In Full Bloom

I'm calling In Full Bloom my first finish of 2018. It was started way back in 2016.
Can't even begin to tell you how happy I am that it's finally finished because I love it!!!

When our daughter moved out, I claimed her old room as the guest room. My plans were for some furniture make-overs and a quilt for the bed. I envisioned a bright space full of color but it took me awhile to decide what type of quilt to make. My first thought was low volume with spots of color so I got stuck on that idea but it just wasn't inspiring me. I have always wanted to make a Kaffe snowball quilt and this felt right. Lots of color. Lots of flowers both modern and traditional. It was a great way to use up some of my older floral prints too.

I had hoped to have it done before our daughter's wedding last summer. The wedding rightfully took priority however and while the quilt was pieced and quilted I just didn't have time for the binding. I put it on the bed anyway, sans binding, and both my sweet sisters-in-law loved it. They didn't care one bit that it wasn't really finished.

I worked on the blocks during many BoulderMQG open sews and once all 225 blocks were done the next challenge was how to arrange them. My original plan was to randomly scatter the colors throughout, but during the initial cutting the cooler greens and blues ended up on the outside edges by chance. I liked the look and decided to take it a step further by clustering colors with the the brighter flowers in the center gradating outward to the lighter colors and finally edging it in the greens and blues. I wasn't especially fond of the blues so decided to place them along the top edge where they wouldn't really show once pillows were on the bed.

I used this great text print by Whistler Studios for the backing. The same fabric was also used for the side chair seat. The pillow shams were made from the black version of the print. This has got to be one of my favorite backing fabrics.

This cozy little corner features a cabinet with more quilts, a small reading chair, and a dresser I repainted after getting it for $3 at a garage sale.

I think this room will become my mini quilt gallery. The small quilt on the chair below is from my Interweave pattern and the quilt over the dresser is my Facets quilt pattern. Both are available on Craftsy and my Etsy shop.

All the color and florals make me happy. Hopefully it will have the same effect on our guests. If you come to stay, this sight will great you as you enter the room . . . It came out just as I imagined. My quilted garden in full bloom.

You can read about the process of making In Full Bloom by jumping over to these posts. How I fussy cut the blooms is covered in this post. How to draft the snowball block is discussed here. And this post shows the concept coming to life on my wall.

Hope you've enjoyed your virtual visit of my garden room as much as I'm enjoying seeing it everyday. In case you're interested, the flower pillows on the bed came from a website called Society6.

Thanks for visiting.

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A Little Fall

Just thought I'd share a couple of weekend fall photos. Old quilts  . . .  new photos. I really like the outdoor pictures of quilts that are popular in the quilting world these days and have been trying to take more of this style when I can. I know this type of photo usually has nothing to do with the quilt's function and maybe doesn't even make sense to some of you. But they are so much fun to compose and style I can't resist. It's also a great way play up the quilt's theme or even the name.

Enjoying all the fall colors recently, it occurred to me I better get out and try for a couple of good photos before the color and leaves are all gone. And since I don't have any new, more modern quilts that fit the fall color scheme I took out these two older quilts.

During the photo below, my husband literally fell into the job of quilt holder upper in more ways than he bargained for. I told him to move a little closer to some leaves and he slid right down the hill . . . holding the quilt up all the while I might add. Isn't he sweet? Thankfully he wasn't hurt and neither was the quilt.

This shot was taken right in our front yard. We don't always have many nicely colored leaves but this year there's a nice thick layer. I love shuffling through crunchy leaves.    : )

Can you tell I like sunflowers? Besides these quilts I even decorate with sunflower and yellow dishes for the fall season. Mostly flea market and thrift store finds. Love going on the hunt for treasures.

If it's fall where you live, get out and enjoy before the leaves have fallen. We've often had a snow fall by now here in Colorado but this year has been a beautifully sunny, long fall. Hope it will last till Halloween.

Fall Sunflower Quilts

If you've followed along for awhile, you probably know I have a collection of dishes in the shape of flowers, fruits and veggies that I've mostly picked up here and there at thrift stores. Each season I like to switch it up and now that fall is officially here it's time to bring out the tomatoes, corn, pumpkins and sunflowers.

I always struggle a little with making this change because I really really love the summery flower, fruit and veggies dishes. They are all so colorful, bright and cheery. I just hate to put them away. You can see some of them here (veggies) here and here (fruits). Plus it's a reminder that summer has past for another year. But once the fall stuff is up I love it too.

Along with the dishes come a couple of fall quilts to complete the decor. I posted last week about the sunflower quilt that I've hung for years even though it was un-quilted. Probably no one but me ever really knew because it's at the end of the room and seen from a distance so most people probably wouldn't have noticed or were certainly to polite to say anything. Now it's finally done. Wahoo!!!  It looks so much better finished. More real if you know what I mean. Definitely a sight I've got to keep in mind to help me stay motivated to finish all the other UFO's.

Anyway here's the finished sunflower quilt I'm calling "Sunflowers for Vincent". It turned out relatively well if I do say so myself. I just have to spend more time practicing the free part of free motion.

The other quilt is a bit smaller and was also done years ago based on a pattern called "21st Century Bull's Eye" in a book called Quilts from Aunt Amy. The book's been around for awhile but has lots of great patterns many of which would look terrific done up in more modern fabrics. The bull's eye pattern uses a raw edge applique technique and is very easy to do. I fussy cut large sunflowers from several different fabrics for the centers and then used smaller scale sunflower prints to surround them. The backgrounds for each block are made from an assortment of green leafy prints. Every so often I threw in black, white and a touch of red. The black gave it contrast. The white added a little sparkle. And the red helped expand the color palette and add more depth. Without these extra colors everything would have been just a little too flat.

I did minimal quilting with a single free motion flower in the center of each block. Hard to see in the picture but easy to do.

So, do you switch up your quilts with the season? What do you do with them? I'd love to hear how you use all your beautiful quilty creations. Keep on stitching.

Fresh Tossed

Another month of summer begins and it's time for another fruit/veggie quilt in my kitchen. August around here is when the gardens really start to produce all their bounty of veggies. I have friends who have the most amazing garden every summer. Tomatoes, lettuce, peppers, cucumbers, onions . . . you name it they probably grow it. As for our garden, I'm more of a flower gardener than a veggie gardener, but we do manage a couple of tomato plants every year. They produce enough for us and the tomato worms. Can not believe how big tomato worms are. ICK!!! Sorry but I am not a worm girl. Have to have my husband pull them off when I see one.

The design of this quilt is a mix of all kinds of salad goodness. I foundation pieced the blocks using a juicy tomato print for the center that I wonky cut. Then I added varying width strips of green veggies followed by colorful veggies and ending with another border of green. For the center block I switched up this order. I used the leftover scraps of all the colorful veggie to piece an outer border.

And what better way to serve up some fresh veggie goodness than in my veggie dish collection. You know I love my fruit and veggie dish collection. : )  Here's some of the veggie dishes.

A very colorful quilt to say the least. It's perfect as a tabletopper when serving some fresh veggies to snack on. I love eating fresh garden salads this time of year. Makes me feel healthy. So here's to eating well. Now go eat your veggies.

"Fresh Baked"

July means berry pie around here. Not the mouthwatering taste of fresh baked pies even though my husband LOVES cherry pie.  Instead it's the eye catching pie combo of all things fabric fruity. Unfortunately for my family, I'm just not a baker or even much of a cook. I cook because we have to eat. But when it comes to fabric recipes I love to whip up a tasty treat to go with my fruit and veggie dish collection. (You can see my citrus collection here).

Guess you could say I'm a baker with fabric just like I'm a gardener with fabric. I think it's easier and it definitely lasts longer. When July rolls around it's the month of quilted berries. This is as close as it gets to red, white and blue in my house.

A few of the apple collection

The berry collection

I call this quilt "Fresh Baked"  I used lots of apple and berry prints set with some creamy pie crust colored prints to evoke the image of a table full of pies. I think the little red check and a basketweave print for the binding give the feel of a picnic. Now if only it weren't 100 degrees outside and we could actually have a picnic. I also used some buttons in the center of each pie just because I wanted a little hand sewn touch.

Doesn't it make your mouth water?

Fresh Squeezed, a Juicy Quilt

Last month I mentioned my collection of flower dishes. Well . . . I have an even bigger collection of fruit and veggie dishes. It all started innocently enough with 3 fruit plates. Then another and another and another. Once again, they are mostly flea market finds just like the floral dishes. Before I knew it I had amassed quite a collection so when we remodeled our kitchen, one of my objectives was to incorporate some type of display area. Now I have space for all (well most) of my dishes.

The juicy dishes.

At about the same time this obsession started with the dishes along came all the delicious fruit and veggie fabrics. Of course it didn't take long before an equally large stash of fabrics developed. What can I say? They make me happy  : )  and I'm obsessed with more than fabric. As I collected the fabrics, the initial idea was to make one single quilt but somehow I could never imagine the right quilt. Then it hit me . . . make several quilts, each with their own fruity/veggie theme.

Think I have enough citrus fabrics?

I had the best time cooking up these delicious quilts. Fresh Squeezed, Fresh Baked, Fresh Picked, Vine Ripe to name a few. This summer I will rotate them into my kitchen/dining area starting off the summer with Fresh Squeezed.

"Fresh Squeezed" my juicy summer quilt.

See the great display in the background? Love it!

What better what to enjoy a hot summer day than with an ice cold glass of lemonade? So here's to summer and relaxing with a cold drink.