Godspeed, Quilts

Two more quilts went in the mail this morning...the Train Rag Quilt finally sold (to a lovely customer in Canada...so I've now sold to Canada and Japan...I'm world famous!) and I finished Kelly's Man Quilt just in time to get it to him for his birthday on the 31st (assuming no more blizzards, that is!)

Some pics of KMQ:

 Not a great shot, but what I could do at home.

 Finally, a bed without pet hair.

The backing is blue with fish all over it.  I won't lie, it hurt my heart more than a little to part with this one.  I'm not sure I'll do it any time soon, but I think I'm going to need to do another blue quilt. 

Design (Table space right in front of my sewing machine) Wall Monday

So last night I learned something very important about marriage that no one told me before I said "I do".  Apparently, somewhere in what the deacon was mumbling, he must have said, "do you, Kathryn, agree to relinquish all furniture building abilities to your husband such that you so much as touching a piece of furniture being built will render it completely useless?"  Of course, in the heat of the moment I said "I do!" and have thus lost all ability to assemble furniture.  So while MOTU was gently pushing me away from "helping" with this project:

I was working on this gem:

Finally, the start of OUR quilt!  MOTU had requested a "traditional" block design for our bed quilt months ago, and I've been so wrapped up in throwing together simple quilts that I just haven't even started on ours.  Until this weekend!  I got the following quilt done (and up for sale on Etsy) so now I have time to work on our quilt.  I can't promise I'll get it all done in one fell swoop, but here's hoping at least the triangles go together quickly.  I've already got one shortcut for making them a little nicer to deal with...we'll see what else I can come up with.

Here's Rag Train, all finished!

I take that back...mostly finished.  I need to continue fraying the back side (hence no pictures yet), but that'll be one night in front of the TV and then done. 

Structured Chaos

So this quilt is a little tricky.  I have this thing about having the same fabrics sitting next to each other in this style of quilt, so first fabrics of the train blocks can't touch. Then, fabrics of the borders can't touch.  Diagonal is ok, but not in any kind of pattern, and not more than 2 or 3 in a row, tops.  Then, the border needs to contrast with the square...so light block = dark border, bright block = light border, etc.  So there's a lot going on here...sort of like the whole "spend 2 hours each morning to look like you have bedhead" thing.  I'm trying really hard to make it look like I'm not trying.  :-)

That said, after I put these blocks together last night, I did a bunch more cutting and now have a pretty little stack of 1x5.5 or 6.5 inch strips just waiting to get their time to shine. 

And just for kicks, here's the lineup of quilts that used the fabrics first, from that top line (L-R):
Trains & Tractors/plaid couch/Save a Horse/Save a Horse/Save a Horse/plaid couch/Just His Size

I've got scraps from the complicated quilt, Abbey's Road, Mai's Ugly Quilt, and a couple of QFK quilts in the "to be cut" heap as well.  I'm trying to keep them relatively manly, so no pinks or purples (though lord knows I have enough of those!)  Oranges are ok though.

And on that note, I must leave my haven and head in to work.  Sigh.  :-)

Godspeed, Little Quilt

And just like that, he's gone.  My first commissioned quilt, on its way to the arms of 2 little boys and their mom.  *sigh*  I won't lie, it feels a little like having turned in a final exam that I'm pretty sure I did well on, but I'm still not 100% sure I got an A.  I hope they like it.  I had a lot of fun making it.

We had a little outdoor photoshoot yesterday:

This one is upside-down because that was how I could get the picture. 

The artsy ruffled shot

The back

My label!  How nifty is that??  It's technically an iron-on kind, and it faded a bit in the wash...I'm not too heartbroken since I got a good deal on them, but this might not be a permanent solution. 

All folded up and ready to go!

Oh, so my laundry woes...I washed the quilt and (gasp!) some of the blues looked distinctly more purple than when I started!  Eek!  I washed it again (and again and again...) with some color catching fabric and this is the result.  I sent a note to the buyer to make sure she washes it separately for the first couple washes.  The blues are back to blue, but my heart stopped a bit at first.  Phew!

All's well that ends well though, and this guy (shown here with a glimpse of the rod sleeve) went in the mail this morning.

Now that that one's out the door, I'm on to a new project.  Here are the squares of batting and backing, and a few choice scraps for border strips that I'm using for my Rag Train quilt:

Here's the final layout, with the upper left corner block done.

Quick picture of the workstation.  A note here...all the fabrics I'm using for this one are from my stash/scraps.  I'm not letting myself buy ANY more material for this - I have more than enough as it is, so I just need to get creative.  :-) If I've made you a quilt in the last year, you'll probably see familiar fabrics in this one.  

And the first two blocks done and sewn together,just to see how it'd work.  I found all manner of scraps from the plaid quilt to use, which I'm totally stoked about.  I adore plaid, especially as it's getting colder, and I think it lends a touch of funky personality to the quilt.  It makes me think of a lumberjack/hipster with a 3 year old who loves trains.  Anyone know anyone like that?  :-D 

So that's that.  Hopefully this one will be up on etsy sometime next week, assuming I get all my chores done so I have time to work on this.  It's going together quickly, but I gotta remember I have other stuff to do too...like wedding thank you notes.  :-)