Perfect Colors For the Season

It always feels so good to work with fall colors during the season. It just feels right. You know how some people have oodles of black shirts, pants, skirts and sweaters? Well, I am the girl that wears brown instead. Oh yeah, bring on the brown! And the greens, red and orange...

Fall Throw

My Fall Throw quilt top is together now. It's one of those projects that I know I could do better with, but well..., it's a throw. It's a thinking-of-you gift. Does it really have to stop people in their tracks so they wonder who the brilliant quilter is that put it together?*wink (Still laughing at that one.) But still, I'm not 100% happy with it because I did settle on some of the fabrics and I know that even if no-one else never would. The color might be a tish strong on the border and the outside corner half square triangles are a bit off too. It's definitely not perfect! Seriously though, I'm calling it good. Mostly because I have other projects that are pulling on me a lot harder than this one ever will and basically, I am happy with it. Okay, nice to have that all squared away with my conscious.

Little Tumblers

This little tumbler quilt was sandwiched, pinned, and machine quilted in slightly less than two hours. I know. AMAZing. Still wondering why I don't do that more often. I'm loving how it looks on my very ratty end table in my living room. Been married for 22 years and wow, has that end table seen every single year. Maybe some day I'll get ambitious and pitch it out into the yard? lol Looks like my mini quilt will help me avoid that decision for at least another year though....

Hand Quilting Soothes the Soul

My quilting as been very sporadic for the last several days. As always, when I have company in from out of town (this time for over a week) I end up doing more hand work than anything else. It's very soothing and helps me quite a bit to enjoy the visiting times without going stir crazy.

All Grayed Down--binding on
and ready for the hand work

I finished up the hand quilting on All Grayed Down which is really sweet. And would you believe that I managed to find a long remnant of a binding that I still had the fabric floating around in one of my totes? Very easy to add to and make the proper length. It's a soft blue plaid that seems to pull out all the lovely blue colors in the quilt and make it look even lighter. Hmm, do I have a blue thing going on now? There are certain colors I tend to gravitate toward over and over again, just mixing them up into different combinations and trying to figure them out having fun playing with them. There is so very much to learn about color.

Little Fall Mini

This little Fall Mini was just begging for attention, easily sandwiched in like 20 minutes. Then I proceeded to have great fun with my Perle Cotton! Seriously grin-on-my-face-fun the whole time. I know, scary look for me... The whole thing was hand quilted in less than 2 hours and then once again, I happened to have a leftover piece of binding that worked perfectly. Almost makes me want to make more small quilts just because of that box of binding bits! It's a pretty rustic looking mini, but I think it suits the quilt just fine. The more I look at it, the less I think my gift recipient will appreciate the style though.  I suppose it would be good to quit second guessing myself. A gift is a gift is a gift. Right? And just FYI, this entire mini was made out of the scrap bin except for the orange acorn fabric and the backing fabric. Gotta feel good about that at least.*wink

More Pictures of the Turning Twenty Quilt

I know it's a simple little quilt, but I am in love with all the texture from the stitching.  I tried and tried to get good pictures and even let my husband show me a few little tricks with the camera.  Not that it helped too much, 'cuz the quilt looks better in person than in my pics.  But I DID try. lol

I'm calling it 'Sweet Dreams'.

Every striped fabric patch has a different (casually drawn) flower stitched onto it.  The light catches on the variegated thread that I used and really makes them stand out.  You know, if you're actually in the same room with the quilt!  Oh well.  I'm sure if you click on the pics, you can see the detail better, but don't feel that you have to.  I wanted the pics for my blog diary because I know I'll forget after the quilt has been gifted and long gone.

All washed up with that crinkly goodness.

On a completely different note, I finally finished up the 4th border on my Basket Medallion quilt.  It's a double saw-tooth border that I sewed up with scrappy pale yellows and tans.  I kind of like it and then, I kind of don't.  I have ideas for the next border (which definitely influenced the 4th border), so we'll see if it all comes together in the end.

4th border of Basket Medallion

Sometimes the end result is better than I ever imagined and then there are the times that I cringe and go looking for my seam ripper.  Only time will tell with this one!

Little Bow-Ties Re-visit

Woohoo!  The election is now over.  Moving on....  I saw this little giveaway over at Reproduction & Antique Quilt Lover Blog that has completely intrigued me.  It consists of an on-line little quilt link-up, plus a little quilt giveaway, plus a cheddar fabric giveaway.  Super fun stuff.  I cannot will not resist!

Little Bow-Ties Quilt

This is the only little quilt I have managed to put together in well over a year!  It's still taking place of honor on my china hutch and I don't regret making it at all.  Many times I have walked past it and smiled because the little bow ties are just so sweet.

Custom fit to my China Hutch of course!

The strong, bold cheddar fabric in the giveaway is a little intimidating to me because of it's very boldness.  However, if I manage to snag a little piece of it, I will no doubt overcome my shyness toward it in no time at all.*wink  Definitely worth checking out all the little quilts on display if you're interested in that sort of thing and it goes without saying that Taryn's blog is always worth a visit!

A Finish and a New Hand Quilting Effort

I finally completed my little Bow-ties table runner!  Just sat down with my daughter one evening and hand stitched the binding on while we visited.  She was stitching a heart shaped crazy patch on one of her sweatshirts, but had lots to talk about (start of a new school year and all).  Before I knew it, my little quilt was finished and I was looking at it like, what? where?  Too funny.

Little Bow-ties

So...., no more delays.  It's time to get serious and put a real quilt back in the hoop again.  This Monkey Wrench quilt top was completed at least three years ago and it is absolutely the next in line to be quilted.  I was extremely happy with how it turned out at the time, but you know how new projects can begin to overshadow the old ones?  Uh huh.

Monkey Wrench

My intentions are to keep the hand quilting very simple, but I am at a complete loss at what to do with the border.  Hopefully my subconscious will be busy figuring that out while I'm working on the rest of it.*wink

Why Does This Happen?

The three youngest of my kids are back to school and so I made some time for quilting.  Yay!  Time to get some quilt tops finished up and checked off the list.  The first one on the list went nice and easy.

Ta da!  Completed quilt top!

Until...  Oh no!  Do you see what I see?  Two identical connecting squares framing the block in the very center of the quilt!  Which. Would.  Drive.  Me.  Crazy.

Why does this always happen to me?
I checked a bazillion times!!!!!

I didn't even hesitate.  Too many years of experience to think that I could live and let live with something like this.  I had the square ripped out and put back in place in less than 15 minutes.

That square is actually my dirty carpet....

Some things I let slide and allow myself to be amused at forever.  Other things you just know will always be an irritation.  Like a sliver under your skin.  It's actually a good thing to learn about yourself.*wink

And now it really is done!

So... problem fixed and now this quilt has been documented as a true blue finish.  Of course I'm not ready to start the quilting on it, so it gets to be folded up and put into my drawers of completed quilt tops with all the others for now.

Just because something needed to go right....

Then I went ahead and cut out my binding fabric, pieced it, ironed it and then sewed it onto this little table runner.  (I think the busy fabric will look excellent once it's folded over and hand sewn.) After the big 'fix-it' early in the day, I needed to end on a better note!

Score!

So exciting!  On Monday, when I got back from my brother's wedding in Idaho, my husband brought in a package with the mail.  And for once it was addressed to me!  I actually won a giveaway the other day over at Indigo Threads!  I know.  I can still hardly believe it after all the hundreds of giveaways I've tried for!

Looky, looky, I won!!

Well, maybe not hundreds because I won't follow just to win or jump through a bunch of hoops, and I only try for the ones that I really want or think I could use.  Score!  I won 'Back to Charm School: More Fun Quilts From Country Threads' and Sharon, who is super sweet and generous, also sent me a charm square pack of fabric in some of my favorite colors!  Just because she's really nice that way.  You would know that if you ever went to her blog.*wink

I adore this little quilt, esp. with the cherry red print.

I've been playing around with the idea of making a new table runner for my china hutch for about 2 yrs. now, but other projects always seem to get in the way.  I'm thinking that this book along with that charm square pack will maybe be just the jump start I need!  (The china hutch would most definitely thank me since I made the one that currently graces it about 10 or 12 yrs. ago.....)

I. Am. In. Love. even though YIKES! it requires hand stitching!

I also have a fondness for Country Threads books as they were one of the first applique books I ever bought.  You have to understand that I didn't know how to do any applique whatsoever at that time.  It was sent to me accidentally through a quilting book club and once I opened the book up and looked through it, I was sunk.  There was no returning the book and then I had to justify the money I spent on it!

So, again, THANK YOU SHARON!!  In case you couldn't tell, I'm simply thrilled about this giveaway!