Wednesday, December 8, 2010

A new quilter in the family...

So, last week the guild had our annual Christmas party. I invited my daughter to come with me...she didn't really want to come until I told her there would be food :) We played a game called Fat Quarter Frenzy. Each person brought 3 FQ's to play with. One by one, FQ's were thrown into the center of the table (the pot). At the end of the game, whoever still had a FQ in their hands got to keep the whole pot. So guess who won the whole pot? That's right.
She won 21 fat quarters. Of course, my friends were all asking her what she might make with all this new treasure. As of 2 hours earlier, she had no intention of ever going to a guild meeting and now she was the proud owner of a whole lot of fabric.

So on the way home...with no prompting from me...she announces that it might be cool to make a quilt. I know, RIGHT?!

When we searched for quilt patterns (I'm thinking beginner friendly), she really fell in love with the dresden plate. She wasn't totally convinced until I told her that it might be kind of advanced and that I haven't even tried to make one yet. Well, that did it. Determined to make a dresden quilt, I told her we really need to practice one first...
We used this tutorial
I wanted her to practice quilting too. Color me impressed. She free-motion stippled over the whole design. And did an amazing job!  I coached, but she made every stitch by herself.
On her practice piece, I gave her the challenge of quilting her name over and over.  On her finished pillow cover, she signed her name in the corner.
I think I might be the proudest mom in the whole world right now.

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

A little something extra...

I feel so guilty when it takes more than a couple of weeks to finish a baby quilt.  I know I should get over this, but I'm not sure how.  I can make one of these bears in just a day or two.  A quick easy project that actually seems to get more oohs and ahhs than the quilts.  I've thought about just making the bears, if I didn't enjoy quilting so much :)  So baby Jude is getting a little something extra to go with his quilt.
This is my 2nd finish for this week.  Wow.  When I look at it that way...
Cool.