Daddy's Shirts

This is a project I worked over last Christmas.  A year ago, my friend Jonathan passed away.  My friend Amy Austin suggested that I make quilts from his shirts.

I asked his wife Sara for some of his shirts so I could make some keepsakes for his children.  She sent me some of his work and dress shirts and some t-shirts.

For his little girl, Mia, I took the dress shirts and created loose edge, machine appliqued circle blocks. I used cotton tone on tone fabrics as the backgrounds for all of the blocks, since I was not sure how the dress shirt fabric would hold up after washing.  

I know the colors look a little masculine, but I used some pretty cotton tone on tones and a flowery quilting pattern.  Also the back is very pretty.

For the boy Dallas, I used the T-shirts his Dad had sent him while traveling on business trips.  I sashed them with a grey dot fabric and then used some of the left over dress shirts for accents.  The background is Kona black.

I love grunge dots, so they are on the back and a striped binding to finish it off. 

Lots of prayers were said for these kids and their brave Mom while I worked on these quilts.  Mom and kids are doing well, I continue to keep them in my prayers.

I wanted to share these quilts with you to give you some ideas for some keepsake quilts.

I hope you all get a chance to sew this week!

Love,
Aunti Nicole

Tessellated Mint Chocolate

At my Flying Geese Quilt Guild I joined a UFO Challenge.  The challenge is to finish 5 quilts that were Unfinished prior to the challenge.  This is my first completed quilt.  I started it about 2 years ago.  It was my month to big a block in my EZQ group.  Each member made me a block and I put them together.  This is actually a one block quilt.  I chose mint chocolate for the theme.  I love the fabric choices and the quilt came out great.  I finally finished the quilting on my new Tin Lizzie.  I have a feeling a lot more UFO's are going to be completed here in the new future, challenge or no.

 Here is the block.  Its created by sewing and slashing and resewing.

For the backing fabric I used some fabric I got from Beyond the reef.  Kind of a beachy toile.

Some of my friends Donna and Pat created some simple philanthropy kits and passed them out at the last EZQ meeting.  Great idea.  I whipped this rail fence up in no time.  Its a pretty good sized lap quilt.

I'll be traveling next week to Sacramento.  So I've got this weekend to sew, do laundry and pack.

I hope you all get a chance to sew this week.

Aunti

Nicole

A Gift for Me!

On Monday I went to my EZ quilters Meeting. EZ quilters is a friendship group that my Mom belonged to for many years and then when she moved out of the area, they asked me join and keep her spot warm.  One of the new members Pat Chambers made these cute little pin cusions for all of us.  I believe she used walnut shells for the insides.  I picked one for Mom and one for me.  I haven't decided if I'm going to mail Mom's or made her drive 10 hrs to get it ;] ....Hey I know that sounds bad but we are always looking for excuses to visit.

Donna and Pat are in charge of philanthropy for our group.  Donna passed around a bag of philanthropy projects and asked if we would like to do one, and of course her bag came back empty.  We don't take much prompting, lol.  New project, cool!  So here is the one I grabbed!









Today my friends Dione and Carol are going with me to the Pomona Quilt Show.  There is a Tin Lizzie 18 DLS Long Arm that I have my eye on.    It comes on a Grace Falcone frame and it seems like a great deal ($5999).  I still have to test drive, but I'm itchin to get it.  

If anyone has any warnings or word of wisdom, I'm all ears....for the next couple of hours anyway.  Cuz after after I buy it, I don't want to hear...."oh you should have done this"...or "oh I have one I could have given you"....hehehe.  Its a big purchase and I'm a little freaked, which is why I am bringing backbone reinforcements.

Well I'm off to the circus, I hope you all get a chance to sew.  Check back here tomorrow, and I'll let you know if I did it!

Have a wonderful Day!
Love Aunti

Sandwiches again?

Happy Wednesday Everyone!

I am so excited to share the news with you....I am the guest blogger today at Madame Samm's Stash Manicure.  Please visit and check it out!  If you came from there, I hope you enjoy my blog.

Saw Transformers on Monday.  As a computer geek, I get nerded out at the CGI and the sound effects in these types of movies.  Yeah... I liked this one too!

Sew I have had the whole weekend to catch up on some projects.

I picked up this philanthropy project in May when I attended our Flying Geese Quilt Guild meeting.  Top was done and they provided the batting and back.  I spent Saturday morning sandwiching, quilting and binding this little fairy quilt.








Sandwiched one small quilt for hand quilting.  And 3 more lap sized quilts for machine quilting.  I am a sandwich machine!  They call me.......El Panini!  Well not really, but I can't beleive I actually all of them ready to go.  Now comes the quilting.

Thank you all for visiting and your comments.

Have a wonderful week and talk to you soon!

Love,
Aunti
Nicole