I have the opportunity to teach at a retreat in the Fall.  I have to turn in a teacher application the first of March.  Although I have already made the quilt, I want to make one again using different fabrics.  I love Sandy Klop's (aka American Jane)  fabric line "Snippet's" from Moda.  I bought a fat quarter pack when I went to Hancocks of Paducah when I went to the AQS Quilt Show this past April.  It has been sitting on my shelf just waiting for the perfect project. 

The little florals, stripes, and polka dots will make pretty little butterflies. 

I want my quilt to be larger, and maybe do 10" butterfly blocks.  I figured it up that I would have to make 45 butterfly blocks.  That's a lot of butterflies! 

Another project I would like to finish because it's strewn all over my sewing table after the Camping Trip with Pat Sloan is my Bull's Eye quilt that I started in the year 2000.  If you scroll down to the next post, you can read about it there. 

I think these projects will keep me very busy this month. 

To see what the other girls in the "Charming Girls' Quilt Club" are working on this month click here.

Happy Quilting!

Amanda 

Happy Monday!

Happy Monday, everyone!  

I hope you all had a nice weekend.  I spent most of it on my virtual camping trip with Pat Sloan, sewing, and watching the Saint's win the Super Bowl with my family. Way to "geaux" Saints!!!

It was the perfect weekend for our virtual camping trip.  It was snowy at my house, but not as snowy as it was at Pat's house.  She got 25" of snow!  Looking at her photos brought back memories of when we lived in PA. Snowstorms weren't something that we experienced living in Louisiana, so you can imagine how shocked we were to see our first real snowstorm which brought 36".  I think the most snow we ever saw, though, was when it snowed 48"!  That's a lot of shoveling!

Pat designed this really cool block  that is perfect for busting your stash.  You can find the block here.Yesterday, she had a little contest and asked us to name her block.  One of the campers named it "Tent Flaps".  My idea was to name it "Possiblity" since there are so many different ways to lay out the blocks.  "Tent Flaps" was the winner, which is perfect for the theme.  You can see everyone's blocks here and their idea for laying out their blocks.  I love them all, but my favorite is the Zig-Zag.  I would have never thought of that idea.  .

My blocks are the two circles that you see in the photos.  I decided that this would be the perfect time to wipe the dust off pull down one of my UFO boxes that held the parts to a scrap quilt, "Bull's Eye", that I started in the year 2000.   One of the women in my Quilt Guild taught it as a workshop.  Evidently I was talking (imagine that!) and not paying much attention to the placement of each of my circles.

 

  Obviously I did the "slap down and sew method", which looks okay here, but

 

not so much here! 

This one is a little better, but not that much better!  

Are you laughing?   So am I.  

I think this quilt will drive my kids crazy because it isn't perfect.  

I'm not about to undo all of those blocks or toss them in the trash and start over.  My fabrics bring back lots of memories of where I was when I bought the fabric.  The black with the pink little flowers is the fabric from the last dress my mother made me before she passed away in the late 80's. 

Since it's rough edge applique (where you sew 1/4" around the edges of the circles instead of satin stitching or blind hem stitching to finish the edges), I'm sure, once the quilt is put together and thrown in the wash, all of those little unfinished edges will ravel and they won't even notice that everything doesn't match.  

They'll notice.

Looking at these blocks has made me realize how far I have come since I first began to quilt. I have learned about value of fabrics, variety (of my background fabrics), and, hopefully, I'm a little more accurate in my piecing.    

The quilt  may  not hang in my Quilt Guild's quilt show this coming June, but I'm sure it will be perfect for snuggling on the couch, covering the grandbabies when they fall asleep on the floor, or, who knows, maybe it will go on a camping trip!  

Thanks, Pat, for a fun weekend!  I'm looking forward to another one!

Have a great Monday!

Amanda

Sew and Tell Friday

It's time for another Sew and Tell Friday.  I am excited to say that my finish for this week is...

(drumroll please)

 TA-DA

 

My Valentine quilt

that I have talked about for the past 2 weeks that you're probably sick of seeing.

The little last minute changes I made before I gave it to Terry to be quilted is that I added two more rows

of ric-rac.  It just sort of evened things out and made the quilt not look quite so bottom heavy.  If it were only that easy in real life to make my body not look so bottom heavy. I could wrap ric rac around my head to distract from the bottom half.  Hey, that may not be a bad idea!     I digress.

Terry did a beautiful job quilitng it, as always.  There are feathers, swirls, and who know what else that she free hands.  Each little section is a different quilting design.  And I love that she changes thread colors.  Gone are the days of white thread all over my quilts (thanks to Judy and Terry).

 

It's all ready to be snuggled up by the kids.  It looks sweet in it's wooden quilt holder.  

I was trying to figure out what to name the quilt.  I thought about Love Notes, but then I thought about

"Text Messages"  since that's the reason for the "love u!".  What do you think?

Be sure to check out Amy's blog to see what everyone else has finished this week for "Sew and Tell Friday".  I'm always amazed at how much people get finished.  To be honest, I really should start something called

"Say It Ain't Sewn Wednesday".  I would have something every week to show for sure!  

I'll be back this weekend with my "hope I get them finished this month" projects for the Charming Girls' Quilt Club. 

I'm late to Camp Sloanie.  I could say that the 1-2feet (can you imagine!?) of snow that Pat is getting is the reason, but  

she will blow the whistle at me on that one!  

Have a great weekend, everyone.  Go Saints!! or as us Louisianian's would write Geaux Saints! 

Amanda

Happy Groundhog's Day!

Thank you for all the sweet comments about the Valentine quilt I made. I made a couple of little last minute changes and gave it to Terry (BFF)  for her to put her "pizzaz" on it with her quitling machine. It will be a surprise for you and me, both, to see it quilted and finished!

Happy Groundhog's Day!

I can't believe this, but I forgot all about it being Groundhog's Day until I heard the weather on the Today Show.  Back in the early 90's we lived about 20 miles away from Punxy (as the locals call it) in another little town in the snowbelt of Pennsylvania. We have lots of fun memories of getting up early, drinking hot chocolate, and watching on TV to see whether or not "Phil" (the groundhog) saw his shadow.  Julia came home from school today and told me that I forgot it was Groundhog's Day.  I told her I remembered it later on.  Then she said, "Why aren't you wearing your sweatshirt?"

  I forgot about it, too! 

According to Phil it looks like we're going to have six more weeks of this:

It snowed 6 inches on Saturday. 

Julia and I say, "Yay!!"  We love snow days!

********************************

Have you heard about Pat Sloan's "Camp Sloanie"?  It's a winter stashbuster and it's this weekend.  Pat has gone through her stash and  shot pictures of  all of her cute, polka dotted storage bins.  It's nice to know I'm not alone (not that I have polka dot storage bins, but I do have an overflowing stash).  If you start reading her blog posts from the 26th of January until today, you will see how she is organizing her sewing room and clearing out spaces. 

Over the next few days I will be going through my stash and unfinished projects trying to decide what I am going to work on during Camp Sloanie and for the Charming Girls' Quilt Club. 

I think I overheard the weatherman say that another snowstorm is heading here this weekend.  That's perfect stashbusting weather!  Thanks, Phil!

Have a great day!

Amanda

Valentine Sewing Party II

Even though I didn't get to sew as much for Kelly's Valentine Sewing Party as I would have liked to, I did, however, manage to get one finished!  Woo Hoo!

I stayed up unitl 2:30 this morning sewing the peiced borders on the Valentine quilt I started last weekend.

 

This quilt is so easy and perfect for using holiday fabrics that you don't want to cut up into tiny little pieces.  It's a lap sized quilt which will be perfect for cuddling on the couch watching chick-flicks. 

 After I looked at it for a while I decided it needed something a little fun added to it.  Last week Natalia posted a quilt in the Moda Bakeshop, which I l.o.v.e.d!!!  So, I decided to tweek this quilt a little and do this:

It's amazing what a little ric-rac and some fun lettering will do to add some pizzazz. 

My kids will probably be the ones to use this the most.  And, since I'm getting really good at texting both of them  these days,  I thought I would applique them the perfect message:  Love U! (or is it supposed to be Luv U ?)

Thanks, Kelly, and the rest of the girls,  for a fun weekend of Valentine sewing. 

Amanda

Edited:  I have linked this post to Amy's "Sew and Tell" Friday link on her blog amylouwho.com.  You can go there, too, and see what everyone else has sewn this week!