Finished New Orleans Quilt!

Fresh off my sewing machine is the finished queen-sized New Orleans Quilt!  I'm afraid that even with helpers, I don't have the best place for quilt pictures, plus we live in a very windy part of the world, which poses additional challenges.  Sorry about the shadow, and the wind.  It's in the wash now.  I'll see if I can get some better pictures later, but don't count on it.

Here's a picture of the back.  I had to order all of the fabric on line, so my strategy was to buy twice of every color so I had enough for mistakes, and for a pieced back.  Sure enough, I miss-cut a huge piece of the yellow, so when I planned out the back, the center yellow piece was the biggest yellow cut I had left.  I only realized after I got it all pieced together that I had inadvertently created a big fried egg in the center of the quilt back :-P.  Oh well.

Speaking of eggs, my kids are too old for the Easter Bunny, but I don't think you're ever too old for dyed Easter eggs.  I'm off to boil up some, and hope that you all have a nice Easter or Passover or nice Spring week-end!

New Orleans Queen Quilt almost done!

My big goal for the week has been to get this queen sized "New Orleans" Quilt all done so I can send it off to it's future home.  I just finished all of the quilting, but all of my helpers are at school or work, so here's a few smaller details of the quilt!  I used Isacord thread for almost the entire quilt, and I must say that this thread is amazing!  I love it!

As for the quilting, I used stippling for much of it, but added some fun "shutters, windows and doors" to the appropriate "blocks" to make it look more realistic.  I hope to do the same to my mini quilt after this is all done.  That'll be easy peasy after the upper body work-out of quilting a queen on my machine ;-).

Now all that's left is making the binding and sewing it onto the quilt!  My guys will be home over the week-end to help me get a good picture of it when it's all done!

Another New York Beauty

Before I tweak my sewing machine over to free motion quilting, to finish a big quilt, I decided to finish the second New York Beauty block in the New York Beauty Quilt Along.  It turned out gorgeous, but I must admit that these blocks are kicking my you-know-what!  Since I'm making 4 of each, they take a lot longer, and all the pinning and tearing the paper away hasn't been kind to my hands.  Since I'm already behind, I decided that this is going to be a really long term project.  I'll be happy if I get all 10 blocks done by the end of the year.  I am really excited to have a quilt made from them, but want to take my time doing it.

I planned from the beginning to make these from my stash.  I've been trying hard to finish quilts, and use up my stash and scraps this year, so I was really excited to see Kati's (of "From the Blue Chair" blog) "Slash the Stash" challenge.  I'm linking up these "suns" as well as my Scrap attack quilt, which I also made from my scrap stash.

It's also Fabric Tuesday over at Quilt Story, so I'm adding my post there as well.  Come check out both site to see what others have been up to!

Back from Spring Break

Last week was my kids' Spring Break, and I got the fortunate opportunity to travel to see our relatives in Texas, some of whom I hadn't seen in 9 years.  It had even been almost 2 years since I saw my twin brother and his family.  My husband couldn't come along, but thanks to a few recent purchases of iPods, we were able to communicate with him via "Facetime".  I LOVE this "app".  We hadn't flown in almost 2 years either, so I had all sorts of new things to learn, including new baggage fees, x-ray machines and fees for practically everything you do these days when it comes to flying.  Despite the fees, though, we had excellent travel karma and all of our flights were on time and uneventful, unlike some of my son's classmates who traveled together as a group to Washington DC Philly and New York City, only to get stuck in their first airport for 14 hours (Portland), then in Denver for 2 DAYS!  Boooooo......  I can't even imagine the frustration for those 50+ adults and teens.

The short time we got to spend with our family was cherished.  With wintry weather that we've been getting here in the Pacific Northwest, it was also really nice to put on shorts and T-shirts for the first time, and to see flowers and green grass and leaves on trees! 

We even got to do a bit of hiking and exploring in Northern Texas (my boys are in that first picture).  Spring was a bit further behind there, but it was still making its' presence known.

I'm still trying to get the time-zone thing back in sync, and still have a few more catch-up chores to do, but expect to get back to my sewing machine soon!!  I hope all of you are having a great Spring (or Fall for my Southern Hemisphere friends).

Final Project Quilting: Zig Zag Non Quilt

I almost didn't do the final Project Quilting round, because today is the last day I'll have access to my sewing machine or computer until after the week-end, but here it is. 

The challenge this week was "zig-zag", with an additional challenge to go beyond a basic zig zag quilt.  I really had a hard time with this, mainly due to the time crunch, but also because zig zags aren't really a particularly favorite pattern of mine.  It was hard for me to create something that was based on a pattern I don't really like. I had nothing, and was resigned that it was going to be nothing, when I sat down to finish all of my postcards with, yes... a zig zag stitch!  I can DO that.

I just got my first ever ipod (touch) a week or 2 ago, and I've been wanting to make myself a case for it.  I made one for my son a few months ago.  So first I "made" some fabric with a solid black and many colors of threads and zig zag stitches.

Then I made a "quilt" with it, added Velcro, put in a fold, and now I have an ipod case!  I took more pictures, and will try to put up a tutorial in the near future.

Thanks again to Kim, of Kim's Crafty Apple for hosting this fun event!!

Friday Finish: Postcards, Quilt tops and Freezer

It's Friday again, so I'm linking up with Amandajean of Crazy Mom Quilts "Finish it up Friday".  Feel free to join in or see what others have finished!

This week my finishes were my "Easter egg" postcards for my March swap, my Scrap Attack Quilt top and the New Orleans French Quarter Quilt top.

I already have the French Quarter Quilt all pin-basted and ready to quilt!

I finally got out my "Organic Chemistry" quilt top to sew up next, hopefully in time for our May Quilt show.

Here's some of the postcards I've been getting in the mail from my "Where you are" swap.  One is even from South Africa!!  I have an Ireland quilter in my Easter Egg swap too, so I'm getting them across oceans now!

Only 2 of us signed up for the February "I'm still sleeping" swap, but my partner accidentally sent me not 1, but 2 hand-stitched postcards!  WOW!  I'm impressed.  I whipped up a cute "extra" card of my own with the 2 kittens wide awake this time ;-).

One last thing that is almost finished is our freezer full of last summer's garden goodness.  Below are the before (early October) and after (this morning) pictures.  Some of the "after" jars are actually roasted pureed winter squash that we froze in December.  I'm actually stunned that we went through this much (and then some, as I canned a lot too, and it's all gone).  But with 2 growing boys/men, I guess I'd better get used to it!!

I've been seeing a lot of Spring pictures in blog-land lately, and hope to have some of my own to post soon too, but I thought I'd share a final picture I took yesterday morning of our local quail seeking cover from the snow!  I'm sure we'll warm up soon...  right?

WIP Wed: New Orleans Quilt

My latest "WIP" (work in progress) has been a queen sized version of my New Orleans quilt that I made for the first Project Quilting challenge.  A friend saw it on-line, and sent it on to someone who really loved it enough to actually PAY me to make them one!!  Whew hew!!  I love sewing for people who really appreciate my work.  It truly makes it a joy!

Here's the smaller version I made, and some pictures of the distinctive Creole Cottages in the French Quarter that inspired the quilt (taken by Dan Martone).

I'm hoping to get the back made and get the quilt basted today.  Wish me luck!