Seaside Belle Wave

I started this beautiful Belle Wave quilt last month. The pattern came from Faith of Fresh Lemons Quilts and was easy to follow.  I started with this set of fabric that I had picked in my color class.  My feeling was soothing:

 Reminds me of the beach.  I was short a green and blue fabric when I made this fabric pull.  After my last shopping trip I was able to find the fabric I needed to make this quilt.

I am also trying to learn how to use curves in photoshop to make my pictures look better.  I can say that I don't have that mastered yet!  But I did take my pictures in the shade next to the light outside today.  This helped a lot in my starting point for editing the photos.

First try was in the shade facing the sun.  Great at showing the quilting, but the color is wrong.

Then I switched sides and shot with the sun behind me.

I edited this photo 2 times trying to get the nice soft colors to show.  I think the first one is better, but the blues aren't quite right.  I found lots of tutorials on editing photos of people, but need to find one without people.  Anyone know of a good one?

The closeup of the quilting turned out the be the best colorwise. I used a new pantograph called Curlz. Kinda reminds me of the waves so it seemed fitting for my soothing beach quilt.

The back is long strips of fabric from the front.

Thanks for stopping by.  Hope you enjoyed it!

Around the World Rag Quilt

About a week or two ago my oldest daughter came in and said, "Mom, we need to make another rainbow scrappy quilt."  Huh?  What?  Are you serious?!  Is this the same 14 year old who doesn't like to sew or quilt?  Yes it is!  We had bought this flannel a month ago because we were at a sale and she liked it, but I always thought I would be the one sewing it.  We pulled the rainbow scraps for a quilt (I'm still working on that one as it has 2.5 inch squares) and then I got out this flannel and she said, "If you cut it, I will sew it."  I was floored and excited.  I told my husband that when your non sewing daughter wants to make a quilt with you, you drop everything and go do it! 

All I did was cut the flannel and the batting.  She quilted the blocks with an X, sewed it together and cut all the edges.  I offered to help her, but I think she wanted to do it all by herself.  And if that wasn't enough, there was enough fabric to make 2  lap quilts.  The other one is almost done.  She's making that one too! What a blessing to do something with my daughter that I love to do.  We had to off center it because of how many pieces of each color we had available.  But it came out perfect when we did the layout of the second quilt.  Here's her beautiful quilt!

T-Shirt Quilt a Different Way!

So I am getting a little tired of making t-shirt quilts this way.  They are too long and it's hard to pick fabric that isn't matching one of the squares!

So here's the new way!  We cut some of the shirts shorter, went with a thin sashing and added a colorful border.  The size is so much better and the blocks aren't so matchy-matchy.  

Had to show my cute quilt holder: 

And his lovely wanna be assistant! 

My Lucky Square Quilt

This is my version of the Lucky Square Quilt.  You can find the pattern here.   I went digging through my scraps and found some colors that I thought went together. I picked blues, greens, reds, and yellows that were no so bright and added in some turquoise that was a little brighter.  Then I came back and added some brighter reds to perk it up a bit.  

After picking my fabrics, I cut them into 2.5 inch squares, sorted them into blocks so that the colors would be spread out somewhat randomly amoungst the blocks.  I sewed the blocks together and laid them out on the design wall.  Then I could decide which color square should go in the sashing.  

Measure out all the remaining white pieces, sew your rows together, and your top is done!  Mine is smaller that the original pattern, 5x6 blocks.

A Quilt and Some Pillows

This is the second t-shirt quilt for the Children's Church.  I'm not sure about the green that I chose, but the kids like it.  I tried several colors in my stash, but I don't have a lot of kid friendly prints.  The back is a zig zag flannel with red, orange, green and teal on a white background.  I difinitely like the back! Sorry there's no picture.

There are so many shirts that the church has left over from camp and things that I couldn't possibly use them all.  So we took these white ones (which were ugly shirts in my oppinion) and turned them into cute pillows!

These white ones are going to be given away at camp with a colored sharpie as a "signing" pillow.  The campers can have their cabinmates sign the pillow as a keepsake from camp.

The process is quite simple.  After I cut off the top and sides of the shirt,  I used the 14.5 inch template that I have been using for the quilt blocks and drew a square around the design with disappearing ink.  Then I pinned and sewed about 1/2 inch inside the line leaving a hole at the bottom of the shirt for stuffing.  

We trimmed the top and sides with pinking shears on the ink line.  My daughter stuffed the pillows and I sewed them closed.  Finally, we cut the bottom with the pinking shears and it was done!

Here are a couple pillows we made for the Children Church store.  The kids earn tickets by learning verses and get to spend them at the store.  The "R" pillow stands for Revolution Youth. and the purple pillow below came from a young ladies retreat called "Her Virtue".   

So if you have old, or new, t-shirts laying around but you don't have enough for a quilt, you can always turn them into a pillow for a wonderful keepsake!