My AAQI quilt now for sale

You can own this quilt and help raise the money for AAQI

Made with 100% cotton, Machine pieced and hand quilted with 100% cotton thread.

Baby Quilt

Hope you all had a wonderful thanksgiving holiday with your family and friends. 

My husband's nephew and his wife are going to have a baby. We attended her traditional Indian baby shower over the thanksgiving break. I decided to make a quick baby quilt to go with her shower gift. 

 .

 I forgot to take pictures on the day of my plaid pantry party! 

Try saying that a few times!

Here is what I am working on.. 

I see my friends again this Wednesday and will be sure to take my camera with me.

'Friendship Garden'

 

I will post more pictures of this project as it evolves. 

Smiles!

 

Plaid Pantry

Some friedns are coming over tomorrow for a sew day. 

  

I am opening up my 'Plaid Pantry' to have some scrappy fun.

Stay tuned!

Simple squares!

Leftover scraps from past few projects find new place to be other than the storage containers.

Still trying to work away those scraps. Next up is another string quilt. What are your scraps up to these days?

Cattywampus

My basket was full of scraps!!

You know it's time to get sewing when the basket starts overflowing!
There's bits of fabric from very early quilts, even my first quilt! Scraps given to me by friends. The orange solid was the only fabric that was "new".
Some pieced combinations were tests for other projects that didn't quite make the cut but found a home in this quilt. I even used up scrappy threads! Half used bobbins of unusual colours, and almost finished reels.
Solids work well to break up the scrappy mish mash. A place for the eyes to rest, and to add depth.
The quilting is as scrappy as the quilt. I'm not very confident with my machine quilting so this was a good chance to get used to handling a quilt in the machine and play with different patterns.

The quilt ended up being 70 inches square and looks perfect hanging in our entrance hallway...

and in the trees and the bottom of our garden.

Cattywampus means cockeyed, messed up, out of whack, screwy. The perfect name for my latest quilt!

Cheers,

Rachaeldaisy

Blue Mountain Daisy

I am back!

I feel like I have neglected this blog and all of you for a long time..

I keep going back and forth about the true purpose of this blog and in reality, it is about the scrap quilts. Honestly, I have not made one since last time I posted a quilt. Now that I have something small to share, Here I am!

A block for Julie and her White coat project. She approached me a while ago to make a block for her coat. I thought I was on top of things and could send her a block in time.. I was so wrong!

I really don't know where the time flies but it sure gets away from my hands.

I also finished this quilt that was not as scrappy as some of my other quilts but I used all I had that was already cut and made it into a wedding gift. 

 

The back of this quilt was made with whatever yardage I had in my stash to match with the front. I machine quilted the quilt and washed it before I mailed it out for the newly weds.

   

'Heat Wave' was made also as a gift during the week when entire east coast was burning hot!

It represents lot more than the atmospheric heat wave!

I will just leave it to that!

I also finished 'Driftwood'

You can read all about the story behind this quilt here



Hopefully I will have more to share in the near future.
What are you working on?


Oh, I almost forgot!
 
Nilesh and I celebrated our 26th wedding anniversary this month!

Life is good!

Sujata's Basket

I spent the weekend hand-quilting this. I'm very pleased with the result. Sujata had sent the basket block, along with a scrap exchange last year.



I love using #8 perle cotton and a sashiko needle. Thank you, Sujata!!

blue strings.

Beginning with a stack of blocks.

Blue strings attached to a 9x9" paper foundation....

I made this quilt top.

It Still needs to be a bit bigger.

I haven't yet decided how it's going to grow...

But I will. ;)

Then I made this quilt top.

I have enough blue string blocks to make

ONE more quilt!!!!

These are being made for the graduating high school seniors

at my church.

We had a sewing day in January

and the ladies came and made string blocks.

It was a great project for beginning quilters!

All the seniors this year are boys!!!

Maybe I'll get to work on "cute" quilts next year! ;)



String Quilts

Strings.. 

I am having so much fun these days with them, I would like to invite you all to join the fun.

Come along with me and see how many different ways we can make string quilts. Here are few examples of what I have done with strings in the past..  

Work in Progress 2010

  

 Inspired by the quilts of Gee's Bend. 2009

 

My original design

"Home on the river front" 2002

  

A class sample for "Inspirations from Quilts of Gee's Bend" 2003

 

"Ferris wheel" 2010

Original pattern that used up most of my strings at the time!

 

 "Snow falling on Cedars" 2011

 

String Quilt 2005 

  

I guess I should call it, My library quilt!

Crater Lake 2005

Cranberry Sauce 2004

Original pattern by sandy Donabed

From the book, "A Colorful Journey" 

 Okay, can you tell that I love strings?

Have you made a string quilt?

Would you like to make one?

I am working on one right now and will post some pictures real soon!

If you have already made one or are working on one..

I would love to see your quilt!

Beth just made one! It is beautiful! Go check it out!

Scrappy Strings

24" X 38"

Don't know where this is going just yet. 

Lots of strings got made into a piece of fabric. 

A new quilt might be on the horizon. 

Slow progress in the sewing room.

My Sewing Room Was A Mess!

Sujata challenged us and I dumped out my scraps and went for it! The fabric was flying but I am happy with the resulting quilt.



Pink Valentine

 I only need to put the binding on and I have a Valentine for me! Sujata thanks for giving me this challenge. The only "problem" is now I have about 5 other quilts swirling around in my head!

A Scrap Challenge

Anyone?

I have been working on my scraps and think it is time to have our very first challenge..

Are you interested?

Here are the rules!

Must have scraps

A quilt no larger than 24" X 24"( So we have something to post at the end of the month)

And since it is February.. How about a quilt that has a message of "Love"

It can be as simple color red.. But more importantly something you LOVE..

Leave a comment.

Are you in?

Here is the progress on my cleaning.

I found lots of strings in my scrap bins.

Some I had been saving on purpose for other quilt and some that I was not aware I had! 

It was time to put them in a quilt top. 

I cut them on a slant and into Approximately nine inches long.

Made blocks that were Nine inches square. 

Approximately of course!

Divided them in half square triangles. 

I am getting good at eye balling the sizes.

And sewed them back again in to squares!

If you make this quilt, make sure the diagonal cut is reversed for half of the nine inch squares.

If you post it on your blog, please link it back to here!

As you can see, I have not squared them off. 

My brain is still whispering.. 

So I will wait until I hear it clearly!

 And here is the progress on my other Scrap quilt.

Hope you are having some fun with your basket of scraps.

Scrappy Play

I am definitely in the mood for cleaning. Today I decided to clean up more of my scraps. 

This is what I came up with.

Lots of little pieces sewed up in long strips with sparks of half square triangles and sticks laying here and there. It is going to be my Bee Block for 15 Minutes Bee.

Although, it is hardly a block you can sew up in 15 minutes, I learned a lot in the process. Can you imagine making an entire quilt using only bits and pieces? The larges size of a square or a rectangle is 3" long. The longest strip is 4" X 1.5". That would take forever to make a bed size quilt. 

Anna Williams and Rosie Lee Tompkins have done that. 

With my 15 minutes bee players, I will have one of these.. A bed size quilt!!! I am so excited!

 Maker unknown

From the book, Accidentally on Purpose by Eli Leon

I wish I had a better picture of this quilt. It is really difficult to take a picture of a glossy page of a book.

But, you get the picture!

Update on the weekend cleaning!

If my mama was here and I was 10 she would ask, "Is this what you call cleaning?"
I have made more mess in the room. But isn't it what happens every time you clean?
This is how my cleaning goes...
First, I loose something..
I decide to find that something..
While I am looking, I find some things I had forgotten..
I get very excited!
I loose track of what I was looking for because I thought of something new!
I think, I am on to something!

So, the cleaning can wait.. There are better things to do.. I call it Summer Dreams.. Hot and exciting, fun and fabulous! My super scrappy fun in some what organized way!

Queensland Blue

This is the result of taking part in Rainbow Scrap Challenge which started in January this year.  I didn't have a particular home in mind for this quilt until I started seeing all the tragic footage of the floods in Queensland and then it became obvious that the quilt should be named "Queensland Blue" (which is actually the name of a really popular pumpkin variety in OZ).  I knew I had to do something with the quilt to raise funds for the flood victims and then the Queensland Flood Appeal Auctions came about and that made things easy for me!  This used up so many scraps, ending up about 63" square.  I think I might have to make another one!

Happy Stitching,

Jan-Maree

A Tisket a Tasket

The border on the quilt called Blue Basket of Happiness is finished! I am happy with the way it turned out. Now the quilting begins...
I will take a better picture when it is quilted.
This was a lot of fun to make. Thanks Sujata for giving me that little push!

Did I say....

I could not focus?

That is exactly right!

I am still cleaning my sewing room.. 

Well....

Sort of...

For those of you who know my quilt Ferris Wheel ,
know how it all began..

You can check it out here

The new quilt is following it's path. 

The only difference, I am using the scraps from the Ferris Wheel to make this new quilt. 

The process began with the same intention.... 

Trying to CLEAN my sewing room. 

It is easy to get distracted or inspired! How ever you look at it. 

My sewing room is still a mess but a new quilt is evolving.

I had  leftovers from the wheel quilt and decided to sew them up first. 

I think I have a pretty good idea on what is coming next..

You must stay tuned. 

I am so excited!!!

Inspirations

Back in 2005 a nice lady had brought this to the shop. I don't remember her name or any other details but thought of sharing it today. 

What are you working on these days? 

I am cleaning my sewing room. Too much clutter and I can not focus. 

May be all the strings and scraps reminded me of this picture and there might be another string quilt on the horizon.