QOV # 55

This beautiful scrappy Irish Chain was pieced by Nancy in WA.

With gold thread, I put a freehand streaming star in the white spaces to keep it gender neutral.

Terry Twists in the blocks eliminated any stitch in the ditch.

I love the look of the backing she chose!

What a bright and cheery combination!

Thanks Nancy~

HMQS Quilts of Valor Challenge 2012

The Home Machine Quilting Show (HMQS) was last week in Salt Lake City, UT.  I try to go every year because I am only a 2.5 hour drive from there.  This year their theme was "Star Spangled"

One of the 2012 Quilt Challenge Competitions this year was to make a Quilt of Valor using the "Let Freedom Ring" fabric collection by Quilting Treasures.

This is the first time I have ever entered a quilt challenge at the show and here is my entry, made way back in March.

We were required to use these 8 fabrics sponsored by Quilting Treasures.
While we had to buy the fabrics, the batting was donated by Winline Textiles. 

...and we could add 3 other fabrics if we so chose.  I added this for my side borders:

I used my light box to trace clip art for the motifs in the white centers.

Liberty Bell, eagle and flag.

U. S. A.

Red, white and blue stars on the back.

The official QOV label was trimmed pretty close to the wording, so I made a border for it with the center fabric and was able to hand sew it to the back of the quilt.

All the quilts were donated  to Quilts of Valor at the show and will be sent to veterans and military hospitals.

Here is a link to the QOV Foundation's Executive Director's (June Moore) album of all 33 QOV Challenge quilts hanging in the show.

HMQS Challenge Quilts 2012

Spring in Idaho

We have finally received some warm weather!  

My old Apricot tree is just full of bumble bees.  These are the "big as your thumb" bumble bees. 

A northbound butterfly stopped by to have lunch.

Funny, it really doesn't look like much from a distance!  This old tree is beautiful when it is all leafed out.

Spring plowing is done and the fall wheat is green.

The days are sunny with a cool breeze blowing off of the snow drifts on Black Pine Mountain.

Spring planting just tall enough to see across the furrows!

This is the view from my deck just outside the kitchen door.

Not much quilting going on, but lots of farming getting done!  Busy time of year for us here in the valley.

Mother and Daughter

These 2 cute baby quilts were made by a Mother and her daughter.

Quilted with Flower Power by Mary Eddy

Chocolate Minky backing.

Woops, I didn't do a very good job of hanging this fun little quilt!

Fay Feathers by Hermione Agee

Cream Minky backing

I just love how the bindings can set off a quilt!

Island Breeze

Y'all like leftovers?  I do!

You might recognize some of these fabrics from my past post.  I dug through my stash and added some other tropical flavor batiks to my leftovers from the last quilt I made.  I needed a birthday gift for a special lady and I had to have it done and in the mail tomorrow.  I love how simple it is, yet it's really cool!

I have seen this modern style all over bloggy land and had yet to try it out!

After sorting through my scraps, I grabbed some of this Riley Blake "Whisper White" solid (top bolt) to add to the quilt.  See, it's really not white at all, but a yummy silvery color. 

Here's where this all started, I measured this chunk of backing left from my last quilt and found I had just enough for a ~60 x 80 quilt plus some for binding. 

Quilted with a large swirly overall, labeled and ready to ship.

It's made with good vibes--pieced, quilted and bound to Jimmy Buffet and James Taylor~

Ocean Tropics Quilt

Pattern inspiration: Pinwheel Cove by Theresa Eisinger
Quiltmaker.com

Yay!  I just got the binding on this quilt this afternoon!  It is a commissioned quilt for a couple that were married on the beach at Catalina Island.  I quilted a variety of ocean themed items in the cream colored centers: shells, star fish, sand dollars and 5 of the blocks have dolphins. 

They specifically wanted some dolphins because when they took the ferry over to the island for the ceremony, the dolphins were running out on the ocean quite close to the boat. 

Since I have been blogging about this quilt for a couple of months:

Info on the piecing progress can be found here.

Info on the design tracing can be found here.

Here is the last block ready to quilt this afternoon. 

I love how the pebbles make the design pop . . . and overall, the pebbles mimic the beach texture. 

When it is done, you just spray the blue markings with water and they disappear.  

Each pebble block took about 30 minutes to quilt.

There are 2 different dolphin designs.

Sand Dollar

Shells . . .

Starfish. 

 . . . and my personal favorite--the seahorse.

The remainder of the quilt is simply quilted in a swirly-watery freehand design.

All the fabrics are batiks. The brown pinwheels represent little swirls of seaweed.

I LOVE the backing!

Such gorgeous color!

For large quilts I like to order "Fat Backs" from Christian Lane Quilters.

A Fat Back is one piece of fabric that is 108 x 117.  They also sell wide fabrics by the yard.

I'm not associated with them, just a satisfied customer.

It's ready to box up and ship . . . and I hate to see it go . . .