A dozen years in the making...

I still have to attach the borders, so it is not really done but....

I began this quilt center in 1999, when it was all sorts of trendy to make a Millenium quilt....which meant a charm quilt with 2,000 different fabrics.  I managed about 1,600 before this piece got put away and I focused more on baby quilts for more then a decade.  Well when I moved my studio and was trying to figure out what to do with all of my fabric stash...so also finishing a few projects.  Specifically the quilts for my kids (which I am embroidering on the last one and will add the border soon) finishing this one and one other that I bought the kit for to make for my husband for our 10th anniversary....we celebrate our 15th in August.  I love this one though, it is purely mine.  I now have 2015 different 2 inch squares.  It was done on fusible  interfacing, which I kind of hate but made it much easier.  I plan to embroider the words to Billy Joel's "We didn't start the fire" on it.  I have great backing fabric too...of a line of fabric made in 1999to celebrate the turn of the century.  I know weird to say, but true.

Enjoy your evening!

I can see the light

This is what a wore yesterday to walk to pick up my boys from their bus stop.  I have been busy this winter painting and rearranging rooms in my house.  I have continued to work on the same quilt tops for a while.  Though now it is not the Superman quilt but it's twin the Harry Potter quilt.  I am working on embroidering the entire Wikipedia list of HP spells on it.  Next is a Fancy Nancy quilt for my daughter with most of the Fancy words from the Fancy Nancy books....5 pages single spaced of a list of words so far.  I will post as I get further, I hope.

For now the light at the end of the winter is coming....even though it has been a pretty sunny winter here.

Leaves and Blossoms

Leaves are quilted, blossoms next.  Vega has not arrived, yet...

Work on other projects took president...4 tutus, 8 tee shirts, a Kindle cover, plus cookies and teacher gifts and Christmas cards! 

Once I can excavate my home after having boys home for 2 weeks I will get back to my more, well normal(ish) thus back to quilt time and my mantra for this ear

Banish the Beige!

Marked and Basted

Who needs a light box when I have HUGE windows and painter's tape!!  It takes a while, I have to do it during the day and it helps if it is a sunshiny day (yep I was expecting a lot for the beginning of December in Ohio!)

I did wash it between embroidery and marking.  And for those that saw the color catchers that came out with the Crown quilt this is what came out with this one.

All marked and ready for basting.  I have been quilting for a few days.  It will take a while, I really do not expect to have it done before her arrival date -January 11th.  Plus who knows when she will decide to arrive anyway!  

This is the back.  It is mostly a Cabbage Patch Kid sheet that came from my mother's house a couple of months ago.  My younger sister (not the one who is expecting though) and I had these sheets as kids.  It is coming along, so much gets in the way though.  I wish I could just spend like 3 weeks doing only quilting in front of the TV for like 10-12 hours a day...not going to happen ever!  HAve a great night all!

peeks out...

....the shutters and sometimes he speaks and tells ho(w)

This is what I had embroidered on Vega's quilt....more to come tonight.  I have been focused elsewhere the last few days, soon my house will be back in order and I can focus on my projects again!

For now enjoy a few pictures of a quilt I made for one of my best friend's.  It took almost 4 years to complete, but it is pretty amazing.  These are not great shots, but the others had my daughter in them and well you know my rules of public blogging.  Enjoy and I'll be back to pictures of current projects soon. 

May be not....

I may be putting a new back onto the Crown quilt.  We'll see what Mary decided when she sees it, I am very nervous about the whole thing.  It became sort of like making something out of paper towels, actually what the Crown fabric felt like by the end was exactly what Color Catchers feel like after the wash.  I have always wanted to do something with those but never knew what, but I digress.

It was not victory when I posted it was done....I knew that.  It is what happens when you jump in with 2 feet blind to use a fabric you are not familiar with when you are spoiled with snotty quilt store fabric (I mean that in the most loving way, as I often refer to myself as a snob about several alright many things in my life and fabric is one of them).....but I learned things as I went that I can use later if I ever want to do anything like this again.

I am back to working on Vega's quilt right now.  Today on top of much cleaning that I accomplished I have embroidered ....he peek...ad part of the s today.  Tomorrow will be another cleaning day, Sunday too.  We will see what I accomplish then.  More pictures tomorrow, come back and check them out!

Declaring concession!

Not victory, not defeat just conceding that it is done!  

I have learned many things with this quilt...and for the first time where I think it will need it...I am also giving it a replacement guarantee....when it wears out (and it will) I will make a second one for just the cost of parts.  

This the back, I ran out of the purple and had bought all that Jo Anns had....oops, plus I had more squares then I thought and wanted to make it bigger.  So I used more of the (originally) off white flannel, and this is how it ended up being pieced.

What I learned about using Crown flannel bags for a quilt, and what will go into any future one that I do....

1) prewash, probably more then once with many color catchers and nothing else.

2) use a fusible interfacing at least, may be even a fusible web and felt to stabilize the flannel.

This part was actually more of an issue then the color bleeding. It seemed that every time I finished one step I had to go back and redo something that had pulled loose on the step before.  I realize that I may not have perfect seam allowances but I gave them plenty of extra space to avoid this!

As I said I learned as I went...this is what happens when you jump in head first without a pattern or instructions and just do!  

Anyone ever done something like this?  Thoughts? ideas? Comments?!