Month: April 2009

Thanks for all your nice comments about my friendship quilt.  I hope you’ve all been having fun checking out all the quilts at Amy’s Quilt Festival.  Amy must be wondering what kind of a monster she’s created — there are sure a lot of beautiful quilts to enjoy.

I wish I could tell you something exciting.  I spent my weekend wrestling my have-to quilting project.  I’m determined to get these t-shirt quilts done for a friend — they’ve been sitting here nagging me for over two years.  I’ve promised myself that I won’t start anything new until they’re finished.  The tops are put together (two of them) and I quilted the first one this weekend.  There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth.  Oh, to have a long-arm.  My dear Hester didn’t like that heavy t-shirt material one little bit, poor girl.

I hope to never make another t-shirt quilt.  Maybe in a weak moment, but, in general, I’m just not a fan.  In the meantime, not being able to start something new and fun has been torture.  There are so many pretty, new quilts and fabric on blogs — the inspiration is endless.  Only one more weekend to get the other top quilted and then maybe I can work on something fun.

I’m off to NJ in the morning for a quick trip.  I’m hoping you’ll all keep me entertained in the evenings!
XOXO,
Anna

Well, Hello There! By now you’ve probably heard that Amy is having a virtual quilt festival.

Since we can’t all go to the same quilt show, Amy has decided to bring the show to us and she’s asked us all to show our favorite quilt. You know, that’s kind of like asking a mother to choose which one of her children is her favorite. Oh, the pain! I’ve already shown you my very favorite quilt (several times), so I’ll give you my runner up.

There are so many beautiful, modern quilts being shown today, so, I’m feeling a little frumpy with this throwback-to-the-80’s quilt, but I love it anyway.  This is the very first quilt that the quilty peeps and I made together.  We formed our quilt group and I got to go first because no one had been in a “friendship” group before, so we used my quilt to learn how to do it.  (And btw, I took pictures of the quilt on the really cool big ol’ dump truck in our driveway.  We don’t have a dump truck — so you know what that means?  It means the roofers are in on the house!  WooHoo!!!)

We started out with 11 girls in our group and I gave each of them the background material and the pattern for the bear’s paw and requested that they make the bear’s paw out of their own red and blue scraps.  I love how everyone chose different fabrics.  Then I asked them to embroider their name, where they were from, the date, and something they loved.  Of the 11 blocks that I got back, 1 was unusable, so I asked MeMum and MyDadLovesMeBestSister if they would each make a block to round the number out to 12.  Here are blocks from my best buddy quilty peeps and MeMum.  They love(d) houses, old jukeboxes, cats and fairy tales.    I wonder what they would put now, 21 years later?

I love that everyone chose something different.  (Other fun things were “my dog”, daffodils, chocolate, rainbows, wee babes, flowers, baskets, and crafts.)  And I love that you can see everyone’s handwriting.  And I really love that of our original group, four of us have stayed together and we’re best quilty peeps!

So…now, you’ve seen one of my favorite quilts. Git along lil’ doggies and run over to Amy’s — there are enough quilts being shown to make your fanny tired from sitting at the computer! (Oh, and Thanks Amy for hosting — what a fun idea.)

Have a great weekend!
XOXO,
Anna

P.S.  If you want to see something funny, go check out the quilt that Carolyn just finished for the Quilts of Valor program!