My Summer Sampler is finally finished!

When I decided to join in on the Summer Sampler QAL I had no idea what I was getting myself into.  Let me tell you that I learned so much while making this quilt.  I had always been scared of paper piecing and never wanted to try it but thanks to the brilliant tutorials written in that QAL I was able to figure it out and now I love it! I no longer have to avoid making a quilt just because it may have some paper pieced blocks in it.  Yeah!  The block below is called the six-pointed string quilt and it is by far my favorite block on the quilt!  It was a challenge to make and I love the way it turned out.

This was also my first quilt that I used all solids on.  Oh my goodness, I am completely smitten with solids, and especially these Art Gallery solids by Patricia Bravo.  They have such a nice hand to them and are so easy to work with.

The Grandmomma quilted it for me (of course) and I think she just outdid herself on it.  It is very heavily quilted and I love it!  I'm pretty sure she had a good time going crazy on this quilt. Thank you Grandmomma!

My youngest daughter laid claim to this quilt after she saw the top pieced together.  I guess she wanted to make sure nobody else would get it so she also asked to have her name embroidered on the back.  Smart little cookie, huh?  Especially since she's only 6 and knows that most of the quilts I make do not end up living in our house.

I chose an Art Gallery print for the backing but since I needed to have a space for the embroidered name I just made a strip of solids and offset it to the right.

I actually finished this top back in September, then I sent it off to be quilted, then I started a million other projects, then Thanksgiving and Christmas came and went.  So even though it's 2012 now I am counting this as a finish for 2011 since all I did this year was add the binding.  

Thank you Faith, Lee, and Kate for hosting such a wonderful QAL.  You guys are all awesome in your own individual way!

Have a great weekend! We are expecting a good bit of rain here so I'm hoping that means a pajama day with a lot of sewing tomorrow.

By the way, try not to be jealous of the dead grass in the background of all my pictures!  I didn't have another place to lay the quilt out that had decent light.

WiP Wednesday #12

Happy Wednesday and welcome to...

Finished:

-Blocks #9, #10 & #11 for the Summer Sampler Quilt.  I'm almost finished with my Summer Sampler quilt top.  I made three blocks this week and I only have 1 more left before finishing all 12 of them.  

This one was the funnest to make.  It may not be perfect but it's mine and I love it.

Last month my quilt guild had a Christmas in July theme and members brought in patterns or ideas for quick little handmade gifts to make for Christmas presents.  Pam brought this idea for towel hair wraps made from hand towels.  My girls are always trying to wrap our big towels around their wet hair like I do but the towel is too heavy and won't stay on.  These work great and were a breeze to make!

New Projects:

- ConKerr Cancer pillowcases - my quilt guild has already made 80 of these cases and we're hoping to make over 100 for the children who are battling cancer across North America.

- Bottled Rainbows Ticker Tape Quilt Along - I'm going to lead this quilt along for my quilt guild.  Rachel was kind enough to give us permission to use her quilt along in our guild. yeah!  I'm excited to have a fabric swap within the guild for each of the colors we need. 

- My 5 year old wants a case for her KinderMat at school.  I'm kind of hoping she will just cover up with her quilt and forget about wanting the case.  Who am I fooling?  That child doesn't forget about anything.  It will just be like making an extra long pillowcase and I think I can handle that.

In Progress:

-Cool Compassion - Top priority - must finish this over the weekend.
-Purple Quilt for The Grandmomma - sorry Grandmomma.

Begging for a Backing:

-Single Girl - tired of seeing this one listed on here.

-Loulouthi - maybe next week.

Begging for a Binding:

Baby Hooty - hasn't gone anywhere.

On the Bubble:

Rubik's Crush - 

Fifi & Fido - 100 Quilts for Kids - getting close to starting this one

On the lookout - I've got my eye out for the perfect fabric to make:

Swoon - auditioning fabric on a daily basis - still looking.

Chopsticks - looks like this would be fun to make.

And last, but not least, Project Back To School is complete.  The girls went back to school on Monday and so far everything is going well.  Now every afternoon I have to figure out a way to find out about their day without acting like a detective or asking questions that only get answered with a "yes" or "no".  Bedtime seems to be the best time to get info out of them since the girls are all snuggled under their quilts and ready to chat a little before lights out.  I just wish I could be a fly on the wall and see what they get to do all day.  God bless them and their teachers!

Thanks to Lee for hosting the Wip Wednesday.  I love looking at what everyone else has been working on.  There's a lot of amazingly talented and creative people out there in blogland.

Moving right along

I have finished 8 of the 12 blocks for the Summer Sampler Series.  This has been a great challenge for me.  I am having to work differently than I usually do when creating a quilt.  I usually cut cut cut until I have an entire top cut out and then I sew and sew until it is complete.  Since we are given a block on 3 days of the week I have to cut a little, then sew a little.  It's working out fine though.

This is my block #5 called the Star.

Here's block #6, the Arkansas Traveler.

Block #7, the Six Pointed String Quilt.  I was afraid to trim this one down to 12.5" because I think it's jacked up.  It's not exactly square if you know what I mean, so I decided to leave it a little wider until the end of the series when I get ready to sew all the squares together.  This block was really fun for me to make.  I loved just grabbing some strips and sewing them together and see what I ended up with.  If my block is too jacked up to use I definitely won't mind making another one.

Block #8, called Lucky Pieces.  I just love the aqua and plum combination in this block.

Now I have to start thinking about what I will do to enlarge this quilt a little.  I think I'm going to make some extra squares and add to it along with added some sashing and corner stones.  We'll see though.