The Brown Quilt Blues are OVER!!

The quilt is finished :)  It is SO big that my girls had to hold it over the edge of the porch, sideways :)  It measures 104" by 97".  It is for my daughters 20th birthday next week.  She recently moved into an apartment with a queen size bed.  Blue and brown are her favorite colors.  I hope she likes it :)  It's in the dryer right now.  I'll post some close ups and retake these pictures later.  The sun was funky.  Just for those who don't know, this is the second quilt top that I did.

Full view sideways.

The full view of the front, properly oriented :)

The back, oriented correctly.

Full view back sideways.

Here are the "post wash" photos.  I have to say that I liked it better after getting back from quilting, but now that it is bound and has been washed...I LOVE IT!!!   I really do like it now :)  Just a bit of a warning.... there are at TON of photos!

It's so soft and squishy now :)  I am sad that there is no minky on the back.  I'll have to make her a tv quilt with minky later :)

Official Quilt Business

I sewed on the binding and have made it about half way around. I should be able to finish it off tonight. I am planning to put the boys to bed early so I can start to baste Ford's quilt. We have an important appointment at 8:30pm and I am debating weather or not I can be crawling around on the living room in front of our quests pinning my quilt sandwich ;D What do you think? I dont think they'll mind...

I finally tossed this one in the washer. It is even softer now than it was before. It took so long to get in the washer because a RED crayon made it through the last load of clothes :p I have been him hawing over how to fix the issue, and between that and forgetting about it all together, I didn't get them cleaned until this morning. I also needed to run another regular load through to make sure there were no more RED crayon remnants any where. The reddened load came out mostly better :) I soaked the whole load in HOT water (medium water level) for 1/2 of the day in the washer with 4 heaping scoops of oxyclean and one regular scoop of laundry soap ( Kirkland brand). Then I put the load size setting on "large" and on the longest wash cycle, still HOT, adding 2 more scoops of oxyclean and one more scoop of regular laundry soap. The RED came out of nearly everything. There are a few little bits left that I can live with, or should I say the son who's crayon it was, can live with on his pants ;D

Back from the Quilter

Plopped on my bed for a looksie last night.

At bed time, I tossed it on the living room floor so I could get a fresh look at it first thing in the morning. Since the kiddos are gone, I wasn't worried about them running all over it :)

Konda Lukau (Moose on the Porch Quilts), my quilter ;), told me that some time away from it would do me good. She was right. I am still not in love with the colors and would do many things WAY differently now, but this was my second quilt and it has a special place in my heart. It is for my oldest daughters 20th birthday in a few weeks. She will love it. It's so big and heavy, I am not sure how I am going to wash it. It fits our California king bed PERFECTLY, so her queen bed will be really well covered. I hope she likes it. I post more after I get it bound. It will take me several evenings to get this bad boy done ;) I am binding it in a dark blue and tan gingham.
PS- I have lost .6# this week :)  I am WAY happy about that!  I haven't been as good as I should be with the eating and exercise so down ROCKS!  A weird thing has happened, I would rather sew than get on the elliptical. ;)
PPS- I have been doing a lot of talking to myself about getting a grip about exercise.  I am still sad that running has not come back into my life like I'd hoped after the accident.  I am focusing on losing the weight with the elliptical, but I have an itch to run.  I think I'll get some lubricant for the treadmill and start walking a few days a weeks too.  Oh the things life likes to throw in our path...
PPPS- Konda told me that they are starting a quilt guilt down here, actually right up the street from my house!!!!  I am SO excited!  I joined the modern quilt guild at Broadbent's in Lehi yesterday, and now I'll have one close to home!!!!  It is even during the day, 10-2 :)  I am SO excited!!!!

One finished... one off to the quilter....

The Brown Quilt Blues is all finished and ready to head off to the quilter :)  It's going to Konda because it is HUGE, 88x99, and I DON'T LIKE IT!! :p

Nice neat corner

My FAVORITE corner...

Larger view of the finished quilt top

The HIDEOUS quilt back

Close up... still ugly :p

Less ugly in this picture

Here is my FAVORITE quilt!!!  MY Valentine quilt just makes me HAPPY!  It is SO soft and cozy with the Minky on the back :)  It just brings joy to my soul :D  

Binding using my bobby pins :)

The back side all finished

The front.  I LOVE this quilt!

SO cute all wadded up on the chair :D

A little here, a little there...

The center strip for the back of the Brown Quilt Blues

I went rouge and totally remodeled the Sweet Baby Quilt.
Now it is going to be an awesome throw ;D

A sloppy lay out to get the colors right.
I used the Little Apples jelly roll for the borders.

My Pattern for The Brown Quilt Blues

Unfortunately, this is really how I do patterns :)  I figured out the exact size that I wanted the quilt to be if it were not "on point."  I cut out the paper to be that size with each square inch representing a finished 5" block.  Then I put the paper on the grid on my cutting mat and drew the squares "on point."  I needed less of the hst when it was on point, but I needed to add border rectangles.   I made the border rectangles longer so they would be easy to trim.  If you really want to do it, email me and we can talk through it :) xo