{amylouwho} reminder - BQF

It's that time of year again! All the pros are at quilt market, while people like me sit around wishing we were there. Thanks to Amy and another genius idea we have the Blogger's Quilt Festival to keep us company. Go check it out! I know I will be. I'm hoping I might even have something to link up!

New York Beauty

My mom left last week.  The day after the movers took all our stuff I had to take her to the airport. :(  I hate that we live so far away and she can't come over and hold the baby all the time!  She was so much help.  Thanks, mom!!

She also gave into my begging to get her quilt finished!  I'm bummed I didn't have time to get it posted for Amy's Quilt festival, but at least you guys can see it.

My aunt quilted it and dropped it off to her at the airport when she was catching her flight to come visit us.

I just love these colors.  And the points on this thing are so precise!  She's good.  Someday I'll have to have her show me how she did it.  I know it was paper-pieced, but I've never done anything like that.

She finished the binding while she was at my house (and look at that awesome backing fabric!).

We were going to have a binding party and I was going to finish the baby's quilt.  But mostly I just sat around and nursed and did laundry.  Booorr-rriiinnng.

I almost thought about throwing this in one of my moving boxes, but as it is her pièce de résistance, I just couldn't do it.

Sew and Tell is on for tomorrow!  pinksuedeshoe will be guest posting for me, and if you are familiar at all with her blog - you know it's going to be fun!

blogger's quilt festival - fall 2009

I had a hard time deciding what quilt to show.  Really I haven't completed THAT many and the ones that I have completed are pretty simple.  I chose this one for sentimental reasons.

I made this quilt for my baby (who will be 2 in January).  I was just happy I got it finished before his 1st birthday.

I picked out these fabrics for a pinwheel quilt my mom and I were going to make for me.  I wanted a queen sized quilt, so I had A LOT of fabric. Since that plan was hatched about 10 years ago, my tastes have changed a bit.  I didn't really want a blue and yellow quilt now.  But hey!  Perfect for a baby boy!

And with that much fabric I was able to make FOUR of these and give the other 3 to several dear friends who were also having baby boys around the same time!  I love that our boys all have the same blanket to love.

I strip-pieced this so I didn't have to cut out any individual squares.  That made it super easy and efficient when making 4 of them!

My aunt Mary did the quilting on her long arm and it's just a cute all-over stipple (next festival I plan on having a quilt I've quilted myself!)

Thanks for visiting and thanks Amy for hosting this great festival!!

My little guy just came up to the computer and saw this picture and shouted out "Blankie!!" as only an almost 2 year old can do.  I'm so glad he loves it and that it's HIS blankie.

a group effort - quilt festival 2009

Welcome! If you are joining me from the 1st Annual Bloggers Quilt Festival, I'm so glad you stopped by! Make sure you visit Amy at Park City Girl to see all the quilts and be entered in some excellent giveaways! And yes, they involve fabric!!

I'm a relatively new quilter with only a few quilts under my belt. I'm currently working on this, which will be my favorite for sure. Until I start and finish the next one!

So to choose my favorite finished quilt for the festival, I picked this one. Not only is it cute, this little quilt has a great story!

click to get a better view!

When I was about 12, I embroidered these blocks for a church project. I don't remember how long it took me, but I'm sure it was a while. The idea is that they would be made into a baby quilt for when I grew up and had my own kids. Well, you know what happened. They sat in my sewing box for about 20 years (that long? really?).

Well, when I got pregnant with my first, my mom and I decided to resurrect the old project and breathe some new life into it. So we went through her stash of 40s reproduction prints and decided to use a lot of different fabrics so it would be more gender-neutral. So we cut out the sashings, and I managed to sew that main part together.

Then my mom took over again and she put on the borders.

My Aunt Mary quilted it on her long-arm machine, my mom sewed the binding on, and I handstitched it down.

I finally finished it a few months before my SECOND was born. (Remember that procrastinating problem?) Even when we got it all put together it still took me forever to sit down and do the handsewing. I really didn't think I would enjoy that part very much - it's grown on me since.

Thanks so much to my mom who helped not just with the sewing and cutting but with the overall look of the quilt and to Mary for doing such a great job on the quilting. I'm really pleased with how it turned out, and it's so cute I'm not sure I really want anyone spitting up all over it. So for now it's hanging on the wall in the playroom.

What's funny (or sad, you decide) is that it took over 20 years, 3 people and many locales to get this thing done. Here's a list of the places it's been worked on:
embroidery - Annandale, VA
Sashing cut - Draper, UT
Sashings sewn - Oceanside, CA (thanks Allyn for letting me use your machine back then!)
Borders sewn - Draper, UT
Machine Quilting - Tooele, UT
Initial binding sewn - Draper, UT
Final handstiching - Stafford, VA

At least it started and ended in Virginia - but sheesh, what a trek. I am kind of glad we didn't put it together way back then - I think the fabrics we had available to us recently make it really cute - who knows what 80's influence would have been at work had we completed it back then! But I love that I have something that my mom, aunt and I worked on together.

a recovery group for procrastinators anonymous

I was glad to hear that I'm not the only one who tends to put things off!

I was heartened to see Jacquie of Tallgrass Prairie Studio inspire us to finish up some of those unfinished projects!! Thanks for the motivation! You can go to her blog and grab her button.

I already finished a couple of unfinished projects this month. One of them being this scarf. (which I can't seem to take a decent picture of...)

I first saw it on Penny's blog late last summer. I purchased MKCarrol's pattern and took it with me on my trip in September. Then I realized I had taken the wrong hook - so the pattern was too big. So I had to take it apart and start over.

Then I made another huge mistake and had to take it out and start again. I had put it down for a while because I was frustrated with it. I picked it back up again in October when my mom came to visit. We were looking at the pattern and we realized that I had been using US stitches with a UK pattern. So again the size was off. But I had just finished off my first skein of yarn and wasn't about to do it all over. Again.

So it's sat sad a lonely all winter instead of keeping my neck warm. It's still been cold here so I decided I needed to finish it so I could still wear it this season. So, if you are still reading you will see how good a procrastinator/rationalizer I really am!


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Amy at Park City Girl is hosting a Bloggers Quilt Festival. Post your favorite quilt through a Mr. Linky on her blog starting this Friday! Fabric shops are lined up for some giveaways as well!

Maybe I'll host a giveaway too. . .