I finally have another photo of a quilt to share! This is one I gave away without taking a photo and finally remembered to take my camera along last night to get a photo..
It started out here, quite a while ago:
On a forced snow day, I got a lot accomplished. But baby wasn't due for quite a while, so I took my time...as usual...
I showed progress as I went along:
And we finally have this:
Hunter's Quilt
I didn't take photos of the quilting, so thankfully it it shows up nicely here. Just a ripple, as I couldn't figure out what else to do that wouldn't take away from the wrenches. I also felt the pattern was a bit more modern and something like traditional feathers and the like wouldn't fit.
(I don't think any quilt I've done yet has gone this fast, either. Super quick way to quilt something!)
So the little guy (and I mean little - under 5lbs!) was born at the end of March, sharing a birthday with an uncle on both sides of the family (my hubby being one). He was delivered by c-section as early as possible without endangering his life, as mom was experiencing some pregnancy-related trouble. He's growing like a weed now and, if he takes after the May side of the family, he'll catch up in no time.
His daddy is a mechanic and can fix most anything, so I thought the wrenches a fitting pattern. (His grandpa is also a mechanic and one of his great grandpas farmed and both those men can fix anything, too.)
The pattern is one I saw in a Connecting Threads catalog quite a few years back (I wanted to make it for his big sister, now a year and a half old, if she'd have been a boy) and the pattern and kit are no longer available. As you can see in the first photo, I drafted the pattern myself from that photo - otherwise I'd link you to where you can get your own!
The blocks are 12", so the quilt finished about 48"x48".
I haven't done much sewing this last week, so nothing to share. (And what I am working on, I can't share yet.)
And a report on my presentation on using the internet in quilting - my portion was blogging: my PowerPoint slides helped me a lot to stay focused on what I was talking about (probably the hardest thing for me in a presentation like that) and I hope my little handout with a few blogs I enjoy helped point them in a good direction if they want to get their feet wet. The other ladies used the internet, live, to do their talks and thankfully the connection we had worked well, but I felt better not leaving that to chance. I think there might be a few gals in the group trying new things after our encouragement and I even learned a few new things!
And then this past Thursday, we had a gal who is part of a modern quilt guild not so far from us come in and do a trunk show and presentation. I thoroughly enjoyed all she had to share (and it was nice to finally have someone try (yes, try) to define "modern" quilting), but I think the timing was perfect, as she talked about using blogs, Pinterest, Instagram, Flickr and a few other internet sources and though some weren't ones our members covered the week before, it was nice that probably more people had an idea what she was talking about. It also helped show that the three of us standing up there the week before weren't crazy.
The gal who did the presentation is Debbie Grifka and you can read more about her and her quilts and her patterns (yep, she's a pattern designer) on her blog. She's pretty cool and I loved that she didn't try to put modern quilting in a box and say it's a whole new thing from traditional quilting. She admitted that it's impossible to define, but outlined a few characteristics of quilts that make them more "modern" than "traditional" and I feel like I came away with a better understanding of how to categorize quilts if I want to.
This coming Thursday, I will be travelling a bit and miss my guild meeting, as my dad is being presented with the Boy Scout's Silver Beaver award and I'm going to be there with my brothers and mom for the ceremony. We're all pretty proud of him and excited, though I had no idea what this award was, or that it even existed, until I heard he was getting it.
I hope to have more quilty goodness to share soon!
Happy quilting,
Katie
