Five Shadows

Recently made for a Holiday party.

Parmesan Red Pepper Bread Stick yummy goodness!

My daughter helped me out on a recent commission. I received a bag of fabrics along with the instructions to create two baby quilts that must have a rainbow as part of the design. I gave the job to my very creative daughter, Janelle. She sketched out two similar ideas, we bought more fabric (background for the rainbows, backing and binding) and she got busy with the piecing and fusing. Then she hand quilted the two quilts!

Here are her results – Rainbow with happy rain drops:

Rainbow with happy cloud.

Cute quilts, don’t you think?

I make shop models for Fabrics and Friends Quilt Shoppe, 126 W. Second Street, Roanoke, IN 46783. Owner Deborah Roehm’s Victorian house is bursting at the seams with lovely fabrics, patterns, books, tools.  Josephine’s Knot by Calico Carriage Quilt Designs is the latest top I have pieced. 63″ x 100″.

Quilt #2. I am currently working on four clothing quilts for a client. These will be memory quilts made of t-shirts, sweatshirts, dress shirts, ties, handkerchiefs, slacks, jeans, and bib overalls. I’ve decided to call them Not Just T-Shirts Quilts because of the variety of clothing in them. They are similar in construction to t-shirt quilts. Several of the clothing types need to be backed with a fusible interfacing for stability. Theme fabric have been incorporated to add interest to the quilt top. Dog prints in this quilt top, theme Yorky Dogs. 67″ square finished quilt.

Because of the quantity of clothing, the piecing has spilled over on to the back. There is a pocket in the lower right corner that my client may use to tuck a personal note in for the recipient of this quilt.

I’ve signed up for the challenge for several reasons. I’ve played at FMQ for a long time. Sometimes being successful and sometimes not. I have been following Leah Day’s blog all year, but have not taken the time to play and practice to improve. Leah is one of the 12 teachers listed who will be teaching us how to FMQ in this challenge. I even took a class from a local quit shop – bought stuff, but haven’t used it. This challenge sounds doable! So I’ve signed up! Sign up here if you are interested. (Thanks to I’m Doing Stuff for posting about this challenge on her blog.)

I just found Lily’s Quilts: Fresh Sewing Day and Small Blog Meet. What two great ideas! So I am linking to her. See the links on my side bar if you are interested.

I’ve been working on clothing quilts lately. 4 to be exact. A clothing quilt is like a t-shirt quilt, only it incorporates a larger variety of clothing. The 4 I have been working on include t-shirts, dress shirts, ties, sweat shirts, slacks, jeans, and bib overalls. Here is the first completed quilt:

I added theme fabric and just a bit of bright fabric that coordinate with the t-shirts to add visual interest to the top.

I had more clothing items than I could fit into the top – so they spilled over on to the back-

And in the corner I placed a pocket with yet another piece of clothing – denim from a pair of jeans.

Another project has been a baby quilt-

This quilt is for young friend Brianna, who is expecting her first baby in early January 2012. I have been taken by the simplicity in Victoria Gertenbach of Silly BooDilly hand quilting, and decided to try my own simple quilting of just straight lines by machine for this baby quilt. Brianna is going with an elephant theme for baby Hadyn. I don’t have a picture, but the back is the cutest ever animal print, Jolly Jungle Animals by Henley Studio.

I’ll share clothing quilts 2-4 as soon as I get the binding on!

Almost! Son #2 bought a house! Fixing it up before he moves in. He and his brother have refinished all the wood floors, three bedrooms, living and dining room. The duct work has been cleaned out. A new furnace will soon be installed. Kitchen needs cleaning up, and he will update the bath. Then I think he will be ready to move in.

Here is what I’ve been doing for the past many weeks! Helping my daughter prepare for her big day!

Janelle and her hubby Luke, my husband and me to their right and left, and then her extended family.

The bridal party.

The couple and the cake.

My three lovely daughters!

I’ve been quiet for a long time! No posting, but I have been enjoying everyone else’s blog! Thanks for all the inspiration & beauty I enjoy when visiting your blogs!

My time this Spring and Summer has in a large part, been consumed by helping my eldest daughter with preparations for her upcoming July 30th wedding. Janelle is a DIY-er and that means thrift store shopping and fabric shopping, and and and lots of running around town and out of town looking for just the right items! Plus she has found many things she wants on Etsy made by other DIY crafty gals. Some of which she bought and then further altered! (And she decided to open up her own Etsy account, which will be empty until after the wedding and honeymoon!)

Some photos for you:

Top photo of table setting at the shower. Bridesmaids set tables with gathered antique linens, luncheon plates and cups, antique cake stands and two or three tier dessert stands for the homemade food. Photo#2 Janelle and me. Photo#3 &4 bridal party.

I signed up for Julie Fei-Fan Balzer online class It’s Sew Easy. She is such a fun gal and I’m thoroughly enjoying her classes, watching her videos and hopping around looking at how the other students are interpreting the lessons. But, I’m way behind in doing the actual sewing. Here are my first little bits. I skipped the painting part and just grabbed some scrap booking papers.

This is a streamer made of punched out butterfly and scalloped circle shapes.

I used the streamer to decorate a baby gift for a friend. The gift is a baby blanket with an appliqued butterfly, purchased, not crafted by me. The butterflies decorating the outside coordinate with the blanket inside!

Next I made a gift tag using more butterflies and a little paper ribbon technique I saw on a blog. It took me a while to locate the source of the ribbon. It’s Every Life Has A Story! blog’s post: {Make It} Paper Bag Ribbon.

Gift with streamer and tag:

Julie does lots of painting on her papers, tags, fabrics before sewing. I do plan on experimenting, following her instructions, but for now, I’m happy with my scrap paper results. I hope Becky and baby Rachel will be pleased too!