Blogger's Quilt Festival: Baby Love

Crazy how much time flies, I can't believe it is time for another edition of the Blogger's Quilt Festival over at AmysCreativeSide. I really do look forward to this each year because I love looking at all the fabulous quilts people have made...and quite often I discover a few new blogs to follow. This year I am out of town for most of the festival so I will have to do a lot of catch up reading.

Anyway, after a lot of thought I finally settled on the heart quilt I made for my friend's new baby girl. This quilt holds a special place in my heart because it is for one of my friends who struggled to have children for quite sometime and then was blessed enough to give birth to a healthy baby girl.

I really enjoyed making this quilt because it has all of my favorite quilting elements...simple, linen, solids, half square triangles, purple...and I am especially fond of the ombre effect in the binding.

I am entering this quilt in the favorite baby quilt category.
For more posts about this quilt click here and here and here.

Blogger's Quilt Festival: Zig-Zag Quilt

It's my favorite time of the year...fall! Which means lots of changing leaves, apple pie, thanksgiving, and then of course Christmas (aka the best holiday ever). But before I go getting ahead of myself, the fall also has one of my favorite blogging events - the blogger's quilt festival. I can spend hours looking through the entries on Amy's site, but usually don't have time. However, with the lovely Frankenstorm or Hurricane Sandy as she is known, it looks like I might have hours to spend indoors. So bring on the quilts!

After much hemming and hawing, I settled on sharing with you my zig-zag quilt I made in celebration of the birth of my cousin's first child.

I really wanted to create a bold, graphic quilt that featured pink paired with some unexpected colors. I think that the magenta and golden oranges are really framed nicely against my favorite Kona Coal.  Because I wanted the color to be the focus of the quilt, I paired some tone-on-tone prints with a few solids for some visual interest...and as a fun surprise when you looked closer. I backed it with solid magenta and used a golden orange binding.

To make the chevrons, I used half square triangles that I pieced together. I really do enjoy working with half square triangles -- and find it isn't so bad if I trim and prep a bunch of them at once. =)

I quilted it on my machine using straight lines echoing the zig-zags. I really like how it turned out, and it gives a nice touch of texture to the quilt - especially in the gray areas.

Hope you like it! And don't forget to check out the other awesome entries for the Blogger's Quilt Festival.

Zig-Zag Quilt Stats:
Measurements: Baby Blanket about 36" x 52"
Special Techniques used: half square triangle piecing
Quilted by: me! on my lovely sewing machine -- echoed the zig-zags.
Best Category: Baby Quilt/Quilt Photography
Quilt Entry #: 411

Blogger's Quilt Festival: Purple and Gray Quilt

Welcome to one of my favorite times of the year in the blogging world - the blogger's quilt festival! If you are new to my blog, please take a minute to look around and thank you so much for stopping by. And if you're not new, thanks so much for visiting again.


Anyway here is what I affectionately call the Purple and Gray Quilt (creative name, I know).

I made this quilt to celebrate the birth of my friend's adorable baby girl in the spring of 2011. My friend is a designer so I thought that a graphic quilt would be perfect. I love the black and white fabrics with just a pop of color. My favorite part of this quilt is the back and the binding. At this time a lot of people must have had a similar idea because I saw lots of quilts popping up on the internet with a similar design...I guess great minds think alike!

Anyway, this is one of my favorite quilts - I love the color combo with the plum and the shades of gray.

Back of the quilt

Front of the quilt

Quilt blowing in the wind

Thanks again for stopping by -- if you have a chance be sure to check out the other entires here!

Bloggers Quilt Festival: Citrus Sails!!

I am so excited because it's time for the Bloggers Quilt Festival over at Amy's Creative Side. Twice a year she hosts an awesome linky party where bloggers can link up a quilt of their choice. I have seriously been looking forward to this for quite sometime...and not just because I have something to share for the first time - but because there is always a ton of inspiration to be found.

Anyway so I put my thinking cap on and was trying to decide what quilt I wanted to share. I wanted it to be something I was really proud of and that would showcase who I am as a quilter/designer. I had one in mind that was almost finished (dang binding needs to be sewn on!), but due to my recent hand injury that would have to wait. So I decided to show the Citrus Sails Quilt. Yes, I know I recently blogged about it (in hindsight, I could have waited to post that until today but I was too excited to wait) but now you can read about it all over again! =)

 I am seriously am in love with this quilt. I was lucky enough to have some help piecing it from my fellow uber talented members of the Inspire Circle of the do.good.stitches charity sewing bee. I think that this quilt reflects my quilting style - simple, bright, a bit different and incorporates the use of solids. When I first designed this quilt, I knew I wanted to feature triangles and at the time I was enamored with half square triangles and thought it would be a great bee quilt. Having spent many days in a hospital myself, I wanted to create a quilt that could bring some cheerfulness to an otherwise drab hospital room. I immediately thought of bright citrus colors paired with gray. The gals in the circle did an awesome job of helping make my vision into a reality.

As much as I love the front of this quilt, I almost love the back more. Originally I was going to use a solid gray back but since I had 3 leftover squares, I decided to highlight them in each of the colors and sew a strip down the back. I really like this effect. I am a fan of solid on the back because I think it showcases the quilting, which I quilted on my machine in straight lines on a diagonal to bring some dimension to the quilt.

I finished it up with a dark gray binding (kona pepper, I believe) which I think frames it nicely. After I washed it and took it out of the dryer I took it up to the mountains for a photo shoot. And as luck would have it the bright summer colors looked nice against the fall leaves. Yay.

Lest you think that this entire experience was a cakewalk - think again (lining up all those points was a nightmare!) I also chose this quilt to showcase because I learned a very important lesson: Sometimes it is the imperfections that make the quilt perfect. Yup that's right, who cares if the points don't all line up. It still looks great at the end!

Anyway I'm going to sit back with my Starbucks salted carmel hot chocolate (aka the best fall drink ever) and spend some quality time being inspired by the many quilts at the bloggers quilt festival. Join me. But first go get a salted carmel hot chocolate, you'll thank me later - trust me.