Banishing UFO's

For the non quilters out there I am not gone all weird and trying to find Unidentified Flying Objects but in Quilting terms a UFO is an Unfinished Object. At the end of 2008, I had a number of unfinished quilt tops that were waiting to be quilted and then binding added to be completed. The week I made great head way and finished two of them.

Here are the pictures:

Front of Quilt # 1

Back

Machine Embroidery Roses

Machine Embroidery Butterflies

Front of Quilt # 2


Back
Close up of fabric
Close up of Machine Embroidery used for Quilting

It feel really good to be finished these two quilts and it is nice to see and end to the pile of 2008 UFO that were sitting on futon in the sewing room. This means it is time to start some new projects for 2009!!

Jungle Fever Quilt on its way to Austraila

Here are some pictures of another finished quilt that I finished last week. It was one that I started and finished quiet quickly as it has a purpose that was very special. I am very active on a Quilting message board and one of our members lives in the Victoria area of Australia. Trish's family lost a great deal in the recent fires there and I made this quilt to send to her so she could give it to one of her family members who had lost everything in the fire.

Front of the Quilt

Close up of the Embroidery Feathers used in the boarder

Back and front fabric together

Close up of some Machine Embroidery Flowers used in the Border

The flowers come from a set called "Flowers from the Holy Land" and I love how delicate they look.

The vibrant colors of the fabric does not really show up in these pictures, I am really please on how it turned out. Trish sent me an wonderful email when she received the package and will make sure it will go to someone who needs some comfort from the horrible experience they just had of losing loved ones and their homes in the horrible fires.

Valentine Crayon Rollup's

As you may remember in the post Not Just Quilts I made a Crayon Roll up, so for Valentines I got very busy and made three of them for Aoife, Aislinn and Eimear. Here they are:

Rolled up

Front

Back

They didn't quiet make it in time for Valentine's but arrived the following Monday but the good news was that the girls were arriving to spend the day at Nannies and Granddad's. The other interesting event of that day was that for the last 30 years Riverview has had the same postman but he was retiring and Monday was his last day. The very last package that he delivered to Dad was my package with my rollups! Apparently all the neighbors were out hugging him good bye some still in their pj's, he was a very much loved postman and will be missed.

For the morning the girls went to the church toddlers group but I heard through the grapevine that the afternoon was spent coloring at the kitchen table. I am still waiting for some pictures to arrive in the mail to put up in my sewing room. I hope they have as much fun playing with them as I had making them, they are all stitched with love.

The first crayon roll up that I made and you can see in the Not Just Quilts was send to my cute friend 'Detta and her Mommy was very nice and send me some pictures of the artist in action:

Happy Valentines Day, Everyone!

See how I get to spent the day:

Dancing Stars quilt top

I started to make the stars for this quilt in early November and then got side tracked to get the girls Christmas quilts ready for Santa to bring them to Ireland. I eventually got back to it yesterday and finished putting the strips together and added the border. I really love working in Batik and LOVE how this turned out. For this quilt I used a X-Block ruler which was a fun way to make the stars.

Dancing Star Quilt 

Close up of Center Star

For this one I am going to I am going to use my Embroidery machine to do the quilting, I found some really nice star quilt designs that I am hoping will be perfect. 

Not just Quilts

So I also tried my hand at working on some crafts that are not quilts and had fun doing them also here are some I worked on recently:

Tote Bags 

Any one want one?? Let me know your color preference they are fun to make and can be done in about 2 hours. 

Crayon Rollups

These crayon roll ups are also fun to do. This was the first one that I completed and have list of boys and girls to make some more for which should keep me entertained! Good thing I bought a big box of crayons! 

French Braid Quilt

This is one of my favorite quilt that I have worked on.  I spent at least 3 hours picking out the right fabric and love how the green to gold to cream blends in this one! I took the class to start it last September and have worked on it on and off since then. At Eddies, my local Quilt store, once a month they have an Open Sew Studio class where you being along projects you want to work on and there is a teacher there to answer your questions. So once I had all my braids done I went to an Open Sew studio and got great assistance from  Melody, the teacher who also happens to teach the French Braid class. She did a great job to help assist me with making sure the braids were aligned before I joined then together. It is also great to do this type at work at Eddies as they have tables big enough to lay larger quilts out. This is larger than any other quilt I have done as to take the pictures Lar had to stand on a chair!

And here is the finished top:

I have decided not to quilt this one myself first because it is so large and second as it turned out so nicely I think it deserves to be quilted on a Long Arm quilting machine. Melody has a business as a Long Arm Quilter and she now has it to work her wonder on it. I cannot wait to see how it turns out!

Christmas Quilts for Aoife, Aislinn & Eimear

Gosh I have not posted in a while, need to make up for that how about with some posts of some of my latest quilt creations. 

Here are pictures of the quilts I completed for Aoife, Aislinn & Eimear

And here is a slideshow with a some close up of the details. 

Winter has hit California........

......... I had to put socks on today at 4:30 pm as my poor toes were cold!!

Gordian Knot Quilt Class

I spent Sunday at Eddies Quilting Bee  at a Gordian Knot Quilt class and had a wonderful day. There was four of us all together in the class and Bev the teacher was a very interesting lady and taught in a very unique way.  We all worked on the same pattern but used different fabric which created very different results. 

 My good friend, Kathy, attended the class with me which also made it a special day as Kathy was the first person to bring me to Eddies and started me off on this wonderful journey of quilt making. 

Here are the pictures of the Knots created at the class yesterday:

And here is mine, which is finished off after the class by adding the border:

I love how it turned out, next step now is to layer it up with the batting and the backing fabric and actually quilt it. It is the right size for a wall hanging and I have already picked out the wall it will be hung on when I eventually get the quilting done.