Sew&Tell Friday - Not Your Grandmother's Flower Garden

Hi, all!!

Well, I've managed to make it through my second (and final) week of Lilli's fall break - she goes back to preschool next week and I get my Tuesdays and Thursdays back for sewing!   That's not to say we haven't had a good time while she's been out of school - today we went to see the Nashville Ballet perform a little ballet for our local library, and Miss Lilli had a ball trying to be a ballerina while she was watching!  I haven't had that much fun at the ballet in years!

Here's my first "sew and tell" for Friday:

Deborah with her very first quilt!

This quilt is my friend Deborah's first quilt - can you tell how proud she is?  I feel like a proud quilt-mama myself!  She did a beautiful job, even adding some flourishes in her border quilting on her own!   She's already planning to start on a sudoku quilt next.  I love seeing the next generation of quilters develop!!

I hope you like the quilt I'm about to share with you - I certainly do!  This quilt was W-A-Y out of my comfort zone - lots of new techniques, fabric, and designing on my own.  It has been given to a young woman in my Bible study group who had to have some very serious surgery yesterday.  She is such a unique personality that she really needed something quirky and whimsical.  I was looking on blogs and Flickr for some inspiration and saw this quilt.  Somehow it just struck me as being "right", and I started doodling on my own to see what I could come up with that had the same kind of feel.

I pulled a group of fabrics that were very saturated fall colors, as those seemed to be my recipient's preferred palette.    I also found a beautiful piece of Irish linen that came from my grandmother's stash.  It was 72 inches wide - perfect for this quilt!  This became the backing for the appliques.  I spread it out on my bed (out of the reach of helpful dogs) and my little assistant and I arranged the flowers and stems on the linen.  Here's a picture of where we started....

I did a little slimming of the stems, plus made them curvier to give it a little more whimsy!  (And I want to give a shout-out to my friend Karrie of Freckled Whimsy, who gave me a lot of encouragement and creative criticism on this quilt!   Be sure to check out her new tutorial for a quick string quilt - it's AWESOME!)  So here's the final version of - - - - - Not Your Grandmother's Flower Garden!

Look who's playing peek-a-boo!

This quilting was a bear (big and heavy quilt)
but totally worth it!

I can really knock these swirls out now!

The back of the quilt has
appliqued squares with Scripture verses
from friends of the recipient

This may be the biggest size quilt I can free-motion quilt on my Singer - it's about 70 inches square.  I'm not sure I could go any bigger!  But it was so much fun to try out a lot of different designs on this quilt.  And I'm beginning to feel like I may be able to design my own quilts someday.  So I'm really glad I had the chance to stretch my wings with this one!

By the way, there's another AccuQuilt GO! Cutter giveaway going on, over at Alderwood Quilts.  Go check it out!!  And don't forget the Friday giveaway on AccuQuilt's Facebook page....

I'm headed to a quilt show tomorrow afternoon - I hope to get lots of inspiration there, plus maybe meet some new quilting friends!  And maybe I'll get some pictures to share.......

I'll be linking up with Amy's Sew & Tell Friday - be sure to go check out what everyone's done this week and share some bloggy love!

Later!

Sarah

PS - You can find the winners of my Fall Into Fall Quilt Bloggers Giveaway here!

Make-A-List Monday #16!

Hi, all!

Oooh, I've been bad and left this post until the very last minute!  So it's going to be short and sweet....

From last week's list:

1.  Finish designing and cut out another ministry quilt.  This one needs to be modern and whimsical - a bit of a stretch for me, but we'll see how it goes!  I've got the fabrics pulled and an idea in my head for what to do with the design.  I did finish this one, just tonight.  Pictures will be posted on Friday's blog.  I'm thinking about using this quilt for the Blogger's Quilt Festival - be sure to check in Friday and let me know what you think!

2.  Finish the flimsy for Welcome Home.  I'm still working on this - the top is about 2/3 done, and I hopefully will get it done by Wednesday. 


3.  Start the back for Welcome Home.  Parts of this are done, and I'm working on the design in my head - it should work up fast once I finish the top!




OK, I didn't get as much done as I had hoped to - so this week I'm keeping it simple.  


1.  Finish both front and back of Welcome Home.


2.  Quilt it!


Sorry there aren't any pics in this post - uploading is going slow tonight!  But I'll have lots more later on in the week!  Have a great week - and let me know what you are working on!


Later!


Sarah


And here's a giveaway to check out - for an AccuQuilt GO! Cutter!  Head on over to Badland Quilts....


Here's another giveaway - and only a few more hours to enter.... head over to Grey Cat Quilts and enter her Fall Into Fall Quilt Blogger's Giveaway - she's giving away a beautirul little mini quilt!

Sew&Tell Friday - Even Owls Blush.... and more....

Hi, all!

It's Friday again!!  Sometimes it seems like the week just flies by - and this has been one of those weeks!  Miss Lilli was on fall break this week (next week too!) so I didn't have a whole lot of free time for sewing. But - I did have time to get my niece's birthday quilt finished!  So let me introduce to you - - - - 

Even Owls Blush.....

The name comes from the Blush print on the front of the quilt and the owl on the back.  The owl is taken from Cloud 9's Hoot!Tote pattern - a great design and I just love it!  My niece loves owls, so this just seemed really appropriate.  The background fabric on the back is a 100% cotton tapestry panel from Target - I loved the colors and it seemed to fit the mood I wanted for the back.  I'm so happy I finished this - it was a little late for her birthday but not too bad - less than a week!

I'm also working on a quilt for the quilt ministry - something really different this time.  I need to make a "whimsical" quilt for a young woman - and I say whimsical in the most literal sense - she has eyelashes on her VW bug!  Here's the "rough draft" of what I'm working on - since taking this picture, I've narrowed the stems of the flowers and started working on the applique.  The backing fabric for the applique is a gorgeous piece of 72 inch wide Irish linen that was in my grandmother's fabric stash.  It's lovely to work on, and gets softer every time I touch it, I think!

Lilli and I have been doing some different things while she's been out of preschool - here are a couple of pictures I took today when I took her to the pumpkin patch!  She had a ball, but mostly didn't want me to take her picture - so I caught these on the sly when she wasn't looking.

Can you say "airborne"?

Sunshine makes her happy....

I'll be linking up with Amy's Sew & Tell Friday.  Be sure to drop by there and see what everyone's been working on this week!

What are you working on?

Later!

Sarah

PS.... Don't forget the Fall Into Fall Quilt Bloggers Giveaway!  You can still enter mine here and check out all the others here.  Giveaways are open until October 15th!

AND ..... here's another great giveaway - of a hand-quilted wall hanging, no less!  Be sure to check out Sew It Up's giveaway!!!