Quilt Squares

I appliqued my last square on Friday night. After buying my fancy designer fabric from purlsoho, I had a hard time finding coordinating fabrics, but I think I did okay. I hope they look okay with everyone else's squares. I'll post a picture of the finished product when I get one.

Just in Time

Just in time for the warm weather of Spring (high of 70 here today--sorry, Ohio), I finished my knit hat.

I decided not to buy any new yarn this year because I've been living with an anything-you-buy-you-will-have-
to-move-to-Baltimore mindset. As you can see, I didn't have enough blue to make a whole hat, so I added some tan yarn at one end.

Unless we have a cold snap, this hat will have its outside debut next winter.

Snowed in - in Cleveland

This past weekend, it started snowing on Friday around noon, and didn't stop until late Saturday night. We ended up with about 2 feet of accumulated snow, and no way to get out of our driveway all day Saturday. So I stayed in my pajamas almost all day, read a book, did a crossword puzzle, and made this purse out of an old golf sweater of John's.

Why I'm not a quilt designer

This is one of the squares that I dreamed up for the sampler quilt for Monika. I went to the fabric store with a few scribbles of design ideas and a crude map of how I could put this thing together. It was harder than it should have been.

Notice that it's not square? I don't know how that happened. It was square on the diagram.

It is also way too big. Luckily, it only has to be 10"x10" so I could trim off the edges and make it better.

Why did I work on this one first? I should have warmed up with a log cabin or something!

Good Mail

I got a package from purlsoho yesterday with some of the fabric I'm going to use in my quilt squares. I love them already and I haven't even made anything out of them yet.

Finally finished...in February!

This is a "Christmas quilt" that I started several years ago. I pieced the top and never got it quilted. Since I recently learned to machine quilt on my new sewing machine, I decided to quilt this as a practice piece. I used different techniques on the different sections...some straight lines and some wavy lines with the walking foot, and some free motion quilting around the applique and the border. My "free motion" quilting gives a whole new meaning to the term! It's hard! I need a lot more practice on that. In any case, this was a good practice piece for me and I learned a lot, mostly things NOT to do. But it's done and I'll be able to pull it out next Christmas, all ready to go!

Help/Ideas

Monika, if I ever sent you this blog, please do not read this post!

One of my best friends in the world (Monika, pictured left) is having a baby in May and her bridesmaids are joining forces to make a quilt for the family. I have to come up with 4 9x9 panels to send. The colors should be blues and greens, but I think I can interpret that liberally if I want to. Do you guys have any good ideas for applique or embroidery for my squares?

Mom, maybe you could send me one of your Japanese embroidery patterns? I'm also thinking of doing a heart or sunrise for one of them.

Thanks for your input!