Remember this quilt?

Ok. So do you remember this quilt that I started a while back? Well, I jumped right back into quilting this baby once I learned of this contest that the Modern Quilt Guild is throwing (having? hosting? launching?). 

The general gist of the rules:

1) A quilt design completely made by you (can be inspired by other things though)

2) Has to be quilted 100% by you (no sending it out to get quilted)

There will be 3 winners. Each winner gets quite a few different prize packages. Kona Cotton Fabrics. Aurifil thread. Entry into a drawing for a new Janome quilting machine. Lots of goodies.

I am not sure that I can be classified as a modern quilter or not. I am not sure what a modern quilter really is. I mean, quilting is like ancient right? My quilt pattern is essentially one big log cabin block, which is pretty much as traditional as it gets.

Anyway, I finished the quilt top back in May. Time for the backing. When I decided to enter it into a contest, I knew that I had to give the backing more thought. I bought a few yards of the print below. It is in the front of the quilt as well. It is from Anna Maria Horner's Garden Party collection (where most of the fabric comes from for this quilt). 

I also got to use my pinking rotary cutter. Well, my rotary cutter with the pinking blade. For some reason, I always thought that by using the pinking blade I would mess up my seam allowance somehow. But it doesn't. 

I hope that its not too hard to picture, but this is what I envision for the quilt back. So each of the yellow AMH print strips will be 10.5 inches wide x the length of the quilt (75 inches). The combination of all the colored strips sandwiched in between are 6.25 inches. Given that, the combo below will be repeated 4 times. I think it will look really good! 

Of course, that meant I had to cut 1.25 inch strips .... weeeee! that was fun! (not).

What do you think?? Can you envision? Do you think that the back flatters the quilt top?

Ok. Back to quilting. I have about 15 days to get this baby done. 

Any quilting suggestions? Any and all are appreciated. 

Holler. 

FWQAL Block #5 Bat Wing

I just finished up week 3 of the Farmer's Wife Quilt-a-long and I am loving it. Well, not all of it. Cutting out all of those templates are pretty brutal!

 

Here is the page from the book:

I decided to use these fabrics. The print is an Anna Maria Horner print from her Innocent Crush line and the solid is one of her AMAZING solids:

 

Here are the the templates that I had to cut out:

Here are the pieces, all cut and ready to go!:

This block was super easy to sew together and I think that it came out pretty accurately:

 

See all of my Farmer's Wife Quilt-a-long progress at my flickr account.

xoxo

I got it, I got it!

It finallllyyyyy arrived in the mail! Yay!

Like a good little quilter, I read the preface. Then I promptly follow the instructions and printed out the entire packet that came with the CD. 
 

 (Wow... a slight waste of paper. I didn't want to alter the PDF's in case it would ruin the template, but it hurt my feelings a bit to use all this paper)

 (I have my glorious stack of 106 templates ready to be cut out)

So I gathered up all of my supplies, sat down, and got ready for lotssss of cutting up: 
 

 (Permanent markers to write the template number on each template, scissors, the stack of 106 templates, baggies to store the templates, and old scrap manilla folders, and a pen for tracing)

Originally, I had every intention of sitting down tonight with the entire stack of templates and all of the supplies and making every single one of the templates. Umm... after 1, 2, & 3 I wanted to give up already. I can't stand sitting down that long. So I decided that it would be wise and not make me angry if I just cut out the templates that I need for the blocks I am doing that specific week. Doesn't that sound better?

 

Want to know something really sad? So, I got the book today. As you've seen in my past posts, I have all of my prints picked out already and they are waiting to go. The only thing missing is the AMH solids I have been waiting for. Well, good news is that they were delivered today! YAY! 

Oh wait, no, my husband had to work late tonight and he has the key to our mailbox, so as of 9:00 PM (right now) he is still not home. I am staring longingly out our apartment window at the mailbox wishing it would just open itself. What a lesson in patience. I should also point out the fact that I rationalized skipping the gym because I would be home quilting, and instead I've been eating. Ahhh, fail.

xoxo

AMH + Double Hourglass =

More Mug Rugs!!!

I can't stop making them. I really need to stop, but they are so much fun and pretty easy to make.

These were not nearly as planned as the mug rugs I made here. I made them SOLELY from scraps! With the exception of the pea green fabric I snagged from Joann's last minute. I am really a terrible fabric cutter. I have a lot of scraps. It was exciting to make some scrappy things, so take a look:

 (Organizing some scraps)

 (More scraps)

 (Matching some mug rugs up)

 (Getting batting and backing paired up)

 (Lots of straight-line quilting)

 (Getting binding strips all cut and paired up)

 (Pinning!)

 (All pinned up and now its time for binding....)

I have to finish up binding most of these babies. Not exactly sure of their purpose yet; I may be storing them away for starting my shop or craft fair. 

xoxo