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.

Grandma Ginny

Yikes, two posts in two days-- and of two completed quilts!
This is the completed wonky/maverick star quilt that I made for my Grandmother-in-law, Ginny. I got a little worried about my youthful colour choices, but as my husband said, "She doesn't need to be reminded that she's old." She's very sweet and very tiny-- so this is a sweet and tiny quilt.
(Cassidy likes it, obviously)
I decided to only use the yellow roses for the centers, and if I would've planned it a little better I probably would've fussy cut something more graphic. The borders are 2.5" squares out of a few different fat quarters I had around here. The border is my favorite part-- Michael Miller Dumb Dot. Sometimes I think there's merit in the old school quilt philosophy of a dark binding (at least, that's always the advice I get-- and usually ignore-- at my local quilt shop)The back has 3 of my leftover stars, some Heather Ross stripes, and some aqua fabric from JoAnn Fabrics that I can't seem to get rid of. I stippled it in pale pink thread, partly for interest but really so I could see where I was going.
Also, word on the street is that I'm getting a NEW CAMERA for CHANUKKAH. Expect better pictures coming to the Sweat Shop soon!

George

I finished this one a while ago, but I gave it to the recipient as soon as it came out of the dryer, meaning I didn't get a picture (click on it to see the full quilt).
Here's one he took for me:
All scraps, and based on this quilt. I stippled it in white, and my favorite part of the quilt is a part you can barely see-- faux bois as binding! The back is red and aqua.
George is a dear friend of mine, who is dating another really good friend. He had a really rough autumn, and I tried to help in my small way.
All I need to add to the Liverpool are the button holes (which I have to do by hand-- gah), and I started another scrap quilt. Pictures of both soon!

Mr. and Mrs. K

Two Nicoles, one post.
The first Nicole is my brother's girlfriend. I decided to make her a tote bag for the upcoming holiday season out of some of my favorite fabric:The pattern is the Flourish Tote. The instructions were clear, it probably took me a total of 2.5- 3 hours, and I'm happy with the construction. I wouldn't recommend it as a first bag pattern for anyone, as there were some slightly advanced things like curved corners and sewing through so many layers. The only thing I need to add is some gray grosgrain ribbon going through the loops in the top. I used quilt batting instead of fusible fleece, and decided with all the heaviness not to put the darts in the bottom corners. Here's a shot of the inside, showing the six pockets (more Heather Ross stripes and dots):
The second Nicole is a friend of my husband's from law school, and she recently got married. Since she's a good friend, and warrants more than a blender, I made this for her and her new husband:
Click to enlarge-- also, it's really sunny outside here today!
All of these fabrics came from my stash except for the gray kona (I think it's called Charcoal). I took my original inspiration from Alissa's Sparks Baby Quilt but quickly deviated. Each of my center squares are 4", and I fussy cut birds:Then I added a rectangular border around each bird, and alternated the direction of the rectangles (vertical, like the one above, and horizontal). For the horizontal blocks, I added 2.5" of the gray to either the top or the bottom (half of each) and then sashed the blocks. The outer border is 6" on the top and bottom, and 3" wide on either side. I quilted 1/4" around each seam. I love the back, too:
(It's windy-- ignore my shoe at the bottom!)
I used the rest of my bird fabric (IKEA-- and the same fabric I used for my bedroom curtains) and more Lotus. Here's a closeup of the quilting, from the back:

I can't wait to put this in the mail and send it off to NYC! It feels so good to finish something, especially two things that make me proud.

Aden

I give just about all of my quilts away, and looking back at the 2009 list of recipients so far, I see a number of happy occasions: new babies, weddings, birthdays, just because, housewarming. Then, there are those that I make and give to hopefully comfort and help heal. I both love and hate making the second kind. I feel like those quilts could become a little more special to the person it's going to, but I hate making them because I know those people are in pain, and making them a quilt is about all I can do.

This little quilt is for a two-year-old named Aden. He was in a horrible car accident last week, and managed to break a leg and his skull (among other injuries). His aunt works with my husband, and as soon as I heard about the accident and his long hospital stay, I knew I wanted to make him a quilt. Here it is:And here's the back:I don't know why, but Swiss dot never photographs well.
This is the smallest quilt I've made this year, which I felt was important since it'll be in the hospital with the little boy. I quilted it in straight lines with my favorite yellow thread. This was put together very quickly from my stash-- there are fabrics from a lot of the quilts I've made this year, with the addition of some very cute cowboy fabric that I've held on to forever. I'm going to handstitch the binding tonight and wash it. Hopefully Aden will get it tomorrow.

crayon roll

As I mentioned, my friend Rebecca has a daughter turning two in August. I don't know too many two-year-olds, but I remember seeing a lot of crayon rolls around the holidays here in Blogland. I looked at a few of them, and with my $0.25 box of Crayolas, went to work. Here's what I came up with:Rebecca carries a purse the size of a golfbag, so I know this will fit no problem. The surprise is how looooooong it is:That's a 24-box.
I tried my hardest to match all of the colours of crayons to scrap fabric, and I think I did an OK job. The red is some linen I had in my stash that is unfortunately not quilt-friendly, and the back is some of my favorite Alexander Henry. Amazingly, the crayons were the only thing purchased for this. I had fun arranging the crayons and finding little scraps. Each piece is about 2x6". I trimmed them down to about 2x5 after sewing all of the colours together.
I hope they both like it!

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.

Baby M

I definitely took my time starting and stopping with this one, but here it is:
I've sewn the binding on one side already. I also decided to try a new-to-me technique for the binding. Typically, I do the French-fold binding, but decided to shake things up and try flat binding. I think I like the flat binding better, because I usually get annoyed at my iron when I try to get each side to line up with the center fold. I'll see how it looks after I wash it, but so far so good. This is the easiest explanation I've found regarding French vs. flat binding. Thoughts?

Anyway, this is inspired by Fanciful Flowers in Material Obsession. I made it smaller, and since I ran out of the brown fabric for the corner pieces (click to enlarge), I didn't continue those little squares into the border. This was my first time with raw-edge applique, and there are some missteps, but I'm overall pretty happy with this. I stippled it. I feel like I never get to play with pink, so this was fun. All of the fabric came from my stash, too. The center of each non-applique block is from Farmer's Market, and there's a little bit of everything in there. I'd like to maybe make a quilt entirely out of the pieced blocks. The blocks are huge (about 18" square).

Here's the back:The pale pink has a white polka dot, and the fun flowered fabric was a Hobby Lobby bargain.

Baby M hasn't yet been born, so I'm going to hold onto it until she is (to confirm it's really a girl). Baby M is the second child of a good college friend of mine, who I don't get to see very often. I wasn't quilting when her oldest was born, so I think I might have to make one for her, too.
Someday, when I have babies, I hope to have a daughter if for no other reason than to sew for her. I don't know many crafters who prefer to sew for boys.

nothing but scraps

Here is what I've been up to lately-- more quilting for men. These are my blocks for the "Nothing but Scraps" challenge. Everyone has a different idea of what constitutes a scrap vs. stash. I say it's a scrap if it's smaller than a fat quarter, and something that has previously been cut by me. I have a hard time throwing away any piece of fabric, no matter how tiny or odd the shape may be, and I have all of these scraps loosely arranged by colour, in those three-drawer plastic rolling containers. It works well for me, especially because they fit under my sewing machine and cutting tables. Even the white for this quilt came from my scrap collection. Here are my 15 blocks. I did some free piecing and then trimmed the blocks to 12.5" square, then added 2.5" white borders. I'm not crazy about long pieces of sashing, and so this is my way around that (this time).Here are some of the blocks laid out on my living room floor, not yet sewn together. I'm not sure what I'll use for the backing. If I'm to stay true to the Nothing but Scraps spirit, I'd sew together my batting scraps for the middle and some of my bigger pieces for the back. We'll see. My 84-year-old grandfather recently fell on the ice and broke a few ribs, so he's recovering at an assisted-living facility (which he hates, naturally). I'm going to surprise him with this quilt. I figured it's bright and colourful, and will hopefully raise his spirits, at least a little bit. My family and culture really doesn't have any sort of a quilting tradition, which is good for me because that means that my family continues to be amused/amazed.

Update: Max got his quilt in the mail, and he was impressed. He called the cheater print a "macho border". He's anxious to use it on his couch-- before, he said, he'd get cold and put on a hooded sweatshirt and smush his feet under his basset hound. The quilt is a much better option.

top secret

I'm making a quilt for a very good friend of mine, who may or may not read this. Since I'm trying to keep it a secret, I'll just show you the fabric I picked out:Also, I've been working on a variation of a stacked coin quilt for my brother, Max. Here's what I have so far, laid out in my upstairs hallway:
It's not nearly as wonky as it looks in this picture. There are 60 different fabrics, with each one repeated once. The sashing is the same khaki Kona that I show in the top picture. I bought a ton of it on sale about a year ago, and it's been sitting around, taking up precious space.

Quilting and creating for boys is a lot more difficult than quilting for women. I enjoy the challenge. It's a good thing to stretch myself, and to stay away from the overly girly prints (those will all go together in another scrappy quilt, maybe for myself). I hope these two guys like their quilts!