Thank You Wall Hanging

I've been working on a big project at work for a while and was getting down where only little stuff was needed for it to be perfect, but these little things are also the hardest things.  It was things my team hadn't been able to figure out on our own.  One of my coworkers had asked others how to do some of the stuff and he said it was too hard to do, so we should just forget it.  I wasn't willing to forget so I gave it another shot and asked the questions again.  The person I called took care of almost every issue we had left.  She fixed them all and we immediately got compliments on the changes.  After a long time and a lot of frustration, in less than a day this person fixed about 90 percent of the stuff we had left to do.  I was very grateful and said I wanted to make her something as a thanks. I asked what colors she liked and she said pastels.  I'm a bright and bold kind of person but I also have a lot of darks and autumn colors since that goes well with my house, but I hardly ever make anything in pastel. 

I used a Carol Doak pattern from her Mariner's Compass Stars book -- Sweden.  I did some digging and found colors/fabrics I thought were near pastels and made a small wall hanging for her. Just a 12" block and 4" borders makes a 20" wall hanging.  I think it came out great.  I quilted it in a pattern called Summer that I really liked and hadn't really had a reason to use.  I loved the quilting.  You can really see it on the back of the quilt.  Only took a couple hours to make the top, a couple hours to quilt it and a few hours to hand sew the binding on and I was done.  Today I added the little loops to the back to hang it with.  I love projects that can be finished in less than a day. 

Hope she likes my little thank you wall hanging.  It was fun to make.  So much fun I offered to make some for my daughter.  I figured I could make one for each month and use colors that fit the months.  Like snowmen for January and hearts for February and green for March and Easter pastels for April and Flowers for May and beach fabric for June and patriotic for July and fall colors for August, school fabric for September, Halloween fabric for October, Pumpkins and turkeys for November and Christmas colors for December.  All in 20" wall hangings so they can just be interchangeable using the same hangers.  Think that will have to be a Christmas present.  Pictures will come when I'm all done.

Getting things done - Summer 2013

I haven't posted in a while but it's not because I haven't been doing anything. I've been working on a bunch of projects and actually finished some, so I thought I'd share. My daughter and her family moved into a different house closer to her husband's work and it caused her to mix and match furniture that were in different rooms before and she didn't think things would "go together" like they used to. I told her all she needed was a couple quilts and it would look great. So her new family room is blue and brown and has mounted deer heads in it. She wanted a cover for her ottoman, so I made these. The first one came out twice as big as I wanted because my calculations were quite a bit off, so I told her I'd finish it and she could use it on her couch. Then I tried again after re-calculating and made the one the size she wanted. Both came out pretty good. I don't normally like simple designed quilts. I'm a paper piecer, so for me, it's all about the piecing and designs, but that isn't what she wanted. She's really happy and says it fits her family room perfectly. I'm glad, because I wasn't thrilled with the simple piecing so I used a really cool quilting pattern to make me feel better. I know you can't tell from the pictures but the bottom one is half the size of the top one.  In the top one the strips are 4" and in the bottom they are 2". The quilting has a variety of leaf types and acorns.

I also worked on a charity quilt I promised a friend quite a while ago (actually before my last knee replacement in January.  I finally finished that too.  Just in time.  He's going to donate it to an auction to raise funds for Breast Cancer awareness.  I didn't have enough of the fabric I wanted to use on the back so I had to use stripes.  Not my best work, but it's the back, right?  It's quilted in hearts and ribbons which matches the fabric on the front and the back, so I liked it.

I also finished a baby quilt for one of my daughter's friends who is having a baby girl (any day now -- last month if mom had her way).  This has got to be the best baby blanket I ever made.  After 3 grandsons it was so fun picking different and pretty fabric for a girl, but I found I couldn't go too girlie, which was a good thing as the mom liked my choices.  This is one of my top 3 favorites of all the quilts I've made.  Can't wait to see the baby on or wrapped in it.  The backing is minkie and feels so soft.  I hope she loves it.  I did.  Twister quilts are so much fun to make.  The quilting is hearts.