13) Hand dyed Improv log cabins

 I made this quilt after I ordered a pack of hand dyed scraps from Cherrywood fabric. If you are curious about hand dyed fabric, but don't want to make you own, try their fabric it is amazing. And for $22.50 you can't go wrong.

 I wanted to use them all! All of the little pieces in one quilt. So I made these funny log cabin quilt blocks. I put my rotary cutter aside and just used my scissors instead. I wanted it to be wonky, but not too crazy.

 I used a 200 thread count muslin as the background. The quilting is very simple organic black lines.

 A couple of the fabric scraps are from an Aboriginal women's camp down the road from Alice Springs. I loved the marbling that they put in their fabric.

And I singed this quilt instead of making a label for it. And I stitched on the binding with big chunky red hand stitches.

11) my 11th quilt

 This is probably the most used quilt in our house. It rides around in the van and gets involved in all sorts of adventures. It looks pretty complicated, doesn't it?

 Well, it isn't. It is a "cheater quilt". Denyse Schmidt' collection Country Fair had a print named Patchwork Promenade. So I just quilted it up!

 Country fair was printed on a more heavy weight cotton, so this is a very durable quilt. Sometimes I throw it on the ground and use it as a rug. Wild, huh?

The back is a tea dyed muslin. I quilted it with my swirly meandering. This one also has really thick cotton batting from Quilters Dream. It is the Deluxe loft.

10) My 10th quilt - Heather Ross House Top

 All 3 of my kiddos have a Heather Ross fabric quilt. This is actually the second one I made. The first one was all in these awesome pinks with all her little girl prints. It was for my daughter. I could not find the quilt while I was taking all these pictures, but you can see it here. Anyway, for this one I choose a bunch of the more male prints and made a big Housetop pattern. It came together so fast! I saw this quilt in a magazine somewhere...It may have been Blueprint. Back when that was an awesome magazine.

 So, this is another quilt for Ethan. I quilted it with a pretty variegated blue cotton thread.

 It is quilted with my swirly meandering I love so much. Kinda my signature.

 This is another quilt with a great back. It is a yard and a half of the beach print with stripes on the top and the bottom.

Don't those people look like they are having a great time at the beach?

8) My 8th quilt - Norberta the Green Dragon

 So when I made this quilt we were living in Alice Springs, Australia. While we were traveling to Australia, our family was loaded down with bags and suitcases. We were each alloted 2 bags apiece. Well, I packed wisely and squished all my clothing into one bag (which was quite a trick since we were moving from a frigid winter complete with ice storms and howling winds to the blazing red center of the Australian Outback) so I could also bring a sewing machine with me. I was terrified of our tiny shipment getting lost or sinking to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean and I would be stuck in Australia for 3 years without being able to sew.

 So this quilt was one of the first quilts I made while in Oz. I was reading Joelle Hoverson's book Last minute quilted and patchwork gifts and one of the final projects was listed in the 24 hour gift catagory. Really? That massive quilt could be done in 24 hours? Well I gave it a try. My husband was pulling a really long shift at work, so I spent the same time quilting. And this quilt did indeed take me 24 hours to make. From start to finish. From cutting the fabric to stitching on the binding. It was a marathon and I did not eat or sleep, but I did have a massive quilt at the end of the day. I was quite pleased with myself.

 I used a green batik that I had yards and yards of and I used some of my very favorite (still to this day) fabric by Amy Butler from her earliest fabric collections (Ginger Bliss and Temple flowers)

 It is quilted with scallops in a lavender cotton thread. I thought it made the quilt look like it had dragon scales. I was reading Harry Potter to the kids and Norbert the Dragon was in the tale, so I named my quilt after him...who turned out to be a her so my quilt is named Norberta.

I also decided that the quilt didn't have enough interest, so I added big white circles with little pops of color. I love this quilt. It is the biggest quilt I have ever made for myself.

6) my sixth quilt

 This is the other quilt I made to sell at the Ft Hood Christmas Bazaar. It did not sell...but that isfine. We love it. It is another log cabin that I made really quickly.

 I used more BDU from a uniform to sash the blocks with. I love a log cabin quilt. They are so fast when you are strip piecing.

The outside boarder was a nursery rhyme toile. I would tuck the kids in bed and tell them some of the nursery rhymes. It is a good quilt.

3) My thrid quilt

 So, this was my third quilt. It is another log cabin. I had just discovered how much I loved Amy Butler. Who knew there were "fabric designers"? I drove all the way to Temple, TX to buy this fabric. There was the greatest fabric shop in the old governors mansion. I mixed Amy Butlers lovely Charm collection with some other strange sorta solids.

 I got all wild on the quilting of this quilt. I made a giant spiral twirling out from the center. I fianlly broke from using hand quilting thread in my sewing machine to a pretty shiny green poly. I was not a purest yet...I just liked the color.

I made this quilt for my youngest son, Sam. I had the top finished before he was born, but didn't quilt it until he was a couple weeks old.

2) my second quilt

 This was my second quilt. I made this one before I knew how to do strip piecing. I cut each piece individually and had all these little stacks of quilt parts all over my dining room table. But it was very organized. My husband was still deployed to Iraq, so I had lots of time in the evenings after I put my really young children to bed. I have never been much of a TV watcher, so quilting suited me fine.

 The blue is from a linen dress I wore while I was pregnant with my first 2 children and the green and white stripe was from a set of sheets I bought my husband when he was stationed in Italy and I was finishing up college. I had gone to visit him over one of the breaks and noticed that while he had a bed, he slept in his sleeping bag on top of the bed. Very strange and barbaric. So I went to the PX and bought him a sheet set. He said that he was too busy at work to stop by the PX before they closed each day. Hence the use of the sleeping bag that they issued him upon arrival.

 I am getting a little better at the quilting, but I am still using hand quilting thread in my sewing machine...I liked the shade of blue.

I still really love the back I choose for this quilt. It is named French Fox. And it has all these wonderful Animals dressed up and going about their day in town. One is even being arrested. I made this quilt for my baby boy Ethan. I think he was about 8 months old.