My quilting's been on hiatus for a while since I finished the neutral quilt and the purple quilt. No idea why. I just found myself doing more knitting, that's all. But the itch has resurfaced and it's time to get quilting again. I've still got five finished quilt tops ready for quilting (including son S's rocket quilt from last year) and, coming up, two exciting new projects.

First, a yellow quilt for B, who loves everything yellow, including, it turns out, yellow fabrics. He was recently subjected to a full hour of shopping in the fabric store with me and managed to overcome his near-fatal boredom the minute I told him I would make him a quilt if he'd help me pick out fabrics. We put together this lovely collection of yellow prints - his favorites are the coins and the flags - and I've chosen the perfectly named Yellow Brick Road pattern for his quilt. The pattern has a fun scrappy look that I hope will work well with the mix of prints we've chosen.

The poor boy was trapped in the quilt shop for so long with me because I was searching for 40 fat quarters to make the so-called 40 fat quarter quilt, a class offered by my local quilt shop (you can see a sample of the quilt in the background of this shop photo).

And these are my 40 fat quarters: the full set of Anna Maria Horner's Good Folks collection, a dozen or so fabrics from her Garden Party collection, and some Kaffe Fassetts thrown in for good measure. I love Anna Maria Horner's fabrics and am so excited to have found a project in which I can use ALL of them! And I'm definitely keeping this quilt for myself. As long as hubby approves, it'll be going in our room on the bed.

Quilting on!

After washing and pressing almost 60 fat quarters, I have cut the first strips for B's yellow brick road quilt and my 40 fat quarters quilt.

Six strips from each of the 40 fat quarters - that's 240 strips of fabric! Then four strips from each of B's 20 fat quarters - 80 strips that I've already started to piece together into subunits for the blocks.

B says he likes them so far! And I'm spending the day in quilt class with mine... yum!

I spent Saturday in quilt class, working on my 40 fat quarters quilt. We cut our 40 fat quarters into six strips, then picked up one set of strips, combining and sewing them together into subunits. Naturally, we cut the subunits into six strips.

labels are the key to avoiding quilting chaos

Each set of these strips was sewn together to make a super long strip and then the six super long strips were sewn together to make one panel. (One of six panels, of course.)

click to see the whole panel!

The six strips that make up the panel are all the same as they are assembled, but right before they are sewn together, the top squares are off-set so the diagonal occurs. I love seeing the pattern in one fabric change as it travels across and down the panel!

One down. Five more to go.

This unending rain is getting depressing, so today I'll try to brighten things up by presenting to you twelve super-long strips ready to become two more panels of my forty fat quarter quilt.

click to see more!

Here's hoping for more colorful days to come...

Fourth of July weekend is always special for me since it's my birthday. And this weekend it was even more special because it was a BIG birthday. We celebrated my 40th by going to a little carnival, where I squeezed my 40 year-old body into this kiddie carousel bus for a ride with wee one.

Good times. (Although I was scared for a minute there that I'd never be able to get out!) Other big birthday events include a fun dinner out with the knitsmiths last night, a Red Sox game this week and a weekend trip to NYC! This turning 40 thing definitely has its advantages.

And now for the ugly. I'd planned for my 40 fat quarter quilt to be a present for myself for my 40th, but before I can finish it, I've got to improve my quilting skills. So this week I've been working on the ugly picnic blanket. Anyone remember that one?! As a warm up to quilting the kids' quilts and, eventually, my big birthday 40 fat quarter quilt, I'm doing my first time ever free motion quilting on the ugly picnic blanket.

 
front and back

It looks alright from a distance, but up close, it's pretty ugly! The meandering stipple pattern rocks (yes, I'm using a template!) but my stitch length is anything but uniform. Luckily, the quilt was meant to look ugly (so I won't feel bad dragging it to the playground and eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on it and letting the kids sit on it with sandbox feet) so no amount of gorgeous quilting was ever going to save it.

click to see the big ugly!

Still, even with all that ugly fabric and all that ugly quilting, I'm growing very fond of it. Like turning 40, it's big, it's kinda ugly, but it's goooood.

I'm so excited about this!! If only the kids and I can stay healthy, I'm going to get back to my quilts. (Admission: I've actually been using my ugly picnic quilt - made from my homelier fat quarters - to sleep under while I've been sick, despite the fact that about 20% of it hasn't been quilted yet and is still pinned together. It's cozy though!)