Blogger's Quilt Festival

The time is upon us once more for the spring Blogger's Quilt Festival. Basically it's a giant online quilt show. Free of charge and in your jammies if you so desire! You can find all of the other participating blogs at Amy's Creative Side.

I want to share my latest finish with you. This is "Heidi's Quilt"





Those of you who have been following my blog for a while may remember that my dear friend lost her husband to cancer a year ago in February. I made this quilt for her using his shirts. The orange setting squares are from his favorite shirt. I was able to find a really awesome orange plaid for the back (Hobby Lobby.)





This is my first official completely quilted on my frame quilt that did not end up with an all over stippling. I learned a ton in making this quilt. Like the importance of squaring up your finished blocks when you're dealing with so many different types of fabrics. Or how long it actually takes to do custom quilting. I very naively thought I'd finish up the quilting in a day. Well I worked on this quilt for about 4 days (don't forget I'm pregnant and have 2 little ones) and used a whopping 8.5 bobbins (these are larger than domestic sewing machine bobbins.) I also learned that your hands get sore from quilting for so long! Oh and I even had to rotate the quilt to get all of the sashings done.

Stats:
64"x64"
Fabrics: Shirtings
Sashing: Kona Bone
Machine pieced and quilted by me
It was made using the free Charming Stars pattern found at the Moda Bakeshop

It's not perfect but I love the end result and I know my friend loved it. I was so glad I was able to give it to her in person last week. That was the icing on the cake for a project that was lots of work. And here's a close up of the quilting.





Feel free to look around my blog and take a look at my other recent love.


~ Norma

PS you can visit my other blog Quilty Giveaways to find the latest quilt related giveaways going on in bloggy land.

Blogger's Quilt Festival 2010

Welcome all Festival Attendees!

I'm thrilled that you have taken a minute to visit my little blog. I'm Norma and I love to quilt, sew, cook, take pictures, exercise and blog. Right now I'm running 3 blogs! This one, my Quilt Guild blog, and the new Quilty Giveaways blog. Throw a husband, 2 kids and 2 dogs into the mix and I stay pretty busy. Somehow I manage to squeeze in a few quilts here and there. Grab a cup of hot cocoa and stay a while!

This year has seemed pretty busy and so my completed quilts have all been on a much smaller scale. I have plenty of large quilts in several stages of completion, but my finishes have all been small quilts for swaps. I'm glad I've found online flickr swaps, particularly the Doll Quilt Swap, because these small projects give me a sense of accomplishment.

Here is my favorite quilt of the year:

"Garden in Paradise"

Size: 19"x19"

Style: Trapunto Whole Cloth Quilt

Colors: Golden Yellow, Teal, Yellow Green

Fabrics: Kona Cotton, and Flutterby (binding)

Now before you ask, I'll answer a few questions.


- I have a tutorial on color tinting fabric here.
- This particular design is by Irena Bluhm, but I discovered color tinting before I knew who she was.
- The process pretty much goes like this: 1) Transfer design to quilt top. 2) Do a faux trapunto (somehow I managed to do more work than I had to for this step.)  3) Quilt completely. 4) Soak quilt top and let dry. 5) Add color. 6) Bind and add label.

Here are a few more pictures for you:

Thanks for stopping by!

~ Norma

Click on over to Amy's for more Festival Fun.

Fall Blogger's Quilt Festival

Click on the image to visit other great quilts!

I'm not 100% sure on the rules for the quilt festival but I assume Park City Girl wants a showcase of a finished quilts!

This is one of my favorite finished quilts to date:

I made this quilt for the Spring 2009 Flickr Doll Quilt Swap. It measures 19" square. I used raw edge applique for this little quilt. All of the quilting and applique was done free motion. It was kind of scary at first, but I love the finished result!

I wasn't too crazy about the binding I chose but my swap partner was thrilled with the quilt, so I guess it was a success!

PS. The Pattern is "Bandana Beauty" from the Fall 2008 "Easy Quilts" issue