{amylouwho} Blogger's Quilt Festival - Fall 2011

Welcome Quilt Festival friends! I was trying to figure out what quilt I could share for the Blogger's Quilt Festival knowing I hadn't finished anything recently. I went through my old posts and found this one that I finished over 2 years ago. I started it for a friend whose birthday is on July 4, well before I knew I would be a military wife, or had heard the name Amy Butler.

I am pretty pleased with this project considering it was the first quilt I've ever designed, pieced, quilted, and bound all by myself (with a few tutorials from my mom!).  That being said, if I were to make a quilt for my friend for her birthday this year - it would look nothing like this. Even if her birthday is on the 4th of July.

Since this was the first thing I have quilted with a walking foot I wasn't ever really sure I was doing it right, because it just seemed like there was something off. That it should have been easier than it was. My stitches were uneven and the fabric wasn't feeding well. I was borrowing my mom's foot and remembered not having this much trouble working with it when she was with me.

So I was on the phone with her working on those minky baby blankets, with the walking foot and expressing my frustration - being the day AFTER I finished this quilting. Our conversation went a little something like this:

my mom: Do you have the little black arm attached to the presser foot screw?

me: what??! what little black. . . . (looking closer). . . oh, you mean that one. (attaching the foot properly - and grumbling)
Well that's interesting - it works just fine, NOW.

my mom: I didn't know you didn't know how to attach it.

me: you mean the way I also didn't know that a fat quarter measured 18"x22" until last fall?

my mom: (chuckles)

me: The problem here is that you know so much you just assume I've learned it all through osmosis! I'm totally going to blog about this. A post entitled: Things my mom thought she taught me, that I wish I had known.

my mom: Oh no you're not!

me: we'll see.


I guess we know the outcome of that one. (Thanks, mom!)

I love how the binding turned out. I think the stripes really complete it and make it a little fancier. I used to think I hated sewing on binding, but I knocked this out during a viewing of this. And it's not as hard as I used to think. I reccomend running your thread through beeswax or thread heaven to keep it from tangling. I learned that from Bend the Rules Sewing (and yes, I think my mom knew about that trick too).

Thanks for visiting!!

Bloggers' Quilt Festival - Spring 2011

Hello fellow blogging quilters! I'm so happy to share this quilt with you today!

This was my first quilt made by me from an online quilting bee.   But I can't really say it was made by me since I had 11 other awesome folks help bring the picture in my head to reality.  And really, I think that the reality is better than the picture in my head.  Lovely Amy, organizer of Bloggers' Quilt Festival, did the block in the middle of the bottom row. Of course, she did something fantastic and unique!

This is the first quilt I have ever quilted on my own little machine.  It was not easy.  In fact, I kind of loathed it by the time I was done.  It was just so hard maneuvering all that fabric through a tiny throat space.  It doesn't help that I've been spoiled and used my my mom's long-arm. (Well, it was only once.  And about 10 years ago.  But I LOVED it.)

I liked doing loop-de-loops  (I think it hides more mistakes).

I love this IKEA fabric on the back.  I'm going there this week and stocking up.

I love the requisite binding shot.  And the cherry red Amy Butler dots!

I know there are so many other quilts to go check out!  Enjoy!  If you are interested in seeing more photos and read about all the lessons I learned making this quilt, you can go HERE.

LOVE-ing the blogger's quilt festival!

I really wish I had been able to finish the quilt I had planned to share today, buuuuuut, it wasn't in the cards.  Too many sick people and too little sleep do not a happy sewer make.  So here's my latest quilt finish.

I love the Blogger's Quilt Festival and so I thought I only appropriate to share my recently completed LOVE baby quilt for my sweet new little girl.

This is the first quilt that I really did all by myself.  I feel like I finally have enough (even though it's still limited) experience to have made all the decisions and do all the work on this beauty.  Like doing the window pane quilting.

I fell more and more in love (pun sort of intended) with this line the more I worked with it.  I have a rather large stack of leftovers that I'm excited to use - I may or may not have bought more of some of my favorites.  And then used them to complete her bedding.

And I've learned to really enjoy hand stitching down a pretty binding. Polka dots in the case. When has Amy Butler NOT made a cute dot print? Never. That's right.

I loved working on this quilt. It was my major project during my last few months of pregnancy, and I was able to finish it up shortly after I had the baby and moved. It was really nice to work on it while dreaming of what my new little one would be like. And again, I love that the LOVE line was used for my newest love.