This is from the McCall's January/February issue.  Yes, an actual pattern!!!I think this should have been on the front cover.  I hastily laid the quilt on the couch, took a photo, and then wrapped and mailed it in time for Christmas  to my DH's god daughter's new baby, Corinne.  So after doing many undersized quilts, this one is definitely oversized for a baby.  I started Dec 2, 2012, and finished Dec 14.  The applique bunnies are constructed by making paper copies of the bunnies, placing them on two pieces of material, right sides together, sewing completely around the shape, making a slit in the back, turning inside out and then sewing from the back of the background material.  By doing this the stitches don't have to be so perfect and it has the needle turn type of look.  FAST.  I guess other folks do this too, but it was not in the instruction. Lots of fun doing this one, I guess I like kids quilts, I need more victims.

So here's the deal on the teeny weenies, I did a few, but find that the preselected fabric collections don't always  lend themselves to the patterns that I had created.  So I started a new pattern on my tiny cad program.  I have since switched out to a new cad program, Nanocad, free and very nice.  Both programs work fine, but Nanocad is free and actually does more.  Yeah.  I put together a large Christmas tree by the seat of the pants method, I am close to finallizing that one, just the decorations left.  The large tree was supposed to be a quilt in a day project, about 3 feet tall.  It ended up 6' tall because when I assembled the star on top it was WAY to huge for the smaller tree that I had imagined.  Prior to completion of the big one, I made a smaller (surprised here?) version for Sheri. Done!!!  I did do a cad layout for the smaller one, actually pretty much kept to the plan and it is finished and out of the UFO box.

 I did a UFO show at the Wannabees a while back and was shocked at how many I had.  Worse yet I had even forgotten one that was stuffed in a drawer.  I am now anxious to start another design on my new CAD.

Madeline's quilt

I finished quilting the red, white and black teeny weeny, and have not taken a photo yet, so thought I should at least put up a photo of one more quilt.  This one was done for my niece's graduation.  The quilt has a lot of issues, but here it is.   I had just purchased a Husqvarna 875 Quilt machine and kinda,( slightly) overquilted the quilt.  the feature that I like the most about the machine is the intuitive foot pedal.  When I am in the needle down position, I sew, then the presser foot automatically lifts slightly for the next piece of fabric.  The presser foot also does a number of very intuitive up down things.  love it.  My DH selected the focus fabric and much help was given by Sherrie at Aker's for the fabric selection.  

OK, so it's a very local quilt show, buuutttt, I received viewer's choice awards for two quilts that I entered. wooohooo!  Quite a surprise.  this was the first challenge competition that I have entered, I learned so much that I hope to participate next year.  Other than that my DH and I have been doing finishing touches on our guest house, so quite busy there.  I have also started learning applique.  I decided to join a BOM thing at my local group, the project includes applique, new to me.  So anyway...here are my two winning entries.  The bottom quilt is a mini, gee what a surprise, it's 17"X17" and is a pattern by Janet Wickell available for free on About.com.  The top one started as a doodle, it's titled Just a Doodle.  I decided to ultimately hang it 180 out from the way I photographed it, so yes, the sky is at the bottom of the photo.

I have been busy lately, so a little later than planned on putting these up on the blog.  the original pattern that I had in mind was for the red white and black collection, but I tried it on two additional randomly selected fabric 1/8 cuts from Jinny Beyer.  I did cut the eighths into fat sixteenths when I started.  Now i have to refine the pattern a little prior to putting it up on the blog.  the instructions make sense to me, but a little extra work on the patterns would help.  

Teeny weeny (sweet Sixteen) trial pattern

I spent today trying to develop a pattern for a teeny Weeny, or sweet sixteen.  Those are the tiny collections of 5 fat 1/16.  Yes, that's right 1/16, or about 9"x11".  I wanted to use as much of the fabric as possible, a lot like a puzzle.  Two failed trys, and the third try is oh so close.  Here is the fabric that I bought at Boardwalk quilts in Long Beach during our recent visit to go razor clam digging.  I will post the dry run using fabric that mom sent from Pennsylvania, all sort of vintage stuff, combined with two pieces of fabric that I came home with from the Wannabees ugly fabric exchange.  Hope to have a detailed pattern in a week or so and will post when ready.

mom's electrical panel cover

Yes, that is the actual name of the quilt.  When mom heard that I had started quilting she asked for one to cover the electrical panel in her home.  Silly girl.  she really should have waited until I had a little more experience.  At that point in time I had only completed one kit quilt, hand quilted.  So, not having a clue what i was doing I began making a bunch of (guess what?) churn dash blocks and stars.  Mom had a particular size in mind for the finished project, and I had it in mind to make it 5 blocks by 5 blocks.  Sure that worked well.  My flying geese had some really odd measurements.  so anyway, machine pieced, hand quilted.

Lap quilt

Tinkerbell is a lap size quilt that I finished in 2010.  The blocks are Ohio star and churn dash block.  This was my third quilt, and all of them were of the same block.  Someone at the quilt group I go to even suggested that I should branch out.  This was one of those "I see this fabric, I have to cut it up" kind of things, and the very first one that I machine quilted.  I quilted it on a Singer Fashion mate, whose feed dogs don't drop.  I barely knew what a feed dog was when i started this.  The design was created on Quilt Wizard.

First cubicle quilt, Fierce Heart

   This is my first cubicle quilt, Fierce Heart.   It's a paper pieced original design measuring
9 3/4"x9 3/4".  The design was created on a inexpensive computer aided drafting program.  Believe me, this was so much more fun to design than sanitary and storm sewers.
    Since I am such a newbie at quilting I am "discovering" all those things that most of you did years (and years) ago.  Whack and Stack, strip piecing, one block wonders,  etc.
Last winter i started sooooo many new things, and as I did a block of this or that I would start another new one.  I Promised myself that I would clean up my act and finish some of those UFO's from last year, so I promptly started two new quilts.  Hmmmm