How about a double dose of whoop whoop?

Stars and Swirls

40 inches square

Machine pieced and machine quilted

The Year of the Baby Quilt is officially over for me

with the completion of this bright and cheerful star quilt.

I've shown it here before in progress,

but I wanted to show you the completed quilt.

I love how the machine quilting turned out.

I used a pin striped flannel on the back.

My friend Andea joined in too, piecing this 36 inch square quilt

from a set of Kona charms I had and that flower power-type yardage.

I took all my baby quilts out for a photo shoot and here they are hanging out together.

If you don't mind, I'm going to give you a quick year-in-review

of what I contributed to my guild's challenge

of making baby quilts out of stash and blocks on hand.

This batik log cabin is from my mother, who had 13 blocks made

for a quilt-as-you-go class.

I convinced her to make three more to get this up to a baby-sized quilt.

I made this one of leftover block parts from another quilt,

and I'm proud of my machine quilted feather wreaths in the blocks.

I used up the rest of the bits on the back.

This one came from the leftover strips

and I'm thinking of keeping this one for myself.

This is the second chicken and egg quilt I made,

and the first one is living up the street with my cute little neighbour born in January.

I used up scraps from two quilting friends for this one that I made before the challenge started.

And of course, a string quilt, using up bits and pieces from several projects.

They make an impressive stack

And an even better deck display.

I'm whooping it up with Sarah this week.

Design table Monday

This baby quilt is off the design wall and on to the picnic table outside

for a little photo shoot.

I just finished quilting paisleys in the white background

and feathers in the yellow beehive borders.

I'm linking up with Judy for her Design Wall Mondays.

Monday mysteries solved and a cute baby on a quilt

My guild had a mystery evening last night, where we brought a

set of precut coordinating fabrics

and then made these weighted pincushion organizers.

(The reason the two at the right are matching is

that I cut two from my set of fabrics

and brought one to share.)

Here they are lined up at the end of the evening.

The black or green stripes in the middle

is wool felt for needles instead of pins.

Cheryl brought her new Singer Featherweight 222K

which is a twin sister to mine at the right.

We even took off the removable tables to use the free arms for this project.

Just a note to FW lovers out there: in our guild of 12, we have

four of these little machines between us.

Meanwhile, this little future quilter enjoyed lying on a baby quilt

made by my mother in the log cabin quilt-as-you-go method.

This batik beauty will be donated to charity

as part of our Year of the Baby Quilt challenge.

Anne spent the evening tying a denim picnic blanket for

 her daughter's upcoming wedding social.

If you have no idea what a wedding social is,

it's a particular Manitoba custom.

Thanks to Heather for planning this mystery and to Karen for letting us transform

her house into a sewing studio for the evening.

Feathers, chickens, and eggs for a Friday finish

What came first? Feathers or the chicken?

Green string star, 36 by 36

machine pieced and quilted

Both, at least when it comes to finished baby quilts at my house.

This string star has been in progress for several weeks

and now it is entirely quilted and bound.

This is the back, using up a half metre piece and some solids.

I like how the print hides the quilting, but I'm not so keen on the quilting stitches

in the solid bits.

Chicken and Egg II

42 by 50

hand appliqued, machine pieced and quilted

And here's the chicken-- and eggs.

If this looks familiar, it's because this is the second quilt

from the same fabrics and idea.

The other one is living with a cute baby up the street from me.

This one will be donated to a worthy cause as part of the

Year of the Baby quilt challenge my guild is doing.

I'm linking up with Amanda at Finish It Up Fridays.

A little old and a little new

This is a new-ish project, a word quilt where I'm handquilting the words.

the reverse side, where you can see the stitches.

My mother donated this embroidered baby quilt to my guild's Year of the Baby quilt project.

It has six embroidered blocks, with a pastel green sashing and lace around the edges

It has lots of polycottons, so it will last forever.

She purchased it years ago at an auction.

Tuesday Feathers

Yesterday's flimsy quilted today.

Monday finishes and design wall

At my retreat last weekend, I worked on a little quilt

from the solid scraps leftover from my star quilt.

I pieced and quilted it on my Featherweight

and it is destined for Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative

once I figure out a name for it.

Framed squares in 9-patch

28 by 28 inches

This little crib or preemie quilt is part of the Year of Baby Quilts challenge

for my guild, where we're making donation baby quilts

out of stash and leftovers.

I found four of these green and off-white blocks in my parts drawer,

made five more, and backed it with a leftover bit of Minky

These two little banners (14 by 20 inches) are on my design wall right now.

I've quilted them without a backing

and I will bind them back to back

once I figure out exactly how tall to make them.

They are going to hang from the lecturn

at the nursing home where my friend is a chaplain.

At the retreat, we all received a canvas bag.

"women of the cloth" is a fun play on words,

since I don't think any of us are ministers or clerics.

"Quilting at the Edge" refers to the name of the retreat centre,

Wilderness Edge.

My friend Kathy gave me a strip of this woven fabric

and I used it to decorage the bag and

make a little zippy bag, attached by a clasp,

for the inside of the bag.

I'm  linking up with Judy at Patchwork Times.

Feathers for Friday

Baby feathers

36 by 36 inches

machine pieced and quilted

I've got two finishes for this Friday, both with lots of freehand feathers.

This one features a round wreath of feathers in the white blocks,

and square wreath of feathers in the pieced blocks.

Ever since I bought my Juki a year ago, I've been practicing free motion quilting

and I've gotten the hang of free hand feathers.

(I still stink at basic stippling. go figure.)

Other than the circles I drew for the stem of the feathers

these are entirely freehand.

Here's a view of the back.

Since I was using up scraps from another baby quilt,

I pieced together the green and blue patches

to make the one yard of backing to fit the quilt.

I have to say I'm used to buying a metre (39 inches) of fabric

so a yard seems really short.

I used a blue and white dot print from American Jane for the binding.

I used a Hobbs polydown batt in it,

which gives the feathers lots of loft. 

 Scrappy coin quilt

32 by 34 inches

machine pieced and quilted

This little quilt uses up old scraps and new

and has machine quilted ribbons in a variegated thread in the middle

and freehand fans around the blue border.

I was planning on a dark binding

until I found enough cut, pieced, and pressed binding

in the blue border print, leftover from another quilt

so I used that up.

Here both quilts are lying in the snowy shadows of my front yard

in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada,

to show off the texture from the feathers.

Both these quilts will be donated to a good cause

as part of my guild's

Year of the Baby Quilt project.

I'm linking up with Amanda's Finish It Fridays

and Amy Lou. 

Thanks for stopping by and if you're interested,

check out the rest of my blog here.

Friday Finishes

I've had a productive week with a few little finishes to show.

I began the year by digging in my abandoned UFO box

(yes, I have an active UFO box too!)

and found this 10 inch free-pieced sewing machine dating back several years.

I practiced my free motion quilting on it and bound it

and now it's ready to hang on a sewing room wall somewhere.

This little quilt has a fraternal twin sister that is still in the flimsy stage.

I finished hand appliquing my happy scrappy basket of flowers.

And I took this little string quilt from the abandoned UFO pile, added one more row of strings

(I'm not sure what it says about me that I could find the same fabrics in my scrap boxes,

since this is a really old UFO.)

 and bordered it with leftovers from another recent project.

I machine quilted this one with wavy ribbons in the strings,

and freemotion feathers around the border.

All it needs is a binding and it can join the pile of baby quilts

my guild is making this year.

This one measures 32 by 35, so it would be perfect for a preemie boy.

I'm linking up with Amanda's Finish it up Friday post and Amy Lou's Sew and Tell.

and Sew Darn Crafty.

Old string quilt made new

I dug through my UFO/WIP project box last week

and found this little string quilt.

I decided it would qualify for my guild's year of the baby quilt project

if it was a little bigger, so I found a blue print to audition for the borders.

Just a few more seams and it's ready to be quilted.

Check out the what's on other design walls at Judy's blog .

First finishes of 2012 and last finishes of 2011

I've been playing in my sewing room and came up with these 12.5 inch blocks.

The black and white ones are for a guild member who is making quilts

for a family who experienced both a death and a fire over the holidays.

The blue/green/white ones I put together from leftovers from another baby quilt.

Here they are put together in a 9 patch formation to measure 36 inches square.

I'm going to quilt circles of feathers in the blank blocks like this.

I

I worked on donation blankets for a relief organization as well. I put together two tops from oldies and uglies to come up with two tops we tied over the New Year's weekend with my extended family.

My mother has two banquet-sized tables, so it was easy to layer them and tie them.

The log cabin blanket uses a cheater cloth.

And this is the last finish of 2011. My niece and sister helped me finish tieing it over the holidays.

I made the top from strips cut from my mother's unwanted fabrics,

and sewed them together in a modified jelly roll race.