Sick :(

Well I have a fever that won't go away.  I swear, I have been sick more times this year than my first year of teaching.  Anyway, my hubby and kitty and guarding the sewing machine and making me stay on the couch.  (grrrrrr)

I have binding to do for 2 quilts and some other misc. projects that need attending but I guess I'm stuck on the couch...at least I have my laptop!

Here is a quilt that I finished this week.  It is a small lap quilt for my grandma so she can put it on her legs in her wheelchair.  It is just one piece of fabric on the back and one on the front.  The front is vintage McCall's pattern drawings and the back is vintage McCall's directions.  My grandma would always make my sister and I matching outfits (and sometimes ones for our dolls) so this was the perfect fabric for her.  When I showed me mom she said that my grandma would always rave about McCall's patterns...

I just picked up the baby quilt I made for my mom's friend up from the quilter...will post pics when I allowed to get up :)

Quilt for Dad finished!

I finally quilted the quilt for my dad...not bad considering I gave him the top for Christmas...lol.  (I've been busy!!!)  Anyway,  I hope he likes it.  It is a quilt to hang on the wall in the basement.  I found this great fabric line called "Be a Man!" that had tools, gears, and wheels - perfect fabric for a quilt made for a retired mechanic. I included in the quilt some pictures of some of his favorite cars from over the years.  Here is a pic of the pieces I started with - I'll post a pic of the finished quilt later.

I love 4-day weekends!!!

I am spending the last day of my 4-day weekend relaxing, doing some homework (blah), and doing some sewing.  I actually got a lot accomplished this weekend and I still have today to work - Rick goes to night school tonight so I basically have all day to work.

I finished the top of the pinwheel quilt last night - I love the border and the fun back!

the finished top

pinwheel border

the back

3 Cups of Tea Quilt

I volunteered to make a quilt with the 500+ students at the school where I teach, to celebrate the "United We Read" 2010 reading event.  Every student in our district is reading a version of "Three Cups of Tea", a book about a doctor who has built schools in Afghanistan.  The themes in the story include friendship, generosity, kindness, and tolerance. 

I found this wonderful fabric with teacups with the words "cups of kindness" that will be the border and some bright colors to complement the border.  I cut twenty-four 8 inch blocks of light colored fabric and then appliqued a bright colored teacup on each block.  I didn't want to applique the handle on each teacup because they would have been very small pieces (and this is only the second time I've appliqued!) so I found a stitch on my sewing machine that looks like the handle.  Each classroom will receive a block and every student in the classroom will sign the block. 

Here are some pictures of my work in progress!

 

Pinwheel border

I couldn't decide if I wanted a solid color between my squares and the pinwheel border on this quilt.  My mom came over and talked me into the solid color - we went to the fabric store and picked out a pretty red.  We also found this really cute and bright ladybug fabric for the backing.  I'll post pics once the border is sewn on...

 

Without the red border...

With the red border...

Stash raiding...

My mother-in-law, who got me into this quilting habit (jk), let me raid her scrap stash on Saturday.  She had a bunch of scraps left over from a quilt she made for her sister.   So now I have all this fun coffee cup material...just have to decide what to do with it!

Pinwheel Quilt

The center of the pinwheel quilt is done...now just looking for the border...

Big Jets Finished!

I picked up "Big Jets" from the quilter yesterday.  I really like the cloud pattern that was used to quilt it - now I just have to do the binding. 

Pinwheels...

Since the last time I blogged, I made a baby quilt (will post pics later) and a top secret quilt (will post pics later).  My three scrap and stash bins are completely full and I needed to do some scrap busting.  I found a fun pinwheel pattern and decided to try it out with some of my scrap fabric.  I also needed practice making the triangles (this quilt calls for 72 of them) so I definitely will get the practice I need.  I made enough blocks to make two rows, just to see if I liked the colors together....what do you think?