Harry Potter Rules

I finally finished my Harry Potter quilt.  It is done rather in the style of a Weasley.  My kids tell me that I am most like Mrs Weasley - so why not go all the way.  I think it is rather fun to go through each appliques piece, and figure out its link to the movies.  Keep in mind, many of these designs were done prior to the movies being released, so they done all match the movie.  I love this quilt.  It is very bright, interesting, and heavy.  Almost all the fabrics are fancy fabric, either satins, brochades, or drapery samples - oh and velvet.  This is a very tactile quilts.  And crooked.  I don't think the Weasley's would mind how crooked it is, so I am not fixing it.  The fabrics are quite slick - thats my story and I am sticking to it...I think I like Hedwig best, or the snitch.  And yes, the sword of Gryffindor looks more like a dagger - just adapt, that is my logic. 

Seans Quilt

Well, I finally finished another quilt. It has been a long time since I have had anything new to post, but I like this one.

I made Sean a Jayhawk Crazy Quilt and used my new Janome to quilt it. It is not a NEW Janome, its my new Janome, but I am very happy with it. Especially as I get a little better with it. I did some straight machine stitching for quilting as well as quite a bit of Free motion quilting. I only ripped out about half of it. Could probably have ripped out more, but at some point you just have to go on.

Dad's Quilt

Here is the quilt top as it stands that I am making for my Dad. It is about a queen size - I think. I call in My Kansas Sampler. I made the blocks to represent things to me. There are 3 stars, for each of his kids. And the pieced blocks in the right side represent: the circle is a tire (for the Station), the one to the right is the Kansas Combines, the bottom left is the view driving out to his house, and the the fish - well, they are fish. There are also a variety of other blocks that I just played with that I liked, and in the center is a pheasant in flight. He is applique, on the botton left corner there are also 2 bobwhite quail. All of the fabric in this quilt is from Gramma Jo's stash. I love stash busting!!!

I have decided to also include a few pictures to show the disarray of my sewing room, it is a total disaster. It is amazing I can find anything in there. Remember though, this is only temporary, my shelves are in process now.

Baby John's quilts

This is a quilt that I made for my other BFF Julie and her baby boy John. I actually had the quilt made in time, but forgot to get pictures of it, so I am just not getting it posted. I do like the applique with a satin stitch, especially for the playful quilts, however I am experimenting with traditional applique on a quilt I am making for my father. I still have at least 8 quilts sitting out ready to quilt, but slowly one by one, I will get them finished. I am quilting a flannel one on my home machine now. But the drive to start piecing a new quilt frequently out-passions the desire to machine quilt. And machine quilting anything over a baby quilt hurts my back after a while - although, technically, none of my quilts are over baby quilt size - so that excuse fails.

I read somewhere that you should always use stripes in your quilts, Yeah, I like it. I also like the stair step pattern that the yellow and purple blocks make.

OH! Baby Quilts

I seem to be in a little bit of a pattern here, I recently completed 3 baby quilts. Of course, I still have 3 hanging ready to finish, at present I have about 11 UFOs - the deal with my UFOs though is that they are all out, piled around my room, in stages of disarray. The is no rhyme or reason to which quilts I am working on at any given time, some days I just feel like piecing, some days ironing, some days hand stitching, and everyday - I design. With all these designs I just keep starting new quilts, and then there are new piles, and new UFOs!

I have worked out a deal with the shop teacher at South....he is going to have his students build me new cabinets/shelves for my sewing room. I drew them all up. I spent all Christmas Break figuring out the perfect design, and once I handed over the plans, and changed my mind again. I hope to add some counter space, and some space to put each project in its own basket, I hope to get organized. And all it is going to cost me is a cheesecake a month for the rest of my life. Relatively small price to pay for sanity wouldn't you say.

"Sammy" is for my BFF Laura - her little boys room is Safari - so I had to do this. The other animal quilt is just an extra, I'd sell it if you want to buy it. The little girl quilt is just an extra too - but I think I love it too much to part with - at least not for now.

Finally Finished my Ode to Asia

I started this quilt last year, and finally finished it yesterday. The design is roughly some pattern I once saw in a quilting magazine, but I have since lost the magazine, and then I just made it all up. The back is almost as perfect as the front, actually, I do rather find it more interesting. The ladies at the quilt guild always show there quilts, then they turn them around and show the back, and say "oh I just threw the rest of the fabric together on the back..." Well laudeedau for them. Piecing that back easily took longer, and definitely more Math skills than the front ever did. I had the piece quilted by Kathy Gyles and I think she did a great job. The larger squares have lotus blossoms - and the rest is bamboo.

Kati's Quilt

This summer I bit the bullet and finally started working on Kati's quilt. This is a drawing that I had Kati due when I was in a textile's class at KU. After she made the drawing on a large sheet of butcher paper, I traced the image with black resist on cotton. Between the 2 of us we then painted it with thickened dyes. From the start I loved it. I loved it so much I was terrified to work on it. With the help of Kris Barlow, I put together the top, and decided to quilt it on a long arm. Kris taught me how to long-arm, and together we used the same drawing ideals that Kati used, and I quilted it. Yeah. Somewhere there is video - but that is on a memory card that has briefly taken a vacation from my posession.

I even really enjoy the detail that shows up on the back due to the different color of threads. There is a lot of thread on this fabric, but I feel that it doesn't lose the quality and stories of Kati's mark making.