Music Man Quilt

I finished this quilt on Friday... just in time for my step-dad's birthday celebration. It is my 16th quilt of the year! I'm now at the point where I've lost count of how many quilts I've made, so I actually have to look back on my blog posts to see what number I'm at. Pretty sad, huh? Anyways, you can see other posts about this quilt here and here. My step-dad is a really cool guy, and he's an elementary school music teacher, as well as one of the music directors at church. So, it was quite necessary to go with a music theme for his quilt. :) I don't know the names of these fabric collections. They are just all different music fabrics that I found either online or at my local quilt shop. I love the piano keys, and I was happy to find the singing choir kids, as well as the kids playing instruments. I thought they were so cute!

I thought for a moment, "perhaps it is too cute" for my step-dad. But, I think he doesn't mind so much. My mom told me that he really wanted a quilt from me, so I think he would have been happy with almost anything. With the piano keys, it was easiest to do a simple strip design for this quilt. I pieced together 6" strips with 2.5" red strips.

There are also strips of pianos among the other strips in the quilt. My step-dad plays many instruments, but piano and voice are his fortes. I was planning on doing something different with the quilting, but after practicing it on my "practice quilt", I didn't feel confident enough to do it. Maybe one of these days I can figure out how to free-motion quilt some music notes and/or staffs. For now, I will just do my usual stipple.

Hmm... I can't seem to keep my back straight. My strip of music notes is a little wonky. I guess I just don't notice it until I see it like this. Anyone have any tips on how to keep my backs straight?

I realize I don't have a good pic of the binding. I was running quite short on time. We were actually taking pictures of this quilt just before we left for his party! I found a really cool black, white, and grey striped fabric for the binding, and it turned out great! Besides my wonky back, I'm pretty happy with how this quilt turned out. I think my step-dad likes it too. Now he won't have to "borrow" my mom's quilt. :)

Music Man Quilt

Blogger's Quilt Festival

Amy over at Amy's Creative Side is hosting Blogger's Quilt Festival again. Click on the button above to check out all the amazing quilts! :)

Here's my entry:

You may recognize this from an earlier post. This is the Garden Brick Wall quilt that I made for my sister. Her birthday was in July. She picked out the fabric after I showed her a few different collections. The fabric collection is Blush by Basic Grey for Moda. Pretty much, I saw this fabric and it reminded me of her. She loves the chocolate/pink and chocolate/blue color combinations. Then, I found out one of the specific fabric designs was called "Cherry Cordial", and I knew I/we had made a good choice! Cherry cordials are her favorite sweet treat! :) I wanted a simple design for this fabric, and I saw a pattern for a Garden Brick Wall quilt in my copy of Quilt Magazine, and thought it was perfect.

The original pattern was for a twin sized quilt and I didn't want it that big, so I made it a throw sized quilt. It measures approximately 54 inches by 65 inches.

I decided to use Kona Cotton in Coffee for the back with a little strip of bricks in the middle. It turns out I am human, and I've made quite a noticeable mistake on the back. My cute little strip of bricks is quite slanted. Oops! By the time I realized it, it was too late. :( I learned that even though I find a mistake extremely noticeable, the people receiving the quilt don't. So, I try my hardest not to worry too much over the little mistakes. If they are noticed, they only add to the charm of a homemade gift. :)

I used more "Cherry Cordial" in blue for the binding. Since I did a Garden Brick Wall design, I thought I'd try something different for the quilting. So, I decided to do a "climbing vine" design. I just connected little leaves in between squiggly lines to make my vines. The quilting was actually much faster than my usual meandering stipple design, and it was nice to know that I could do something new besides stipple. :)

Other than my mistake on the back, I was pretty pleased with the way this turned out. And, my sister loves it! Success! :)

I also want to thank my recent visitors on my last post for all your sweet comments about my grandpa. They really meant a lot to me and cheered me up during these difficult days.

Blogger's Quilt Festival

In Memory... and Challenge

In Memory of my Pampa...

My grandfather passed away peacefully on Friday. It was unexpected and happened very fast. He was a strong 92 year old, and I somehow expected him to live to be 104. I am glad that he was able to enjoy these quilts for a little while. Among many other memories, I will remember the nice things he said about my quilts, and how he was afraid someone would steal them. It will always put a smile on my face.

I am happy that he is reunited with my grandma, who never had a chance to meet her great-grandchildren. I know that he will tell her all about them. Love you, Pampa. We'll miss you.

My challenge this week, was a challenge in more ways than one. On Wednesday, we returned from a week-long family vacation in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. We like to think of it as our home away from home. My mom and grandpa picked us up from the airport. I am glad we had one last time to see him. Thursday, I was still in vacation mode and unmotivated to do anything, although I did finish a quilt back. I have so much to do and I am beginning to feel very overwhelmed. Friday just made my motivation even worse. But, on Sunday I decided, I better just get back to work and maybe stop thinking so much about "life". With Amy's gentle push, I challenged myself to finish a quilt back and possibly baste a quilt, and I did. Yay.

My "Music Man" quilt is finally basted and ready for quilting. I originally had something else in mind for the back, but when I finished it, I was very unhappy with it. So, instead of getting overly frustrated with the entire quilt, I decided to start over on the back. I'm glad I did. I'm much happier with it now. I need to finish this quilt no later than the 29th, so I feel like I'm cutting it kinda close. But, I think I can do it. I am hoping to try something different with the quilting on this one, so stay tuned for more pics.

In Memory... and Challenge

Sorry, I've been away...

...spent the last week enjoying some of this...

...a little of this...

...and finally putting this beach quilt where it belongs! :)

I will post more crafty things soon!

Sorry, I've been away...

Finished another quilt top...

...and chickened out. Here's what I had planned to do:

Pretty cool, huh? Well, this design calls for cutting and sewing triangles, and while it is pretty easy to piece, I was nervous that the triangles weren't going to match up perfectly. So, my fear of triangles overcame me and my cowardly decision was to keep my blocks square.

Here's how it ended up:

It is basically the same design as my last finished quilt top, but the blocks are bigger. I love the red, black and white, and I'm hoping the recipient of this quilt will like it too! :)

Besides many other projects, I currently have 7 quilts in progress, and am hoping to finish them all by Christmas or earlier. Yikes! So, if I'm not on here as much, its probably because I'm frantically sewing... or I've been buried under a massive pile of fabric! :)

Finished another quilt top...