The baby quilt is finished!

I used a pattern from the book "Big-Print Quilts" by Karen Snyder. It was originally made with racing cars and bright fabric. My husband suggested this pattern and I'm glad because I like the way it came out. If you notice the three duck blocks are a little different. The printed blocks were given to me a while back from a friend and when they were cut they were not all even. So you make lemonade with lemons, right! The ducks were a little too small so I trimmed them down smaller and added a tiny blue border and white border then squared them the same size as the others. The fact that I used three makes it work. I'm real pleased.

This is the back. You can see the quilting I did around each shape and block. I used some new batting that I wanted to try. It is "Dream Green". Put out by "Quilter's Dream Batting". It is made using recycled plastic bottles. I thought it would be great for a baby quilt because it gets washed so much. I like the fact that it is thin and it feels soft and not real stretchy but when I had pin basted the quilt and started to quilt it the batting did not grab onto the fabric the way cotton batting does and so there was some slipping of the fabric. That is why it looks wrinkled. There are no puckers but I'm not convinced that I will use this batting again. I think I will stick with my cotton batting.

A close up of the back.

Close up of the duck block. You can see I did a continuous line quilting around the ducks and the wheels. It was easy using free motion quilting.

Close up of the center rabbit block.

This is my label. I had this idea to use grosgrain ribbon and my machine's monogramming program. It took me a little while to figure out I needed a stabilizer on the back and the size of my letters but I'm happy with it. I sewed it into the binding by hand.

Now off to work on another project!

I've been tagged!

by Art and Soul

Here are the rules:
1. Link to your tagger and list these rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog - some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blog.
4. Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

1. I do not like water in my face- it feels like I'm suffocating. (Probably due to #2)

2. I'm claustrophobic- I found this out when I had to do an MRI. I thought I was going to lose it in there.

3. I hate blue cheese. The idea of it (mold-even good mold) grosses me out. Not just blue cheese but any smelly moldy cheese, yuck!

4. I only eat one brand of mayonnaise-Blue Plate-other brands don't even taste like mayo to me (and I love a mayo and mustard sandwich -nothing else just that on it).

5. I have a very strong sense of smell-lots of times others can't smell it and I can-particularly bad smells like, smelly feet, spoiled milk, moldy cheese, etc.

6. I only like to watch romantic comedies with a happy ending. I refuse to watch a movie if it ends with a death. There is enough bad in the world every day I just want to watch good stuff in my leisure time.

7. I have to have some quiet, leisure time right after I get out of bed to gather my thoughts for the day (even though I just woke up from resting all night). I feel out of sorts for the day if I don't have this time in the morning.

That's it. I'm breaking the rules (because I'm just that kind of gal!) I'm not tagging anyone in particular but if you want to play along, by all means, do! Send me a link to your blog so I can read it. Thanks Art and Soul, this was fun and kind of hard!

Top finished...

The Christmas quilt top is finished. I got the pattern from Bonnie Hunter's website. I love this pattern. It was so easy and so fast. I'm not even bordering it. I will put a black binding on it and call it good. It measures 66 x 90. The person it is for is tall and I wanted him to be able to cover completely. I'm glad for this to be done. I'm also putting fleece on the back and no batting. It will be cozy and not heavy. The fleece will be a novelty sports print. It is his favorite team. I like to make it personable if I can. Now I need to get busy with a baby quilt. A family relative asked me to make one. Her friend is having a baby. She needs it in 2 weeks. I don't know why I always say yes to these things but I do!

I have been working...

despite the fact that I have not been posting about it. This is what has become of the 4-patches. I have all the blocks assembled and I laid them out on my design board then stacked them up and numbered them. They are ready to be sewed together into rows. This has really been a fast and easy quilt. And I love how it looks all laid out.

This is a quilt I quilted last week. A friend of mine owns a Tin Lizzie18 quilting machine. She offered for me to go over and quilt a quilt on it because she knows I want to purchase one. I was not blown away by it. I guess my expectations were too high. There are a couple of things I really liked about it and a couple of things I didn't like about it. I am rethinking buying one. I have done some research and I'm going to Houston Quilt Festival at the end of this month, I will try several machines out and see what happens. I may end up just staying with what I have. Which is a shortarm system using a B-line frame and Juki TL98E.

Here is a closeup of the quilting. I hope you can see it. I did big loopy flowers in the outside border and inside border. I also did a small loop-d-loop around the blocks. BTW, the center is a panel and the borders were added on. I purchased this several years ago and it was just sitting in the stash so I put it together earlier this year at our guild retreat and thought it would be the perfect project to practice on. It is not finished however. I will do some more quilting in the blocks around the redwork and flowers.

And last but not least this is a christmas gift for a member of a small group I belong to called the Woolie's. We, of course, work with wool. I will show a finished picture when it is done. I did the embroidery and added the pieced borders. Now I'm adding wool accents with the buttonhole stitch. I have not decided if it will be a table topper or wall hanging and I'm not sure how I will back it and if it will have batting or not. Any suggestions?