What's Black and White and Red All Over?

I offered to make my son a graduation/going off to college quilt, so we've been discussing fabric choices and design lately. He decided that he wants a black/white/red quilt (Cornell's colors are red and white), but isn't sure of a pattern yet. The photo above shows the fabrics I found during a fun quilt show-and-shops trip that I took last week with a couple of friends.

At our last stop on the trip, I came across this wonderful fabric that will make a wild bias binding! The red color is so much richer in person, believe me.

I guess I'll have to wash these fabrics before I use them (most of the time, I don't usually do that). We don't want Nick to wind up with a pink quilt....he'd probably report me for child abuse.

I Hate It When This Happens

I literally had less than half an inch of satin stitching left to do on this postcard when the bobbin ran out! Aaarrghh...

Country Drive

Those of you who read my friend Susan's blog saw a very similar picture there yesterday.

I saw my first "local" (within an hour's drive of my home) barn quilt when I went on a quilting adventure with two friends on Friday. This was painted on a barn on the property owned by the folks at Sew What? Fabric Shoppe on County Route 119 in Addison, NY. Nothing fancy, just a large block painted right on the side of the barn. But it looks great!

If you want to see more barn quilts, check out the Barn Quilts and the American Quilt Trail blog.

Trudging Along

This is another example of a triangle made following Jane's original pattern rather than what was in the software. The pattern called for a narrow diamond shape for the dark piece at the bottom of the photo, but in Jane's block it's more of a square, so that's what I did. The original also has the two small dark triangles pointing outward in the center, while the software pattern eliminates those completely. What also frustrated me is that the software did not provide a paper-piecing pattern for this triangle, but I was able to draft one myself. If I could do it, then certainly the software makers could have as well. That's what I paid money for!

This is "BR3, Attic Window", an intermediate-level triangle that I paper pieced.

High Stepping

I found these on a blog recently (I wish I could remember where). I think they'll clash a bit with these socks that I blogged about a little while ago, don't you?

Birthday Wishes

My friend Peggi is having a birthday today, so of course I had to make her a fabric postcard to mark the occasion. Last summer I was fortunate enough to be invited over to Peggi's house to try some fabric dyeing with a few other quilting friends (see these posts here and here to see the results) and I came home with 6 half-yards of rainbow-colored fabric. So in keeping with my practice of making postcards from selvages, I used the selvages from the dyed fabric for this postcard. No fancy color circles or wording, just the frayed selvage edges. I probably could have embellished the card a bit more, but I have way too many other projects calling my name.

If you'd like to see some of the wonderful quilts that Peggi makes, head on over to my group blog, Random Acts of Stitching, and do a search for "Peggi".

And if you know Peggi, wish her a happy birthday today!

Another Finish!

This is my latest charity quilt -- the blocks are made using a pattern from a tutorial at Oh, Fransson!. I wanted to make my quilt big enough for a teenager, so I added more and laid them out differently. My one piece of advice for those who use the tutorial to make the nine-patch blocks is to definitely have a sharp blade in your rotary cutter.

As I blogged about in this post here, my mission this year is to make quilts for teenagers because they often get forgotten when we quilters make quilts for charity (teenagers get sick, too!).

One of the things that I'm most proud of with this quilt is that the backing (which screams teenage girl to me) comes from a sheet that I found at my local Goodwill store for $3. (hint to the quilt police -- don't even think about commenting...). The sheet was in great shape with no stains or fading, so I took gladly paid the $3, took it home, washed it in hot soapy water and voila...a perfect backing that didn't need to be pieced.

Here is a closeup of the double-loop meander quilting that I did on my HQ16. It went very quickly.

Now on to the next charity teenage quilt...this time for a boy.