The card, the couple, the quilt...

Inside the card, I added a hard copy of the label, should the one on the quilt wear out after washing.

Amanda and Dan very happy with their new quilt!

I could not find the room at my own place for such a big quilt so took these photos on the bed at my parents' place. King size quilt on queen size bed. The intended bed has a foot board so I did not make this quilt hang a lot on the bottom.

Hawaiian Punch Label attached!

Yep! it is all bound and label attached, ready for presentation on Sunday! For the label I used Avery's Printable Fabric sheets, that I bought at Staples. They printed up real nice but they did not stick fully when I tried ironing it on....I must remember to make the label before quilting next time.! and it is pretty thick to hand stitch the sides on for extra protection....so I came up with the idea to frame it in fabric and iron it on in the middle and applique the "frame" on. I really like the results! I also created a QR code that will bring you back to all my posts on my blog about the quilt, a sort of unique copyright protection. I am going to design a card with a hardcopy of the QR code in case the label becomes worn after washings.

I would like to thank Cathy Shepherd from Eagles Wings Quilts for the lovely job of machine quilting! Click on the above link and you can read about the machine quilting on her blog.

It's at the quilter's!

The year of the big quilt!

 It still needs binding, but here is a photo of my City Harbour Quilt. I had to hang it from the curtain rod in my living room it was the only space big enough for me to take a photo.

 Here is a close up of the straight line quilting:

I also hung the Hawaiian Punch quilt in the window to get a better photo, of course the light is shining through the window giving it a bit of a stained glass look. Hopefully it will go off to the machine quilter in the next couple of weeks.

Cat Approved!

Yay! I have most of the top pieced, but am running out of white for the outside sashing. My bed is not big enough, I need to check out my dimensions on the king-size bed it will be laying on, I think, before I add the last bit of sashing.

Progress Report

I would post some photos, but the the "insert image" task will not let me upload from my computer, only from my blog, picasa web, my phone, a webcam, and a URL, the browse button is gone....if this continues, then I am finished with blogging, if I can't post photos from my computer what good is it?

Update: I switched to the Firefox browser and the browse function came back and photos added! yay!

Hawaiian Punch progress report:

I have finished my 16 blocks! Yay! I have sewn them into 4 large strips...

 

 
now my question is do I buy white fabric in the length I need for sashing or should I piece them into the length I need?

Making progress

 



 Well, I have fallen short of my goal of this quilt top being done by Christmas, but I have made progress. I need 16 of these blocks I have now completed 8 (6 are shown as there is no room on this design wall for a king size bed quilt!)

All the strips are made so it is just a matter of having the time to sew! I should be able to finish the blocks at least this weekend, as long as I don't have to go to work!

Quilts for twins! and for Dan's

I have been very busy lately! I finished these two baby quilts for friends of mine (Danielle and Dan) who are having twins, a boy and a girl sometime in December! It was quite a struggle to do the machine quilting. I hardly ever use a seam ripper except when I am machine quilting. First I didn't like the pattern, rip it out! then I didn't like the colour of thread, rip it out! then I had tension problems, eek rip it out!! but in the end it worked out, I am still learning and it's practice and practice and practice! It's a good thing babies do not have a critical eye when it comes to quilts!

How's about a nice Hawaiian Punch?
So now that I have that done, I have to work on my next big project.  A friend of mine, another Dan, asked me to make him a quilt made from some of his Hawaiian shirts. Oh that should be fun I said! King size, he said. eek King size? and most of the shirts are made of rayon! He has a huge collection of shirts! He brought me about 20 different shirts, I sorted them by colour and rejected the polyester ones, I figured I only want one kind of fabric to sew, and only one headache to deal with! and the headache is that it is slippery and wonky. Even after you cut the fabric it gets all distorted. I am continuously experimenting with spray-on starch. In the end I picked out 8 different shirts to use.

This also made it hard to figure out a design. I was going to use cotton fabric for sashing the blocks to stablize it. I found a pattern in my Sew to Swap book by Chrissie Grace, that I thought might work with so many busy fabrics, the only problem was that it was square and I had to make it bigger. I got out my graph paper and started drawing.  I also thought I would use white as my solid instead of brown.

My squares will be 2 inches instead of 1 inch and I added a flying geese border for the pillow rest and to make it rectangular instead of square.

Below are my 2 1/2 inch squares waiting to be chain pieced.  I needed to make 16x 16-patch blocks! I got those done at the BIQR.

Below is one completed block, I need 16 of these. I am currently chain-piecing the outer borders. 30x strips of 8 squares, and 30x strips of 6 squares. Chain piecing can be monotonous work at best, so I do a bunch as leaders and enders and in between projects. My goal is to get most of the top pieced by Christmas!