The crib quilt

This quilt has been a work in progress for longer than I care to mention (ahem ... I fist blogged about it last April). Luckily it now has more significance than I even intended – it will be our baby's first quilt! It will hang above the crib.

All the blocks are done, now I am working on sewing on the white sashing. The finished quilt will be somewhere between 40x40 and 50x50 inches, depending on if I decide to do for a border, or not.

I love how the red/pink blocks remind me of the Strawberry Shortcake (the doll, not the food), and the orange/yellow blocks make me think of baby chickens, and the green/aqua squares ...

I have high hopes for some major progress this week, so stay tuned.

Another few layers

A few days ago my latest painting looked like this. Then i added a few more layers of paint and some other details.

Now it looks like this. I like it but I think it still might need a little something. Maybe a tiny boat on the horizon? Or a palm? Or a sunset? Or clouds?

...

This weekend is one of my tummy's favorite weekends of the year - Bismarck's RibFest. Check it out.

Photo taken by me at the event last year.

42 down

Tomorrow, Monday, April 8, marks the 42nd day of the one-a-day 9-patch quilt along.

Here are the week six blocks.

I wanted to see all 42 blocks together to see how well they all get along.

So far so go, I think. In the finished quilt, I will alternate the blocks so the primarily red/green blocks will be every-other (red, green, red, green ...). As you can see in this photo, I accidently had a few green blocks in a row. oops.

Each of the blocks will be sashed in white.

Think it has a Christmas look to it?

Speaking of Christmas, it snowed here yesterday. It never stuck to the ground, but there was definitely frozen stuff falling from the sky. A town less than an hour west of here had three inches of snow. Remind me again, is it really June?

28 down

Adding to my productivity this weekend, I finished my week four one-a-day nine-patch quilt-along blocks.

Here are the previous three weeks of blocks:

Black, white and red all over

This poor quilt has been a work in progress for way too long and I have changed my plan for its finished size too many times to count.

Last time I posted about this quilt I wasn't sure if I liked the look of the blocks with or without a white border. Obviously I settled on both - some with and some without.

I also decided on a wall hanging versus a throw quilt. I made this the width of a quilt bed (approximately 58 inches), and plan to hang it above the headboard in out guest bedroom. I have quite a bit of the fabric left and decided the large print fabric might be better suited for other projects.

This is another improvisationally-pieced quilt for Project Improv - no pattern, no rules. Just lots of sewing and creativity.

Any ideas for quilting it?

Thursday round up

First things first ...

New recipe! I'm getting more adventurous in the kitchen - I threw a bunch of stuff together and created a great little recipe. check it out. I call it Man Quiche.

I whipped up a batch of my Raspberry Kuchen Bars last night and took them to work today. I think I made a lot of new friends. Seriously, they are that good. They tasted especially good because this time of year we're not eating much fruit so the raspberries tasted magical. (I used frozen raspberries from my bonus mom's garden).

I finished quilting the ragged squares quilt about an hour ago. It took some wrestling to get it quilted in the square design ... and I broke two sewing machine needles ... but though it all, I think it turned out nicely. 

Now to sew on the binding. That'll be a good weekend project. Here is the quilt pattern. This would be a great beginner quilt - It's fast, fun and easy. As always, I'm looking forward to getting it washed and krinkly. 

As I was finishing up I noticed how neat and tidy my fabric shelves looked. Time to show them off. Here they are in all their folded glory.

I've beefed up my green stack lately ... time for a green quilt maybe? Or to use the black/white/red pile on the bottom right? Decisions, decisions.

This little stack of blue is super cute.

Work(s) in progress

I'm about half way done quilting the ragged squares quilt. It just keeps getting more cute. The pattern is from here (that's a great quilting website, by the way).

The six crosses quilt is about 90 percent completed. I quilted it today and will start hand sewing the binding (outer border) on when I get done typing this. I can't wait to show it off. Stay tuned.

For those that are wondering, the Grandpa Andy computer training went very well. I had a great time teaching and converting another Apple fan. ha ha. They even fed me lunch and sent me home with lots of leftovers, which were all delicious. The most eventful thing about the trip were the road conditions. On the way down there was lots of blowing snow but nothing too dangerous. But while I was in Linton, the weather and roads warmed up enough so that the snow was sticking to the road, causing lots of ice and snow drifts to form on the road surface. On the way back to Bismarck, I saw seven cars in the ditch (most were SUVs and pick-ups) and one was even flipped over on its roof. Crazy. Needless to say, it was quite a stressful drive, but I arrived home safe and sound.

Message to snow: Stay up there, we don't need any more!

My paper white bulbs and I are amazed at all the snow we have. We got another five inches of snow last night and another few inches this morning. Maria and Matthew, my bonus sister and brother have a snow day off school today - yahoo! They live 2 1/2 hours north of here and got over a foot of snow yesterday. 

At out house, we have snow piles over four feet high lining our driveway. It's crazy.

All the more reason to stay inside and quilt! ... I finished this quit top. No back yet and it still need to be quilted. It's probably the most girly quilt I've ever made.

and my second quilt of 2009 ...

I started an improv-pieced quilt. Basically this just means that I don't use a pattern - I just randomly sew pieces together to create a quilt. There is a Flickr group dedicated to this project. Check it out - just click the link. There are about 115 of us that are participating. The quilt I decided to make will represent my journey through RCIA – yes, I'm becoming Catholic! The quilt will be a wall hanging of six squares (crosses). 

Depending on how it turns out, I might submit it in the Artists Celebrating Christ Art Show. So far I think the quilt is looking pretty good - especially considering it's made of all batik scraps. Thanks to my Aunt Kristen for donating a bag of scraps recently – they came in very handy with this project. The squares have an amazing stained glass look which I am really enjoying. I will border each of the squares with white fabric (for a total size of about 10 inches square), then sew the six squares together, and then I will quilt it. 

First 2009 quilt

Here is my first project for 2009 - a raged squares quilt from this pattern. I am using fabrics from my collection - some from the great sale and others from scraps. 

I've got a few projects in the works ... including this one that I kind of forgot about until now. I have a feeling January will be a very productive quilting month.

Happy 2009!

I'm honestly not a huge fan of the 'New Year' holiday but I do like the feeling of starting something new ... hence the new quilt.

I realize this is early ... but ...

Yes, my tree is up. Yes, I'm happy as a clam about it. Here's how it went down. I decided to take the plunge and invest in an artificial tree this year - for a few reasons, primarily the fire hazard that are real trees and the mess. So anyway, off tree shopping went. I quickly got frustrated and confused to I turned to google and stumbled upon a nice artificial tree seller called Balsam Hill. Their clearance area and free shipping lured me in and viola! a few day later we had a very large box of Christmas tree (seven feet of Christmas tree to be exact) on our porch. After about an hour or two of fluffing, we have a very lovely tree in our living room :) I couldn't be happier. It's so bright and festive.

Corey, however, thinks it's still a wee bit early to be having a lit Christmas tree on display, so we made a deal that I'll leave the lights turned off until Thanksgiving – at which time it will be lit in full beautiful wonderfulness for all to see. hurray!

Also in Christmas tree news, yesterday I finished quilting the tree skirt I've been working on. This is turning out to be one of my favorite quilting projects yet – primarily because it's small and I don't get sick of it before I finish it. Here it is – I had to "try it on" the tree before sewing on the outer edge (binding). The pattern is from here.

I'm so darn excited for Thanksgiving and Christmas, they are definitely my two favorite holidays. Later this week I'll share my list of favorite Christmas CDs and evergreen potpourri. I'm joking. Well, on second thought ...

Stay tuned.

Our tree: