Completed corners and more Chloe!

Mitred corners are not easy, but worth the extra effort.

Chloe keeps an eye on the operation

Run for the Borders!

I added the borders to my huge king-sized cherry irish chain last night. The only thing left is to mitre the corners and then put the backing together and I will send it off to the longarm quilter. I would try to quilt it myself, but it's so big and beautiful that I would rather have a professional finish it off for me. I may even have them bind it too.

The Center Squares Unite

I just completed assembling the center square for my Cherry Irish Chain. It may be difficult to judge by the pictures, but this thing is huge! It makes it very hard to handle. My next step is to piece the borders together and then attach them to the now-very-large center square.

Of course, Chloe is there as the first row hits the floor!

 She's so stinking cute, how can I yell at her?

Here I was lining up the blocks so they were all sewn it the right direction. It's no fun pulling them apart and reattaching because the blocks are turned the wrong way. By doing this, I didn't have that happen once!                                                                                                                                                          

It took three days of hard core sewing to put it all together once the blocks were finished. Next will be the borders. Since this is so large now (it will be a king) It's very cumbersome to handle on the sewing machine. The best thing is to put the borders all together first and then sew them onto it.

I am going to mitre the corners as well. If you know anything about quilting, you know this can be a little tricky, but is so well-worth it for the effect. Wish me luck!

And of course, Chloe had to test it out!

New Cherry Irish Chain Quilt

Here is my new work in progress. I am so excited about this one since I will be keeping it and using it on my bed. (I rarely keep anything I make)

But anyway, I found this awesome Lakehouse Drygoods fabric a long time ago, and have been hoarding it (like 15 yards!) and trying to figure out what I was going to do with it. Since we have a king sized bed, I knew I would have plenty.

On to pictures! It's been a lot of back breaking work, but I know the rewards will be there in the end.

I started out stripping all of these together. it doesn't look like a lot of work, or maybe it does, but it is. It took a whole day to get this much done. Next, is to cut 2 1/2 inch strips on some and 6 1/12 inch strips out of the cherry strips.

 Here are my 2 1/2 inch strips

 32 of these squares took about 10 hours! My back was killing me, but aren't they purdy? :)

 16 finished, 15 to go!

Putting the Pieces of the Puzzle All Together!

Gotta take the picture before Chloe jumps on!

Poop!

New Piece of the Puzzle!

I had to piece the first 6 blocks together since I was getting anxious to see what it would look like. Of course, Chloe needed a test drive!

I began this scrap thinking it would just be a little project, like a throw for the couch, but the idea turned into something bigger - a quilt! I was thinking of Dolly Parton's Coat of Many Colors song when the idea took off.



A long look back at 2011

I finally finished this blue one for my mother for Christmas! I actually quilted it myself this time instead of sending it to the longarm quilter. 

Chloe can't even wait for it to come off the machine!

Updated pictures!

Hope you had a nice weekend. Here is what I did with mine :)

Before the borders were added

After the borders were added


I haven't mentioned that the underlying pattern is one from Bloom Creek Quilts by Vicki Bellino (http://bloomcreek.blogspot.com/). I wonder what she would think of my play on her pattern :)

Close up of the borders

Mama's last afghan

I finished my grandmother's last afghan over Christmas break at my mother's house. My grandmother was just starting it when she went into the hospital. She actually made a mistake and crocheted just 3 rows for the first set of green and everything else was four rows. Since it was the first section, I just finished it out the same way; ending with three rows of green.

Working on it was actually kind of theraputic for me. I was putting all of my love into it as I worked away. I think she is happy I did it in her place. I also learned that my stitches are very much like hers, maybe just a tad bit tighter.

It's also a lot longer than she normally made her afghans. It turned out about 6 feet long by 4 feet wide, I would say.She would usually do them no bigger than 5 feet long, though I do have one that she made for me long ago that was about the same size. 

I got da blues!

I was going to give my mother one of my quilts; a purple one, with all sorts of other colors mixed in. Then I started piecing this blue one. So I was talking to someone about it and said, I don't know if I should tell her I changed my mind, since I had already told her she could have it. Would that be wrong?

I knew she would like the blue one so much better, so I decided to ask. I called her up and said, "Mom, I don't think I should give you the purple quilt." She said, without missing a beat, "Why, did you make a blue one?

Ugh. My mother. You can't surprise her with anything.

Anyway, here is my latest set of photos.