Something You Might Like...

I know most of my blog friends are from the knitting side of my crafting life - but I thought you would still enjoy seeing this:





It should be fun and a great source of inspiration. Check it out!

More Christmas Time Crafting..

This is a nine patch quilt that my Hubby made and gave to my Dad as a Christmas present.



You can click on the photos to see the fabrics closer. I love Asian themed fabrics - there's just so much you can do with them.



Hubby and I took a nine patch class together and this is the result. :) Mine is still in the design phase. I have all the blocks made I just need to decide how I want to put them together. So you will hopefully be seeing mine soon...



This is the back of the quilt. Hubby had alot of the main focus fabric leftover so he used a big panel of it on the back. It's kind of cool to be able to see where all of the little pieces came from. Kind of a quilting I-Spy. :)

Another Set of Placemats

Here's another set of placemats - five this time - that Hubby and I worked on together. These ones were a gift to my in-laws.



Same as before - I chose the fabrics and design and did the cutting. Hubby pieced and quilted - this time with an echo quilting pattern. We both worked on hand sewing the binding.



These pictures were taken before we washed them so the quilting still looks all crisp. I think I prefer the after washing look where you can really see the puffy bits in between the lines of quilting.



The way we worked out these placemats is that each one has 5 "positions" or sections. So we chose 5 different fabrics and placed them in a different position in each placemat. So every fabric is in every placemat but always in a different position. It was fun working out a sequence that would always ensure that the fabrics complemented each other no matter where they were in the design.

Quilted Tablerunner

Here's another of the quilting projects that my Hubby and I worked on together.



It's a table runner that we gave to my Mom for Christmas.



Once again I chose the fabrics and where they would go in the design. I did the cutting and then Hubby pieced and quilted it. The binding was also hand finished.



We had alot of fun making things as Christmas gifts this year. It ended up becoming a general theme of giving handmade items as gifts, either made by us or bought from other artisans.



I think we will probably keep trying to make the majority of the gifts that we give in the future - at least until we run out of ideas!

Finally Some Quilting!

The photos are a bit washed out looking but at least I can finally show you all some of the crafts that Hubby and I have been working on. These have already been gifted so it's safe! :)

Hubby and I have been collaborating on lots of gifts this year. This one is a set of six placemats. We both worked out the design, then I chose the fabrics and decided which ones would go next to each other and did the cutting. Hubby did the piecing and the quilting on this set.







We've been toying with the idea of making some placemats sets to sell in our Etsy shop. What do you think? They are machine washable. :)

I've got so much more to show you but most of it probably needs to wait until after Christmas...

Pretty Fabrics

I like this photo that Hubby took of the quilt top I am working on. I love the way these fabrics work together. The sales lady looked at me a little strange when I chose these but I have long since ceased to care about looks I get from sales ladies! However, I've been having some frustration with the borders for this top. I keep thinking I will finish and then having set backs or things just taking longer than I think they will/should. Why is it always the "easy" part of a project that jumps up and bites you in the you-know-what? Urgh!

I'm glad to have this pretty photo to look at and remember why I like this quilt!



Happy Halloween All!

PS - Poor old Hubby says his blog isn't gettin any love so I'm givin him a shout out. Go check it out over at Flaming Lotus Creations.

Woven Ribbons Quilt # 2

This one is for my nephew. His room is shades of purple and yellows and has a jungle theme. Oddly enough I didn't know this information when I chose these colors and prints for the quilt. Serendipity!



The quilt is twin bed sized so this represents half of the top & before the borders are added. I'm not sure yet if I will attempt to actually quilt this one myself or if I am going to send it off to be finished by "the quilt lady". We'll see how ambitious I feel once I'm finished with the piecing.



I'm really pleased with this quilt so far! And I'm nearly finished. I'll probably have the borders on before this gets posted....

Next I'm going to add the borders to the Kaleidoscope Quilt.

Woven Ribbons Quilt - Finished!

I finished my first quilt! Squeee!

It very very simplistic in terms of the quilting (probably the quilting equivalent of a garter stitch scarf) - but I love it just the same. :) We all have to start somewhere and I'm pretty happy with the start I've made - mainly because I really love all the fabrics I chose.



The dark green is the one I fell in love with - but of course the store only had a small amount. :( I was determined to use it though so I chose the rest of my colors with the dark green in mind and trying to make it stand out a bit.

I also got to use one of my other favorites for the backing. Here's a picture with the corner folded back so you can see it.



I love it! It looks so Missoni to me. Since Missoni is famous for their knitwear it's probably no surprise that I'm drawn to that style.(Also - hello! child of the seventies. You couldn't escape from Missoni in the 70's. One of the few 70's trends I wish would come back!)



Anyhow...here's the quilt on the kitchen table. It actually turned out to be more substantial than I thought. Plenty of room to snuggle under whilst watching tv. Quilting it was sort of more like wrestling than sewing though. Total workout. I may want to send anything bigger out to be quilted by a professional in the future. or win the lottery so I can buy a long arm quilting machine (and a big house to put it in.) :)

So here you go, my first quilt. Yay!




PS - I've lost 15 pounds so far! Also - still making crochet squares. I'll probably be making crochet squares next month too. At this rate I just want to finish them before next year. :)

Hubby's Kaleidoscope Quilt

I thought you guys might like to see what Hubby's kaleidoscope quilt looks like.



He chose an Asian themed print that was more dynamic than mine. There was more going on in terms of shapes, directionality and less background. I think it makes for a more varied quilt. The blocks are all a big surprise! Plus the print turns out to be sort of an I-Spy game when you cut it up and refashion it like this.



You can see the koi fish in both of these blocks but the slightly different positioning of the cutting makes a totally different looking block.



I think my quilt looks nice but I wasn't super in love with it so that's why I decided to stop at baby/wall hanging size. Hubby loves his project so much that he has decided to make a king sized quilt! We went and picked out two more Asian themed fabrics and Hubby has just gone right on making blocks. He thinks he needs somewhere around 82 and is about a third of the way done right now.

Is it crazy to make a king sized quilt as your second ever quilt? I don't think so. It's just more of the same, cutting and sewing. The hard part will be actually quilting a quilt that size. But we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. :)

Oh No You Didn't!

Oh yes I did!



Welcome to my new obsession...



My first quilt!! One day of quilting - can you believe it?!