Bloggers' Quilt Festival: Branching out

Happy Bloggers' Quilt Festival!

This is a little quilt I whipped up using some chenille my friend gave me.  There's a LOT more chenille where this came from, so I'm slowly working my way through it.  I decided to branch out and put some fabrics together that I normally wouldn't.  And I have to say, it turned out MUCH cuter than I thought it would.  This quilt is probably headed for Project Linus...hope some little girl enjoys it!

I only used fabric from my stash on this one and was thrilled at how well the backing and chenille (and yellow dotty and pink striped stuff) all tied together.

Blogger’s Quilt Festival Stats

Finished quilt measures : 41″x 48″

Special techniques used : the quick and dirty sew it and quilt it all at once method :D

Quilted by : Allison

Best Category : Baby quilt

Thanks for visiting!  Hope you enjoy the Festival!

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My first fun with "thangles"

I have this thing about using up small-ish amounts of fabric (especially fabric that isn't mine).  I think the pink and yellow was donated to our Project Linus chapter...not sure...doesn't really matter. At any rate, I had some leftovers from another project a long time ago and this is what I decided to do with it (it looked much cooler before it sat folded up on my sewing table for 6 months).  It was my first-ever use of "thangles," despite the fact that they've been sitting in my drawer for a few years now (and my cute sister gave me a Triangulations CD, which is basically the same concept but printable from your computer, years before that).  I have to admit, I found it very amusing to sew them.  And, it made me want to paper-piece something in the near future.

This quilt looks MUCH better in person than it does in photos.  Maybe it's because I just threw it on the floor and couch and snapped some quick shots? :)

Better late than never :D

Ok, wow.  So, it's been a really really long time since I last posted.  I have a bunch of quilts I want to get out from under foot and/or off of my teeny tiny sewing table....so I figured I'd better start posting!  Here is the first of them.

 This is the quilt I just made for my new(-ish) nephew (who is probably crawling by now).  

Better late than never, though, right?  

Before making this quilt, I had never attempted to piece minky.  It was, shall we say, interesting.  After I sewed my rectangles in to rows, I thought, "What's the big deal with minky? This isn't THAT bad to sew."  Yeah...then I sewed the rows together and I understood.  S-t-r-e-a-t-c-h-y.  Yikes.  My walking foot kept freaking out and skipping stitches (though that may have been a machine-cleaning and maintenance issue).  

 

In the end, it all turned out okay and I even had some fun adding some applique stars which happened to match the backing perfectly.

I made the stars out of ironed bumpy minky (which I guess would just make it minky, then, huh?)  Anyway...mostly I ironed it because I was curious about exactly why one quilt shop I visited about five years ago had a billion signs around their store that said DO NOT IRON BUMPY MINKY.  And you know how I am...I've though about those signs every time I've encountered minky for the past five years.  And then...I ironed it!  It ended up working out splendidly for my application.

 And I really love how the red stars tie the minky side together with the backing.