Spring Bling and an Artful Pillow

I am keeping busy with three big quilt projects, but in between I like to break and do a smaller project. I was asked to make a wall hanging/art quilt for the Nurses Week raffle coming up in May.  I put on my artsy thinking cap and dragged out some of my scraps and grew an art quilt.  Once I got the central part completed it had to rest a few days, until I could decide on the background/border treatment.  I settled on the amazing yellow fabric I bought from VFW website.  Then, I had to think about how to quilt it.  I knew I wanted to use my walking foot and do it myself.  I looked back at my "Greedy" wall-hanging for inspiration.  I stitched in the ditch on most of the center portion and continued repeating parallel lines, and took it on out into the framing area of the piece. 

The cherry blossoms where in full bloom on the tree in our front yard, so I photographed my finished work in that springy location.   Remember you can hover over the photo, then click on it to see it enlarged.  It has bunnies, sheep, bees, butterflies and so much more!

Sometimes I just want to try something I see. I get it done then, I can get back to my bigger projects.  I belong to a club called Mr. B's Preview Pack Club.   Every quarter I get a little packet from Benartex Fabrics which has a news letter called "The Fat Quarterly" and a few 5" X 5" cuts of a new fabric line.  At the end of March, I received my quarterly packet, which had instructions on how to make a 16" pillow cover with the 5" X 5" squares that were included (if you also bought some of the same fabric line for the main color and the backing).  Well,  I have a crap ton of fabric, so I used my own fabric to make this marvelous pillow.  I still have the purple squares, from Benartex, which I am sure I will use at some point.  

You sew the 5X5 squares into half-square triangles, then arrange them in rows of four, to achieve this pattern.  So you sew together sixteen half-square triangles and the pieced part is done!  It was amazingly simple. I used some of the left over fabrics from the Tile Style quilt I made last September-October, so I have gifted this pillow to the owner of the Tile Style quilt.  The top is quilted. After I quilted the top, I surged around the edges, before putting the back pieces on, so it will hold up well in the wash.  Ta-da!

Poker Run Quilt aka Horse Quilt Finally Finished!

This quilt gave me a few headaches, but I have persevered and it is complete. It is the last of the nine UFO's on my list to complete last year.  It was all done, but the binding on December 31, but I had to let it wait a bit longer, because I also had to sew 18 button eyes on it.  But it looks great.  The second one down, on the left, is Old Blue.  In March, actually, I photographed it in front of building 34, at the BVAMC, a historical site, which back in the old days was a horse barn.  It seemed appropriate.

Joe and Gayle are the quilt holders and actual quilt admirers.  If you wish to know more about this quilt, it is mentioned at least three other times on this blog, in past posts.  Or send me a comment, I would love that.