Houndstooth

As part of this blog, I want to create a record of the quilts I have made. My grandmother has made over 200 quilts in her lifetime, and she has a list of most of them, and pictures of some, and I so wish I had a better record of the wonderful quilts she has made to be able to look back on someday. I hope that by recording my quilts here that I can pass on my legacy to my granddaughter one day.

To start, here is the first quilt I ever completely finished. It is a lap quilt I made for my mother-in-law. It's not the first quilt I ever started (I still have 2 or 3 WIP's that I started in college), but it is one of my favorites. It is a houndstooth pattern that I modified from somewhere. I created it in 2013, machine pieced and quilted, using solid colors.

Since everybody in my family are huge Alabama fans (and it's where both my husband and I graduated), this pattern was very appropriate. I want to remake this one some day but double it to use when we go tailgating. 

Deal Me In!

This week has been very productive week for sewing! Last night I got my mom the help me finish adding the borders to the Starburst quilt. It looks great and I'm happy how it turned out, even if some of the points are a little wonky (I won't tell if you won't :).

Next up is sandwiching it and quilting it. I have a wonderful light green minky for the backing. My goal is to start quilt it this weekend. 

I also got the next sampler blocks done! This is one of my favorite patterns, the card trick block. I love how the block looks so different just by changing the colors of the fabrics. 

Revolutionary

I was worried about the contrast of the fabrics in this block, but I think it turned out great. The colors are pretty close to how they actually look, and most of my points are even! I have a hard time with points sometimes, but I'm getting better. These sampler blocks are great practice. 

Roaring 30's

I was't going to put white in this quilt, but this block just begged for it. The solid color really makes the patterns pop. I need to add more white from now on. 

Mod Squad

This block just doesn't photograph well (not that anything really does under fluorescent light, on a wooden dining table, at 10:00 at night). The colors are actually more vibrant, and the two blue and green patterns are on a white background. The blue background is also more blue and less black as it shows here. I really like this block. 

Beale Street

This block. I love it. I am so glad I picked this combo of colors. 

Rainbow

These colors are a little more vibrant in person, and you can tell a much greater contrast between the light yellow top right card and the light green background. The rainbow blocks are always the first block I do, so it's my practice block. This block came out a little wonky, but not too terrible. 

So that's another 5 blocks for the samplers! I might finish the tops in the next 5 years! 

The 350 Blocks Project

Since my last post, I've made another 10 blocks for the blue and tan quilt for my husband, which I think I'm going to call Points and Bars. That brings the total up to 57! I hope to get it done in the next few months, at least have the top pieced by our anniversary in July. As part of helping me stay on course, I am participating in the 350 Blocks Project on Prairie Moon Quilts. It's just a way to check in and make sure I'm on track, the goal is to make 350 quilt blocks this year. Each month  a goal is set, and quilters report in on their progress. March's goal is 30 blocks, which I have hit, but I'm behind for January and February, so my over all total is low. Here's how it's shaping up so far:

Points & Bars: 57 Blocks
Family Samplers: 10 Blocks (2 per quilt)
Starburst: 6 Blocks (I'm counting each point of the star as one block, as I had to sew them together to create the whole star)

Total of 72! I hope to make 8 more so I can get back on track for the year. Some of the other quilters have already made upwards of 200 blocks! I am in awe of their abilities. I may not make the 350 goal, but I hope to have at least a good head start on the sampler quilts and the others that come up along the way!

Back At It

Well the last few weeks have been horrible on the sewing front. Between craziness at work and our whole family being sick, I haven't had much energy/time to do any sewing. Last night I finally got back on track. 

For the starburst quilt, I sewed the borders into strips so I can attach it to the main body. This weekend I'm going to get my mom to help me pin and sew the borders on. Since I just hand stitched the star down, it's not perfectly square, so two sets of hands measuring and pinning will hopefully make it come out right. Here is what the border will look like once it's on:

After that I just need to add a thick solid purple border then I can quilt it. I am still unsure about how to quilt it. I've gone back and forth on quite a few different designs and nothing has stood out yet. Still have some time on that though. 

The other thing I worked on is a quilt that I started back in November of last year. It was requested by my husband to go on our bed. It is a take on a pattern I saw in one of my magazines. The original one had navy and ivory blocks, but I expanded my palette a bit and included more tans and different hues of blue. I also used linen for the rail fence blocks, for a different texture and a bit more weight to the quilt. The blues I pulled from my stash, various quilt shops, and even stole some from my grandmother :).

 In all it has 20 different kinds of blue fabric. I had to cut 4 quarter square triangles per block, with 178 blocks in total. I think it took me almost two months to cut out all those triangles. Now I am piecing the blocks together, and then will sew them into rows like this:

I'm slowly making progress on these blocks. I have 47 done, so only 131 left!