Quilts of Christmas Past.

Here lie my first ever quilts. The beginning of all the madness that is really my pride and joy.

This one I made for my Sister, Esther. You might notice that the top row of pinwheels have a white border-ish around them.

That's because I awesomely made them too small.

Something I'm notorious for doing.

This is the backing of the above quilt. I love this fabric! I snatched it up on my very first shop hop here in Utah.

 This quilt was my first Block of the month quilt. It was only a dollar a month for each new block. I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to really learn how to quilt. But whoa-boy! This quilt almost shut me down! If it wasn't for Jaclyn coming to visit me and taking the time and love to show me some simple, necessary steps, then I wouldn't have moved forward.

 Tumbler quilt that I made for Cambria.

 This quilt is made out of Cambria's baby clothes. It was this desire to put her baby cloths into a memorable qult that got this whole thing started. And once again it was Jaclyn who showed me the ropes. She would work with me step by step. Until one day I thought I knew what the next step was and went ahead and finished the top on my own. And because of that, missing that vital, simple step (of matching seams up). It made quilting so incredibly difficult and discouraging. 

Moral of the story--never skip ahead of your instructor.

And lastly, Ian's quilt. I worked on this while I was prego with Bradley.  It was a hard pregnancy, but produced a beautiful quilt! And a beautiful boy. :)

That's it! Now all of my quilts, all that I've ever made, have been recorded on this blog.

 One more quilt before year's end. With a little help from one of my handsome helpers.

This one is for my dear nephew, William. My first nephew and the first McNeal grandchild.

Damon and I quilted this one together. I think I'm going to try and quilt more. I saved my quilting receipts from My Girlfriend's Quilt Shoppe from last December 'til November to track how much I'm spending on this fine service. And it turns it's kinda a lot. It would be nice if I could buy a sophisticated quilting machine that would allow me to do some fancy leg work.

 So far I've liked the challenge of doing it on my regular machine.

If I had more time; I would have liked to have done a lot more quilting on this quilt.

But time was of the essence.

My favorite was these lattice squares. 

Lovely; yes?

All the blocks that are of the same colors have the same quilted design.

Pieced binding again. Love doing it this way!

And to end...Bradley came out to me with his hair like this. He got it mostly this tall on his own, then I helped the rest of the way. And it's only water that's keeping it up. Love it!

The Colton to Braden Quilt

Here before your eyes is my second mystery quilt! She's a beauty! 

Expect for she's a he. 

This is a boy quilt. I know you know.

This lovely thing turned out super and 

is currently keeping my young 

nephew warm.

Job well done, quilt.

This quilt has been in the works for an awfully long time now. 

My sister, Esther, planned a quilt for her boy, Braden. She bought all the fabric she needed and took it to her home. There, she sometimes worked on it but not really. Then shortly after she found out Tanner had SMA she worried she'd never work on it again.

So I took all her fabric and quickly turned it into a disappearing nine patch. Though, I just didn't think this nephew would love it. So instead I found these colossal fabrics at my favorite quilt shop and put them to work.

It tuned out terrific and am 100% in love with mystery quilts!

They are the way to go!

The whole way--for sure.

I hope to do another one in March!

Again, I pieced my backing. Did I tell you that I'm not allowed to buy fabric of any kind until the next Shop Hop? 

No??? 

Well, let me tell you.... yes. 

No fabric 'til June. It was last July when the binding contract was put into place.

This is all true and a little bit dismal.

But it hasn't been completely lousy. I've been grateful for this confinement and find that it is actually liberating in a way. This repression encourages me to actually sew more and to look for enhanced ways to use up my scraps.

*Looking for the good in all things*

(Photo below is a close up of the middle panel above)

Damon photo bombed me.

Good thing he's got a pretty fine face or 

he'd be in trouble. :)

For the binding I tried something that I've never tried before.

I pieced it with different, but all red, fabrics. 

Just using up those scraps again.

The name of the quilt is "The Colton to Braden Quilt".

Colton desperately wanted his name on this quilt. Braden and him are the same age and best friends. 

So...it was a perfect name for this quilt!

It's Time Out for Women this week! I'm so happy! Happiness is just falling from all over the place. :) There is nothing quite like it. I must say I consider this weekend to be one of the funnest weekends of the whole year. Though I wish you could come with, I do hope you girls get to have a time out wherever you may be. =)

In other news, I made this quilt:

I really love it! Out of all the quilts I have ever made...

this one takes the cake! 

Seriously my favorite one ever.

Cambria even helped me on this one. I used thangles to make the pinwheels and she sewed the green thangles together.

Since all that involves is sewing on printed straight lines it was perfect for her to do.  Plus, she reached into her personal quilting stash and found the perfect border for the quilt!

I made this quilt for a dear friend's daughter.

She is a very talented artist who started her first year of

college this fall.

I wanted to give it to her before she left for college, and I even had it all ready to be quilted before she left.

A whole month before, to be exact.

But it just took a long time to be quilted.

That's fine.

I get it.
So now I have it ready for this week which turns out to be her 
birthday week. Yay!

I did a blanket stitch for the binding.

Every time I machine stitch a binding, I hate it.  I always say I'll never machine stitch another binding on, but then like a moth to a light bulb I always go back to it.

The back.

I named this quilt

"To Thine Own Self Be True"

I thought it was the perfect name.

Today my neighbor told me that she killed two of her chickens. 
Not just any chickens, but chickens I was quite found of. These two black chickens were best friends with 'my' chicken, Chicken Big (who actually is my other neighbor's chicken, but she lives at my house(the chicken. not the neighbor)). 

I must tell you that I am sad. My heart hurts. 
I loved watching the flock run together. They were pals they keeped each other company. 

I think my chicken misses her friends.

Anyway. For Enrichment we had a service auction where I offered to make a boy or girl baby quilt. The gal who won my offer wanted a boy quilt. And let me tell you--I was going to make this splendid & wonderful quilt. I designed it right away and was so excited. 

But then I cut the fabric out wrong.

And ended up having to make a patchquilt. And see that red border? 

I hate it. 
I couldn't decide what color to go with and went with red. Uck.

And while I'm at it... I don't like the outer border either.

And I'm not too fond of the backing.

So there you go.

I do like the name that I gave the quilt: Little Bunny Foo Foo.

Even though I don't like this quilt so much; I must dedicate it to my chicken's lost friends.

Rest in peace chickies-- as chickens should.

So anyone having chicken for dinner? =)

Hello Ladies!

 Here are the photos of the the family quilt that I promised! Tell me what you think!

Damon's aunt a while ago asked me to make a family history quilt. Saying that then the quilt would be raffled off at the next Brimhall reunion. I liked the idea but in the end decided to just give it to Damon's mom and her siblings to share.

 This quilt took a long time to make.  I spent hours and hours surfing the internet alone just looking for the perfect blocks to use in this quilt.

I had help from Damon on what to put in it and he assisted in putting it together as well. His mom helped with information and I used ideas from a family history book his aunt gave us.

Paper piecing was the main technique that I used with touches of traditional piecing through out.

The majority of the quotes came from Lori Holt's Family Reunion quilt pattern.

Damon's Grandma was known for her pies! Damon has made this strawberry pie for me and it is 

heaven in your mouth!  

His grandma also played the ukulele.

This is something his grandma would always say.

His grandma always cleaned her dishes with Joy dish soap and bathed with bars of Zest soap. It was said that she lived how she cleaned.

I had Esther make this family tree on her PhotoShop program that she has and then she sent it into Spoonflower and I ordered it.  I actually ordered it about three or four times for various reasons (we all know that means I goofed up that many times so I had no choice).

This flying geese panel Damon made and did awesome! I had made one like it first and some how, after it was all sewn up, I squared it up wrong. I was so devastated that Damon came to the rescue as he always does.

This quote I threw in there from off of Pinterest.

Damon's Grandpa played the Saxophone and he would always say this:

"I get a lot of requests but I play anyway."

Also, Mary, the gal who quilted my quilt, put a musical note right above the Sax.

Love it!

Damon has some Native American history in his family tree.  Damon's grandpa grew up in a family that ran trading posts at various locations in Northwest New Mexico. Anyway there is a Native American rug that is in the family and this block is supposed to be identical to a part of that rug.

This block is called Grandmother's Flowers. It is by Charise Creates. I love Charise and this is not the first pattern of hers that I use in this quilt.  Yes. There's more.

This is the second. It is called Vintage block Light and Shadow.

I really love this one and have made a whole stack of them to make a lovely quilt of my very own!

And just so you know--it's a paper pieced pattern.

I know you'll sleep better knowing that.

And thirdly, it was Charise who designed the grandparents house for me. 

So along the way of working on this quilt I would have dreams of things that I felt that I needed to put in the quilt. For instances this block: Damon's Grandpa was not an official barber but would always cut his grandkids hair. And from what I understand they didn't like it. At least Damon didn't.

I dreamed about the back ground color of this block and that there should be a bird in it.

Also, this is what Damon's granddad would always say.

This is a wall hanging that was found in the grandparents home.

This was either a dream or a prompting to put into the quilt. Damon's grandpa was a butcher.

I paid someone $50 to make this paper pieced pattern for me. It was one expensive pattern.

The label on back. =)

For the backing I pieced a lot of left over fabric from the quilt top, but not all of it. Oh no. I have more. Lots more. I bought so much fabric for this thing, it's sad. 

It looks like I neglected to get a close up of the knitting needles (and the jam too,-- I'll have to add them in next time I see the quilt). Damon's grandma knew how to knit and made afghans for her grandchildren.

If you can't read any of the quotes let me know and I'll translate them for you. :)