Final Finish for 2014 - Heather Ross Briar Rose Quilt

This is my final finish for 2014.  My second "big" quilt.  It's 80" x 80".  I made it for my daughter's bed.  Up until Christmas Day, she was sleeping in a full sized bed, but it took me so long to finish this one, that she changed her mind and got twin bunk beds!

I bought a fat quarter set of Heather Ross' Briar Rose line as soon as it came out and I was looking for just the right pattern.  This is "Darling" by Freckled Whimsy.  I got everything at Fat Quarter Shop.

One of the things I love about the pattern is that is shows off the prints.  The blocks are big, so you can really see all of the cute detail. (Some close ups below)  My daughter chose some multi-colored Michael Miller Candy Dots for the binding.

My Aunt Tala did the quilting on this one too, as usual, it's spectacular.  It looks like there's hearts all over the quilt.

Close up the adorable strawberries and Aunt Tala's perfect quilting

 This yellow is one of the bolts I got for backings when our local Joann closed.  I got a bunch of DS Quilts bolts for $4/yard.

I just love the honeycomb print and the Candy Dot polka dot binding.

One of my goals for 2015 is to learn to take better pictures.  The prints are so adorable, and these pictures don't do them justice.

Four left clovers

I also finished a T-shirt quilt for my husband, and a lap quilt for my mother-in-law.  Do you think I have good pictures of either of those?

For 2015, my goals are a quilt a month, to use at least 75% of the fabric for every quilt from my stash (which is VERY doable) and to finish at least 2 more long standing UFOs.  Oh, and of course to blog about them all, with really good pictures.

Wish me luck!

Loft queen size quilt - finally finished, and I LOVE it

I bought the fabric for this quilt a year ago in February.  It was my first attempt at picking out all solids for a quilt.  Even with that, you can see a bit, that the grey is a marble and the light blue does have a tiny pattern on it.  The pattern is called "Loft" from Quilts Made Modern by Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr.    I chose the book because it had a lot of description about colors, and choosing colors, and how your choices effect the final overall look of the pattern.

Here it is, mid-July a year later.  I absolutely LOVE how it came out. It will be for our guest room and I am looking forward to someone using it!

"Loft" - my first "modern" quilt

My Aunt Tala did the quilting.  It came out AMAZING.  One of the goals for the quilt was for it not to look too "girly".  I love that the quilting matches the more modern style piecing.  Of course, if you look closely, you can see that my rows are not perfectly aligned, but overall, I'm very happy with how the alignment worked.  The rows were LONG and a few of them were hard to make line up well.

Quilting by Tala

The back I made from two of the bolts that I got when our local JoAnn moved to a new location and had super clearance prices if you took the whole bolt.  I only bought six, which I think showed tremendous restraint.

Here is a close-up of the two backing fabrics...both dots.  I love polka dots.

This quilt, although it took me well over a year to finish, has really inspired me to work more with solids.  Which do you prefer?  Solids or prints?

2014 Finish #2. Scrappy Trip Along - This one's only a year old!

All quilted and finally bound, this is my second finish for 2014 (it was actually done last weekend, so I'm counting this as two for January).

This is my scrappy trip along from last spring.  It was THE hot thing then, and I climbed right on the band wagon.  This year it's the economy block along...which I'm sure I'll be starting soon.  Red Pepper Quilts has a tutorial that I just love.  I just can't help myself.

Kate Spain "Central Park" fabric for the top

The binding is bright and cheerful, which is my go-go for 2014.  Go loud or go home.  It's called Beatnik Blur and it's an older Michael Miller fabric.  Lord knows where I got it.

I HEART this binding

And the backing is lime moon dots by Amy Butler.  This was the first fabric that I ever bought 5 yards of.  

MMMMM polka dots

My favorite part of this pattern is that by arranging the blocks differently you can get a diamond like I did, zig zags, chevrons...it's so versatile.  And if you look on either Pinterest or Flickr there's whole groups of Scrappy Trip Along examples.