A Rose Is A Rose Is A Rose

I began this quilt in June for my sister's July birthday. I was able to present her with the top on time, but life gets in the way sometimes, so the quilting was just finished yesterday. The reason I chose this pattern is because my sister's house is known as the Garden House and she grows lots of Roses, among other things.

These are but a small peek at the many roses she produces every year. So the Pixelated Rose Quilt is perfect for her.

 Here it is in all its glory. I couldn't be more pleased with the end result. After washing, the texture was awesome.

 I used an older Dear Stella print for the binding. I thought a bit of color was needed against all that white, but not too much.

 The pixelated rose and the rosebud needed some quilting to give it some gentle curves to suggest the rose petals. So I used two colors of Aurifil to do my wandering curvy lines.

These are the threads I used. I used the two greens to give the leaf areas some form as well.

 And the white background got some semi-measured straight line quilting.

      I even added a few actual leaves here and there just for fun.

 The back was pieced with some chunks of fabric left from other projects, but I think it looks great.

       Here you can see the leaf veins on the back of the quilt.

And here it is on the bed at last. Both my sister and I are very happy with this quilt. Happy Birthday Sis!

 And Just a few more rose pics, just because they are beautiful. Linking up with Amanda Jean today.

Fabric Pull

How do you do a fabric pull? Do you start with a focus fabric, or a specific line of fabrics? I have done things both ways, or just a couple of favorites that look good together and then I try to flesh it out. I am wanting to make another large bed size quilt for my queen size bed...because I am crazy. I haven't chosen a pattern yet, so maybe that's going to mess me up here. The one thing I know is that I want to use a particular line of fabric, Improv by Amy Friend.

I won a fat quarter bundle of some of the fabrics from Benartex a couple of months ago and as soon as it arrived, I got on line and ordered some of the other prints in the collection. I don't have the whole collection, but there were some prints I truly didn't like as well as others.

This is the original collection that I started with. The colors here are pretty true. It's a very sunny day so I tried to stay out of the sun so they wouldn't wash out. Some of these are fat quarters and the ones I bought are half yards.

Now the fun...I tried to pull from my stash some things to go with these beauties. Tell me what you think:

 Here they are all lined up together. I think with these additions there is plenty for a queen size quilt.

 I love this dark plum color with the pale pink daisies right next to the raspberry colored fabrics. The centers of the daisies are almost the color of the raspberry fabric.

 Next, I added in the green-ish with dots, the golden tan squares and the grey gingham with the tiny dots. In this picture the first fabric looks much more green than it is and the squares look a bit washed out. So hard to get true colors sometimes.

 The other fabric I would like to use, but it may be too bold for this, is the text fabric. It is black print on cream. What do you think?

So here is the whole line up. Now I need a pattern to show these off to their best advantage. Please tell me in the comments what you think of the additions to the original line. Also, I would love to have any suggestions you might have for a pattern. Thanks in advance for your help.

To and Fro Baby Quilt

Sometimes I have a post name in mind when I sit down. Today, I did not, so I went with the name of the block I used to make this baby quilt. It works well enough, I think. The block pattern is another one from Amy Gibson's Quilt Block Cookbook.

 So this is the block, or rather nine of them, each done in one color. I had to use brown, grey and the center block is multi-colored, to get nine blocks. All the triangles are from my stash.

        This is the multi-colored block. That is the name on the bin of scraps too.

 All of the triangles are cut from 5 inch squares. That is the largest piece I have in my scrap bins. I love that I was able to use so many of them.

 This is the pigs from Heather Ross' Nursery Versery line from about 5 years ago. I am so glad I found a use for this finally. I have always loved it.

 And on the grey block another piece from Nursery Versery. The itsy bitsy spider, a childhood classic.

 And here it is all quilted up with wandering loop-de-loops and fresh from the dryer. The crinkle effect on this is soooo nice.

 I decided to bind it with stripes of cream and grey. I think it gives it a classy look and I know the new mom will love it too. Plus, as a bonus it matches the back which is all greys.

        A close up of the lop-de-loops and the wavy lines I used in the borders of the quilt.

This is, obviously, the back of the quilt. I used up tons of larger scrap pieces to make the back. Some of this stuff has been in my stash for 5 years. And frankly, I love the way it turned out.

      This is one of the last pieces of this fabric that I have...Aneela Hoey...can't remember the name.

I can't wait to gift this and see the look on the mother's face. That is my favorite part. That, and knowing that it will be loved for a long, long time.
Have a great rest of the week and I'll talk to you soon. Much more sewing going on here this week.

Thursday Catch Up

I have been home for a week and a half now and I have been doing some sewing! Yay. I have a couple of quilts in the works and also some garment sewing.

 First thing I made wast this pencil pouch for my oldest grandson. While I was in NC, we went back to school shopping but he couldn't find one he loved. So Grammie to the rescue. The TNT is his request. It is from Minecraft. Yellow is his favorite color.

ANd inside are the dapper foxes. The one with the glasses reminds me of him. I am told it arrived yesterday and that there was much rejoicing!

 Next, I ordered this Amy Butler fabric to make us some new napkins. We began using cloth napkins only about 6 years ago when I had to make 100 for my daughter's wedding. I made some for us at the time and they have been used and laundered a lot.

 Here is the set of 8 that I made. I just cut and hemmed. They were cut at about 18 inches and hemmed with a quarter inch turned under twice.

I used a coral color Aurifil to accent and went around twice to add a bit of decorative interest to the napkins. I have more fabric to make another set of 8. They are cut out, but not hemmed yet.

 Then there is this quilt that I made for my sister for her birthday. I am finally quilting it. This is the pixelated rose quilt a free pattern from Riley Blake.

         Hard on the knees and hips, but I got down to pin baste this thing.

 It only took me about an hour or so to get the whole thing basted. It looks so different up close.

These are the colors I have chosen to quilt it with. I plan to do some artsy quilting to accent the roses and the leaves. I have started it, but I will wait until it is done to show you.

Then there are these nine blocks that are being made into a baby quilt. The block is from Amy Gibson's Quilt Block Cookbook. A great book if you haven't seen it yet.

 And last, but not least is the September lesson from the Penny Sampler Quilt. This month we are tackling MPP, or machine paper piecing. We had to make two teacups.

 It was very challenging, and sometimes a bit frustrating. This one was the first and I ended up with it being a bit short on the top, so I added a bit to it. Not sure if I will go back and fix it properly, but I needed a break for now.

The other paper piecing project for this month is the diamonds in a row at the top of this quilt. I am LOVING those!! They were much easier than the tea cups.
That's all for now. Have a great Thursday friends.