Tisket A Tasket

In January 2010, I collected the kit and fabric for Tisket A Tasket.  It was through a strip club program at the Back Door Quilt Shoppe.  The pattern is by Cozy Quilting of California.
I finally finished the quilt completely the beginning of May.

I tried thread painting a flower in the corner.

I do believe if I am going to spend time on thread painting something, I need to use brighter colors so the item actually shows up.
I did the piping binding on this quilt.  I did make it 1/8" larger so it was easier to work with.  The most visible part of the binding was cut 1 3/8".  The piping section was cut 1 5/8".

Around the World

We decided to do a block that could be won during a bingo game at a quilt retreat I went on in April.  We used the directions of Take A Scrappy Trip Around the World by Quiltville Custom Quilting.
This is the block I created for the exchange.

I ended up winning all of the blocks in the bingo game.  There were 13 blocks total in the caddy.

My block had white in it and it caused an anomoly in the quilt.  I pulled it out and created 4 more blocks to make the quilt square.  I am not loving it yet so I think I am going to make more blocks.
I cut up and inserted additional fabric into my orphan block.  Margaret at the retreat had a book that suggested this so I thought I would try it on the block that I had to pull.

This block is now quilted but it is not yet off the machine so I do not have a new picture.  I will post a new picture when I have the orphan block completed.

Arrows

There will be a new niece in my life around the beginning of June.  Trackside Quilting had a mystery quilt class off of the Murder by Vegetable book by Barbara Graham from Cody.  I selected pink colors and created this quilt for the new baby.

I put minkee on the back.  It is so soft!
I used the piping binding on it.  I think it worked great on this quilt since minkee was on the back.
I also tried a thread fusion heart in the corner of this quilt.

I don't think the quilting is dense enough to be considered thread fusion.  And there was not a big spot of positive and negative space.  But it was a bit of practice.

Hearts

I decided to make a little something for the fellers for Valentine's Day.  I used the extra 2 1/2" strips that I had left over from my Hawaiian quilt.  I used my fun stitches on my machine to quilt around the ditch.  Then I appliqued hearts in the corners.

The 4 hearts represent our family and it was the gift for Dale.

The dark blue heart was a representation for Keegan.

The teal heart was a representation for Dillon.

As usual, I was late finishing these items.  The tops and quilting was done by Valentine's Day.  I didn't finish hand sewing the binding on until the end of April though.  Shockingly, these items were finished within the year that they are supposed to be completed.

Thread Fusion

I am to give the demonstration for the longarm meeting for the month of May.  I watched the Thread Fusion 1 video by Jamie Wallen.  I thought I would try to do some of the thread fun from that video for my presentation.
This is my first practice piece:

It seems to me that thread fusion is an exercise in positive and negative space.  You make your design and then echo your design.  You can fill in at that level.  Or you can echo again and fill in that echo round.
I also have a lot of old jeans so I thought I could use those jean legs as part of my demo canvas.  I was concerned that I would have trouble machine quilting on denim and over the denim seams.  It was fine.  I think if there were 4 seams meeting in one spot, I would have trouble.  Two pieces of denim meeting together was fine to stitch over.
Here is the back of the practice piece:

I was just using leftover bobbins so the back is quite motley.  But it looks cool too.

Modern Block

The modern block I created for exchange for the month of April.

I get to present my block in May.  Now . . . I just need to come up with an idea.

Backings

I have been using up fabric that I no longer love by piecing the backs of some of my quilts.  I was quite proud of myself for using up so much fabric in one swoop.



Just look at all of the random pieces of fabric I got to use!

I realized the error of my ways when my sister flipped over my Hawaiian quilt and tried to look at the quilting.  She couldn't see the quilting because the back was so busy it was impossible to follow the thread line.
Although there is an issue with using up fabric on the back of quilts, I do believe I am going to continue to piece some of my backings.  I still have fabric to use!

FIB

A few years ago, I was doing a pile of community quilts and attempting to use up all of the polyester batting so I wouldn't have any more at my house.  Dale commented that he liked how fluffy the quilts were with the polyester batting.  So I made Dale a blocky quilt using scraps and parts of his old First Interstate Bank shirts.  I couldn't leave it too fluffy though - I ended up quilting it pretty close.

This quilt has been waiting to get the binding hand sewn onto it for quite a while.  It is really nice to have it done!
I finished this quilt in May 2013.  I have no idea when I started this quilt.