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Okay so it’s not actually a finished object. It’s getting there. But I am moving (AGAIN) soon, so I’m not going to get to finish it. However — I’ll have a whole room for crafting when we move! SO excited.

There was kind of a bit of shrinkage. I was going for 50″x50″ but the width is quite a bit less. I figured it would be but didn’t realize it was going to be THAT much less. I’m planning to add white fabric to either side and do a light gray back and the binding with one of the vintage fabrics. I have enough of one of them to do the binding.

This is before — when I pinned all the white to either side of the strips. I sewed the white on then sewed three strips together at a time, then sewed those together.

This is the (mostly) finished product.  You can’t see the shrinkage as much in this photo as I would have liked to show. It’s about 2/3 the original size.

Closeup of some of the lovely fabrics … I love the blue with white swirls and the red with polka dot circles.

I’ll probably be doing a plethora of finished quilt posts come winter.  I have a bag full of about 6 tops with backs and binding ready to go. Just need somebody to quilt them! I would, but I would rather not kill my machine.

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My grandpa had given me a bunch of things that my granny (great grandmother) had left behind when she passed in 2002.  I’ve been using some of her materials (embroidery thread, fabric, pins, etc.) to create some of the things I’ve been making.  I’ve had 10 quilt blocks that I’ve been hoarding that she had made a long time ago.  The fabrics were impossible to match with modern-day or even reproduction fabrics.  The block pattern was too complex for me.  So, I’ve been sitting on them.

Last weekend my mom and I went to Valley Junction and found some really amazing vintage blocks that matched pretty well.  So, I finally got out the blocks and made a quilt top.

Here it is!

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A while back I was going to participate in a charm pack swap on craftster, but didn’t realize that I had to complete a swap before I can do two at a time … and I really wanted to rock the metal swap (which I blogged about earlier in the summer).

Anywho, I bought a buttload of fabric and made a bunch of charm packs to send out.  I decided today to make a quilt top (I have a 2nd one in the works) out of the charm packs I’d put together.

Enjoy!  There’s some Amy Butler, Michael Miller, Kaffe Fassett and MUCH more. 

I think I’m going to do an oatmeal/cream backing and do a pink polkadot border (from the Wonderland fabric set). I’m wanting to do an all-over stitching pattern with either stippling or some sort of floral.

I haven’t mustered up the courage to do the quilting myself, so I’ll be sending this off to a quilting lady to work her magic.

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I  can’t believe I never blogged about this!  I posted this on craftster.org a while back.  I did these over the last 2 weekends.

Coin Stack baby top for my neice’s 1st b-day (in October).  There’s a lot of fun fabrics in this — these were fabrics I’d bought to do the charm pack swap, but I couldn’t do it because I’m doing the metal swap on craftster right now and that’s my first swap — rules are yo have to have one completed swap with good feedback before you do multiple swaps.  I’ll be in on the 2nd round of a charm pack swap though! I’ve got the fabric cut already.

Hello Betty top for my mom. I’m using the brown for the backing (ideally would have used the brown with orange flowers, but everywhere is SOLD OUT!) and the turquoise for the binding (was going to use orange w/ the brown flowers, but I like the turquoise better w/ the solid brown).

the colors are really off.. :/

again..colors are really off.

I’ve got the Hello Betty quilt ready to be quilted…but I’m not sure where I’m taking it. I need to find another quilt lady around here. I found an awesome one in Cedar Rapids, but I’m going to reserve her for special quilts. She charges a fair price for the work that she does and she’s really nice, but I think I can find somebody a bit cheaper for quilts I want to have just a simple all-over stipple pattern on.  I’m too chicken to quilt myself. I might try it with my hardcore quilt top this month since I’m borrowing a good sewing machine from my grandparents, but I also don’t want to risk breaking their machine…so I better not.

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I did this a few weeks back but never officially blogged about it or posted it anywhere because I never got out my good camera and took photos of it.

Well, I did. I didn’t take *good* photos of it, but it’s a step up from the cell phone pix that I had!

I have a huge collection of crappy band shirts that are of the hardcore/numetal/radio rock genre.  I’ve been hoarding them thinking I could make some cute tops out of them but realized I’d be embarrassed to wear some of these bands around (Limp Bizkit?! haha).  

So, they were perfect for my deconstructed t-shirt quilt top experiment. I had about 25 black and grey shirts and I made 50 blocks out of the shirts that I’d cut up into smaller pieces and re-pieced together. I embroidered some of the pieces and did some fabric painting on some plain black squares to give it a more destroyed/deconstructed look.

Anyway, here’s my first attempt at piecework. 

yeah. lotsa slipknot. to slip, or not to slip? slipkNOT.

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