Saturday, April 30, 2011

T-Shirt Quilt for Pat



This was a fun quilt I made for my husband. He has quite a collection of t-shirts from things he's passionate about -darts, basketball, weightlifting, running- and instead of tossing all the very worn ones, I made them into a quilt. My one regret? I wish I'd thought to do this years ago when he still had shirts from all the races he's done like Bay to Breakers and little 5K's from over the years. I couldn't bring myself to cut up his marathon shirt, so I scanned it into the computer and used transfer paper to iron it onto white fabric. The bonus of that was, I could enlarge it a bit. I totally lucked out and found the PERFECT backing fabric for this - dart boards on flannel!

Applique Pillows









My first attempt at applique. These are from a quilt pattern called Aunt Millie's Garden. Someday I will make that quilt, but for now, I'm taking each block and making it by itself for practice. They make great pillow covers! I used wonder under and stitched over the raw edges of the applique pieces. I found it to be fun and relaxing. It's like kindergarten - cut, draw, color - all with my favorite medium of FABRIC!

Radical Rooster







I love roosters and this applique wall-hanging was quite fun. I just used scraps I had on in my scrap box and then tried my hand at using thread to add details to the rooster and the border. You can see some of it in the wing and border close-up photos. I even found some fabric for the border that looks like old barn wood. This ended up being a Christmas gift for my daughter's respite provider. Some day I'd like to make him in black and white prints.

Baby quilt for my good friend Tamara


This was a group project that I did for a very good friend and her baby #3. Several ladies each made a block and then I put them all together into a quilt. This was also my first long arm quilting project and I am hooked! The challenge in this project was finding a fabric to unify all the very different blocks and figuring out how to make them look the same size. My ruler was indispensible!

Log Cabin for Dad





This is a quilt I made for my dad a couple Christmas's ago. It's a log cabin pattern and I used flannel on the back, because he always wears flannel shirts. I even remembered to add a label - something I often forget!

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Elephant Wallhanging











I made this wall hanging for my daughter's physical therapist as a thank you for all she has done for us. She likes elephants and I'd been wanting to try this project - so it worked out perfectly. It was the first time I have used embellishments and although I was a bit intimidated, I did enjoy it and learned a few things. That's my goal with every project - learn at least one new thing.