Finally getting around to posting these

I made quilts this past fall for a fellow and his wife who were expecting twin girls. The fellow's mother had save a lot of his clothes - baseball t-shirts, jeans, a favorite pair of Michael Jordan shorts, etc. I made two quilts - one for each girl out of these items. Here are pictures of one of the quilts in process. They were a lot of fun to make and the father was thrilled with the results.







These are also for the twin girls. Their father is a huge Notre Dame fan which explains the colors. I rough cut the centers then just started improvising. I ripped the strips for the logs and then trimmed them with the rotary cutter as I pieced them together. I think orginally we were suppose to use just sissors - oops I'm bad! I was pleased with the way these came out and so was the father.







Have a happy and safe holiday!

Merry Christmas

.. and a Wip and a finish :-)

Here's my finished test piece for ( still ) the first challenge

here's a bit of 'Befreite Dreiecke' showing my machine quilting . I think it will be 2011 when I'll finish it..

and this  is a small present on it's way to France

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Heidi

Orange Sqaure Quilt

I had so much fun making this Orange Square Quilt. I pulled out a few orange and yellow fabrics from my stash. I used batiks, solids,plaids and a few reproduction fabrics...some would say you can never use all these  fabrics in one quilt.  But it is so much fun to break the quilting rules!

 I love to stipple or meander my quilts.

 I also love  washed and crinkled quilts with simple clean lines.

Happy Quilting to all of you!

My Challenge quilt

I'm so pleased to report that I have completed my challenge quilt . This quilt was a really big task for me. First, I researched Gee's Bend quilts and Amish quilts. I actually went to the library and looked in their reference books. I decided that Amish Bars pattern and some Gee's Bend quilts had a lot in common. The rules of Lazy Gal's Challenge were no rulers, templates or rotary cutters. And use a lot of solid colors. I found cutting long strips of fabrics using only scissors and by eye was difficult, unless I decided to simply have fun with it. You know that saying, "don't stress the small stuff." I pulled out a bunch of scraps for the scrappy row that I made going down the whole quilt. Then I used the size that that came out to be for the approximate length of the strips. If the strips were too long, I chopped them off, and if too short, I did what Gee's Bend quilt ladies do, and added a scrap to the edge. The edges of the quilt were quite uneven. So instead of quilting, I tied with size 10 crochet cotton. I use a curved needle when I tie a quilt. I think I ended up with what the quilting books politely call a "utility quilt." I didn't actually know if I liked this quilt all the way through the creating process. It was only after I finished hemming down the grey binding on the outside edge, that the full impact of the quilt was apparent. You know what, I decided that I like it just as well as any other quilt I have made!

Dancing Star

Dancing Star is finally finished . . .

You can see read more about this more-Gee's Bend-than-Amish quilt 

and the journey to completion here

on my blog.

Thanks for the challenge, Tonya!

Quiltdivajulie

Triangle Quilt - "Amish Lib."

At last I finished!  

I took the center panel with me to Gwen Marston's Beaver Island Quilt Retreat the first week on October, promising myself that I would get the words and the borders finished while I was there.  Hooray, it happened!

After getting home I worked on the quilting, first covering those triangles with crosshatching.

Then I put uneven feathers in the two side panels, "echo-ed" the words, and put straight lines behind them.  [I had decided that the YEAR would be easier in Roman numerals because there are only straight lines for 2010.]

I know I missed the deadline, but I am really pleased with the result.  

It makes me smile!

Sara Homeyer

Pinwheel Parade

I finished the quilt for the newest challenge.  I hit a point with it that I didn't much care for it.  So, I stopped.  Then, the next time I looked at it, I liked it.  Funny, that.  Does it ever happen to you like that?  I think it's just that we have to get distance from it and look at it in a different perspective.

 It's square, it just doesn't want to hang flat and I refuse to pin it because it's SUPPOSED to stay up on the darned design wall all by itself.  It's staying for now.  Though I suspect when I come home tonight from work it'll be on the floor.

-Wendy

Letters

I made my letters for my Liberated Amish adventure.  The D and I had quite a tussle.  I won, but just barely.  I'll be working on the finishing touches of the top this week.


-Wendy

Diced pork is done

I've finished the Little Pink Pig 2, which is what I've been calling it to myself, slightly meaninglessly. The big stitch quilting gives it a nice rumpled texture, but I'm not loving it - I find it unrestful to look at. My eye wants to follow those little pink flags all over the quilt, before collapsing exhausted at the edge.

But it was lots of fun to do, and the slicing and re-forming was a great challenge. It is much more interesting than it was before the chopping! Thank you all for your help and great suggestions.

Wonky Log Cabin

The ' wonky ' log cabin quilt for my daughter is ready. It is machine sewn and machine quilted. I did a meandering in the log cabin part and a kind of freehand swirl in the border.

The size is 155 x 200 cm.

Amish Bars

It's not finished, so again, you're only getting a partial picture.  I hope to finish it this week during my two days off.  I have some more applique and, though the challenge didn't call for them, some words (Tonya, you created a word fiend!).  And of course, the quilting.  I'm thinkin' straight-ish vertical lines.  This is based on the Amish Bars pattern.

A Challenge is a challenge

I really am grateful to Tonya for the challenge! At first, I thought that I was making the world's most unlovely quilt. But being as spontaneous as you can grows on you. And I found great satisfaction when combining the fabrics and colors. I have added three border strips to the quilt since the last post. And now I feel that I have finished the top. There's a bit of a way to go yet, as I decide how to quilt it. I'm thinking about hand quilting it, except that my arthritis might not like all that stitching. I may have to tie it. Because of the unevenness of the top, I think that machine quilting would make big puckers.

Liberated log cabins

I finished this liberated Amish meets Gee's Bend table runner this week. It has grey-scale blocks surrounded by solid strips and strings.

Here's a close up of the quilting, which I think might be more GB than Amish. I used a friend's Pfaff with an integrated walking foot and stitched in the ditch and put freehand vines and leaves in the geometric blocks and geometric designs in the leafy blocks. No yardage was used for the front of the quilt and the back was purchased at a yard sale, so I say I've met the GB part of the challenge. I did use my rotary cutter for squaring up the blocks, but in my defence, I made this before Tonya posted her new challenge.

Liberate Nine Patch

OK, I know I only joined a week or two ago, but I've changed my mind already!

Look what happened when I laid out my "ugly" Bali Pops green nine patches...

I reckon they look fantastic!

But I still want to participate, so I am going to come up with another "challenge".  Until then, have fun liberating your projects!

Begun

Remember these?  I made them for the last Liberated Amish challenge.  But, I didn't use them all.  So, I snagged this opportunity to use up the last of those in pinwheels.  Worked all day today on them and got them done.  Don't you just love pinwheels?  I do.  Anyway, I put my planned quilt (in pieces still) up on the design wall, which has been attacked and mauled by the kitties.  Boy are they in trouble!  They're in the dog house, since a cat house is something else entirely.


Anyway, I put the proposed quilt on the design wall and I LOVE IT!!!  Here's a little sneak pic of one of the proposed corners.  You'll have to wait for the rest until it's done. 

-Wendy

Needing advice

 

Here is my work on the Challenge so far, and it has been challenging!  I already posted a photo of this quilt top.  Now I have added borders--so what did I do?  I decided to do what Gee's Bend quilting ladies might do, and I added strips of fabric that were left over from making the backs of some previous quilts.  I always cut a generous backing, and there is often a strip left over after I trim when adding the bindings.  What the photo shows--I spread the quilt top on my bed, so please disregard the yellow edges, that's simply the background quilt.  My questions are:  Is this enough?  What does the quilt need, within the requirements of the challenge?

Fractured and fabulous

Well, here is the sliced and re-made number. It weighs a ton, waves like the Queen on Christmas morning and I will have to quilt it down ferociously before it even looks remotely square .... but I like it! The very strong horizontal isn't great, but I couldn't find a way to avoid it with the pieces that I had. Now on with the hand quilting! Straight lines I think, so that some exist on it, somewhere.

And Tonya, you have created a monster. I made a liberated chinese coin top this week because I felt like playing with scraps and when I reached the outer border I said to myself "You know what this quilt needs? Words! LOTS OF WORDS!!" What have I become???

beginning the challenge

OK, I started on The Challenge. And the first thing I want to say is that I hope that I haven't offended either the great Amish or great Gee's Bend quilting ladies with my effort!  Well, I got out the scissors (according to the rules, no measuring and no rotary blades) and I went to town.  The quilt that I used for my basis is a typical Amish Bars pattern, such as in the book "The World of Amish Quilts" by Rachel and Kenneth Pellman.  And the second thing I have to tell you is remember that perfect 1/4 inch seam that you pride yourself on--"fegget about it!" I mostly tried for about 1/2 inch.  And the third thing is it ain't done yet--I have to add the borders.  As far as the ironing is concerned, what you see is what you get--and it ain't pretty!  That quilt fabric stands out like a sail in a breeze. Don't know how I'll ever quilt this thing--maybe I'll tie it? I'm glad that I bought some of that orange color fabric a few weeks ago, I must have known in my heart that I needed it.  And I need to make a note to myself to buy more grey.  I bought that a couple of years ago, and it's nearly used up now. 

Nine Patch Variation

Hi Everyone, and thanks for having me!

I am inspired my the Nine Patch and the Double Nine Patch in the Brown Collection.  I plan to use some nine patches that I made a while back, but in a liberated way!

These nine patches were made using mainly the Bali Batiks that were popular last year.

I'm looking forward to chopping into them and creating something interesting.

Other liberated stuff I'm working on includes this:

And this...

I recently made a liberated snowball doll quilt.

And hand quilted it (my first go at hand quilting!).

You can visit me at kitbikquilts.blogspot.com

Cheers,

Sarah

You ladies rock

Your suggestions were genius! First I auditioned other colours - black, hot orange, red ... but didn't like the way they worked together. It looked a bit motley. So I thought - if I'm not using other colours then I'll get a bit more ....um .... unrestrained? unruly? in the slicing. So I sliced and added and ended up with these.

I've still got to fit the pieces together with more filler strips, which will be off centre. I like the diagonal light green in the middle piece. It has been wonderful fun, and it looks SO much more interesting than it did before. Thank you all!!!

PS no seam ripper was used in the making of these pieces .... I may never unpick again. :)