won't you be my neighbor?

There's a new Block of the Month starting at Quilt in Joy soon, and it's all about the neighborhood! Lorrie and I are making the sample, and we'll be taking turns teaching the monthly demos as well. We spent several hours yesterday cutting and piecing these 12" house blocks. The top row shows my blocks, and Lorrie's are in the bottom row.

Here is what the quilt will look like when it's completed. Lots of paper-pieced trees, log cabin flowers, grass, picket fence, and perfect blue skies to accent all the cute houses!

This pink house and yellow house use the same pattern, but some of the pieces are reversed to give you a mirror image. The little square over the door had some conflicting directions in the pattern, so the yellow house has some extra "trim". How do you like the zigzag shutters and door? We are using lots of polka dots and "dot-like" fabrics since our shop carries a big variety, but I just had to sneak in those stripes!

Lorrie's teal and red houses are also mirror images.

The finished size will be around 60" square, so you can imagine how small some of those pieces are! I've really been drawn to house blocks lately, so this project is a perfect fit for me right now. I love the precision required to make these blocks, but I'm also drawn to appliqued and wonky houses. Today I discovered this pattern by Piece O' Cake designs - I've never seen it before - and now I'm pretty sure I need it :) LOVE those trees and the red background!

Have you made any house quilts or blocks? Traditional or wonky?

New York Beauty

I've been busy this week getting ready to teach a New York Beauty class on Saturday. I paper-pieced my quilt using needle-punched Golden Threads paper patterns (makes everything SOOO accurate) and someday maybe I'll put together a post illustrating the process. The class participants are going to complete four 8" blocks that can be finished as a 16" pillow or bag front or used as the start of a whole quilt. They'll be using kits with all the fabrics pre-cut (am I a great teacher or what??) in similar colors to this quilt top that I finished in 2009 - many Mary Engelbreit fabrics, accented by lots of black and white, red, yellow, royal blue, and (my personal favorite in this quilt) lime green! I particularly love the green flange on this...

I'll not kid you here - this quilt was pretty tedious to make, but I love how it turned out! It has been hanging in the LQS where I work for almost one year, and you'd think with all that time passing I'd have a plan ready for how to quilt it - but NO, I've got no idea. Gotta do a little research on that topic...

More exciting news on the Kaffe Quilt-Along front: Last week the photo of my Kaffe Paintbox Quilt was featured in an online newsletter at http://www.melaniefalickbooks.com/! Thanks to Lynne for the heads up! Another amazing quilt named "Chintzd Up Haze Kilim" made by Cathy at CabbageQuilts was also featured. The article contains a link that you can use to click over to Facebook and view all the lovely Kaffe quilts-in-progress posted by other Kaffe junkies :)

I guess that summer is officially here now that both my kiddos are done with school, so I'll be dusting off my "Julie, your Cruise Director" uniform and having tons of fun with them for several weeks to come. But mama's still got to have her sewing time to stay sane!

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Happy Pinwheels

I started teaching a class last night at Quilt in Joy (the LQS where I work part-time) on how to make this baby quilt. We used the "layered squares" method to make the half-square triangles, and then put together some pinwheels. There were four great ladies in the class, and all their pinwheels looked FANTASTIC! I found the pattern on http://www.modabakeshop.com/, Pinwheel Baby Quilt pattern. Next week the ladies will add the borders and prairie points.

My grandmother crocheted afghans and booties for all seven of her great-grandchildren, and countless others for friends and their grandchildren. I still have the ones she made for my girls; they are so soft and such beautiful colors. I often wonder how may well-loved blankets created by her hands are out there in the world...

It is such a joy to create something beautiful for a new baby. This is my favorite quote to put on the labels of baby quilts:

Every child born into the world

is a new thought of God;

an ever-fresh and radiant possibility.

If that quote and some pinwheels don't bring hope to your heart and a smile to your face, then I don't know what will!