Bloggers Quilt Festival

My friend Pattie told me I should participate in the Amy's Creative Side Blogger Quilt Festival, (formerly known as Park City Girl) and I thought, why not, I'll do it!
I think Amy and Jennie thought this idea up of having a blogger quilt show about a year ago, but I missed that one. I tried to get the little button thingy to post, but I couldn't figure out how to get the code for it. Lame, I know. Jennie figured it out for me!



We both agreed that my Lantern Bloom quilt had to be the one to showcase. It's my current favorite, although I've pretty much loved all of the quilts I've made.

I made this quilt for my most fabulous and wonderful boss's birthday. She makes going to my day job extremely enjoyable and is a very generous and fun person, so I decided she deserved a quilt for her birthday.

It was love at first site for me with this fabric. I resisted it for quite sometime, but then it was getting scarce, so I bought an eighth yard bundle from Quilt Home. I decided that the Slide Show pattern by Terry Atkinson would showcase the fabric perfectly. Of course by buying the fabric prior to deciding on a pattern, I didn't have a wide enough cut for the big squares, so I decided to border them.

My favorite quilt saying is "it's not a mistake, it's a design opportunity" and this was definitely one of those. I L.O.V.E. how it came out, so much so that I may need to make one for me. 
I quilted it with vertical wavy lines to achieve a more organic look. Jennie suggested it to Michelle for her table runner at our retreat and I thought it was a great idea for this quilt as well.
I put Curly Minkee on the back because my boss absolutely adores Minkee. I'll tell you, if you haven't felt Curly Minkee, your life is not complete! People can't help themselves when they see it. Their eyes go all unfocused and their hand starts to reach for it as though they have not control over it. Then they pet the Minkee and say 'oooo....it's soooo soft....' in a dreamy voice.

The quilting looks great on Minkee too.
These are a few of my favorite blocks:




There are currently over 500 quilts listed in the show and a slew of them are in the group pool on Flickr as well. Check them out for inspiration.
I've noticed several bloggers are doing giveaways and sales at their online stores in conjunction with the festival, so you should check out the festival page as well.

Spring is here!

Well, not really. It's snowing here in Chicago-land again. But my projects are all springy, don't you think?

The Peace/Irish Chain/Lakehouse flowers quilt is done. I need to think of a good name for it. Irish Garden is probably a little obvious. Thoughts? Ideas?Anyone? It was the first time I did prairie points. They aren't that hard, but the corners are a pain on the binding. Binding Guru Karen hasn't ever done a binding like that either, so if anyone knows any tricks for it, please let me know. I quilted little swirls all around the flowers to make them poof out and a straight line through the middle of the "chain" squares. Have you ever noticed how photos don't seem to ever do quilts justice? These sure don't. It is soooo pretty and cheerful! I absolutely adore the hydrangea blue in the quilt. My boss said it reminder her of Easter. I would agree, it's all light and cheerful.

I also sent off a mini quilt to my Swap til You Drop partner from my Flickr mini quilt swap. I'll show you a small corner of it, since I want her to see it in person before I put up a photo of the whole thing. It's really fun, yet challenging for me to do such a small quilt. It can't be more than 15" maximum. That's hard for me since I generally don't do anything smaller than 50". Jeanette wanted aqua and red for her quilt, and I just happened to have the perfect fabric on hand! No eye rolling from those of you who have seen my stash.

And I finally finished up a blanket for a friend. It's a combo of Moda's Sanctuary and Seaside Rose lines with Minky on the back. I actually put it together once, but I did the Minky incorrectly and ended up ripping the whole thing apart and starting over. While ripping out all the top stitching and all of the stitching holding the front and back together I remembered how I put the first one together. It worked the second time. I just love these fabrics. Seaside Rose and Paris Flea Market were my all time favorite 3 Sisters lines. I still have a ton of each of them because I can't commit to what pattern would do them justice. I just know that once I cut it all up and put a top together that some other pattern will happen by that will be even more perfect, but I've already cut it all up and the lines are like 5 years old and I can't get anymore! Does anyone else have this problem? I guess that's a quilter's nightmare, isn't it?

Last night I spent a good portion of the evening making mini pineapple upside down cakes. Aren't they cute? It took a lot longer to make a bunch of little ones than it does to make one large cake, but I wanted to do something a little different and bring them in for the nice people that I work with. Everyone is really bumming these days with all the apocalyptic news that is constantly spewed at us both in life and on the constant news streams. I like to bake to help cheer people up. And there was a smile on every face that tried one of my cakes. And the office smelled so good to boot! A little aroma therapy never goes amiss. Since I only have 2 mini cupcake pans, I spent a lot of time washing, spraying and filling the pans. I used fresh pineapple and a touch of rum for goo part on top. I put the rum in at the very beginning when melting the butter for the goo, so that the alcohol burns off. I prefer either spiced or dark rum for this cake. They went over very well. I brought 2 plates of them and there were only 4 left cakes at quitting time.

Projects

Last week I made a large blanket out of Amy Butler flannel, ric-rac and minkee. The picture is a little wavy because I was in a hurry and had it folded up just before the photo.

A work friend of mine has a good friend out of state that is undergoing chemo for an extremely rare form of breast cancer. I knew from others who had undergone chemo that they get really cold during the treatments, so I suggested a blanket. My friend said "OH! Can it have minkee on it?" Minkee is a very plush, soft fabric that is just wonderful to touch. I pulled out my happiest, adult, happy colored flannels and found some light blue minkee to match.
Since the friend is tall, I made it 73" long. I had to find a complement to the flannel since fabric is only about 40" wide once you wash it, and I wanted it larger, so she can totally wrap up in it. Jennie and I picked out a cute stripe to go with it, but decided that it needed something in between the two patterns. We had a ric rac inspiration moment, and I think it makes the blanket, don't you? You can't be uncheered by ric-rac! It ended up being an nice 51" x73" size.
I preshrunk everything, including the ric-rac, by prewashing it on hot. Nothing irks me more than when you wash a duvet or pillow sham and the trim shrinks up a different rates than the main fabric and it gets all out of line and wrinkly, so I decided to make sure that wouldn't happen with one of my creations! I was lucky though, I had bought the last of the yellow ric-rac at Tammy Tadd's, and only had appox. 3" leftover!
My friend really loved it and can't wait to send it to her friend. That's what makes it all worth while to me.

My other project, that I was able to finish despite the fact that is was solely worked on during Olympic commercial breaks, was another grocery bag. I'm sending it to the Frawnch (to be pronounced like the mom in the ever popular 80's movie"Better Off Dead" starring John Cusak) cook book writer Clotilde Dusoulier. I read her blog, Chocolate & Zucchini regularly and a few weeks ago she talked about her eco-friendly bags. While she finds them useful, she thinks they are less than attractive. I emailed her to see if she'd like to beta test my bag, and to let me know what color and style of fabric she would like. She emailed me back and she'd love to try my bag! She said she likes girly fabric, polka dots, flowers, the whole bit. It's all very exciting!
The very next day I walked into Tammy Tadd's shop and what had come in? The Ava Rose line by Tanya Whelan for Free Spirit! Can I just tell you how much I LOVE this line? I literally squealed and flapped my hands at the mere site of it! They should be getting the blue colorway in soon. I'm totally gaga for the blues!!! They even match my Tiffany-blue bathroom!! I read in a Scottish decorating magazine back in 2001 about a family who runs some kind of children's clothing company out of their family's hunting lodge (translation: lodge = castle) in the Scottish Highlands. Her toddler aged daughter's room was painted Tiffany blue because the mother stated that she wanted her daughters to become accustomed to the color at an early age. I like that philosophy myself. But I digress....Tiffany will do that to a girl.

I put the large floral on the front and back, stripes for the handles, sides and bottom and polka dots for the pocket and lining. I wasn't thrilled with the polka dots on the pocket, it was just to white, so I appliqued a rose from the left over fabric onto the pocket. I think it works. What do you think, is it girly enough? I added a pocket on the bottom of this bag, per my friend Katie's suggestion. She thought it would be great to have a pocket that you can seal your money/credit card into, then you wouldn't need to carry your purse at all if you didn't want to. I made the pocket sealable along the whole opening with Velcro. It also folds into the bag so the contents are especially secure when closed. This is why it's good to talk to people and get suggestions. I never would have though of a pocket on the bottom. I hope Clotilde likes it as much as I do!