pine wheels

my August challenge is complete, and it's green! so I've decided to call it "pine wheels." it was a fun little quilt to make, and here it is:

Once again, I quilted the snot out of it, which I found to be very relaxing. I think my three-month old did as well. He had a few good naps listening to the sewing machine!

And I used a bit of green gingham for the backing. I like the effect:

And that's about it. I hope you have a large day, and thanks for reading!

golden staircase

Here's the quilt I finished for Project Quilting's off-season Focus Through the Prism challenge. I call it "Golden Staircase," and it measures 20"X20".

The inspiration was a log cabin block. I decided to go literal with the blocks for this series because my time is limited (I upped the ante from one child to two last month!), and because I think it will be nice to have a rainbow-colored set of classic quilt blocks in the end. You know, to hang about the living room. (This is assuming that Kim keeps using classic blocks as inspiration...so we'll see!)

Here it is next to an actual staircase:

I had fun free-motion quilting the snot out of it (very therapeutic!) in concentric squares:

For the back I chose a grey polka dot, and for the binding a blue and white stripe because...stripes and polka dots! What else can I say?

And that is all. 

Thanks for reading, and make sure you stop by Kim's blog to see all the other awesome quilts created for this challenge!

my aching back!

For this week's Project Quilting challenge, I decided to make myself a quilted heating pad. My hips and back are starting to hurt due to being pregnant, so when I found this tutorial from Bee In My Bonnet, I knew what needed to be done :)

The only challenge requirement this week was to use your favorite fabric. This was honestly the hardest and most time-consuming part for me. I ended up settling on this animal print:

 

 



There is something about the bright colors that I really love!

Instead of just using a plain piece of fabric like it says in the tutorial, I decided to do flying geese. I coupled my favorite fabric with a dark grey/mushroom solid I had left over from my American Brand Solids challenge. I really like the combo. Then I just followed the tutorial to create my own flannel-lined, rice-filled heating pad. It works like a charm! Me and my heating pad have been pretty much inseparable ever since :)

 

 

The heating pad's original dimensions (prior to being stuffed with rice) were 6"X20". I made it here in Central Pennsylvania, and I am calling it "my aching back!" Thanks for reading :)

my heart is in your hands

first of all, let me explain why my blog is at a different site than it has been. about a week and a half ago, I got notification that my old website has been hacked. it has been closed down for security purposes, and I need to do some work to get it re-opened. I am not sure yet if I will do all the work of recreating the website (and probably also pay some money for better security), or just start using this blogger page. but for this week's Project Quilting challenge, I am happy to have this back-up to use in order to post my project.

I am calling it My Heart is in Your Hands. It is inspired not only by the Project Quilting challenge requirements (to make a quilt with twelve hearts in it), but also by the Valentine that my son made for me at pre-school, which was his handprints in the shape of a heart with the caption "my heart is in your hands." Here it is:

"my heart is in your hands"

Of course, my heart melted when I got this extra special Valentine's Day present from him!

So, for the quilt, I decided to recreate the card with both his and my handprints. I pieced a simple background, and then both he and I dipped our hands in black acrylic paint, and printed the fabric. After I let them dry and heat set the acrylic, I sandwiched the quilt and free-motioned the snot out of it! Each handprint got an inner and an outer heart, and then I paisleyed the background. Even after going around each heart about FIFTEEN times with the black thread, I still didn't think the popped out enough. So I found some black yarn and couched it around the heart outlines. That did the trick! Once I was done doing that, I couched the same black thread around the border of the piece and then cut around the edges to finish. This is one of my favorite ways to finish a smaller quilt, as opposed to a binding.

Here are some pictures:

 

 

 

And unfortunately I CANNOT figure out how to rotate these photos on this blogger format. Maybe somebody out there can help? Anyway, for now here they are.

 

And here are some pictures of the back, which I actually like almost as much as the front:

 

 

 

And there you have it! This quilt was made in Central PA and measures about 18"X22". Thanks for reading!