Cute Owl Baby Quilt

Karen made this adorable baby quilt with a charming owl on it. The back ground is strip pieced 9 patch blocks alternating with white blocks. The colors in the 9 patch blocks form a chain.

She got her inspiration here: here. I love the creative quilting on the version on the Quilts of love blog. However, it is quite complicated quilting and Karen is new to machine quilting. So, Karen chose another darling way to quilt it!

Unfortunately, my photo did not turn out. So it is not very easy to see the quilting. The picture is below and you might be able to tell that she did tiny circles in the colored squares. I think she did a loose meander in the white places.

I think Karen's quilting was very effective and her quilt is adorable.

Below is a close up of her cute little owl. She did such a nice job of applique and that little owl has such a fun personality.

Isn't this little owl cute?

  

 Julia loved Karen's quilt so she made her own version. She got her inspiration here.   The Piper's Girl Blog has a colorful version. You can order a pattern from them using the link above. 

Here is a close up of how Julia quilted her quilt. I hope you have fun making your own version of this cute little owl quilt. 

Julia's BOHO Star Quilt

Julia made this colorful modern star quilt. The photo below is how it looks after she quilted it.

I love the cute little circle pattern she quilted.

Julia found the pattern for this star quilt at Moda Bake Shop you can find the pattern here. Her comment after making this quilt was,."You end up cutting the patchwork in half and you don't have clear points and that bothered me until it was all done and then it was fine."

So her comment got me thinking about other ways to make this pattern and the points really would not matter at all. The idea I came up with was to "make" fabric instead of piecing with the charm squares. What I mean is use the color placement from the Moda  pattern but make the squares totally scrappy like this picture below.


 You can find this picture by clicking here.


The other idea I had was to "make" strip fabric instead of the charm square piecing and use the color placement from the Moda pattern. Here is a quilt using strips of fabric just to get my idea across.


Anyway, I am intrigued by these star quilts and I love the colorful quilt Julia made. Maybe, I'll try making all three...Until then, Happy Quilting!!

Life Is Good and Granny Squares

It has been a long time coming but here is a new post! I am grateful to all the people who helped me to come back from my illness. I learned quite a bit from this experience. The thing I want to share that is most valuable to me is that each moment is precious. You won't have the resources in life to do everything so make what you choose to do count! I choose to spend more time with people I love, cooking nutritious food, serving others, and of course, quilting.

So, in fulfilling two of the above goals, I have invited a couple of friends, Julia and Karen, to learn to use my quilting machine. We have had great times together and they are both now accomplished quilters! It has been so fun each week to see what they are working on and be inspired.

This is one of Julia's modern quilts. I love it because it is so colorful!  The bright scrappy colors feel so happy.

She found the pattern here: Granny Square Quilt Pattern. Julia made some changes that make it more modern I think. She added corner stones to her sashing and eliminated the border. The corner stones are the same width as the sashing in both dimensions. The sashing strips on all sides are the same length as the squares are.

Here are a few more links to Granny Square Quilts. This one has lots of food for thought and ideas of different layouts.

At this link, Giant Granny Square Block, Darcy makes 19 inch plus squares. She has instructions to make it from individual squares and clear instructions on trimming your finished squares.

This link, Another Granny Tutorial, uses all different squares in her granny squares and she has another link at the bottom of the page using jelly roll strips.

Branching out a little bit more are these links here: Moda Bake shop blueberry and here: Moda bake shop colorful. These links have different colorways and more rings.

Here is to choosing well how you spend your time! Have fun with Granny Square Quilts!