Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Everything Rolled Into One


Yes, it is late on the last night in February and I am just barely posting about all of my February Challenges.  Please forgive me for not making separate posts for everything but I am tired and just want to crawl into my bed!  
I will try to label everything so if you are looking for a certain part just scroll down till you find what you are looking for!  


Color Palette Challenge

I knew even before the colors were posted what I wanted to do for this month.  My dad has been asking for a quilt made with his Coke Bottle Template.  Well after 6 months he finally has something.  
The inspiration photo of the figs was beautiful but I had a hard time picking out fabrics.  I just couldn't find anything in the orange family I liked.  Finally I settled with this.



I love the color combination and the way it turned out.  I am going to call it Lava Lamps and hopefully have the pattern written up by next weekend!  I love it and my kids love cuddling up on the couch with it.  Hopefully it stays looking decent for when it travels with my parents to their quilt shows!  

Free Motion Quilting Challenge

This month we were supposed to practice quilting feathers.  I absolutely love feathers!  That is the reason I joined this challenge because I have just wanted to learn this feather skill.  I have tried in the past, with pretty good results but after reading Diane's tutorial I knew I could do better.  I decided to put the feathers in my UFO Viola's Jewelry Box.  Here is what I ended up with.  




The first feather I actually marked on the fabric because I was too chicken to just jump right in.  Sorry about the quality of picture, with the blue lines and the white on white quilting it is hard to see.  
After this one I was confident to just go for it.  




Here is attempt #2, completely free hand.  I am pretty happy with the results.  The individual plumes are about 1/4 of an inch.  
I love how each plume is unique, they will show up more in my quilts from now on.  





Here is the scary picture of the back!  I really should take a class on how to take better pictures.  

UFO Challenge

My UFO for this month was Viola's Jewelry Box, another one to be quilted!  I kept putting this off because I couldn't decide on how to quilt it.  Marlene from Kissed Quilts gave me some good tips.  Thanks Marlene!!  I took parts of her advice and meshed them with a few ideas I had floating in my head.  




I outlined the applique in the border twice and then added a clam shell thing (as you can tell I don't know the exact term) as echo quilting.  




The back of the border.  
I forgot to take a picture of the entire quilt, and as I said before it is too late to upload any more.  



Here is what it looked like when I started.  To me it looked like there was white sashing running behind everything so that is where the feathers went.  And then the rest was pretty much different kinds of fillers.  I will try to post more pictures when I remember to take them.  


I think I told you my mom was participating as a background UFO player as well.  She doesn't have a blog but I think she should get some recognition as well.  


This quilt is called Blast from the Past and was expertly pieced in black and white.  I think it is stunning!  She is just glad it is finished and she says this will be the last big quilt she makes for a while.  
 

Thanks for checking in.  I can't wait to see what all the other quilters have been up to this month!

11 comments:

  1. Great progress! Your mom is no amateur. Glad you can get your Challenge Quilt quilted and that it is how you imagined, I hope.

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  2. Three very wonderful quilts. I love Viola's Jewelry Box most, though. I know you designed it for a challenge/competition, but will the pattern be availble someday? (Or is it already and my brain neglected to process that information?)

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  3. The Coke Bottle quilt is fun, the colors give it a 6o's retro look.

    One post to sum up all the challenge stuff may be the way to go. I may borrow your idea for next month.

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  4. Great feathers! Congratulations on getting your challenges completed.

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  5. Big congratulations on getting all 3 challenges completed!!!
    Love your Lava Lamps quilt. Perfect fit for the colors too. Feather quilting looks great, Diane Gaudynski is such a wonderful teacher. Beautiful finish and quilting on your UFO quilt. AND your Mom's quilt is stunning! Lots to take in! Great post!

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  6. Great finishes for you and your Mom!

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  7. I love your Lava Lamps and your mom's quilt is gorgeous!

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  8. You've made lots of beautiful things. I love your lava lamps and the black and white quilt:)

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  9. Two great quilts, my favourite being your colour palette. Will have to make something using that colour scheme.

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  10. Your challenge quilt turned out great!

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  11. great jobs! i epsecially like the B & W quilt!

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