A short time ago, in a blogosphere far, far away, a little red headed blogger got in WAY over her head with a self hosted blog and one day–POOF–it refused to publish or save any more posts. Even her techno savvy friends and family members (hi, Dad!) couldn’t save her beloved blog. Sadly, the girl (who loves to write, but is only minimally techno savvy, by the way) restarted her blog on WordPress (but not the self hosted kind). But, hating to lose her previous 800+ posts that wouldn’t be seen, she came up with a brilliant idea (!) to institute a feature to bring back some of her older posts that she wanted to keep or thought were good. Hence the new feature: Blast From The Past!
So, if you have followed my blog in that other, sadder blogosphere, you have probably already seen this one. But, you might like it even more now… Hey, you never know!
So, from February 17h, 2012…
Just a quick quilting update for all of my friends who are interested in that kind of thing. Because we have had numerous people at our church who are ill, having surgeries, and/or grieving lately, we are running a tad behind in getting lap quilts made for my Mom and Dad to deliver. So, we have been working overtime this week to get a few more done. Mom has made one quilt top and will try and finish it tonight. I have sent over two quilt tops for her to finish up and I have pulled fabric for a third, so that is my next project.
http://www.quiltville.com
The quilt top above is made from a pattern by one of my favorite quilt designers, Bonnie Hunter at Quiltville. It is called Scrappy Bargello and all of the instructions are very well laid out on her site–free for the taking! Bonnie is very generous with her time and efforts, making oodles of charity quilts each year, teaching, writing books, and sharing her techniques and patterns to keep fabrics (especially scraps and ugly fabrics) out of the landfill and used to make beautiful projects. I find myself drawn to her site for inspiration, patterns, and insight from a master quilter.
I must admit that this pattern is a little bit more complex in layout than what I usually do for charity quilts, but I was able to use up lots of random fabric scraps that Mom and I had around, creating a lovely quilt for really no financial outlay. And trust me, when you begin making as many quilts as we have been making lately, that is a very big consideration! Personally, I really think that the scrappy look is so intriguing and interesting that I enjoy working with scraps. Don’t get me wrong, love the beautiful, planned out, color coordinated designs, too, but nothing takes the place of my scrappy babies! I will definitely be using this pattern again.
Now this baby is one of my old standby patterns, the 1600 quilt. I made it with purchased batik strips (tossing the pinks, corals, and most of the purples aside to keep the color scheme more
masculine). Sorry the photo is out of focus. It’s odd, but we don’t have very many fabrics suitable for men in our stashes. Or we have used up the ones we have had and are down to having some, but seldom enough to mix together to come up with a respectable quilt. So, I am always on the look out for masculine prints and solids on sale (or donated).
Lately, I have been collecting thrifted, er, I mean, vintage shirts from the thrift shops to make masculine quilts for my sons. I am hoarding, er, collecting red, white, beige, tan, and blue plaids for my oldest son’s planned quilt, which will be in a scrappy star pattern like this. It will have to generously fit a double bed, because he will outgrow it soon and have to move on up to a queen. Woah!
I have been hoarding, I mean collecting similar shirts in greens, beiges, white, browns, tans for younger sons quilt. It will be a bento box pattern. He is currently in a twin bed with plenty of room, so I am planning a generous twin size. I am not sure how I will finish out these quilts yet (heck, or when I can get them started). I am leaning to a quilt as you go kind of thing so I can do the entire thing myself. I am not crazy about spending cash on longarm quilting (although I LOVE the look) and am unwilling to hand quilt something that will receive wear and tear from a kid. If I put that kind of time into a project, I want it to be cared for. Kids need to be able to drag them around and be rough and tumble. Machine stitching is great for that.
So that is my week in a nutshell. Are you doing anything creative this week?
If you would like to see more quilts, click here, here, and here!
Till next time,
Another Hatchett Job.... 