Holiday Cheer

I need some quilts white white backings to use to pin smaller quilts upon during the Big Sky Quilt Retreat in March.  This is something that usually goes against what I try to do with my backings - I try to use up orphan blocks and scraps on the back.

I started Holiday Cheer in April 2016 as part of the Strip Club I was teaching at Trackside Quilting in Laurel.  I finished the binding of Holiday Cheer in December.  If it does end up being one of the white backed quilts I use for Big Sky Quilt Retreat, I will have to add a hanging sleeve.

This is Holiday Cheer from Cozy Quilt Designs in El Cajon, California.

Since there is a dark and a light side, any log cabin setting could be used.

Bench Cover

As I was going through my boxes of UFOs attempting to come up with a longarm presentation, I came across a red, white, and blue bench cover that I had planned to give my mother-in-law, Connie D.  I even had the item quilted.  All it needed was the binding.
I took it out of the box and prepared the binding.  I did hand sew the binding on while watching TV with the boys.  Finally finished this December after Christmas.

Nice to have it done.

Brown Bag

I received my brown bag gift from Berta L.  It doesn't always happen that the person you make a gift for you, in turn, makes a gift for you.  But it happened that way this year.
I believe I received the better end of this exchange.
Berta L. hand embroidered 4 Quilting Friends scenes for a wallhanging she gave to me.  It is amazing!

Embroidery detail:

Amazing, right?!

Brown Bag

Berta L. gave me a bunch of different fabrics in her brown bag for me to create something for her at the Christmas meeting.  Much of the fabric in the bag was a cat panel.  The cat pictures were very small.
Initially, I thought about putting other blocks around the cat pictures.  It would be a more free form quilt.  I did that but it was so small.  The finished item would only have been 17" x 17".  I was not happy with that small size.
Next, I made 2 1/2" logs around the cat pictures.  That would have worked.
During a quilt retreat through Trackside Quilting in Laurel at Medicine Flower Lodge in Red Lodge, Sue H. told me to combine the two pieces I had created into one quilt.  So I did.

I didn't love the final result but it was bigger and that was the goal.
I did not get to stay to see Berta receive this quilt as a gift but Sue H. said that she was happy with it and the crowd at the guild meeting oooh'ed and aww'ed at the proper time.

Row by Row

These are the rows I received back from the 2016 Yellowstone Valley Quilt Guild Row by Row exchange.

I am supposed to have them put together and quilted for the February meeting of Yellowstone Valley Quilt Guild.  We can all hope that happens.

Diamond Party

Many years ago, I participated in the Strip Club through Back Door Quilt Shoppe in Billings, Montana.  I collected the background and strips at the October 2006 session.  This summer I quilted this quilt with freemotion Baptist fans so I could practice before quilting the Big Sky Quilt Retreat 2017 raffle quilt.  I finally machine sewed the binding on Diamond party in December so it was completely done!

I think I have a lot of strip club patterns started and not completed.  Maybe I will get back to those some time soon :-D

Diamond Party from Cozy Quilt Designs of El Cajon, California.
http://www.cozyquilt.com/Aspx/ProductDetails.aspx?productID=418

Row by Row

I participated in the Row by Row exchange through Yellowstone Valley Quilt Guild in 2016.  I created this row for Tamie F.

Before I created this row, I had been looking for cat patterns.  I created this first:

But then I thought this looked more like a center and not a row so I created the row already pictured.  I did send the center piece back to Tamie because it is created out of her fabric.  I also suspect that Tamie will be able to use the center because she stated in her paperwork that she had wanted to create a king size quilt.