I finally got my mother’s quilt all finished up!

To tell the story of this quilt again, it’s 100% fabric that my mother gave me.  She had slowly collected fabrics with cloud and water imagery and she wanted them all in one quilt. Along with the cloud and water fabric, she also had all of these solids and I knew I was going to lean heavily on them to make this a quilt that is my voice. I actually really love a challenge like this… I like being given certain confines that I have to design within – it forces some of the decisions. It’s a bit small for my bed here but it’s just the right size for my mother’s bed!

I wouldn’t have picked these fabrics myself, but I’m really happy with the end result. I really like the way the fabrics in the pieced strip go from dark, to light, to dark again and I think the fabrics are all featured well.

And I used more clouds for the binding…

Hope you all have a great weekend! I’m headed home to New Hampshire next week for a family visit. I can’t wait!! Summer in New England…there’s nothing better. Except the mosquitoes!

Lots of it in this quilt!

Plus a little gray and just a tiny bit of golden yellow. And I seem to be on a dense straight line quilting kick these days.

A friend from the LAMQG is adopting from Ethiopia and I made this quilt for Linus, her little baby boy!

Otherwise, did you see that Challenge 3 of Project Modern was announced? Check it out here!

It was so much fun taking part in the Kona Cotton challenge that Robert Kaufman was generous enough to sponsor for many many of the Modern Quilt Guilds.

Each group was allow to create their own rules for the challenge.  Here in LA, we were each given one charm pack in the dusty palette.  From there we were allowed to add one additional solid fabric in the quilt top, and one more for the binding.  Here’s the quilt I made.

The quilting is 100% inspired by this quilt.

This type of random piecing is so much fun for me to do.

And I used some scraps from the piecing in a bit of the binding.

There were so many amazing entries into the challenge. We had a lot of categories that the guild picked winners for but these are the two that tied for “best of show.”

Amazing, right?? So wonderful! And isn’t it funny how much they work together?? They both picked Ash as their background! You can see all of the quilts that were made by The LAMQG here.  And there’s also a flickr group for photos of all of the different guilds’ challenge quilts.

And here we all are showing off our quilts!

Oh and Jacquie’s talk? So so inspiring!

Everyone was so thrilled to get to know the woman behind the blog we’ve all been reading. She was open and warm and just an all around wonderful speaker. And the quilts! She brought many more than you’d imagine could fit in one suitcase and each one was more beautiful than the next. I heard rumors of a petition getting started to get her to move to LA…

I have been reading my friend Liz’s blog, Lady Harvatine, for a long time. It was one of the first I found when I started quilting. Thanks to the LA Modern Quilt Guild, we now know each other and are pals. She’s having a baby very soon, so of course I had to make her a quilt!

I’m a touch stripe obsessed these days…

I quilted double zig-zags in each blue and yellow strip (I didn’t use a double needle, just did one zig-zag then echo quilted it) and added the occasional pop of monochromatic fabric.

Oh and guys, did you see? There’s totally a dog in a teacup right there.

Hope 2011 is off to a good start for you!

I finished up the placemats that I made for the LAMQG holiday swap. Chris got them last night and she loved them!  She had asked for something for her kitchen with blues, neutrals and a vaguely beachy vibe.

They are so simple and quick to sew up.  I used linen for the background fabric, Konas Teal and Coal and the light blue is a Moda Crossweave.

Corners!

The simple dense straight line quilting makes them lie nice and flat.

I’ll post a little pattern for these later this week. They would make a great Christmas gift for a friend!

Yes!  A space quilt!  A while back, the designer for Etsy’s amazing space themed conference room got in touch.  Would I like to make a space quilt to be hung in the room?  Needless to say, this was a daunting task.  But I love a challenge so I took it on.

How to make a quilt that is a glimpse of “space” (as in outer space – this was not a theoretical space…it had to be outer space) yet also keep my aesthetic?  It was no easy task!

Think I managed ok?  Stars or spaceships?? It’s up to you!  I was thinking stars (you know – like streaking by ’cause you’re at warp speed, right??) but my husband though spaceships so I figured that’s part of the idea – interpret it as you’d like.

And white binding!  Not something I’ve otherwise done but I thought it worked well to frame the dark blues and blacks… I used a lot of Quilters Linen in this.  Thought that it was nice for add texture but not a patterned fabric.

There’s more photos of the finished conference room here!