Friday, October 29, 2010

Blogger’s Quilt Festival – Fall 2010


Amy at Amy's Creative Side is hosting the Blogger's Quilt Festival again.



I was himming and hawing about whether my Meg's Garden quilt was good enough to enter. However, the the give-a-ways offered by the sponsors are just too good to pass up, so I am entering it! I will let you be the judge of how it stands up in comparison to the other quilts on display.


The story behind the quilt? Well, I have been quilting for about 10 years now. My favourite quilts were always the applique quilts, but I suffered from the "I could never do that" affliction. One day, I saw the Meg's Garden Pattern designed by Kellie at Don't Look Now. Well, I was bound and determined to try it!


I modified the size of the quilt to make it larger as I intend to use the quilt regularly.


I machine appliqued the flowers, butterflies, and ladybugs on and then machine quilted the final product.


We were asked what we love about the quilt that we are submitting to the Blog Festival. I do not want to sound boastful, but there is so so much I love about this quilt:


1) I love that I conquered my mental block around applique. I will not be afraid to try another applique quilt in the future!


2) I love the colours of this quilt! They were completely outside of my comfort zone when I started the quilt, but now I love bright colours!


3) I love the size of the quilt. I made it big, so it is long enough for me to wrap my feet into AND pull up around my shoulders at the same time


4) I love the flannel on the back of the quilt. I have decided that all future quilts will have flannel backs. The colour of the back is great, too! A confetti-like polka dot in pinks, purples and light greens! I had some material from the front left over so I appliqued my initial onto the back. I might do that on all my quilts from now on as a signature item.


5) I'm not the world's greatest machine quilter, but when this was done and I stepped back, I was struck by how even the quilting appeared. Like a gift from the quilting gods!


6) Finally, I love the binding. I had originally put a hot pink on and was shocked to see that it washed out the colours within the top! So, off came that binding and on went a pink that was within the top already. Even though changing the binding meant unsewing the original binding by hand, it was 100% the right decision!


Here are the pictures of the quilt.
Thanks so much for stopping by!


Melanie









































Sunday, October 24, 2010

Boxed Squares Quilt Finished!!!

This is a personal record, three quilts finished in one month!

One of the blogs that I read every day is Mary' Blog. She has a site with her own patterns (http://www.maryquilts.com/boxed-squares/). The one below is called Boxed Squares. It is froma Jelly Roll and it was a delight to make. It would make an excellent "quilt in a weekend" project. It is lap size, so it was a dream to quilt! I would definitely make this one again.

















Here is the back.
















And the binding.















The next quilt will be a Joseph's Coat from the Don't Look Now blog. It will look like this:

















Here are the colours....I am undecided whether I like them or not.
















Like I said, I'm not sure. I will make a couple of blocks up to see how they look.

Until then,
Ciao!
Melanie

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Meg's Garden - Complete!!!

IT'S FINISHED!!!!

Lot's of pictures to share! I can not believe that after 4 months it's finished!




















































































And just because I couldn't resist, a picture of my new pot lights in my living room! LOVE THEM!








Sunday, October 3, 2010

Guess What I Have???

A completed quilt top!!! Yahoo! After 3.5 months, the top is finally completed! While I loved doing it, I have never spent so much time on a quilt top before!
















After taking the above photo, I realized it was hard to see the progress, so here is the back.















I was so excited about finally being finished, I went ahead and pieced the back. It is flannel in a polka dot confettli print! I had some fabric leftover, so added an applique "m" (my initial) and a flower.
















Now, all that is left to do is to sandwich and quilt it.

I have spent so much time on this quilt, I am going to be a little lost when I finish it :(