Party Time!

Rain, rain go away!  Hurricane Patricia (or, what's left of her) has been making its way across our area for the last few days, and although my plants are grateful, it certainly makes getting decent quilt photos impossible.  I had to settle for snapping a few inside pics of my latest finish since this quilt needs to be delivered to its new home soon.

Even as a rival team fan, I have to say that I like how this one turned out.  The team fabric is subtle, and the pattern is modern and masculine enough for its recipient.

I used the partial squares that were left over on the back, along with chambray.  In general, when I make a quilt for a man (or boy), I try to keep the backings pretty simple but still interesting, and I love using chambray for them.  It's 57 inches wide, so that makes it really easy to just add a small strip of scraps and call it done;  and what man do you know that doesn't like denim?   The binding on this one is Kona Rich Red, which I had left over from my Truffles quilt.  The finished quilt measures 62" square, which is a weird measurement for a quilt that is eight blocks across.  It's because the starting blocks finish at 16.5," which are then cut into fourths, making them 8.25" before sewing, and finishing at 7.75."  Clear as mud, right?

Sooo...let's jump to a few features from last week's party, shall we?  Jennie at Porch Swing Quilts showed off this stunning flowering snowball top-

Jayne from Twiggy and Opal linked up this cool quilt using her Denyse Schmidt stash.

and Micki at 2 Dogs Studio shared this fun little quilt.  This is a great way to show off little sampling of large, bold prints!

Okay, friends!  Time to link up your latest projects!

1.  You can link finished projects or WIP's , but just keep it about quilting and sewing!

2. Link to your specific post (not to your home page!) to make it easier for others.

3. Please remember to spread the word and post my button or a text link.  

4. Spread the comment love far and wide!

5. Following me is not a requirement to link, but is so very appreciated!

One Thing Leads to Another

Well a few of my latest quilts, namely my two Ole Miss quilts and my LSU Love quilt, have prompted another friend to ask for a team quilt for her son- 'tis the season for gifts, you know!  She asked for the Stacked Squares pattern for the quilt, and only wanted a tiny bit of team fabric (fine by me!).  She was also open to the addition of a few more colors than just the traditional red and navy to add some dimension.

Ole Miss sometimes wears retro helmets that are actually powder blue rather than navy, and occasionally the team sports shades of gray as well, so I incorporated those colors in the design, and I really love the depth it added to the quilt.

As I mentioned before, the season for gift sewing is in full swing, which means that I am also working on a couple of secret projects.  It's always tough for me to keep these kinds of projects off of my blog (I am the worst secret-keeper), but at this time of year, there's just no way around it!

Another thing I can share though is that I just got a full fat-quarter bundle of the Ambleside collection, and I have a great plan for these sweet colors as soon as I finish up this latest quilt.

NTT and Swallowing My Pride

Happy first day of Fall, y'all, and welcome to Needle and Thread Thursday!  This past week, I've been working on my Truffles pattern, and if you missed it, I just released it yesterday.  It is now available in my Craftsy and Etsy shops!  I've also been working on a couple of quilts that really forced me to swallow my pride in a favor to a friend.

For the most part, I keep my blog a sports-free zone, but as some of you may already know, I am a huge LSU fan.  I was born and raised in Baton Rouge, LA just minutes away from campus, and that's where I earned my undergraduate degree.  Well, if you're a sports fan at all, you know that rivalries can be brutal, and Ole Miss is one of our biggest SEC rivals.  It just so happens that Ole Miss is only about an hour away from where we currently live, so it is practically a local school, and you can't throw a stone in the Memphis area without hitting an Ole Miss fan.  Anyway, a friend's son and his best friend just started at Ole Miss this semester, and she asked me to make two quilts for them.

Let me tell you- it was tough for this LSU girl to get these done.

Most of the red and navy blue fabrics came from the Metro Living line, which are really beautiful fabrics with classic geometric prints.  My favorite print by far though, is not from this line.  My favorite is the red commuter train map fabric that you can see in the bottom row of the above photo.  It is really cool!  There are several fabrics in these quilts that are small prints with both red and navy combined, and although they are showing up really muddled in the photos, they really don't look too busy in person.

The backings of both quilts are identical.  I used wide WOF stripes of all of the leftover fabrics, along with some chambray to widen them out.  The quilts finished at 60" x 60" square.

The first day I worked on these quilts, my son came home from school and was positively horrified.  He let me know right away that I should be ashamed of myself and jokingly wondered how working on them didn't make me physically ill (that kid cracks me up!).  Yes, these quilts were made with a small amount of personal shame.  Ah...the things we do for friends.  :)

So, without further ado, check out some of my favorites from last week's party, which incidentally gave me plenty of eye candy while I was looking all of that red and navy this week!

Patch the Giraffe's X-ceptional quilt is so fresh and happy!

The colors in this Urban Sunrise quilt from Ida Rather Be Quilting is absolutely stunning, and the quilting is just as amazing.  There are some close-ups of it on her blog, so check it out if you missed it.

and Janet at Simply Pieced modified a cathedral window pincushion pattern to create this lovely little baby quilt!  The pops of pink are just perfect!

I hope you've been creating something in your sewing space that you absolutely adore!  Let's party!

1.  You can link finished projects or WIP's , but just keep it about quilting and sewing!

2. Link to your specific post (not to your home page!) to make it easier for others.

3. Please remember to spread the word and post my button or a text link.  

4. Spread the comment love far and wide!

5. Following me is not a requirement to link, but is so very appreciated!