Mystery Solved

On my favorite online quilting group, we were challenged to complete a mystery quilt. At first we had to pick one multicolored print, one dark for the background and then a light, medium and dark warm and light and medium cool fabric. Then we were told how to cut the pieces. And then every now and then we got a block design and directions on how many to make in what color combination. Just three simple blocks made the quilt you see. It was my first mystery but won't be my last. It is currently my favorite quilt made to date -- the colors are very ME!

5000 Member Celebration Block

I belong to this fantastic Yahoo quilting group. We just celebrated our third birthday and a week later are up to 5,000 members. To celebrate our birthday/anniversary our leader, Carol Doak, designed a mystery quilt. I'll post pictures once it's done. But for our 5,000 members she designed a block for us for that too. Mom was visiting and I had a day off and Carol was nice enough to let mom and I be the first to see and try out the block design. I liked it so much I made four of the block and added a border. I love it!

Luke's Baby Quilt

When I saw these fabric panels in Texas I fell in love with them, had to have them. So .... I bought the panels and the coordinating fabric. Then I saw this adorable blue fabric that says "mommy loves you, daddy loves you, grandma loves you, poppa loves you," and a bunch of other loves you. It was so cute. So I put it all together and made a second quilt for my second grandson. Then later I found out the designer of this fabric is the same designer of the fabric I made for my first grandson's first quilt. How cool is that? Hope he likes it.

I started a quilt for my newest grandson in March. Had anticipated getting it done by April. Well I just finished it this weekend. My daughter bought most of the fabric and we picked out the design together. Luke's room is blue and brown with lots of circles all over the walls and linens. This should go perfectly with his room. His big brother, Lliam, and mommy LOVE the Disney movie, Cars, so it should be loved by all. I was pretty happy with the quilting job around the border this time. That's usually the hardest part for me.

Class-to-be

I'm going to be teaching my first paper piecing class. My guild offers a class once a month and they asked if I would do one. It's scheduled for May 4. They asked me to make some samples to show people what we'll be making. I made four and I tried to make them very different color combinations so one is two-color, one has a black background, one a white background and one a print background. I still have to make step-by-step samples. That's next on the list. I hope it goes well. Carol Doak offers the pattern free on her web site as long as you use it to train others. She loves to share the joy of paper piecing. Me too. I hope we get a lot of participation.

More F8 Blocks

I finished the last two F8 groups. I had fun with this one. Most of the fabric was in colors I would never use. But luckily I had fabric to match in my stash. I can't decide which is my favorite -- I kind of like them all. I hate to have to send the blocks home.
This has been a really slow swap. By the time the deadline came and all the blocks should have been going home, I only had one group finished. The blocks have been coming in slowly. But hopefully I'll have them all by the end of the month.

F8 Swap Blocks

I ended up joining four groups for the Fat Eighth Swap on my favorite online group - 16 blocks. I finished two groups so far, so I'm half done. Here's what the second group looked like. I have until April 15 to finish the other two. Should be no problem. Then I'll get back 16 blocks from my swap mates. The two blocks on the left were ones I had never completed. The top one was free on the site -- 4500 Member Celebration Block and the bottom left was the Spain block from the Carol Doak Mariner's Compass Stars Book. The two on the right are from the Carol Doak Simply Sensational 9 Patch Stars Book. This is my favorite swap. It's so much fun to try new blocks and new color combinations. Just hard to find the time since I have my daughter and two grandsons (under 2) visiting. But I'll keep working on that.