You guys! This awesome quilt is a 'mystery' quilt! Let me tell you about it. It's totally fun! :)  I signed up for a "mystery class" at My Girlfriends Quilt Shoppe.   A Mystery Quilt class goes like this: they tell you what materials you need and how to cut it up, but you have no idea what the quilt is going to look like.  When you get to the class you are given a slip of paper telling you what to do for the first step.  Then when you finish that step, you get a new slip of paper with the next step on it. And so on.  You don't know what the quilt is going to look like until it's finished. The mystery really keeps you moving at a fast pace. In addition to all that fun, there are lots of freebies handed out and yummy food to eat.  Boy, it would be so fun to do one of these classes with you girls! Someday... :)

Not to toot my own horn or anything...but I really love the colors I picked out.

The purple especially.

I gave this quilt to Cambria for her birthday!

I really love the word fabric I used.  It has "New York City" words on it, where Cambria was born, and other lovely words like "love" and "joy".

I got the backing for really cheap at the Quilt-in-a-Day website.  I probably would have gone for a different background that matched better, but for the price & quality of the fabric, I settled for this one.

 Mary Christensen at the Shop did the quilting and she also was the instructor for this class.  I love how you can see the quilting really well here, Mary is so talented.  You can see the words "love" and "joy" in the fabric in this picture as well.

Isn't it lovely?

                       I'm falling behind on my journaling. =)

These two easy quilts I made for my two younger brothers; James & Andrew. 

They are the bachelors in my family. 

But beyond their marital status; they are awesome men who are great with my kids. 

Which makes them stars!  

Who could use some extra love. 

And I do adore them. 

So making some cozy, snug warmth that they can

hunker down under on the dark, cold, windy nights. Ensuing wonderful feelings and thoughts that come when one feels loved, safe and happy. 

It's just right.

I have to tell about my sweet Damon. He is so wonderful in numerous ways I can not begain to say.
I love that he will quilt with me!

This year while on the annual shop hop he saw a flag quilt he liked and decided to make one like it.

Damon's talent astounds me. He pays such great attention to detail and accuracy. (I lack in this department. Big time.)

 This took him about a week to make.

 I love the stars he quilted in. He used the walking foot to make the stars on the borders and the darning foot for the loops and strars on the blue section. Then he stiched in the ditch for the red and white strips.

I love this man! He is the best in the world!

I made this quilt for my niece for a birthday present.  I found the purple fabric, Pumpkin Pie by Henry Glass, at a quilt shop that was going out of business a few years ago here in Logan.  I am really quite fond of purple, and this amazing fabric was just so beautiful! I was smitten. So I bought the whole bolt. At 80% off what else could I do?  Astounding deals don't happen every day.  

The picture is very busy, and with the whole name it doesn't look great, but in person it is cute.  

I used a deferent grunge fabric for each of the letters; I love grunge so much!  

Damon and I quilted this together; it's one of the last ones we did since we started our break from quilting at the shop.

In this close up, you can see that the fabric really is so pretty!  I used it for the backing too.

In the end, this quilt was really inexpensive because of the bargain on the Pumpkin Pie fabric! And very easy because all I did was put her name on it.  It's nice to make a simple quilt every now and then--it rejuvinates the soul and replinishes my love for the craft. 

Man! I miss you guys!

  I made this Chevron quilt for Damon's friends who just had their first baby.  They live in Pittsburgh and are Steeler's fans, so I wanted it to be black and yellow.  

  I picked out 1930's reprints for the black and yellow, and used thangles to make the design--it was very simple!  

  Unfortunately, I used grey thread to sew it together, and didn't realize that when it was all done you'd be able to see the grey thread through the white fabric, causing it to look dingy. It was so disheartening too since I had it custom quilted.   

For the inspiration for the quilting, I found this on pinterest.  I was really in love with it.  The quilting that my quilter did wasn't exactly like this, but she did a really good job!

For the backing I just used the remander of the yellow and black fabric.

The name of the quilt is actually 1930s Chevron, but this was the first tag that I made a little mistake on (it accidentally said 1980s Chevron on this tag!)

Love you two!

This quilt right here is a quilt for one of Damon's pals that lives in upstate New York.  I named it "chocolate flowers.'   Damon actually did most of the work on this. He picked out the colors and pattern, he cut the squares, and sewed them into rows.

I sewed the rows together and did the boarders.  The binding I initially attempted a decorative machine stitch again, but it was a disaster and I hated it.  I tried to pick it out, but the intricate machine stitches were so small that I couldn't get it out.  So in desperation I decided to undo a bit of the binding that hadn't been stitched on, cut into it, and just put a new binding over the old binding stretch that had the machine stitching on it.

I was going to hand-stitch the binding on after that, but Damon wanted to machine sew it on in a straight line so he did.  I have been completely and utterly converted back to hand-stitching the binding on after this experience!

The backing.

Close up of the brown and pink grunge.  I love the way the pink thread used in the quilting drifts in and out of being visible on this quilt from the brown areas and then onto the pink & patterned areas of the quilt.

I can't wait to show you my next quilt! It's a chevron, with 1930's and I had it custom quilted!

How I wish you were here so I could show you my latest quilt! Think of the fun! 
We'd sit around a treat-filled table and drink herbal tea. Nothing seems to right the world like a cup of piping-hot peppermint tea. We would laugh and talk and laugh some more. I'd be so happy for the time to spend with two of my favorite people in the whole world!

Sounds nice.

I made this quilt for a dear friend who shared the same nanny job as me in New York. The family I nannied for was just as rude and unkind to her as they were to me. Maybe even worse. I believe this is one of the many reasons we are friends. When you go through something traumatic it really bonds you to the person who goes through it with you.

My friend, Amanda, adopted a sweet little girl almost a month ago. I had this quilt ready to go for her then. But Damon and I decided that we are taking a quilting break. So I had the quilt shop quilt it for me, nd it took them three weeks! It almost killed me! I'm not sure if Damon and I will ever quilt again. Right now the cost is about the same to have the shop do it and it's just easier. We don't have to find babysitters which is big. My mom and dad would always come when I asked them to (they are very reliable), but the drive is really hard on them and they are just sick a lot. And even though they will come when they feel crappy, I can see how hard it is for them to help when they are here.

I neglected to take some snapshots of the finished quilt. This is all I have right now. Once Amanda receives her quilt I will ask her to send me some photos and I will post them.

I call this my Strawberry Shortcake quilt. It reminds me so much of that little strawberry girl. But man, it's a busy quilt. I'm not so sure how much I like it. I think I should have put in more solids.

 Now, get ready for the really happy part...for the binding I used a dark green Moda Grunge! 

I must tell you something about grunge fabric. I LOVE it. I need it. Whenever I see grunge, I buy it. A yard every time. I'd love to have every color in the Basic Grey collection. It's so versatile. It looks great with everything. Love grunge forever!  

So on the binding-- I machine sewed it on instead of hand-sewing using a decorative flower stitch. I did this because of time constraints and also I just don't think my hand-stitching is that good. I was really pleased with the outcome. There were clear mistakes but I think the decorative stitch I used helped it look okay. 

I can't wait to hear how Amanda likes it. 

In other news...We are going to New Mexico again this year. Yippee! I love family trips. 

What fun do you have planned this summer?

P.S. Amanda sent the photos!