Red and White Tour - Part I...

I am loving red almost as much as I love blue. Which is odd because prior to seven years ago you wouldn't have seen any red in my house. I am not sure why I became drawn to it...but it has been steadily appearing more and more in my home. I made this red and white quilt (top) in 2007. And I made it in less than 24 hours...that includes cutting the fabric and sewing the pieces to form the top...it doesn't include the quilting process...which is sewing the top, middle (batting) and back together...I send that out to my long-arm quilter Lynn. Why did I do it so quickly? Well, my long arm quilter is in demand...therefore you reserve a time slot months in advance to have your quilts quilted. I had reservations for four quilts and had to make one more before I made the trip to drop off the quilts.

(can't get this photo to center) 

I fell in love with the red fabric because of the beautiful roses, but envisioned using it for a more romantic quilt design. Well, when under the gun tough decisions need to be made. I needed to find a pattern that I had enough fabric for, a pattern that didn't require a lot of thought, and a pattern that only required two colors...and this pattern which I believe is a form of the Irish Chain design fit the bill. I chose a red and white check fabric for the binding (edges) and white for the back.

Drop by tomorrow to see part II of the Red and White tour...

Thanks for stopping by...
Renee @ Cottage Lifestyle

Trapezoid Quilt...

I thought I would do a post on this quilt as Vanessa from V and Co. commented about this quilt while reading my post on Breakfast in Bed. One of my best friends, Margaret and I were driving from Montreal, Quebec to Burlington, Vermont six years ago to attend our friend Kristin's wedding. We were enjoying the Lake Champlain scenery and stumbled upon an antique store where I found this quilt top. It captured my heart because of the wide variety of colors (all scraps), the age of the fabrics, the shape of the pieces, it was handsewn and it is old.

The work that went into this quilt is unbelieveable. Each piece is a rough version of a trapezoid. First of all...the time it took to cut each piece (especially a trapezoid piece) as they were cut with scissors not with a rotary cutter on a cutting mat. Second, each small piece was hand sewn together (maybe one of these days I will count the number of pieces that make up this quilt top). Third, the overall quilt is in the shape of a trapezoid...I don't have a clue how the quilter made that happen...but she did. I paid $80 for this quilt top and planned to sell it on ebay. But I couldn't sell it...instead I bought fabric for the back and the border and sent it off to my long-arm quilter Lynn. Of my 27 quits this is in the top 4 of my favorites. It is currently on my bed.

The picture below shows you that the shape of the overall quilt is a trapezoid. I know you may be thinking that it looks like a trapezoid because of the photo...not so. My long-arm quilter Lynn will validate that it is a trapezoid...something she had to adjust for when it was on the big quilting machine.

Stop by Vand Co. and read about Vanessa's exciting MODA news and check out what she can create from a sheet.

Thanks for stopping by...
Renee @ Cottage Lifestyle

I LOVE Quilts...

I love quilts. I have 27.

I use them all...they rotate spending time on beds, couches, chairs, porches, hanging on the banister, in the car and on Lollie's bed. Roberta Anne from Little House in the Desert asked that I share a few more pics of some of my quilts. All the quilts in the pictures above and the one below are old, well worn, soft, and cuddly except the red and white quilt and the blue/yellow flower quilt.

You can see a few more quilts on the beds in the pics on the sidebar.

Thanks for stopping by...
Renee @ Cottage Lifestyle

I am seeing Stars...

Usually on Mondays I share something that makes me smile. This star quilt makes me smile. I found the orphan quilt top in an antique shop in Lynden, WA (a charming Dutch town). The top was $30...given the cost of material and someone's hard work that went into making it...this was a steal in my opinion. I think most people passed on purchasing it because it is a scrap quilt, therefore no true planning went into the color scheme and the only constant is white (if you have seen any pics of my house in previous posts or on the sidebar...you know that I like 'hospital' white). I saw its potential as a porch quilt and thought it was worth having quilted...so I snapped it up, bought some white muslin (99 cents a yard) for the back and binding, and sent it off to Lynn, my long-arm quilter. When we were discussing the quilt design we decided not to quilt on the circles in the center of the starts to make them pop and to make for a beautiful design on the back.

It is amazing how adding batting, backing, binding and a fabulous quilt design makes a bunch of scraps come to life...bringing charm, color and comfort to a room. For the pictures above I laid the quilt on the bed in my red bedroom (see pic at bottom of post to see what the red bedroom normally looks like), however this quilt has a home hanging on my banister. Once it came to life I decided it was too special to end up as a porch quilt.

The red bedroom.

Sew much organizing...

Have you ever started a project that you thought would only take a few minutes and it lead to another project that lead to another project and here you are 6 hours later? That was me today...started by organizing a toolbox to contain the items I use every time I sew, and a basket to house the projects I am working on. From just wanting to organize the toolbox and basket it went to organizing two other baskets, a cedar chest, the rack that holds my fabric and my quilting table (I will show you those on another day as I am in a rush). The initial reason for organizing the toolbox was because a few weeks ago when my friend Nancy came over to help me with a sewing project...I had thread, bobbins and sewing machine feet in three places...and it drove me crazy having to dig for what we needed.

The quilt in the basket (below) is for my brother's dog Eva and was made from scraps from a quilt I made for my brother's family. The top is done, but it needs to be quilted. The only quilts I have ever quilted are dog quilts, as I am only capable of making tops...the quilting is a challenge for me. The dog quilts are small and I can somewhat manuever in the machine, and I figure the dogs won't care if I make a mistake or two or more. Also in the basket are several other projects (not shown), a 'cutter' quilt...which is a quilt top (or full quilt) that isn't in good shape (worn/torn or missing sections) that my friend Anita sent me, since it is blue and white she thought I could use the good sections for pillows, quilt pieces (for the pattern you see in the toolbox) that I have cut but haven't sewn, and some quilted potholder pieces that I did about 10 years ago when I was just learning to quilt...pulled them out today and plan to finally finish them this winter.

Last year I made 10 1/4 quilts (4 for friends, 5 for my brother's family, 1 for me and 1 dog quilt which I count as the 1/4) here is the quilt I made that resulted in the scraps for the dog quilt.

Check out the beautiful quilting pattern my 'long arm' quilter Lynn did.

The pattern pops on the back of the quilt.

Check Mark...

Another project done. I finished hand sewing the binding on this yellow and cream quilt. This is the most hand sewing I've ever done... it took me 11 hours...probably 4 times what it would take a skilled quilter.

Bought this yellow and cream quilt top years ago. Pulled it out in this spring and sent it off to my fabulous quilter. As always we discuss what quilt design and color will work best...decided to do a basic, simple quilt design on just the cream fabric using cream thread. Usually it goes from the quilter to someone else to put the binding on. However this time my quilter sewed the front side of the binding on and I took on the challenge of finishing the binding. Love how it turned out...it has the best feel. The quilting design looks superb on both sides... so you end up with two quilts.

Can you believe someone had the patience to cut those tiny yellow triangles and hand sew the top?

Little Girl Quilt...

Last year I made 10 quilts and this year I haven't made one. My favorite was this Little Girl quilt. It is unique from any other quilt I have made as the 'skirt' portion of each sundress hangs free from the quilt. Even though I have other quilt projects that need to be completed -- one quilt cut out, and one just needs the binding finished, and a dog quilt that needs to be quilted...I want to make some doll quilts using the Little Girl pattern. I need to move quickly if I am going to do this as I thought the doll quilts would be a good holiday gift for a friend's little girls.