two baby quilts up on etsy

more quilts.

A wedding quilt (them're lady cowboys - scantily clad I might add) for an undisclosed recipient... please excuse my trashy see through wifebeater. It was hot! Note my prized roll of quilt batting in the background (and assorted quilt tops too!). I'm such a quilt nerd.

A baby quilt to be sold on Etsy - I collected dozens of pink and white prints back in my pink phase in my early twenties, cut out an entire queen sized quilt's worth of 4" finished square-in-a-square blocks, and promptly put them away in a bin and ignored them. that's a heckuva lot of triangles. I sewed some of them together and alternated the blocks with a solid pale pink. I'm going to quilt it on the diagonal, I think it is going to be really cute. My mom offered to sew the rest of the blocks together if I wanted to make it bigger, but I am so over the idea of having an all pink quilt on MY bed, and did I mention that's a crapload of triangles? I'll save the blocks for future baby quilts instead.

This is the quilt I made based on Thomas' pictures from Cinque Terre, which I blogged about ages ago. It's finally all together, and I went to my parents' house last night to sandwich it and my dad FLIPPED OUT and immediately started calling it his and bought it on the spot - he even made me do the binding HIS way "to preserve the artistic integrity". Whatever, Dad. It's pretty awesome though. I really love the way it turned out. Plus it's pretty cool because even though my dad always likes to see the quilts I make, he seems kind of bored by them because they have been pretty traditional and he's such an expansive artist he wants to see more art quilts. So here ya go, Dad.

This is a wholecloth quilt that I was going to make for my mom for Mother's Day because I have this red quilt on my couch that she keeps hinting about and I'm afraid she's going to steal it one day. I saw these fabrics in the spring and really liked them together - I had a couple of other fabrics picked out but kept coming back to these, even though they're really weird colors. The inner border (and the future binding too) is a really cool purple stripe, and the outer border is butterscotch flowers on a tan background with purple leaves. I picked up a butterscotch solid for the backing when I didn't have this with me and it turned out to be perfect when I brought it home. I was going to keep it a secret from my mom but she got all excited about it when I laid it out so I had to tell her. Also I am bad at keeping minor secrets. Anyway, I meant to have it done for her for Mother's day but there was the Roses & Rosemary auction and a bunch of other stuff, so I didn't get it done. She knows I love her anyway.

sewing blitz

So this weekend I cancelled all my engagements and holed up and sewed my little heart out. Here's some of what I did.

hey y'all

July! What? How did that happen?

We had a sweet-ass barbecue at my parents' house again for the 4th. This year was the best yet I think - lots of people I like and pretty much no people I don't like. Plus pie. Only bummer was, all the fellas I invited brought girlfriends. Pfft.

Here's a quilt I'm working on:

I llooooooovvvve it. It's a color study for a quilt I'm making that was inspired by Orla Kiely's stem print (and Joanie), and it's a perfect cheery summery baby quilt. I'm hand quilting it in Xs across the white (well, slightly creamy) squares. It's awesome. It's 40" square and I think I'll list it for $175. Reasonable, yes? The only bummer - which I didn't notice until I had started quilting it and you can't even really tell in this photo - is that all six of the tangerine colored squares are squished over on the right side. So much for random placement.

ANYway. Hope you all are well. Enjoy the summer, it's finally nice!

Love, mcnabbs.

the red quilt finished

Ta-daaa! It raised $120 for the orphans!

(back detail)

"how are you so prolific?"

So I decided to put borders on the red quilt, and I'm glad I did. I was hanging out with my mom on Mother's Day, pinning quilts on her hardwood floor (yep, still have the shitty carpet - but I'm pretty sure I convinced my dad to let me lay marmoleum tile! SCORE), and she paused and said "how are you so PROLIFIC with your quilts? I mean, how do you make so MANY?"

...uh. total blank stare. See, I always think to myself "man, I wish I had time to start THIS one or THAT one, I like THAT, wouldn't THAT one be fun?" and here is my mom, the woman who made 15 quilts one year (yeah she had 9 months off, but she spent a whole heck of a lot of time in the garden too), kind of in awe at the fact that I'm at her house for the second time in 2008 pinning three quilts at once.

awesome.

feeling quilty

so today's biggest project is a charity quilt for the roses and rosemary spring cocktail event auction! i am taking a wee break to consider whether to put borders on it or just leave it at a nice cuddly 50"x60" throw size (totally big enough and less sewing - but it just seems kind of unfinished right now). i think i need some borders to hold the whole thing together. lord knows i have enough extra fabric. what posessed me to get eight plus yards of assorted prints for a throw size? sheesh. at least i have plenty for the back :)

pinwheels!

I finished the pinwheel quilt! FINALLY! It only took me like six, seven years. And before I even put the last stitch in it, it was sold. Thanks Tiff, enjoy!

sigh

confession: i am bad at the internet.

ok, i'm good at finding things on the internet. i'm good at ordering things from the internet. i'm great at wasting time on the internet. but i am really, really bad at updating things on the internet. i know the last thing this world needs is one more blogger/crafter/baker/joker posting their wares, and not like anyone reads this anyway, but i am still doing a lot of projects, and when people ask me what i'm up to i have to say 'here's my blog but there isn't much new stuff on it'. what's up with that? i have a digital camera, i have a flickr page, i have an etsy site, facebook, everything, but i can't update it to save my life. i am currently internally whining about the prospect of revamping my flickr page. 4000 pictures on there and i think i'm going to have to just delete them all and start over again. le sigh.

in other news: i made a key lime cheesecake with mango topping for my friend's birthday. it's glorious.

so i'll allow myself a mini-rant about quilting: i'm so annoyed with how deified denyse schmidt is. yeah, she's great, she does cool things, but why does every beginning quilter have to make their first quilt out of either denyse schmidt quilts or the modern quilt workshop? also, why does so much ADORABLE and/or GORGEOUS stuff come out of Japan? it seems everything is perfectly pieced, perfectly coordinated, perfectly sized, and freakin' awesome. plus it's all hand-pieced and hand-quilted! where do all these ladies get the TIME? anyway, kudos to japanese crafters, because you guys make me jealous in a good way.

ok, i am off to the quilt shop for a solid red (only) to use as the background for a charity quilt for the roses and rosemary auction. i got a bunch of different red prints and actually have been dreaming (literally) about a red-prints-on-red-background quilt for a few months now so i'm excited to have an excuse to make it :)

april already?

And the middle of April, at that!
Saturday was absolutely GORGEOUS and I went to Monica and Andrew's for a barbecue on the lake. I also got some quilting done and only have the hand sewing left to do on my pinwheels, but the cat has been sleeping on that one so I haven't been able to work on it, because she's so dang cute! Yes, I will be a crazy old quilty cat lady. Sigh.
love,
mcnabbs