Storm at Sea Quilted

Judi over at Green Fairy Quilts just finished quilting my Storm at Sea quilt. You have to pop on over and check it out!

This is what the quilt looked like before it was quilted by Judi. My parent's 30th anniversary is at the end of the month, so I will be giving this to them for their anniversary to hang in the stairway of their beach house.

I'll post my own pictures when I get the quilt from Judi.  I can't wait to get it back from her and run my fingers all over the quilt.  (Am I the only one who loves to run my hands over a newly quilted quilt?  I love that feeling.)

BMQG Mini Quilt Challenge

For the BMQG special exhibit at the Lowell Quilt Festival, I helped arrange a mini quilt challenge for the show.  The guidelines were pretty simple, make a mini quilt, no more than 24" on any side in at least three colors of QuiltCon. 

I showed you my Dazzling Diamonds quilt over the past few weeks, but look at some of the other awesome quilts. Seriously?  The talent is amazing.

Here are some closeups of the awesome quilts!

This is Rebecca's quilt.  Her quilting on this is awesome.  I love the simplisity and her use of prints.  She used some of my favorites! 

This is Steph's mini quilt for the challenge.  I love how dramatic this quilt looks.  The scissor print binding is awesome too!

This is Karen's entry into the challenge.  I love spinning flying geese and this quilt is just awesome.  The quilting is simple to compliment the busy piecing.  Just awesome!

The awesome Alice made this mini quilt out of tiny tiny half square triangles.  We both bought the same bundle of solids for the challenge but our quilts look so different.  I really love how this came out, and the circular quilting adds some great movement to the quilt.

This mini quilt was made by Janis.  She sued some great print fabrics that go with the color scheme to make this awesomely funky mini.  I love the improvisational aspect of the quilt yet there's a decent amount of structure at the same time. 

This fun mini is Nancy's entry.  I love the way that she used just three colors - it makes such a great statement.  At first glance I think it looks like a fun forest with a bunch of colorful trees.  She also used some great prints in her quilt.

Finally, you have my entry.  It's funny seeing this one with all of the others.  My quilt looks so much darker than everyone's.  It just goes to show you how different people can interpret a challenge when given a set of colors to work with. I was the only one to not include white in my quilt.  I'm not sure if that's a good or bad thing, but it certainly stands out.

To help engage visitors to the show, we're asking everyone to vote on their favorite quilt of the seven.  Which one is your favorite?  It's a hard choice, I know.  They're all so different and unique in their own awesome way.

Dreaming in Color Quilt

Well, here it is in all its glory, my Dreaming in Color quilt!  I finished putting the binding and hanging sleeve on the quilt the night before it needed to be hanging for our special exhibit at the Lowell Quilt Festival.  If that's not cutting it close, I don't know what is?

I only had time to quilt the dark grey and not the octagons.  I did some dense quilting of straight lines and pebbles throughout the dark grey.  I might go back later and do some quilting in the octagons, but I'm not sure yet.  I had originally done a little quilting in one of the octagons, but hated how it looked, so I spent three hours taking it out.

Here's the back.  It's a print that I got at Marden's for $3.50 a yard.  I really love the print, and wanted to use something from my stash, so this is what I ended up using. 


It's hard to tell from these pictures, but the binding is a bunch of different colors.  I think it shows up best on the picture of the back of the quilt.  I really like how that compliments the scrappy nature of this quilt.

All in all, I'm really pleased with how this quilt came out and I can't wait to find a place to hang it at home.  I'll have to get some better pictures once I get the quilt back from the show. 

Today's the Day!

Today is the day the Lowell Quilt Festival kicks off and you can check out the special exhibit of the Boston Modern Quilt Guild at the Appleton Mills. Our exhibit is free to the public, but there is a small fee to attend other aspects of the fesitval.

I will have four quilts on display, two wall quilts and two mini quilts.

First is my "Colorful Abode" mini quilt.  This one is in great company with several fantastic mini quilts.  It always amazes me to see what people can do with small pieces of fabric.

Next is my "Moonlit Sky" quilt that was shown at the Lowell Quilt Festival last year in the main show exhibit and placed first in the Wall Quilt Pieced category.

Third is my "Dazzling Diamonds" quilt that is part of the Mini Quilt Challenge for the show.  I saw all of the quilts last night as I was adding my final quilt, and I have to say, all of the challenge quilts are absolutely amazing.  It's going to be a tough competition!  Seriously, I love all of the quilts shown.

Finally, I have my "Dreaming in Color" quilt that I literally put the final stitch in the binding and hanging sleeve the night before I needed to have this hanging, so I don't have a good picture yet of the completed quilt.  Well, completed for now.  All of the dark grey is quilted, which could really be enough, but I might go back and add some quilting to the octagons after the fact. 

So, if you're in the area, come on by this weekend.  You won't be disappointed. I guarantee it.

WIP Wednesday: More Machine Quilting

Now that my Dazzling Diamonds quilt is all finished, I'm rushing to finish my Octagonal Orb, or Dreaming in Color Quilt as I'm now calling it, in time for the quilt festival next month.   You can see the backing fabric here in this picture.  It's just something from my stash that I got at Marden's a while back for less than $4 a yard! 

The first step, and the most tedious, is to quilt all of the dark grey.  I'm about 1/2 way done with that part and then I need to move onto the octagons.  I'd say I'm about 1/4 of the way done with all of the quilting so far.  I need to just sit down for one whole day and bust it out. 

The octagons won't be quilted as densely, so they should go faster.

Here's a picture of the full quilt before it was basted and quilted.

Wish me luck in finishing the quilting!  I may need it.