New Quilt Started-Pineapple Blossom

The pattern for this quilt is on Bonnie Hunter’s Quiltville blog--here:  http://quiltville.blogspot.com/2005/06/pineapple-blossom.html
I’ve admired this quilt for quite awhile and finally decided to jump in and make it.  I had this box of batik scraps from an applique project I started some time ago.

I’m making 24 blocks for the quilt and the box of scraps wasn't THAT big so I though I'd use them up with this quilt.  I even found a pile of 2-1/2” strips of batiks to use when the scraps were gone.  Well, I’ve finished cutting all the parts for the quilt (except borders) plus a nice little pile of leftover squares, strips and strings, and it looks like nothing is gone from the box. 

It’s always a little disheartening when I think about how much fabric is in my cupboards, bins and shelves and how little is gone when I make a quilt.  Oh, well.  Every little bit used is progress.

Last Minute Finish

Last fall I went down to Madison to the Quilt Expo.  My daughter Jen is in school in Madison so I picked her up and she went with me.  While we were there she decided she’d like a quilt for her bedroom at school.  She saw a pattern she liked and picked out a bunch of fat quarters.  I started the quilt but set it aside to work on commission quilts and just hadn’t had a chance to finish it. 
A couple of weeks ago Jim said he’d like to take a weekend trip to Springfield, IL to see the Lincoln Museum and we’d stop in Madison on Friday to take Jen to lunch.  This was the perfect deadline to finish the quilt.  I finished the blocks early in the week.

Then I sewed like crazy to get the top put together.  Our monthly sewing group met on Thursday so I got up really early and quilted it.  Thursday evening I started binding then finished it up just in time to leave on Friday morning. 
Jen was so excited to get it and it matched her room perfectly.  It was so worth the early morning to finish it.  She loved it!!

Pictures just don’t turn out well when I take them inside.  There’s no good place to get a shot of the whole thing and the lighting is poor.  Oh well, you get the idea.  This quilt was also made from the Lemon Pepper pattern (same as the Curious Nature quilt).  I just love that pattern.  It's so easy and the quilt looks way more complicated than it is.

Back to our regularly scheduled quilting

For the past month and a half or so I’ve been working on a commission quilt.  It is a queen size memory quilt and when it was all said and done it had about 150 pieces of memorabilia in it—everything from t-shirts to baseball caps to cushion cover to baby dresses.  It was quite a challenge but it’s finished and I’m ready to move onto a different project. There are many, many UFO’s I should work on but I really want to finish Buffalo Ridge from All-Time Favorites.  The monthly group I sew with will be meeting in a couple of weeks so it would be really nice to finish it.  I just checked previous posts and it looks like I started this quilt right around the first of December.  High time to get back to it!!  I finished all 80 sub-units, added large half-square triangles to the sides and have started piecing blocks. 
It’s so nice when all the pieces fit together nicely and the blocks just come together.  I’m about half finished with the blocks so maybe tomorrow I’ll finish them and be able to put the top together. 

I make a lots of quilts but scrappy quilts are still my favorites.  I just love how the colors and textures look together—so pretty!

Another Little Baby Quilt Finished

I just finished another little baby quilt for a shop sample.  It’s from the Villa Rose pattern “Sunsprite.”  It only took a little over an hour to piece.  Like many quick and easy patterns you really need to pick fun fabrics to make them work.  This one would work particularly well with larger prints.  It turned out pretty cute.  Both this one and the Eureka quilt I finished a few days ago will be donated to Quilts for Kids after hanging in the shop for awhile.