A Blast from the Past - The Bridges of Madison County Quilt

Since I'm on vacation and am probably not sewing anything, I thought I'd schedule a post and show a quilt I made (actually, it's still in progress - LOL!) in my very early quilting days.  It's quite different than the quilts I do today.

Presenting the the Bridges of Madison County Quilt.  "Bridges" is one of my favorite movies.  I remember being so excited to find a pattern based on the book/movie.  It's a nice sampler with a little piecing, a little applique - and some very little pieces which I noticed when I pulled it out of the box and looked at it again..

This quilt has some really fun blocks.  See the "corn cobs" and the snake?  I love the corn & beans blocks up top too.

Here are closeups of some of the blocks...

I see I started hand quilting it.  Since I just took that hand quilting class, I guess it would be a good thing if I finished this!

Look at this backing - it a Hummel fabric!  Now where in the heck did I find that?  I know I picked it up because my grandmother collected Hummels and I thought it was cool.  That was a long time ago - LOLOL!
It might not be cool, but it is sentimental.

Hope you enjoyed this "blast from the past"!

YUM - I - NESS!

Terrain

by Kate Spain

I've been waiting for this for many months - and I scored this FQ bundle for an awesome price.  I breathe a little easier now that I have this in my possession (very weird, I know - a little fabric-obsessed maybe??)

But just look at this yumminess ...

 Now I can't wait for the yardage to come out.  I'm not quite sure what I going to make with the FQ bundle, but the first Terrain quilt on the list will be to make Julie's Taffy quilt when the yardage is available...

 

I plan to use mostly the orangey fabrics with some of the purple for this one.  

Kate's hit it out of the park again!!

Last week...

 The red and white quilt got finished on time!  Here it is in all its glory on my kitchen floor...

Even my 13-year-old grandson saw it and proclaimed it "Awesome!"  (Gotta love that kid  he likes quilts!)

Here's the label...

 Not sure if you can see the quilting or not in these photos...

Sure hope the bride & groom like it!

Last week I also took a hand-quilting class at The Village Quilter with Didi Salvatierra.  It was an all-day class and a lot of fun (I always have fun at a quilt class).  What I found out was I'm not as bad at hand quilting as I thought I was!  The class covered everything from marking, layering, to the quilting.  Didi's a lot of fun too.  There was actually a student in the class who had gone to High School with Didi and it was the first time they'd seen each other in something like 42 years!

Here's what I got done that day...

Of course, you know you can't go to a quilt shop and not some home with something....

And they had some of these pot holders made up and I couldn't resist buying the pattern.  Guess what people are getting for Christmas this year??  LOL!

Now, we're off to vacation!

Going Beachin'!

What do you get the you combine the Going Coastal collection by Emily Herrick....

With Crazy Old Ladies' Beachin' Pattern?

 

Going Beachin'!

That's what I'm calling my quilt.  I didn't get to go to the shore this summer and when I saw this line I knew I had to have some of it in my life.  I thought the Beachin' pattern showed off these fun fabrics perfectly.

I just love this bottle cap fabric....I also bought enough for the backing...

Here were my first few rounds...

 
And I would have had it done last weekend, but only got this far...

Because I didn't have enough Blue Crabs!!!  How annoying, but more crabs are crawling my way as we speak and I should be able to to finish up this quilt before we leave for vacation next week!

I can't wait to cuddle up and pretend I'm at the beach (okay, I know you don't generally cuddle up in a quilt when you're at the beach, but you know what I mean - LOL!)!

It's Like Pulling Teeth...

So, this great fabric I found for the back of the red & white quilt arrived on Thursday...

It was very beautiful, but it was also .... cotton duck!!  Waaaayyy too heavy for a quilt back.  Guess I didn't read the description of the fabric very well when I ordered it.  My super-detailed paralegal skills were not engaged when buying this fabric.  With no time to order anything else, I had to find something  that would work from an LQS. (and of course I found an even better fabric from Thousands of Bolts this morning, which I had not checked earlier, which was cheap, cheap, cheap but could not spare the time it would take to arrive and I'm still kicking myself - why, oh why, didn't I check there first???).  So since we got out of work a half a day early on Friday because of the holiday, I scooted on up to a nearby quilt shop and found this....

Not quite what I had in mind, but it was the best they had and it would work.  It is kind of cool - a Monaluna print by Robert Kaufman.  Unfortunately, traffic was T.E.R.R.I.B.L.E. on Friday afternoon and it took forever to get to the shop.  But I got my three yards and starting cutting and piecing it for the back when I got home.  Seems my math skills were lacking also.  I needed another 2.5 yards.  Where in the heck was MY head when I was figuring yardage for the back of a 72" x 72" quilt?  I was so annoyed with myself (more so because of another fabric issue I had this week, which is the subject of my next post).  So, instead of spending the entire day quilting this quilt, I had to make another trip to the LQS this morning to get another 2.5 yards (where a really cute pattern for fall wallhangings jumped in my cart - show you later!). 

I finally got the back ready and on the frame by 3pm this afternoon and got about 6 rows of quilting done (this quilt must be done by next Saturday  remember - quilted and bound!)

I'm using the Curlz pantograph with white thread.  It's looking good!

Now, I'm wondering if I bind this in the leftover Monaluna or a solid red????

This week, getting enough fabric for finishing projects has been like pulling teeth!