A Good Week

Last week was a good week from a quilty point of view!  How often do you get to deliver two different quilts to their owners?

One has taken a year from selection of fabric to placing in the hands of the rightful owner. The other was a surprise.  I'm not sure which I like better. Someone who has helped pick the fabric - chose the pattern - laid out the blocks - picked the quilting design - and then patiently waited. Are they less excited or more excited?

On the other side of the coin, handing a bag to someone who has been special in your life and telling them you made a quilt for their child.  Out of the clear blue.  To someone who really doesn't know a thing about quilting.  Will probably refer to it as a "blanket".  Thought the back side was the quilt until turning it over.  I mean a total surprise!

Opposite ends of the spectrum and each equally fun.  One to someone I love dearly.  The other to someone I've never met but value her parent.

What's your pleasure?  Take someone by surprise?  Involve them along the way?  A different approach?  In the end, it's one of the best parts of making quilts, isn't it?

I hope you are making something that you know will be loved!

Jan

Too early?

Is it too early to be thinking about a Christmas quilt?  Particularly one that is a bit non-traditional?

Isn't this a cute design.  It's by Amanda Jean at Crazy Mom Quilts.  If you haven't checked out her blog, it would certainly be worth your time. Her version of this quilt is in great bright/pastel colors and so striking. I bought the pattern (called "trees") when she issued it much earlier this year. I knew I wanted to make it -- I just didn't know which fabrics I was going to use -- or when.

I finished this quilt top earlier this year and I love it.  It needs quilting and it will be so fun....but I have a lot of scraps leftover from the original FQ pack that I got as a gift from my-niece-the-quilter a year ago in the spring.  Somehow I couldn't bring myself to mainstream them with my other solids and wanted to do something else with them.  Since I don't have the palette that Amanda Jean used and I didn't want to do usual Christmas fabrics, I was curious to see if the chocolate brown Kona in my stash might work.  I had five yards from a previously planned project that didn't work.  At all!

I made a sample block last weekend. I don't know about you, but making a sample block is time well spent for me. I may hate the process. I may really dislike the block. I may find a boo-boo in the pattern before I do a lot of cutting. There are all kinds of reason to spend a bit of time deciding if my time and fabric are going to be worth the effort. I used a shade I don't "love" in this block; it's sort of a salmon rather than some of the great pinks that I have.  So - it may go in the quilt or if it doesn't, no harm - no foul.

My thought right now is to make all the backgrounds in chocolate and let the trees float.  Time will tell on that.  I won't cut all the strips just yet.

I hope you have something fun on your design wall or floating around in your head!

Jan