At long last...my project is done!

I'm not sure anyone is still checking this blog, but I'm posting my news anyway! LOL

After a full 2 years, I am finally finished with the assignment. This is "Tree Everlasting", a completed top (not quilted yet). I have worked on it in spells throughout these past years, and I finally finished it last night. I think a border of any kind would look too heavy, so I plan to add only a dark binding.

I want to hand quilt it, but I'm afraid of all those seams! Some are only 1/4-1/2" apart. I'm thinking the quilting will go easier with a polyester batting, but I prefer cotton. Decisions, decisions...

Tonya, you have been a great inspiration. Thanks for all your encouragement and advice in this class and others. I'm hoping to enter my "masterpiece" in the local quilt show this Fall.

The End!

Free pieced liberated stars and Tonya's wonky letters marks the end of my stint in this class. I've thoroughly enjoyed myself, picked up some great tips and met some new quilters who think the same way as I do.

If Tonya doesn't mind, I'm moving my Sugar Sweet Houses quilt over to the Lazy Gal House Home or Pantry Class.

It's been great!

k is for kindness

I just took the last quilting stitch in my summer project..binding to follow tonight! also a sleeve as I will be putting it into a guild show next year. I am so happy with the joy I felt in the quilting of this piece. thank you Tonya for inspiring and sharing your style of quilting with perle thread-I could never have dreamed of doing this quilting without you!

still hand quilting

I know, it's Autumn but I am still quilting on my summer class quilt, Kindness....so, I thought an update photo would be a good idea.

I am working on the green area between the K is 4 and Kindness, quilting half circles by using a small glass from my cupboard and chalk to draw the arcs. You can click to enlarge and see what I am talking about. I am making up my quilting patterns as I go along, choosing colors and in general really enjoying the quilting process. I am not in a rush to finish this-however, with as many new tv shows on now to watch, I am quilting lots more in the evenings.
Everywhere I take this piece I get lots of positive comments on it...sure makes people smile and certainly makes me feel cheerful working on it.

Sharing my giveaway with you all...

Hello everyone! This is a fall thing I've been playing around with, so I hope it is ok to post it in the summer class. :) Since you were all so lovely in helping and encouraging me with the Rose Quilt for my sister, I thought I'd post about it here, share these little projects and give you a chance to win one if you'd like....

The black and tan fabric was the first thing I saw when I walked into the quilt shop several weeks ago and it just grabbed me. I'm not much of a "novelty" fabric lover (I can never imagine having enough novelty fabric for an "I-spy" quilt!), but this one had dancers on it and other cute costumes in silhouette (witches and Peter Pan and indians and kittens, etc), so it just had to come home with me.


I cut out one of each of the kids to put in a table topper for myself and in trying to figure out what to do with the scraps, I came up with these strippy table runners. In the spirit of our summer class, I just kept free-wheeling it...adding a strip at a time, seeing what should come next when I got to it. I've made two bright-colored ones and one in neutrals. I'll be quilting them tomorrow, sending one to my sister, giving one away in the giveaway and putting the other one as the first item in my etsy shop. Feel free to stop by my blog if you'd like to enter! (http://thelittlecollection.blogspot.com)

Hope your summer projects are coming along or you are enjoying them if they are done. I love checking back and seeing them as you continue to post about them here. Happy fall, all!

Ryan's Quilt Top

I just remembered that while I've posted this photo on my blog, I forgot to do it here. This is Ryan's quilt top. I still need to baste it and probably won't get to the hand quilting for a while since I've got a lot of other projects taking priority right now. This was tons of fun and I think my favorite quilt ever!

It's still Fall and I'm done

Just in time to hang and enjoy for a couple months - my Wonky Trees are done. I have to say that while it's definitely grown on me - I still think this quilt falls in the ugly cute category. I had lots of fun making the trees and loved hand quilting it. Thanks Tonya for setting up the class and inspiring me to go a little more liberated in my quilting.

Turtle quilt

Here are the top and back of my quilt (BTW this is the first time I have ever posted a photo on the internet.) The color looks a little washed out, probably due to the artificial light.  The turtles do all look lined up in tidy, well-behaved rows, don't they?!! I will keep working on developing my quilting to be more liberated. To finish the quilt, I'm thinking I will use floss to hand quilt some lily pads or sea weed or whatever in the "open water."  I hope to finish while people are still looking at the 2008 summer class blog. 

Andrea in Lake Elmo, MN

Finally Finished!

Ta da... took it to work today (just for the day) ~ it is definitely a "statement" quilt!

Here's a link to the Picasa album so you can see close ups of the borders and the awesome custom quilting that Chris added. And yes, it has a hanging sleeve AND a label... which means it is truly "done."

What a fun class this has been ~ so many really creative people!

Thanks, Tonya!

Quiltdivajulie

Stained Glass or Sugar Candy Houses

It's taken a bit of time, but the top is finally finished!

Now the question. How am I going to quilt this?

Stitch the ditch round the house blocks and fans on the black?

Not at all sure.

I'm going to sign off now as I've done 2 projects for this class (there is a third which I haven't shown here, but you can see it on my blog) and I've now got tons of hand quilting to do.

I've thoroughly enjoyed myself, met lots more quilting bloggers and learnt loads of new things, especially about colour and design.

So have a great autumn and hope to meet you all again at the next class.

Thanks Tonya - it's been great fun.

Flying Monkeys - first glimpse

I only had enough time last night to attach the binding to the quilt and get one corner stitched to the back... not sure how quickly I'll be able to get the rest of the binding done (soon, I hope!). Chris did some phenomenal custom quilting work on Monkeys ~ she and I are both thrilled with the results!

Quiltdivajulie

Turtles

I haven't posted for a long time but I've been watching people's quilts progress and I think they are WONDERFUL. I'm so inspired by the artistry!

I've started making turtles - which is my 'theme' for this challenge - I made a turtle tote bag and gave it to a friend. Now I've started making turtles for a small quilt. But my problem is technology - I can't post a picture from home since we're still not "wired." I am still working on this!

Andrea in Lake Elmo, MN

Laugh!

Here it is! The finished project. I had some bumps here and there. When I added the NY Beauties on the top corner, I wasn't exactly crazy about them, but they've grown on me. I just did some very simple quilting around the letters and inside the suns. This is going to be a wall hanging for my dd. Great class!

Rememberall

Here's it is:


I found it quite a challenge to get it all pieced according to my vision. I put a sleeve on it--the first time I've ever done that. I am happy to have a completed project--whew. It is labeled "Rememberall" as that is what I wish it to do for me. ;-)

Thank you, Tonya, for the opportunity to expand my repertoire and thank you to all for your warm support! I look forward to seeing y'all's progress as your quilts grow & grow.

I'm quilting

I finally got my trees layered and am quilting it with #8 perle cotton. Most of the quilting will be the fly stitch inspired by a quilt Patti posted on her blog but the plan is to quilt some words in the tone on tone filler blocks and maybe a leaf or two.

Hopefully, I'll have it finished and hanging before Autumn is done.

Continuing with Trees

My Tree Everlasting quilt is coming together, slowly but surely. I am now at the hard part-- making 100+ odd-size pieces fit together. It is a challenge! I've committed to working on it for a couple hours every week, and already I am seeing major progress. It will take me a few more weeks to get the whole top assembled, but I wanted to let everyone to know that I'm still working on it. :-)

I would love to see a progress report from others. It would help me to know that others are hard at work on finishing their quilts, too.

Congratulations to those who have actually finished your quilts! I will be among you someday.

I give up :-(

I have decided to drop out of this lovely endeavour. There just are too many quilts wanting to be finished on time for me to devote serious time and creativity to this project. Receiving a text from England about the new arrival of my friend's baby girl - whom I have a baby quilt planned for - drove it home.

Let me say this however: I really enjoyed reading about your projects and I think the end result has been inspiring every time.

For me, it's a definite "maybe next time",
best,
Dorothee

Violette's Sugar and Spice

"Sugar and Spice, Everything Nice," what could be more "girly" than that?

As soon as those words popped into my head, I knew I had to include them in Violette's quilt. I kept the tones of the word "sugar" close to the color violet. I wanted the word "and" to disappear into the background, so I picked a color that was close to the background. For the word "Spice," I wanted colors with punch.

I didn't like the "R" so I redid it. Then I didn't like that it was sewn so evenly, so I ripped it apart and resewed it together. The word "Everything" had to bend slightly so it would fit on the top of a twin bed. And I wanted the colors to be reminiscent of a rainbow.

The word "Nice" looked a bit boring, so I replaced the dot on the "i" with a little flower.

After that came the name panel, along with some butterflies I designed.

Violette's family has a big tabby cat, and I knew I wanted to include him in the quilt. Hiding him in the flower patch at the bottom was the solution.

Here is the finished quilt.
I was so excited to join Tonya's Summer Class. But I couldn't start posting until after I had delivered this quilt to its recipient, my godchild Violette.

I visited her family in July for the Christening and gave them her quilt. Everybody loved it, and thought it was perfect. Everything -was- perfect.

Ten days after I left, Violette suffered a tragic accident and died. I flew down to Maryland to attend the funeral. The family covered her coffin with the quilt at her funeral. It was beautiful, and perfect in its own way, but that's not the image I had anticipated.

~~~~~

It's been hard for me to get back into making quilts or being excited about much of anything. I'm not related to Violette's family, but I loved her very much.


Today the quilt is on Violette's big brother's bed. He's 5-1/2.

He placed it there.

Polka Dot Estates

finished!



I changed the name of my quilt from "housing project" to "Polka Dot Estates". I was looking at Tonya's house tutorial recently. Guess what she called it? housing project! No wonder I thought it was a great name. I guess my subconscious held on to that name until I started my quilt. Sorry Tonya! Never meant to use your quilt name. Eek! Please accept my apologies!

I really enjoyed this class and making the quilt. I learned a lot that I wouldn't have learned if I had just followed a pattern of "cut this many of each sized rectangle and triangle listed". It's hard to explain. But I think you know what I mean.

Thanks Tonya!

I offer this photo as evidence that I am still working on my quilt! As you can see (maybe), several trees and the letters ORES are sewn together into a section. This picture represents about 1/10th of my quilt. How did it get so big?! The work of assembling the pieces is slow and requires much thought. The process is so intense that I can't focus on it more than a couple hours at a time.

After seeing some of your quilt tops finished, I am eager to finish mine, but I daresay it won't be any time soon! I am renewing my commitment to it, hoping to make good progress in the next month.