Life is good!

Have finished another quilt top! Well, almost. :) I still have to put a 2.5 inch border along the top and along the bottom. The pattern is from Cozy Modern Quilts . I used a fat quarter bundle of Tea Party, and a Kona pink for the lattice pieces. I've been reading on several garment construction blogs about the importance of pressing seams flat, then open. Well, on this top I pressed flat before pressing to one side, and I really think it did make a difference. It didn't really add that much time at all to the pressing process, so I'll probably continue doing it, and hopefully it will continue to help!

Does anyone else find that planning out projects is almost as much fun as doing them? I love mixing and matching my fabrics, looking through pattern books, imagining the possibilities of it all. It's very therapeutic!

This one is for Ronin, the adorable little boy of a cousin of mine. This is the one where I had fabric issues. Summed up, you get what you pay for! But I like the way it turned out, and I like the straight line quilting. I used a higher loft polyester batting, and the quilting isn't very dense, so I hope it will hold up over time. And I hope Ronin likes it!

So I finished another quilt top last night. The pattern is Random Reflections , and I love the way it turned out. I did a little different sizing, just based on the amount of fabric I had and the size of ruler I was using. I made it from a jelly roll of Soul Blossoms by Amy Butler. I love the way it turned out! I think it would look great with straight line quilting, but I'm not sure how up I am for something that ambitious, it would certainly take a while!

Here's a finished quilt top that is going to my in-laws (if the quilting ever gets done!) It's a string quilt, and I learned some good lessons while doing it. I'll probably do another one like this, hopefully fixing some of the mistakes I made along the way! My biggest error was using too narrow strips along the edges, so when I cut them at the 45 degrees, I ended up with TONS of layers of fabric with the seam allowances and such, all in the junctions. But still, I like how it turned out. More batiks for me!

This one is for Jack, my husband's grandson. We don't get to see him much, but I wanted him to have something special from us! The pattern is from City Quilts, and it was fun to put together. I did the machine quilting, with just some straight line quilting in random directions. I think I maybe should have done more, I'm worried about how well it will hold up over time, but overall I like how it looks.

Okay, I'm going to attempt to load a picture of a finished project... This quilt was done for a Quilt University project. It used paper piecing, but with freezer paper, so there was no tearing off little pieces! I made it for a dear friend's first baby. I played around with several different layouts. The original design called for more of a star design, but that didn't really work. As my husband said, "It just looks angry like that!" But I am pleased with how the whole thing turned out!

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