Katie

Katie is a woman I work with, who is going through a pretty rough time. So I decided to make her a quilt.This was my own design, and I'm very happy with it. It was laid out prior to sewing into long strips, to make sure all of the little plus signs lined up. I used a lot of my pink and orange scraps, a colour combination that's been pulling me these days. The brown is kona cotton, and I put a 5" wide orange polka dotted border around it all, to pull it all together. I quilted it in random (non-drawn) lines in pink thread. Here's the back:I had made those string blocks about a year and a half ago, and it was part of a quilt that never quite materialized. The pink has a tiny white polka dot, and I put a strip of white on either side of the string blocks.
I'm very pleased with how this turned out. The most time consuming part was getting all of those plus signs where I wanted them, and knowing that I couldn't really change things or add on once I started sewing.
This quilt will be a complete surprise for Katie-- I just hope it brings her comfort and warmth.

finally, a quilt for me

With a little bit of time off for the holidays, I got a lot of sewing accomplished. Here's the only quilt I started in 2009 that's definitely going to reside at the Sweat Shop:(Click to enlarge)
I love it, especially with the border. I quilted it in straight lines, in green thread, 1/4 of an inch outside each seam going one direction. I know that sounds confusing... so here's the back, with Cassidy:
I used green Kona cotton, I think the colour is celery (or at least, that's what I'm calling it).
One of the most thoughtful presents I got for my birthday was from Nicole, and she picked out 4 different yards of quilting cotton that are all very compatible with my stash, yet nothing I already had. I already used one of those fabrics for the binding in this quilt (and a second quilt-- pictures tomorrow). My brother-in-laws got me a pair of Gingher scissors, and I'm in love with them. They cut extra batting and fabric off of this quilt like it was no big deal.

fuzzy math

Here's the nearly finished quilt top, all for me:I'm going to add a big polka dotted border around it, but am still deciding on the width of it. All of the orange sashing and cornerstones are 3" before being sewn. That's about double the width of the block borders (all cut to 1 3/4"). Using this crude math, I think it'd look pleasing if I make the border double the sashing, or 6". I'm really very pleased with this; selfish quilting is fun! I'm still trying to decide on the backing, and also the quilting. Especially the quilting, and even the thread colour. Normally I quilt in the colour of the sashing, but I'm afraid the orange might be too vivid on the blocks (plus, the orange is really made of magenta and yellow warp and weft).
Here it is again, in the sun on my front yard:

Maggie

This is my finished product for the Old Red Barn Co. Quiltalong:The binding still needs to be attached to the back. It's a white Swiss dot on a celery background. Since it's going to a little girl, I decided to have some fun with the back:
There are a few puckers and that stripe of leftovers isn't quite straight-- but I'm going to let those things go. The back got a little skewed because I tried something new for the quilting: straight lines, about a quarter of an inch from each seam. I continued it across the vertical sections of the quilt, too, so the lines are only going horizontally. I used pale pink thread, which was a nice change as well. Here's a closeup of the quilting (click to enlarge):
Overall, I'm pretty happy with it. This was a really fast quilt and I appreciated not having to think too much. If I was going to do it again, I probably would've made it scrappier than just twelve different fabrics. This quilt, along with the Baby M, will be shipped to Nebraska. Luckily, Baby M isn't due until August, so I'm nicely ahead here.
Now, back to those blasted nine patches...

curtains

I'm almost embarrassed to show these because these were so easy to put together. The cafe cutain clips are surprisingly strong and very, very easy to use. Originally, I was going to put grommets in the fabric and weave the rod in and out of the grommets, but I couldn't find a grommet puncher that made big enough holes. This project took me about thirty minutes, start to finish. This is the one window at the top of the stairs, and it was looking very ugly with the mini blinds that came with the house. Now, here's my pretty curtain rod and my new IKEA curtains:The curtain rod came from JoAnn Fabrics, and with a 50% off coupon, was cheaper than anything else I'd seen.Here's the view of the upstairs. Yes, that's a work-in-progress on the banister. I always use it to lay out my quilts, and to help with the basting process. One last picture, this time with the curtains open:I feel like the house is starting to (finally) come together, though the pictures make it look like I should paint the upstairs. Now I think I might use some of my latest IKEA stash to make a curtain for the back door off of the kitchen...