Christmas In Italy

I really love this quilt.  It is most likely because it has houses in it and I love them.

http://quiltinspiration.blogspot.com/2011/12/christmas-around-world-italy.html

IQA 2009 Show Winners

Go visit this link at Cactus Needle Quilts to see the amazing IQA 2009 Show Winner quilts. WOW!

I love many of them pictured, but the Christmas one is of interest to me because I began designing a 12 days of Christmas quilt years ago. I like how the designer of this Christmas quilt depicted the song in the borders.

Fall Retreat - Felicity & Kit

Here is the group that attended our little retreat Wed night - Sunday: Becky, Lyn, Deb W, Deana, Deb B, Jolynn, Jessi, and Felicity. Jodi took the photo.

JUST REMEMBER that this was NOT a beauty trip. We spent little time looking great and lots of time sewing.


Jodi is in this photo. We had a fabulous time and accomplished SO MUCH!
Felicity made witches...
This was the first one she completed.
She also completed a Santa wallhanging. The eyes and mustaches will be added after it is quilted.
Her Buggy Barn witches were done in WONDERFUL COLORS! We were all envious.

Kit joined us on Saturday in the other room doing his leather work. It was great to visit with him.

Fall Retreat - Jodi & Deana

Jodi also made Buggy Barn witches. Her family was busy and sick, so she only sewed with us one day. She did sew more at home, though. I hope she will post her progress for us to see because I don't have any photos.

The next two photos are of the Mariner's Compass quilt Felicity made last year. I set in her little circles on the side and quilted it for her last year. It's a beauty!



I got the borders on Justin's Buggy Barn Jack-o-lantern quilt.


I joined (with Deb B's help) the blocks and put broom borders on Jolynn's Buggy Barn cat and witch quilt.

I also started and completed this black, white, and red Buggy Barn "Going in Circles" top for Jolynn's future wedding.

Took some photos of some older quilts...

Deb made this for me for Christmas a few years back as part of our Christmas wallhanging swap. I love it! I also quilted some of these for her to give away last Christmas.
Our very first Christmas wallhanging swap sent me home with this little wreath from Karen Truman. Such memories...

More memories still... This little project was my first trapunto piece made in Sharan Schamber's trapunto class several years back. It is her pattern.

Ok, this was made probably when Jolynn was 4ish -- probably in 1997-ish. Lorna had taught us to applique the apples with invisible thread at quilt guild. I went home determined to make a full project out of everything we "started" in quilt guild. This was the one and only quilt that every evolved from that idea. It is a wallhanging.

Bats

These darling bats came to me from Cathy in Washington. She said that her 3 year old loves to run around the house with the witch I sent her. She likes the wiggle legs.

receiving, sharing, and working

This shows the workings of one of my girls' Halloween quilts. Curently Justin's top is all together ready for borders and Jolynn's is close. I still have to applique faces on the cats. I'll post later when they are done.

The "Boo" block comes to me from Belinda in Texas. It is darling!


These are two more witches I sent out for my internet Halloween swap.

Goodies in the mail

More Dorinda progress -- mostly basting
I received this Halloween block in the mail from Jenn in Arlington, Texas. I love it! I am getting so excited to put my Halloween Quilts together. I have a few more blocks to complete and then I can mail some more out and start assembling my kids quilts.

Remember my art quilt swap? Well this is what I got in return. It came to me all the way from Margaret in Maine. She lives near the ocean and likes to depict it in her work. She calls it "Orca". I love it! This quilt was my 2nd choice -- we could choose up to 15. I teatered back and forth between this one and another while classifying them in order of preference. I'm very happy and will likely do it again.

As for the swap, I would LOVE for her to do one the same way only not ART quilts. While I absolutely LOVED trying my hand at art, I do feel that there were several ARTISTS who submitted works although they were not really QUILTERS. Having been a quilter for over thirteen years, I'm a little partial to high quilting standards. I selected the quilts with the best workmanship and ones that were washable. Maybe I'm just a little more on the traditional side than I thought.

As far as my quilt is concerned, it really didn't turn out as artsy as I'd hoped. I still need more practice. I certainly am not straight traditional because I like odd twists, but I guess I'm not an artist yet either.

Americana

This quilt hangs on my wall during July every year. I designed and made it several years ago. The sad thing is that it is not completely quilted yet. I need to pick out some ugly quilting and finish the rest. It is queen sized and hangs longer than the wall; hence, it is folded under on the bottom.

Weekly progress report

I spent quite a bit of time last week finalizing the pattern for my art building. Here is the actual pattern drawn out for paper piecing. I did it by hand because it is faster and easier than on the computer (until I learn how better). I wrote all of the labeling in mirror image so I will be able to read it once it is reversed.

I copied these patterns and cut out the copies with seam allowance around each piece. I didn't draw the seam allowance because I know to just add that with my ruler as I trim it off.

This photo shows more pattern design. Once I got each piece cut out, I taped them onto pages with a whole row of patterns all on one sheet. I photocopied these "row" sheet patterns onto transparency sheets so I could flip the sheets over for a complete reversed image. I then copied the reverse image onto paper for the actual paper pieced pattern.

I completed my second Dorinda block...

...and two witches to go out in the mail for my Halloween swap. The long witch is shown without the finished stitching on it yet. This lady wants to put her on the back of her quilt.

I finished the quilting for Mom's donation quilts.


This was my first of the week (before working on it) photo of Dorinda. The green vine is entirely done on the whole border strip.

This was my end of the week Dorinda progress. It is not much because the purple and blue are just basted on, but progress is progress.

Short get-together

Some of us had a short little get-together two weeks ago. We were just going to take the kids swimming and visit for a couple of days but Jodi and Becky couldn't come. Because it was mom, Felicity, and I, we decided to sew.

I worked on buggy barn witches.

Jolynn and Jessi played with Felicity's boys. This is Jolynn and Payson.

Deb came after work and sewed her santas. She also made two receiving blankets but wouldn't let me put her pic on the net.

Felicity nearly finished her log cabin quilt. She began it at Marie's last month, but I didn't get a picture.

We decided that this little witch needs a body and these cute shoes.

More rrs

This is my "Halloween Quilt" or most of it anyway; it began as a 2005 friends and family round robin. The two crazy looking blocks at the top are actually not part of the rr. I may cut some of the cute pieces out and put in the quilt. They are the product of a crazy mystery quilt Deb and I did at Annual Meeting years ago. We laughed our guts out that night but didn't care for the finished product. Deb happily donated hers to me.

Anyway, the Jacks were made by Karen, Tereasa, and Mariella. Felicity made the trick-or-treaters and the candy corn. Mom made the green faced witch. Linda did the vampire. Mary Israel made the words (I've got them backwards in the photo). Marie made the haunted house, and Deb made the spiders. I love it but need more fillers to complete it.



This is another quilt I made as a memory of all the blocks I made for others that year. The center was actually done at Ruby's Retreat in Bryce Canyon. I think this quilt belongs to a child someday as there are many juvenile blocks.

Hexagon Table Runner

I completed this little table runner last week. It is the center of my Hexagon's in Rotation creation. I was supposed to teach this class at quilt guild about four years ago, but I got sick and my friends had to cover for me. They did bring me home a kit, though (I had cut all the kits for the class previously). Anyway, I just rediscovered the kit, sewed it up, quilted it, and WA-LA.

Easter Egg Quilts

Ok, so I don't really care for Easter decorations -- not fond of bunnies, pastels, or eggs -- HOWEVER, this little project interests me for some unknown reason. I may have to make one some day -- could do it up in a hurry. You could make little placemats for the table OR you could make child sized egg quilts and give them to your grandkids for Easter some year.

Creations by Melinda: Easter is Coming

Weekly sewing progress report

I decided to put a flower border around a round robin quilt I'm trying to finish up. Here are some of the pieces strip sewn together ready to press.

This is what the finished flower blocks look like done.

Now you can see what the border will look like on the quilt.

I finished quiting/binding another oldie. This top was started when Jessi was very small, and I finally got it quilted.

I sewed up my buggy barn jacks.

Two more oldies

Yeah! I completed two more old quilts. I quilted the Christmas one last week and the other one this week. I just completed the binding on one last night and the other tonight. These were both pieced about 10-12 years ago while I lived in Helper. I was a beginning quilter back then; I've come so far! I should have taken the borders off and redone them properly because one side is a little longer than the other. I decided against this idea though because I wanted the imperfections of a beginner to show. I gave this one to Jolynn because she didn't have any nice quilts from me. Now she has this one and the birdhouse one.



This one is interesting because I made it almost entirely out of a bag of scraps someone gave me. Some of the fabric pieces are pretty old looking; but I love it. I just love scrappy, old looking quilts!

I found two quilt blocks in magazines and made this quilt out of them by alternating them. They are all half square triangles. Such intricate piecing is not really for a beginner, but I think it made up nice anyway.


This is Justin's Christmas quilt. It is log cabin blocks. Lorna, my mother-in-law, had made this pattern into a baby quilt. I fell in love! She was headed up state to buy fabric one day and I gave her some money and told her to get me the Christmas fabric for this quilt. I didn't pick out any of it. I love the quilt and cherish the memory of her picking it out for me.

You will want to click in closer to really see the logs.

Two more oldies completed!

I am altering this post to show a "favorite" quilt on the blogging Quilt Festival which was organized by Park City Girl. I don't know if this one's my fav but it has already been digitally photographed and posted.

I am so excited to move things off the "UFO" list and onto the "Completed" list.






This is a Persian Star block from Cheryl Phillips pattern. We made these last year at Mom's (Easter). I did my own thing with the blocks by overlapping them in the middle and sewing half blocks to the bottom edge. I was trying to use up some fabric and some stack-n-wack blocks rather than buy fabric. It is irregular shaped because it will hang on the wall. I think it is fun!




These birdhouses were from a round robin I joined at Ruby's Inn in Bryce Canyon. My blocks are the pink and green ones that look like the same fabric. This was easy and fun. I added the applique birds to add some focal points. This one goes out to Jolynn.



This is one I just machine quilted for Deb Butler. It is very like mine only in more greens than blues -- we shared the same fabric. I wanted Mom to see that Deb finally got hers done too. Yeah!