Anyone out there good at Quilty Math?

Seriously it is not my strong point and I need some help. So my mom has asked me to make this Zig Zag Zig Quilt from Quilting Happiness (which I think is the best quilt book I've ever gotten!)

The problem is that she wants me to make it queen size and the measurements on this are 42" by 54".  so the question is, do I make it this size and then add on after I've learned how to make it so that it is queen size.

Or

If I double the size of the templates, will it double the quilt size to 84" by 108"???

Seriously, help! What would you do?? I did buy double the amounts of fabric required so hopefully whatever I do will work!

January Goal Completed - ALYOF

As my almost 2 yr old says all the time, "I DID IT". haha! It's my favorite when he does that.

My January goal  for A Lovely Year of Finishes was a small one, to finish my We Bee With It Bee Blocks.

Carol asked us to make improv blocks that contained white. I struggle with improv, but this is exactly why I love doing bees. It forces me to do things I wouldn't do for myself. And it's on such a small scale that it's manageable!

So these are my two finished blocks! I will be setting a more difficult challenge for myself next month. :) You can join in the "finishes" any month!

Late to the game...

Per usual, I'm late to the game on Instagram. Although I guess that's not really accurate. I joined 2 years ago and this was my first photo:

2 yrs later and that bump is now this little guy (who loves a selfie):

But anyway, I finally "get" instagram and I'm an addict. If you'd like to follow me, I'd love to follow you...

A little stocking finish

So I think this officially qualifies as my first finish for 2014!

The woman I made this quilt for contacted me and wanted a matching Christmas stocking for her sweet little girl.

I had this fun pattern in the Amanda Murphy book Modern Holiday. It went together very quickly (my daughter deemed it cool as I was putting the patchwork together!).  And the quilting was fun. Here's the back of the stocking, I duplicated the quilting from the front on the back even though there was no patchwork.

I hand embroidered the name with the same font as her quilt.

And of course hung it on our fireplace for photos! :)

Now this little cutie is ready to help a cute little one usher in her 2nd Christmas next December!

quilty finds outside the quilt shop

I had the rare pleasure of going to the library without the kids this weekend. So I decided to peruse the craft section and see what I could find. Now I've requested specific quilt books from the library before, but never just looked through their shelves. I found some fun gems!

Some of these books are from the 80's, but they are still totally inspiring! And one reminder that as much as things change they still stay the same is the first page of Patchwork Portfolio (from 1989):

If you can't read that is says, "We often hear a distinction made between "traditional" quiltmakers and "contemporary" quiltmakers"....  As soon as I saw that, I knew I had to check this book out! I've been flipping through these treasures all week and looking at the beautiful work. I would encourage you to see what you can find at your library too!!

And, as an enabler, I felt the need to share. If you have been wanting this Rowenta iron for a while (like I have) and keep waiting for it to go on sale at Joann's? Forget about it! It's at Bed Bath and Beyond for $39.99 ($10 cheaper than my Joanns) and don't forget those 20% off coupons!

Another nautical finish!

For my final finish of 2013 I have another Nautical baby quilt. Maybe nautical will be my thing?? I believe this is the 5th nautical quilt I've done!

My little sister has a friend having a baby boy and she asked me to remake this quilt that i had made for her daughter or this 2nd version I made on commission.  I really did not want to make the same quilt for the 3rd time so I started searching for another nautical quilt.

 I wasn't really finding anything so I adapted the "comin' down the tracks" quilt from the Cuddle Me Quick book.  The original looked like this:

I figure if I adapted the fabrics and changed the applique I could do it. I have an old Silhouette from my days scrapbooking and already had some nautical shapes. So I dusted it off and figured out how to cut fabric and here it is!!

 Thankfully there is an abundance of nautical fabrics right now. I couldn't decide between all of them! I think my favorite is this crabby fabric that I used on the back.

 You can really see the quilting in this next shot. I outlined the zig zags and then did some stippling in the border. I think it really accented the wavy/water fabric.

I had some extra burp cloths from a past client so I did up two little ones to go with this.

 I'm really thrilled with how it all came out. The applique was a lot of work, but I really love the results!!

 Quilt stats:

Quilt name: Nautical Applique

Pattern: comin' down the tracks

Fabrics: scrappy

Finished size: 34.5" x 40.5"

Finished: 12/28/13

2014 - getting back in gear!

2013 was a year of big transitions for me personally. It took a lot of my focus away from the quilting in my life. Thankfully I seem to be settling in to my new roles and schedule and getting back to quilting like I used to.

As part of that, I am going to join the Lovely Year of Finishes for 2014 to keep me going and focused! Want to join me? Here's the link with information.

I also couldn't resist starting another bee. I love getting and sending quilty packages. And Bee quilts have so much possibility. So I'm joining in with We Bee With It on Flickr. My first goal for the year of finishes is to get my two blocks done for this month!

Carol has asked for 2 improv blocks. Improv has always been a challenge for me so this will be a good start for me. But she's also letting us basically use the colors we want. So for this I'm pulling out my scrap bin and going from there!

Here's to a more quilty 2014!!