My first baby quilt

Some neighbors just had their 2nd child, so I thought I'd try a baby quilt for them.  I wanted to do something pretty quick, so I chose the Rail Fence pattern.  It was a boy, so I did it in shades of blue, with the dark blue print containing some cute little dogs.  I used a coordinating flannel print for the back.  I quilted it all on machine, not very close, so it would be nice and "loose".  Upon finishing this, I decided that the sign of a good quilt is that you do not want to give it away!  This one felt so nice and snuggly.  (But, I did give it up!)

Beginner's Luck

In the spring, I joined the Durham Orange Quilters (DOQ) guild.  The group held their bi-annual quilt show this past weekend in the old tobacco district of Durham NC.  The setting was fantastic; the old brick tobacco buildings have been incorporated into a convention center, athletic park and restaurant area.  Bay 7, where our quilts were displayed, is airy and open and sunny.  Unfortunately, the sunniness at times made it hard to get good pictures ... but that's a small price to pay!

I entered 2 quilts -- my log cabin sampler, in the bed, pieced category, and a wall hanging called POP - Pinwheels on Point.  Unbelievably, both got 1st place ribbons in their categories.  I'm still in shock.  Not bad for a newbie, eh?  Here are some pictures -- first, a picture of bay 7, and then my 2 quilts.  (Again, sorry for the sunshine on the POP photo).

 

Weird Halloween Quilt

I just finished this one. It's kinda weird, but I like it. It was not quite all "scraps", but a personal challenge I gave myself. Every month, our guild has some door prizes, and in September, I won one of these. It was about 1/2 yd of Halloween fabric. It had 16 pictures in various sizes, all pumpkins and black cats, etc. I would never have bought this myself, as I prefer geometric designs for blocks, rather than fussy cut kinds of things. Anyway, I challenged myself to make a quilt from it without purchasing anything new, using only scraps and leftovers that I already had.

I had been wanting to try a spider web design that I saw on the web, and decided that would be a good Halloween-ish thing to incorporate with the picture blocks. So, here's what I ended up with. I'm learning FMQ, so I quilted spider webs over all the main blocks, and a "radio static" pattern in the sashing. (These ideas came from Leah Day's web site).

I did manage to make it all with scraps from my stash, with the exception of thread; I bought some silvery grey thread for the spider web.