American Beauty Quilt

I am in charge of a Spring Conference for my American Legion Auxiliary District and I wanted to donate a quilt to use as a raffle prize at the meeting.

I've been collecting fat quarters of a nice line of fabric by Riley Blake called American Beauty that is both patriotic and pretty. The florals are so sweet and the blenders that go with the line compliment the florals so very nicely.  All I needed to do was find a pattern that would show off the fabrics.

I decided to look for something with simple, large blocks so I don't have to cut up all these beauties. I wanted the focus to be on the fabrics, not on the blocks. 

I started going through all my Villa Rosa pattern cards, I have tons of them. The patterns have easy to follow instructions that make many of their projects a breeze. And since this was to be donated it's nice if I don't have to put tons of time into them. This may be a labor of love, but sometimes I just don't want the time spent on a project to take up too much time. 

So I chose the Villa Rosa pattern called Staccato. It will really make the fabrics stand out on their own. 

I cut my pieces in just a few hours then spent an entire afternoon lining them up in the order I wanted them to appear in the quilt. Color placement is so important and I struggled with making sure that different colors were next to each other and large prints were mixed up with small blender prints. 

I shouldn't really call it a struggle because I do find it to be a lot of fun...a little like putting puzzle pieces together. I did enjoy laying it all out. 

I longarmed the quilt with a pretty flourish pattern that really complimented the fabrics.

The flowing swirls in the pattern was a nice contrast to the sharp rectangles that make the blocks.

The quilt turned out beautifully and I'm so happy to get it done in time for my conference.

I hope we can sell enough raffle tickets to make some extra money for our veterans and I hope the winner enjoys using it. 

Town Square Quilt and the last Sock Monkey Quilt

From the book Easy Peasy 3-Yard Quilts, I used the pattern Town Square for this charity quilt. I've used this pattern a few times before. It goes together quickly only this time I did a few modifications.

As the book claims, you need 1 yard of 3 different fabrics to make them. I didn't have enough of a coordinating green fabric so I used two different half-yard green prints. It took a little extra planning but it all worked out in the end.

I've had the cute pea pod fabric for a very long time so I was happy to finally used it up.

I longarm quilted this with a really nice pantograph design that I didn't know I had. It was an easy pattern to follow. I'm certain I will use this one more now that I know I have it - haha!

I also completed another Sock Monkey quilt using a Villa Rosa pattern called Fire and Rain. I couldn't wait to finish this quilt. Finishing it means I've used up and entire fat quarter bundle of Sock Monkey fabrics. This is the fourth quilt I've made from that bundle and the last. I only had a few fat quarters left when this top was done so I made sure to incorporate them into the back even if they did't really match. I was bound and determined to use it all up no matter what. It's amazing what you can do with one bundle of fabric. It was quite a challenge and I now I'm ok if I never see sock monkey prints ever again - haha! This quilt will be off to Quilts for Kids the next time we meet.

Daybreak Sock Monkey Christmas Quilt

I've been hanging on to a Sock Monkey charm pack for many years. Then one day I went to a Quilts for Kids sew day, started digging through donated fabric to find coordinating fabric that matches the charm pack prints. It was a nice. surprise.

All I had to do is find a proper pattern to use that would incorporate the amount of fabric I found. As I sorted through my many Villa Rosa pattern cards I came across the Daybreak pattern. It was a perfect fit!

I had just enough fabric to make this cute little quilt. I took the finished top to the quilt shop and matched it up with some nice, soft brown flannel. It was a great compliment to the Christmas themed prints. 

I free-motion quilted the quilt and added flannel binding. It's a nice addition to my growing stack of Sock Monkey themed quilts that I have going.

Villa Rosa Red Rose Quilt

I made my mother a quilt from some pretty fabrics and last week I came across the scraps left over from it. There were some really pretty pieces left. After I sorted the pieces I chose a pattern that would accommodate the sizes of the scraps. The Villa Rosa pattern, Red Rose was a perfect fit. 

I put the quilt top together on one of my basement quilters days. We meet the second Saturday of every month in the basement of a church. My quilt group may not have a very original name, but it certainly is a fitting one - haha!  The leader of the group is a member of the church and so are a few of the quilters but most of us are not. The group is considered a community service offered by the church and they ask for nothing in return. 

I finished the quilt top in just a few hours while at our sew day. Once I got it home and put it on the longarmer and I immediately got a little extra help. I think my kitties like using the longarmer as a hammock.

Some of the ladies in the quilt group who belong to the church donate their finished quilts to the church. They give a quilt to all the babies baptized there and they also give them to their shut-ins. I thought this might be a good one for a shut-in so I donated it to the church. It feels good to give a little back to them since they allow us to get together at their facility.

I used as much of the leftover scraps to make the backing in the hopes there would be no more left. I'm doing my best to use up the good stuff I have in my stash. And it was nice to use this up in a good way.

Gingersnap Quilt

A line of fabric called My Red Wagon by Henry Glass hit the clearance section at the quilt shop last year and I picked some up. It had some pretty prints and some I just didn't understand. The colors didn't really seem to go together, I wonder if that's why most of it was in clearance. In an effort to use up what I have, I found that this fabric line would be good with the Gingersnap quilt pattern by Villa Rosa. It seems I can't get enough of those Villa Rosa pattern cards lately.

The Gingersnap pattern uses large chunks of fabric so I thought I could easily place the border print where a large print would go. I also had so much of one of the prints that it would easily make the backing and enough was left over for the center block. The patchwork used up some fat quarters and another larger piece made the borders. As you can see from the finished quilt, none of it coordinates. 

This was a good experiment in putting colors together that I normally wouldn't. I don't care for the results but I'm glad I followed through and finished it. 

I will send this quilt off to Quilts for Kids. The little wagons are very cute and some of the fabrics are quite charming. I do love the backing fabric.

I pieced the backing in order to use up all the leftover fabrics. It felt good to use up more of my stash. 

Villa Rosa Pattern Cards

Last year I purchased a large bundle of Villa Rosa pattern cards at a quilt show.  I spent a little time recently going through the patterns and found some I had forgotten about. I matched a few up with some fabrics from my stash.

The directions are well written and easy to follow. Within a week I had finished two quilts!

I used the Grand Prize pattern to make this spaceship themed quilt. It was a great way to frame the panel. The backing fabric glows in the dark. 

I had a small bundle of some nice modern prints I wanted to use with the Asagail pattern.  It turned out there wasn't enough fabric as required on the pattern card but I did get enough blocks to make a smaller version. Then wouldn't you know it! I was digging through more of my stash and discovered a large chunk of the same fabric line. Of course I found it after I put the borders on. So I did the next best thing, I used it for the back. I chose variegated thread in the quilting which really looks great in the white background. It still turned out to be a decent size for a kid's quilt.

A Charity Quilt for A Veterans' Event

Our Legion Post does an event called "Souper Sunday" where we serve a lunch of soups, rolls and dessert. Everyone pays per bowl and the event raises money for veterans. 

I made a triple batch of French Onion soup for the event. It was an all-day project just cooking the onions but I was glad to help.

I also made a red, white and blue themed quilt to raffle off. I did't use a pattern, I just made two sizes of star blocks and a nine-patch to go in-between the stars. 

I longarmed the quilt with stars to add to the patriotic look.

Once completed, it was kitty approved!

A Patriotic Quilt Marathon

I was gifted 18 yards of red, white and blue fabrics. They were vintage bundles still in the packaging. I broke them all open to discover all half-yard cuts. I proceeded to wash all the fabrics, sort by color and press them. It was an all-day project. While pressing, I had to come up with a way to use up all the fabrics. Since they were half-yard cuts, there's a lot I could do. 

I chose three Villa Rosa patterns, making cutting easy and consistent since all these patterns requires thick strips to be cut. I liked the Olympiad pattern so much I made two quilts with it. They went together so quickly that it was an easy decision.

Using the scraps left over from the first two quilts I chose to use the Phoebe pattern next. It used up the ends of the strips from the first two quilts along with more of the half-yard cuts. At this point I was looking forward to doing a project that was not red, white and blue!

Once I completed the Phoebe there was still a bunch of fabric left. That's where the Daybreak pattern came in. It uses the same 5-inch square measurement as the Phoebe so I used up leftovers from that quilt along with more half-yard cuts. 

Of course, I had a helper. Jordy just loves to nap on quilts loaded on the longarmer. I'm sure it has the feel of a hammock and I know how much I love a good nap in a hammock so I don't blame him.

After all that, there was still fabrics left so I used it to piece the backs for two of the quilts. 

Earlier this month I had the opportunity to buy a single piece of fabric for 40% off. That's a big deal at the quilt shop so I purchased enough 108" wide backing fabric to complete 4 quilt tops. With 108" wide, I can get 4 quilts on the longarm with just 3 yards of fabric. What a bargain!

It didn't hurt that we're in a deep freeze here in Wisconsin so I wasn't going anywhere so I might as well get quiltinq!

What a fun adventure it was making all these. I'm sure these will become raffle quilts for events at our Legion Post or I will end up donating them to an individual as needed. 

I'm very happy to have given these old fabric bundles a new life.

The January Deep Freeze

Between the snow storms and the below zero temperatures, we knew we would be packing it in at home for a while. We loaded up on groceries before the weather came. I love the feeling of being home, safe, warm and secure. And it's so pretty after it snows. The backyard looks so serene. With temps around 8 below zero, I don't think we will be traipsing around on the patio for a while.

I'm planning on getting some charity quilts started this week. I'm going to take this fat quarter bundle of children's fabrics apart and cut a few quilt kits out of it. There's so many fat quarters that I think I should be able to get at least 3 quilt tops out of it. 

Jeff's favorite college football team, the Michigan Wolverines won the National Championship last night. He is so very excited that they finally won the whole thing! And here he is in his 1997 Championship t-shirt. I was happy to see it still fit - haha!