Lauren's crazy quilt / friendship quilt

Now I finally finished it and gave it to her tonight so I'm excited.
I used all sorts of scraps and cut up extra fat quarters specifically for the quilt. It has a lot of halloween prints, because as we all know Lauren's obsession with Halloween even surpasses Charlie's and mine. I added some silk for a traditional crazy quilt touch as well as some pink wool. 
I used Halloween wine charms, took apart a witch themed charm bracelet and got some halloween themed buttons to but on the quilt for some extra flair. There is a big lady Frankenstein iron on and a little Frankenstein wine charm next to it/ Of course Lady Frankenstein was necessary, since this is Lauren's Blog. If you don't know her go check out her blog which has loads and loads on fun and free patterns available for every one and all.
Now I will stop my late night ramblings and let the pictures speak for themselves. 

Christmas

So now I can finally upload pictures of the pillows I made my cousin and her fiancé for Christmas. And here are two out of three. I forgot to take a picture of the last one, but it was kind of unique anyway.

And here is some detail on how I did the back.

Here are also some close up pictures of the two parter quilts I made my family. The cream colored one (on the bottom) is for my parents, the brown one is for my older sister and her boyfriend.

Christmas is around the corner

Now I know how all of Santa's slaves, er, hem, cough I mean elves, feel. I have been sewing like a mad woman. I scrambled like crazy to get the two quilts done in time for thanksgiving. And then I thought I could finally relax and sew just for fun, but then I got my older sisters BQ2 quilttop minus the borders assembled so fast that it actually seems remotely possible to finish it in time to get mailed to Germany. So of course the pressure is on!

Here is the quilttop sans borders:

I have also made my cousin and her fiancé Christmas gifts, but more details and pictures will have to wait a week until after we've visited with them and exchanged gifts. :)

So long for now. One more hour till I can go home and put my border on the quilt.

Too busy to blog

I have been sewing like a mad woman, and so have slacked off blogging. I started a dinosaur quilt for our nephews second birthday, which is right around thanksgiving, but due to my confusion with inches I didn't realize how enormous it is until I assembled the quilt top.
I was a quarter through crosshatching it until I realized I'd never finish that and a quilt for Charlie's little brother before we left for Bend. So I decided to put away the dinosaurs (pictures will follow when I finish it) and started on a little flannel blanket for our nephew Carl. I made up the pattern as I went. I used alternative blue blocks with star motifs, sashed with pale yellow and curlycues, I used the same fabric as the sashing in pale blue for the backing. The only non-flannel piece was the black center piece with stars, suns and moons.

Charlie's little brother is super into hunting and fishing. The last trip before this one we spent a LOT of time watching fishing shows!
So I used a panel of hunting and fishing cartoon pictures and matching fishing fabrics with brown pladish sashing.

And here are are some close up pictures of the panels:

There isn't an app for that ..... At least that I could find

I am notoriously bad at drawing, you've all seen my drawings!?! And math isn't my strong suit either... Sigh!
The more I get into quilting the more I also want to design a quilt for myself that is uniquely me. But where to start?
I've also been given the task to make a block with a specific theme and I find myself at a complete loss for how to start. I need something to help me get started. Something that will help me visualize an end product. Most importantly something that can draw the right sized triangle for me. I'd like to be able to maneuver the individual pieces around and see what they'd look like in different constellations. Now, I decided to look for an app that could do that for me. No such luck!
Well, after I complained to Lauren about it she informed me there are websites where you can create your own blocks. But wouldn't it be nice of they had an app for that? Now that's an app I'd actually pay money for. That way you could take it with you to the store on a convenient tablet or even your phone. You could check what it would look like with different colors, and most importantly it would help me survive my German classes. ;)
Well, these are just my late night ramblings in anticipation to going on the sew Oregon adventure with the Laurens.

Yay, I got started again!

Yay, today I felt well enough to actually quilt. (And yes I went to school first.) I managed to piece the backing, sandwich the quilt and baste it. Whoot! And I even managed to stitch in the ditch around each of the blocks and then start stitching the individual rectangles in the ditch. Maybe after my friend Emily leaves I might do a little bit more. :) I'm so excited to finally finish this quilt. Yay to one Christmas present being done soon! :) then I need to bind it.
But yaaaaay to finish basting it, I absolutely HATE basting quilts, I suck at it and always get it a bit wrinkled.

Brandy's Quilt

I met Brandy over facebook, because she added me since I was Charlie's girlfriend and they had met playing Everquest, we then became close friends and talk all the time. I made a silly post on facebook saying I needed more fabric which to my surprise spurred action in Brandy. She told me she was going to get me some fabric and mail it to me. I expected her to maybe send me a couple of fat quarters, but no, I received a humongous box full of fabric, batting and backing fabric, enough to make a king sized quilt.

I agonized over what to make with it, and didn't want to just make myself a quilt. Brandy mentioned making something for a charity. I love that idea and have big plans for charity quilts, but I decided I would make her a lap quilt to cuddle up under while she relaxed on the couch, or to wrap around her when she had to pull all nighters for school.

I supplemented the fabric with some of my own pieces, and some that I received from Debbi P. who has also been incredible generous with fabric.

The fabric I got from Brandy really made me step out of my comfort zone as it was all cool colors and I have a tendency to work with bright colors. I ended up having enough to make myself a partner quilt, which I am still putting borders on, pictures of that one will follow.

But for now, here are the pictures of Brandy's quilt. I didn't want to post them until I knew she had received them. I made it as a surprise, and you have no idea how hard that was!!!

The ducky pillow

So this is the ducky pillow I made for Charlie's niece earlier this week, but I didn't want to post pictures of it until I gave it to them. As it turns out they all loved it. *Happy* I'm glad I got it right!
So here are the pictures:

And here is my first crazy attempt and free motion quilting on the back XD. But funnily enough that was one of the first things I got compliments on for :)