My First Quilt

My first quilt has been locked in a closet for the last couple of years…THANK God.  It’s terrible, the fabric shrank, it’s off, just an overall mess.  Thanks to my parents for loving it no matter my critiques.

I made this the Fall/Winter of 2000.  I was home from my freshmen year at IU for Thanksgiving and thought this would be a great gift for my parents.  I took my Gma to Wal-Mart with me to buy the fabric.  There was no pattern in mind, just wanted to make something.  Found some blues that would work for my parents room and started cutting.  No rotary cutter and ruler, just scissors and a 3″ square cut out from poster board.

To keep the quilt a secret from my parents I had to leave everything at my gmas.  Let’s just say I spent a lot time over there during that break.  On Christmas Eve I was to the point that I needed to bring the quilt top and sewing machine into my parents house to finish sewing.  Of course no one wanted to go to bed that night.  They all stayed up to watch a Christmas Movie until 11pm.  I gave up and took a nap and slept until they went to bed.

I ran outside, grabbed the machine, and set up my machine.  The quilt was finished around 3am, only because I ran out of binding.  It’s tacked with embroidery floss and not at every block.  It shrank after the first wash.  My parents were so happy with their gift.  They actually used the quilt on their bed for a few years.  Now it’s retired to a closet since they have updated their room.

 

Thanks Mom for busting it out for my feature.

A little something for myself

I was in love with Studio E’s Etching fabrics that were out earlier this year.  I wanted to create pillowcases to add some color to our neutral bedroom.  Lots of brown and tan in there.  Blue is color hubby and I can agree on.  You might remember my Vintage Modern post from earlier about looking for fabrics that would go well in our room.  There is still lots of design work to be done in there, but we are focusing on other locations in the house right now…the basement.

Here are the completed pillowcases:

So far we have had two nights of sweet dreams on them.  Hubby commented that maybe he should leave more often since I did these while he was on a camping trip.