Sarah

I took advantage of a rainy 4th of July and finished quilting this monster:(rare shot of both lhasa apsos)
This was the largest quilt that I've stippled to date, about 65" x 94", and it went fairly well. I decided to add some curlicues in the quilting, just to make it a little more interesting. My cousin's favorite colour happens to be my least favorite: purple. I realized that I really didn't have much-- if any-- purple in my stash and subsequently the quilt, so I bought lavender polka dots for the back:
Here's a close up of the center stripe, which is my favorite part of the quilt:The binding is the same that I used for Maggie. I still need to attach it to the back, for both this quilt and Maggie's. The purple backing and the batting were the only purchases made especially for this, and there are over 150 different fabrics in the top.
This will be living with my cousin Sarah in Michigan. She's the oldest cousin on one side of my family, and after seeing our Grandpa Fred quilt, she wanted one. I was happy to oblige.

I'm happily surprised that this is my 10th finish of 2009. Also, looking back at the other nine, I realized that more often than not, I choose polka dots for the backs. I think I'll consider it a Park Ave. Sweat Shop signature.

Sarah-- in progress

Well, the nine-patch top is finally finished. I ran into a kind of funny/very annoying problem. I used most of the nine-patches I just received from the Twiddletails swap, which was cool, but as Anina warned in an email, some are probably smaller than they should be. I'm not one of those super anal quilters, and really didn't think it'd be a big deal. I happily interspersed the swap blocks with my own, sashing away. Then I was attaching the strips together, and had a major problem-- things weren't off by a half inch or so, they were off by, like, 5". Too big to ignore. So, I decided to lay them out a little more organically:(It started to rain right as I took the picture)
Notice some of the crazy three-patches on the ends? It's one of those happy accidents, where I'm pretty thrilled with the way it came out, as non-linear as it is. I even added the pieced border, like the original picture. Two things I really dislike: long strips of sashing, and complicated borders. This had both, and I'm thinking it's worth it, every once in a while. This has over 150 different fabrics in the top. The only thing I had to buy specifically for this was the white (Kona Premium, my very favorite).
I'm thinking this will probably call for a scappy binding and backing, just to keep with the spirit of it. This will be going to live with my cousin Sarah in Michigan. She discovered my blog and was appropriately impressed, so we decided she needed a quilt of her own.

nine-patch madness

This nine-patch quilt-to-be is for my cousin Sarah. Click on the picture to enlarge it:Here are my first 31 blocks-- all from my stash! I'm surprised, too, because I feel like I don't have too many pinks, but I guess this is proving me otherwise. It's going to be very feminine and cheerful with the white sashing.

Also, here's Allison's block for May:
This went so easily, I kind of want to make a quilt out of nothing but circles. That'll be my next one, for sure.