Sailboat Panel Quilt

When Mom and Dad were out a couple of weeks back, Mom pieced a quilt for the nursery to go with the sailboat theme.  We found the pattern and panel at the Fat Quarter Shop. It's the Nautical and Nice line by Sandy Gervais, which matches the Anchors Away hanging I made a few months back. Unfortuantely, due to all of the activity of the weekend, we ran out of time for layering, basting, and quilting the quilt before Mom headed back to Ohio, but I was able to finish it up this weekend so it's all set for the baby's arrival.

Here are a couple of photos.

The full quilt, hanging on the wall:

 Just the center portion of the quilt:

Thanks so much, Mom! He's going to love it!

Baby Quilt Finished

I finally finished sewing down the binding and hanging sleeve (not really needed right now, but it will if I want to enter it in the quilt show next time around!) on the baby's quilt. Here's the finished product:

Patched Works quilted it for me and the quilting design features little sailboats, which fits in with the nursery theme:

 The pattern, in case you missed earlier posts, is Atkinson Designs' Pearls 'n Pinwheels.  Images of the quilt in the room before the binding was sewn, as well as nursery decorating progress are available here.

Charity Quilts

I'm finally taking a little time to post pictures of the two charity quilts I was able to complete recently.  I hadn't necessarily planned to make two quilts (a third is in the works as well), but after I made a mistake and cut the batting too small to allow me to quilt the first one during a charity quilt work day, I started on the others and well, that's how things snowball, isn't it?

Both are quilts from the Atkinson Designs' Yellow Brick Road pattern and used fat quarters from my stash. The border for the purple quilt was left over from a baby quilt I made last summer.  Always nice to use up some of the stash, and hopefully some young child and teenage girl enjoy receiving these quilts. Our guild's charity this year was the Child Protection Center of the Children's Hospital of Wisconsin, which protects children from abuse and provides resources to help them heal.

IQF Chicago

April is flying by and I haven't had much time for sewing this month.  I did take last Friday off of work, however, to head down to Chicago for the final IQF - Chicago there (boo hoo... I'm not sure I'll get to the new location in Cincinnati unless I can combine it with a family visit). Gabby made the trek out from Boston and joined me for a weekend filled with quilty inspiration!

There definitely aren't as many quilts in Chicago as in Houston, but there's still plenty of amazing work to admire:



I got into some trouble with vendors, buying a few fat quarter packs, some patterns for baby-inspired gifts and notions, and a few small project kits.



We each spent Saturday in a different day-long class. I took a Color Play class with Anne Lullie; Gabby took a curved piecing class with Philippa Naylor. Here's the project I made. I must say I'm not quite certain I'm really up to quilting down all of those squares...



Of course, this quilty inspiration was all augmented on Sunday when Gabby and I headed to Patched Works and hit their Fat Quarter Frenzy sale, where I was able to score some additional fat quarters for some small projects I hope I might be able to work on this summer. Naughty, naughty!

Anatomy of a Quilt Show

It's been almost two weeks now, but I'm finally getting around to posting some photos from the quilt show.  I helped coordinate the set-up again this year, and it's just amazing that what takes an entire day to come together comes down in less than an hour.  It's all worth it, of course, to see the amazing work created by guild members, to earn funds for the guild's programming, and to get to know the other quilters better.  But the amount of work that goes into pulling off this two-day event is unbelievable.

First, a few photos from set-up day:

Our car loaded with some of the racks we used:

The main room at Mount Mary, empty at about 7:15 a.m.:

The stack of racks and poles after we carried them in:

Progress putting up racks and quilts, taken at some point mid-morning:

Hanging curtains in the smaller room (to which we would pin the wall hangings):

Hanging quilts in the hallway:

Having a good time:

After a long day's work, it was great to see the fruits of our efforts in the nearly 350 items hung.  Ben did a great job photographing all of the quilts; if you weren't able to attend, here is a slideshow with images of everything in the show.

Pearls 'n Pinwheels

So a week after my half-square triangle catastrophe, I've completely started over and finished this quilt top.  I LOVE IT!  Gotta get backing soon and get this off to the shop to get it quilted before the baby arrives.

Pinwheel Progress

Thanks to Jen's help in obtaining replacement red and white fabric for the center pinwheels, I've been able to make a bit of progress on the Pearls 'n Pinwheels quilt! 

Here's a photo of four of the blocks, completed through "round 1" of piecing around the center square.  I'm really liking it thus far and am amazed at how quickly it's going together due to the pattern's strip piecing instructions for constructing the side units.

Looking forward to more sewing this week and am crossing my fingers that this doesn't turn out to look too patriotic (I don't think it will)!