Superbowl Weekend!

I grew up in Texas so that means I grew up with football...lots of football!  Between NFL games, college rivalries and the Friday Night Lights of Texas high school football...I've watched a lot of football in my time!

Since I started quilting, I've been on the lookout for a snazzy way to make a team color quilt without it looking cheesy or girly.  So I was thrilled when I came across a pattern by Natalia Bonner that appeared in the Sweet Celebrations book by Moda.  And when I was looking for the perfect Christmas present for a Denver Broncos fan, I knew this was the one.  

When I made the label for this quilt, I veered from the original name of the pattern (Rah, Rah Rally!) and called it "Hurry, Hurry!"  Denver fans will know why and I thought it was very fitting for this season!

This pattern calls for mostly precuts but I couldn't find what I needed in all colors.  So the white strips are from a honey bun and the small grey squares are from a charm pack.  The navy & orange are from yardage.

I had Melissa of Sew Shabby Quilting do the machine quilting on this.  I chose the Square Dance pattern which I thought worked perfect with the straight lines of the quilt pattern.  In hindsight, I think I would have chosen to have the quilting scaled down smaller.  But I think it turned out nice.

I love to do strips on the backs of the quilts I make.  This pattern included a strip on the back but I veered slightly & did my own thing.  Don't tell the quilt police!

I love how the orange thread shows up on the back of the quilt.  And I love that I thought of my college roommate the whole time I was making this.  She is from Denver & the BIGGEST Broncos fan I've ever known.  Actually, she's the biggest team fan of anybody on the planet & I love her for that!

I chose orange for the binding, since it is the main color of the Broncos & the Orange Crush of the past!  If you look closely, you can see that sometimes the straight lines of the quilt & the straight lines of the machine quilting didn't quite match up.  Oh well!

This pattern looks way harder to make than it was.  The best thing about this pattern is all the chain piecing that speeds up the process.  And had I used all precuts, it would have shaved off some of the cutting time.  Overall, I liked making this pattern and would definitely make it again.  

Of course the best thing about making this quilt is that my Denver Broncos fan loved it!  It is now considered to be a lucky quilt because it was being used while the Broncos were in the playoff games & secured a trip to the Superbowl.  So hopefully that holds true and they win big game on Sunday.  Go Broncos!

Tea Party Quilt

Tea Party

Completed December 2012

This is a quilt I made & gave to my parents for Christmas 2012.  The pattern is called "Tea Party" by Sweet Jand and can be found here.  I saw this as a sample in my local quilt shop with some additional borders on it so I followed suit.  I love the look of piano key borders.   I had my friend Lynette quilt this & loved how it turned out.

Red Cake Slices Quilt

When I first became obsessed interested in quilting, I did a lot tutorial searching.  During that search I came across this Birthday Cake tutorial by Elizabeth Hartman of Oh, Fransson and wanted to try it.  I thought It would take years for me to be able to do it but I convinced myself that it wasn't that difficult & surely I could do it.  At that time I hadn't worked with 1" strips that would finish at 1/2" wide!  But I jumped in with gusto & I loved the finished result.

  I had Melissa of Sew Shabby Quilting machine quilt this for me.  We were able to find a design that closely resembled the design of the red border fabric.

This is the back.  Instead of cake slices I just see a lot of the letter "H"!!

I love how this quilt turned out & it now lives on the bed in my guest bedroom.