Two blocks that I made for my monthly quilting blocks for the month of May
A baby quilt that I just made for my friends, Jim and Yeni, for their first baby boy
Pillows with hidden zippers for our living room
Here’s my latest quilt for my good friend, Quyen. She is just the coolest person around that I know here and I love her and her family to bits and pieces! I just gave her the quilt last night so I can post her quilt up. We both just love the fabric on the back. It’s an Asian print of butterflies and dahlias. So pretty. The front is a combinations of different fabrics but mainly Joel Dewberry (Orchids and Butterfly print) both in green and dark fuchsia, and then I threw in some Amy Butlers and a few other that I have been collecting the past few months. The white is from Kona.
Here’s a close up of it 
This quilt was surprisedly quick to make, it only took me one day to cut all the fabric and sew them together and another day to quilt it and then two days to hand bind it. I came across this pattern when Wise Craft featured this Marquee pattern from this book, The Modem Quilt Workshop, written by Bill Kerr and Weeks Ringle last year and I saved the link for future reference. Last month I was over at Raindrop Stitches’s house and she had the book, and I was able to thumb through it and fell in love with the book. Lots of great patterns and easy instructions to understand. This is a great book to add to your quilt library. I’m already planning another quilt from this book, but first I need to finish my tea towel swap and whip up another baby quilt for a baby shower in two weeks!
Sorry for the delays in postings but my computer has been giving me problems and I had to back all my data and do a clean install of Windows 7. So far the computer has not given me any more trouble so I am going to try to do a couple of postings tonight. So here is the baby quilt that I have been talking about. I am really happy with the end result and wanted to keep it for myself because the quilt is so cheery and happy. The quilt had a combination of hand quilting and embroidery.
Also the best thing about this quilt, it only took me 4.5 days! Talk about a quick turnaround. As mentioned I brought the fabric from IKEA in the children’s bed section last Monday and started the process on Tuesday and finished it on Saturday. The fabric was actually a duvet cover that I cut up and then made into a quilt. I love the red and white checker on the back, though my husband said, “it was too busy and made his head hurts”. Mandy and I disagree and love the bright and happy fabric. I thought it went quite well with the front colorful graphic. For the binding, I had some navy/white polka dots fabrics left from another quilt to make the binding, which I hand sew to the quilt. Then I proceed to do my first embroidery ever! I found that I thoroughly enjoyed the process.
First I embroider the outside of each circle and then filled the circle with some embroidery. Several circles had a flower theme of yellow tulips, pink “spiked” flowers, and roses. Another had leaves, feathers, swirls, stars bursts, and rain drops. Here are some close up shots of the quilt so you can see the embroidery better.
The below picture is white embroidery swirl that I put throughout the white part of the quilt to hold all the fabrics and batting together . The quilt had four layers. You have the front, batting, muslin and then the back. The reason I put the muslin in was because the red and white checker was very bold and showed through the front. Overall I love making this quilt and luckily I get to do it again pretty soon. I have another baby shower coming up next month! Hopefully I can add in a knitted baby hat to go with this future quilt.
Next month is going to be super busy. I have three February birthdays coming up next month that I need to start cranking on. I have my mother, which I am thinking of making a lotus quilt with a heavy emphasis on the Buddhist theme. I’m still designing it so I’ll keep you posted once it’s ready to be quilt. My friend Quynh (yup she has the same name as me) also wanted a quilt for her birthday and then my older sister, but I think I might do something else to surprise her. Maybe the knitted baby cap might have to be put on the back burner, but I’ll keep you posted on my projects.
This is my absolute favorite dog ever, Ziggy, because he is adorable, well-mannered, loveable, fun and everybody in the neighborhood loves him. I have been dog-sitting him since November and he has been a wonderful guest. Today I got to pick him up from my neighbor, Diane, and the best part Ziggy was super excited and came up running up to me with his tag wagging and he jumped in arms and seriously tried to lick my face. He’s so cute. I will be so sad to return him but on the good side I know where he lives and can visit him. He’s been a wonderful and fun guest. I love this little guy.
I would like to apologize for not blogging much the past couple of months. I have been so busy trying to complete all my handmade presents of socks and quilts for my family. It left me no time to think, research or write anything for this blog, but I plan to change that this year. Here are two quilts that I made. This is a simple blues and orange squares. I really love how bright and cheery it is. It’s 100% cotton on the front but the back is blue polka dots fleece.
The next one is my favorite lap quilt that I made so far. It’s a appliqué by McKenna Ryan’s Once Upon a Star Patterns – All Wrapped Up. This was a very simple way to appliqué using fusible webbing. The fabric suggested was a little bit too boring for me so I ended up using some Japanese cotton fabric I had on hand to use in the “presents” and then I found some gorgeous Japanese style water wave with some metallic stitching on the border. You can’t tell from the picture but I use metallic thread on the presents and penguins to give it a little something special. The hardest and longest part of the quilt was the hand quilting using sashiko quilting, but I love the end result. It gave a lovely structure and gave the quilt a wonderful texture to it. I love the little baby penguin on the top popping out of the present. This was a really fun quilt to make.
I made two other quilts but forgot to take pics of it. So if my brother and sister is reading this, can you take a pic of the quilt I gave you and send them my way so I can post it up. Thanks so much!
And on a ending note…don’t forget to take your vitamins. We did and this is the vitamin we are taking. It’s has your daily intake and it’s a gummy candy. What a great way to eat your vitamins for the day. (Next to it is a present that Girlrobot brought for me a soy sauce ‘paper crane’ ceramic. It is really cute. The best part this was not the only ‘paper crane’ ceramic I got this Christmas! Raindrop Stitches gave me a one too. Hers is different that it’s a hanging ornament – very delicate and so beautiful.)
Currently I belong to a quilting group on Flickr. Basically it’s a group of 12 quilters, one for each month of the year. Each quilter gets to choose a month to send out fabrics to each of the other 11 quilters. This month is the fabrics that was sent to me.
Our instructions were from Marblesbestfriend:
This particular book, 5500 Quilt Block Designs by Maggie Malone, has been both inspirational and made me change my mind dozens of times, because I kept find better and better block designs to make.
But I finally narrow it down to a spiral log cabin, 3293.
And here is the final result, a modified spiral log cabin. Though I have to admit it was hard to make the spiral work with all the fabrics, so in the end, I do believe this is rather more like a modified log cabin and not quite a spiral one. But I have to admit Marblesbestfriend chose some beautiful colors and fabrics for her month, I hope she likes it.
This is a a great link for questions and patterns for the Jaywalker sock. I’m using Lorna’s Laces, Shepherd Sock, hand-dyed yarns which I brought from Weaving Works in Seattle, WA, by the way is a great yarn store to browse in or ask lots of questions about your current project. Lorna’s yarn has a great twist and feels really great while knitting. I love the variegated look of the blues and greens of this yarn. This sock is a Christmas gift for girlrobot, per her request, plus another set is in the works for my new brother-in-law, boyrobot. His sock colors consist of mainly blues and green with a hint of brown which I think as a nice masculine look to his socks.
My friend, Myra, introduced me to this particular pattern and I just love it. I have always knitted scarves and have never had the nerve to start knitting a sock before she encouraged me and now have become an avid sock knitter.
Just a few tips for beginner sock knitters for this pattern:
If you are just starting out on knitting, I highly suggest that you join Raverly. It is a great resource and community to have for knitting. Happy knitting!
