Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Mini Swoon



My first Swoon quilt is mostly finished!

True Confession- The binding is not actually sewn on the back of the quilt in these pictures, it's just pinned.  You see, it was supposed to rain lots tonight, so I knew even if I had a chance to sew the binding on today, I wouldn't be able to get a good picture.

And between college son coming home from school for the summer, and just the usual craziness going on, I figured the time was right this morning to get a good picture.

This is as close as I've ever been to being totally done on a quilt before the Schnibble Parade so I'm happy about that.  Usually, I've just got the top done!     







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I was able to quilt it so quickly, because I was inspired by Debbie from A Quilter's Table

I read her post a few weeks ago when she explained how she did the quilting on her Mini Swoon.  At the time I didn't know I would be making a Mini Swoon, so the quilt pattern she had used didn't stick with me, but the quilting sure did.

I kept going back to it in my mind when I was thinking about how I would quilt my Mini Swoon.

Finally, when I went back to her post to reread it, I noticed she had done her cool straight line quilting on a Mini Swoon!

Since she was kind enough to share how she came up with her quilting design in her post that you can read here, I figured she wouldn't mind if I tried the same type of design. I used a thin metal yardstick to make my rectangles and my placement is not quite the same as Debbie's, but the look is the same.








I love the chevron - like pattern it creates!

I'd love to try this again and throw a few more zig zags in there!








And yes, I did say that this is my first Swoon project.  I just don't know why I didn't make one before!

Camille's Mini Swoon pattern is now one of my favorite blocks!  Soooo fun to make!









I went a little crazy and used some text fabric for the background, I believe it's from Sweetwater, and I used a few fat quarters that my sister gave me from the Atomic fabric line by Michael Miller.  I threw in the black solid from my stash.   








 On the back, I used the leftover fabrics from my blocks to create a pieced backing.  I used the remaining fabric to make the binding too.  I love it when things work out like that!

The parade on Sinta's blog and on Sherri's blog too, features Camille's patterns this month so be sure to stop by and visit Sinta and Sherri and see what everyone chose!  I hope you'll join us!




Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Label love



I love labels!

I don't consider a quilt done until it has a label.

That's not to say that they're aren't any quilts around here without labels......I'm not that good...... I just don't consider those quilts done yet. 

I label my quilts so I can remember when I made them........because sometimes I forget.

Well, maybe I label them so my friends and relatives will have information about my quilts many years down the road to preserve their history. 

That sounds better.  I'll go with that reason. 










Knowing that I'm always on the search for labels, my friend JoAnne from the The Patriotic Quilter was sweet enough to send me this amazing package of labels that she collected while attending a quilt show.

I was so thrilled to receive them!  Thank you so much JoAnne!!!

Then on top of that, she was sweet enough to text me recently and ask if I had any of the new Sweetwater labels in my collection, as she was in a quilt shop looking at a panel of them.

How sweet is that? So thoughtful of her!

It certainly brightened my day to know she thought of me.

Thanks again JoAnne!

Blog friends are amazing!

After I'm done writing this, I'm going to get finish up my mini Swoon for the parade next week.

What pattern are you making for the parade, if you're joining in this month? 

The month of April certainly got away from me. I can't believe this is my first April post. "Yikes!"

Next thing we know it'll be summer!