Are You Blue?

I've been busy! I have 4 - count 'em - 4! - finishes to show today! First up is the Blue page for the Color Book.

However, I'm not entirely pleased with this one. Tell me, do you think it needs something more? Like buttons, or embroidery (French knots??) or something? I feel like it needs more, but everything I try seems to be Too Much. Tell me your thoughts on this, please.

I actually have 2 more Color Book pages almost done. Hopefully they will be finished tonight, so I can show them soon.


Here is my first UFO finish for this year. (Ooops, I don't have a list on my blog setting my goals. Oh well, I was busy sewing!) This is a little lap quilt that is a whole-cloth quilt. I found these fabrics four or five years ago at Hancock Fabrics in California, and they've been waiting for me to decide what to do with them ever since.

I fell in love with the dragonflies. This is in some of my favorite colors and I just love dragonflies anyway! You can kind-of see my quilting in this closeup.

The back of the quilt doesn't go as well, style-wise, but color-wise it works. It is flannel and has bunnies, and they're another of my favorites. (and Look - we had some actual sunshine today! - bottom left corner of quilt) I got a few boo-boos on the back but no actual tucks, so once I wash this, I don't think they'll be noticeable anymore.

So, this may not work for anyone else, but it's perfect for me! And that's good, because that's who it's for! You can see my not-straight quilting best in this picture. I got the idea from Marit @ Quilt It, on her post of 29 Dec. Mine's not exactly like hers, but she gave me the idea. I really like this! But, I don't think I'd quilt anything much bigger than this one - it's not so much fun. I love my long-armer (Hi Shari!).

My legs and feet get really cold when I sit and watch TV in the evenings. I've been using a big quilt, doubled-over, and it's not really doing a great job. I had my little Christmas quilt out over the holidays, and it worked liked a charm. It dawned on me that the Christmas quilt has a polyester batting. I've only used cotton batting for years. Well, that's warm enough for California, but not for here, I guess. So, I went looking for some poly batting. Apparently I gave away all I had before I moved. So I had to go buy some. It only cost me $3!

Here is finish #3. This is a little Priority Alzheimer's quilt that I recently finished. I've named this one "Fractured Memories". It's 7.25 x 9.875 inches. I hand-dyed the blue fabric and over-dyed the star fabric, which had been black and white.

Here's a closeup to show the star that I quilted in. The quilt is actually brighter than this - it pretty washed out in this photo.

And here's a second Priority Alzheimer's quilt that I made with the same two fabrics. I've named this one Star Bright. This is 10.625 x 6.625 inches. I'll be sending both of these quilts in to Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative to be auctioned off to raise funds for Alzheimer's research. There's a slow, silent auction every single month, so there's new quilts to bid on every month. Some of them are even made by famous quilters! (Umm, that doesn't include me, just so you know!)

Here's a closeup showing my tiny little star embellishment.

Brenda over at Scraps and Strings made a quilt for Priority Alzheimers with Lazy Gal Tonya's Priority Hope Challenge this fall, and her quilt was just auctioned off for $100! Way to go, Brenda!

I found some Great News on Amazon.com. You can pre-order the 2nd Gwen Marston/Freddie Moran Collaboration book called "Freddie and Gwen Collaborate Again: Freewheeling Twists on Traditional Quilt Designs"! It's due to be published May 5, 2009, and if you pre-order you can get a copy for $16.47 as opposed to the full-price of $24.95. I'm more than willing to pay full price for this one though. It looks like it's gonna be as great as their first one! I can hardly wait!!