Orca Bay Top together!!

I'm doing a happy dance, Orca Bay is together and I do love it :)  Ok, the new sewing room for April is not quite wide enough to get full view, but hey you get the picture right?  This one will go to a dear friend of my daughters who just purchased their first house. This wll be nice for a house warming gift I think.

I drew a design that I would like to quilt, just not sure if I can do it!  It's a free form all over feather design and will give the quilt a really nice texutre.  I love curved quilting on angular quilts.  I'm going to make a baby blanket and give it a try.  I think I'll try one of the 1600 quilts, I saw a really cute one Life Scraps   Here's  what I want to quilt, we'll see how this goes.  Well I can draw it, that's one step :)

While there may not be a lot of depth to the room, there is a bit of length in the room and the design wall goes the entire length.  I've got two full quilts up there just waiting for me to get the courage to get started on them.

First Finish of 2012 for a very special person!

April and I just finished our second quilt together!  This one for my niece.  I wanted to get this completed before she goes back to Iraq.  the pattern is Bonnie Hunters Smith Mountain Morning bad out of my nieces' BDUs.    She also sent patches along and I placed those in the center of the stars.  Love, love, love this pattern.  And who knew it would look like this in camouflage!

Now for the quilting details, it really took a lot longer to quilt than to put together.  I started this in my DSM doing the little pebbles.  Which was nice when it first started but quickly got old.  The quilt just sat there while I had fun making baby things for little Miles (less than 2 weeks until he gets here :)  Then April came and I have a sudden urge to do the quilting! Any where there is white material there are pebbles, lots of pebbles. Now they look great with the camouflage, but I don't think I'd do it again. 

Then I was just stuck not really sure what to do with the rest when along came the FMQ challenge for 2012 hosted by SewCalGal.  One thing I did know is that rest had to have something from nature to go with the fabric of the quilt.  Much to my surprise the first exercise was leaves.  Now why didn't I think of that???  So decision made - almost.  I did a few sketches and narrowed it down to two options.  Then I drew those two options on clear plastic so I could lay it on the quilt to see which one I liked.  DH liked the bigger leaves, I liked the smaller one.  Now what to do?  Well my skills using April aren't that great so I decide to give both a try on a practice sandwich.  Well once again DH was right.  His choice turned out best and I just went from there.  But I still like the second one better, I just can't do it yet :) And the rest is history.  I have leaves in the blocks, in the camouflage on the border and the 1.5 inch brown border.  What a great exercise.    Here's a few detailed shots of the quilt.  I think she'll like it.  Stop by SewCalGal to see how others are doing on the Jan challenge.  And stop by Sarah's to see what everyone is whooping about this weekend

Back - hard to see the quilting

Detail of back

detail of front

FMQ Challenge - Jan

The first challenge was raised by Frances Moore with a meandering leaf motif.  SewCalGal post for Jan is here. Now I know I should be using my DSM, but I just got a new Long Arm ( aka April)  and I REALLY need the practice.  I've read that it takes a year to become proficient at the long arm machine and will the challenge is for a full year, lucky me!!  Right now I can do one thing on the long arm and that's it.   And it's not leaves!!  Well so I spent a little while drawing a few different  leaves and narrowed it down to two.  I liked one and my husband liked the other - go figure :) He is usually right for some odd reason when it comes to quilting - how does that happen????  So I decided to give both a try on a sample. Of course what actually came out was a hybrid of the two, so we were both right! Aw, now that's nice.  And here's a sample of what I have going on. I'm doing this around all the stars and the borders.  So by the time I'm done with this exercise I'll be able to do two things on April and one of them will be leaves. Thanks Frances for a great challenge.

Design Wall Monday - Orca Bay progress Step 8

First of all Happy New Year Everyone!!  My 2012 has gotten off to a great start. I sewed all day yesterday and will have some time today to sew as well.  Ah, but then tomorrow comes and back to the real world.  But I'll enjoy the sewing today while I can.  Have you seen the reveal of Bonnie's Orca Bay - Oh my it is drop dead gorgeous!!!  I think this is one of my favorite patterns of hers.  Oh wait I say that with every Bonnie quilt I make - but no this I REALLY mean it (until the next one :)  Here's my progress so far.  I have a few rows together, not sure I'll be able to finish.  I counted all my pieces so carefully and came up 17 triangles short on the green strings.  Not sure why I thought 110 was a good number, but that's how many I had.  But I love string blocks so I'm getting those done today.  I'm even going to make some extra for the back.  What a great mystery, Bonnie did it again.

I've also got a Bonnie quilt on April, Smith Mountain Morning (now my second favorite Bonnie patter).  I'm quilting pebbles in the white spaces which looks really good given that it's an Army quilt.  I think I'll do a fern like feather in the other blocks.  I want to keep it natural with the camouflage going on, all I can think of is leaves - anyone else have any ideas?   See around the stars how the blocks create a ring?  That's where I"m thinking I'll do the fern feathers.  But really I'd love to hear any ideas that you have.

Linking up with Judy to see everyone's design wall and Bonnie's Monday morning link up.  Fabric Tuesday is back, don't forget to stop by and see the other beautiful creations.

Happy New Year and Welcome 2012!!

Wow 2012 arleady?  Seems like just yesterday we were getting use to the sound of 2000.  Time just goes by so fast.  I hope everyone is enjoying the new year!

Bonnie revealed Orca Bay today, and it is a stunner!!  I was able to put a few blocks together before everyone woke up.  Oh I just LOVE this quilt.   

Back to the sewing room, as long as know one is asking where I am, I'm gonna sew :)

Happy New Year!!!