Charity Quilts

2 weeks ago I had nothing to load on my machine, so I called the American Hero charity (for wounded soldiers) and asked for a quilt, they needed to get more batting, so it would take a week before I could start that one. I went to my guild my meeting this month and grabbed a charity quilt to work on. This quilt will go to a cancer patient. It was yellow and cheery and of the 3 there it was the one I wanted to spend the week with. The focus fabric was floral, so I did a panto called rhapsody, very floral . The top and backing were very light, so I used a cream thread. The quilt top was simple and I wanted to add texture but not overpower the quilt with the quilting.

Here is the whole top.....

Here is a close up of the pattern....

A little further, you can see the texture....

And the back....

Here is the other charity quilt, I will start it this week. It has beautiful dark green fabrics, so I am using a dark green variegated and dark green solid on the back. The is lots of open spaces, so I chose a feathered plume pantograph.

On the design wall I have the 2003 Quilt Shop Hop quilt, I will move and arrange the blocks and piece soon. This quilt is special to me, I began piecing these blocks in the fall of 2003. Claire was about 6 months old and I was trying to fit quilting back into my new hectic life with a baby. Warren read books to Claire every night and we moved a chair into my sewing room and added a basket of books. Warren would read to Claire for an hour or 2 and I would piece a block. I did about a block a week from this shop hop. Then it was stored away once the next shop hop came along. I have always tried to finish the last shop hop before the next shop hop, so I could get a completed quilt hung in a shop. Maybe next year will be my year. :)

Pictures of the second charity quilt next weekend!

Happy Quilting!

Danielle

Outerspace Baby Quilt

This is a quilt I pieced for a friend from bookclub. Her baby was born in October, so I am running behind on getting this quilt to her, but I don't consider myself LATE until a baby has their first birthday!

I found this space and alien fabric at my local quilt shop and fell in love with it. I pieced the quilt in a day, it is from Evelyn Sloppy's (I love her name) book Sew One and Your Done. It is great to show off large scale prints, like the white & red in this quilt because the pieces are so big. It also makes the piecing fast, again, since the pieces are so big.

Once it was finished, I searched for a pantograph and found this perfect one called Outerspace by Jodi Beamish. It was in the Intermediate section, guess I have graduated from easy to intermediate!

I picked a yellow/orange varigated thread. For this one I wanted the thread to blend on the front and show up on the back. The back is a dark blue outspace fabric.

Whole quilt....I love orange

Astronaut is sooo cute!

A black hole I guess?

UFO ship.....

Rocket ship....

I will add the binding at my guild meeting this week and then I'll just have to patiently wait for bookclub in February!

Biblical Quilt Saturday Sampler 2006 at Gathering Fabrics

Yesterday I completed the quilting for a quilt I started in 2006. This is a Saturday Sampler that mom and I have signed up for every year(minus the first year for mom) since the shop opened. Each month we get the fabric for one block. This has been a great class for me, I have learned lots of new techniques and the color palettes are ones I would not normally pick. So it moves me out of my comfort zone which is necessary to grow as a quilter. For the most part I have been able to keep up with the piecing of the blocks, then when I have the urge to finish a quilt, I have a project all ready to go. Now that I have the machine, I have been using these samplers as practice pieces.

This is the 2006 Sampler from the book More Biblical Quilt Blocks. I was overzealous that year and made 2 blocks each month, one from the shop fabric and one from my stash. So this one is actually the 'extra' and the one on the design wall to the right is the shop blocks. I also did this the year before and the extra one mom and I merged our blocks, pieced together and it went to the Domestic Violence shelter for raffle or auction.

I picked a panto called Alpine flower for this quilt, it is a simple panto, but it looks nice and elegant on this quilt. They just fit together well. I matched the thread to the back, it is a brown thread that I thought would blend more on the top, but I was pleased that it didn't because you can see the quilting on the front. The quilting really disappears on the back.

Here is the whole quilt....
Detail of quilting....

Quilting....

Closer look at the piecing....

The kids wanted a picture of them with the quilt....

Claire said I should take a picture of the back, a good idea, it is a beautiful floral....

I am practicing a new panto for a baby quilt that I will be quilting this week. New Year's Eve I oiled my machine, greased all the gears, cleaned the table, tracks, tidied the room and organized projects. She is running smoothly and is all set for 2010! The domestic machine is at the shop for it's own spa day. Happy 2010, back to quilting!