You gotta' start somewhere!

I have wanted to have a blog for quite some time.  Somehow I always felt like I wanted it to be done without the gittin' it done side of things.  Last week Steve and I went to Indiana for a week of his woodworking classes.  I took my sewing machine and a pieced and sandwiched quilt which I need to have done for the Minnesota Quilt Show (drop off is June 11th).  On the long drive out and back I kept thinking about what a poor job we do of documenting our respective projects and decided it was time to get started.

 April 25th, 2010

So the first quilt I am going to document is the quilt that I am making for the neighbors who watch our dog(s) when we are out of town.  Mary & Jerry have taken care of the zoo (Beaux, Dottie, Bullseye, Dude and Mocha) on many occasions over the years.  Every year I planned to make them a quilt for Christmas and just didn't get around to it until October - now that is thinking ahead.  This year, in February, I asked Mary to go out with me and pick out her fabric color and style.  

Mary choose a fairly traditional color pallet based on the Moda Vine Creek line.  Mary  really likes the quilts I make with a dark or black background.  I decided to use the Glad Creations pattern "Just Around the Corner" to complement the traditional fabric style and play off of the light/dark contracts in the background.

I was already committed to make this quilt for Christmas 2010 when my co-workers at Glad's decided that we should all enter a quilt in the June 2010 show using a Glad Creations pattern.  Suddenly my time-line was significantly shortened.  By the end of April I had the quilt top pieced and was planning the back and quilting designs.  Because the quilt was a little narrow for a queen sized bed, I added a Vine Creek border section to the left and right sides of the quilt.  

I decided that a black based backing fabric and a Hobbs Heirloom black batt would be best for this quilt.  Getting it pinned before I left for Indiana last week was a little challenging as was getting the stabilization lines quilted on small tables in a hotel room.  I am in the process now of completing the free motion quilting and should be putting on the binding by the end of the week.


Once the quilting is done and I have the sleeve on for the Minnesota quilt show (drop off day is just 10 days away!) I will take additional photos for the blog.


Now I will need to look backwards to what has already been done this year and then try to work through some of my archive quilts to at least get them documented.