HE IS RISEN

**Yawn** I just woke up from the most wonderful nap. I rarely am able to take naps, it always seems like there's too much to do... indeed. My spontaneous napping was probably induced after consuming a large portion of Mom's Cooking. ; ) Church was awesome and we woke up in plenty of time thanks to a beautiful, and very loud, thunderstorm. Through church and up until now the weather has been a breezy perfect temperature but it looks like another storm is building AWS.

A few things I've been working on ~

I just finished a quilt for my long-time friend Amanda. I know her from my church camp days at Asbury Woods, a methodist camp, where I was a camper from grade school and a counselor in high school. She asked if I could make her a Hot Wheels quilt for her son. I scoured the web for inspiration but only one artist really struck me. The focus fabric print that she and her son picked out was a striped (border) print. I found it especially difficult incorporating this print in the design. The boy's father made it known that he wanted nothing "girly" so I made a special attempt to keep things "manly" for this quilt. I used alot of black, maybe even TOO much, but I think the black will be able to grow with him. Who knows, the quilt might even be kinda 'cool' as he's reaching his teens. . . . that is my hope, and was my goal.

Of course I did this QAYG because it was a large, bed quilt. I quilted the center all at once, but added the borders afterwards. I ordered 108"-wide quilt backing from fabric.com, but they shorted me half a yard. They were out of the green swirl print and they were sending a replacement of a dark mottled blue. I didn't like this nearly as much as the green swirl, but it was the only thing I saw they carried that wasn't. .. "girly." I was waiting for them to send me a replacement, but I got impatient and went ahead and used what I had of the green swirl. I wanted to get the quilt finished. I WAS too short. . so I added a bit of the striped border hotwheels print fabric to TWO sides of the border . .. I got lucky I was only short that little bit of fabric. I like the way the back looks so maybe it was meant to be?! =cD
And a few shots of the back. . .

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As I mentioned in my previous post, I have been trying to sew garments. Well, let me just say that I have absolutely been SO BLESSED in my sewing endeavors!! I have found an absolutely WONDERFUL lady who has taken the time to help me. .. step-by-step and answer all my stupid questions. I don't know why garment sewing is so difficult for me. One would think that quilting skills could really be beneficial when learning to sew garments. I can tell you first hand. . the skills are NON-Transferable. lol ;c)
Although I have a warehouse full of quilting cottons now-a-days, I am now exploring unknown territory. I have recently ordered ... KNITS! < gasp >

Knits, stretchy fabrics, rayon, linen, garment patterns (ugh!) zippers, buttons, alterations, tailoring, darts, tucks, are all things that were once foreign to me. ; c) Thanks to my sewing Teacher, who is teaching me out of the kindness of her heart, via the web, I am learning more now than I could have ever learned from a teacher locally, if I paid her. Just another reason I am so blessed and thankful!!!
Besides learning how to sew garments, I have a few quilts that I have to finish soon.

1) Remember Megan's Signature quilt? She has commissioned me to make another one for her! I love her quilts, they force me to be creative because each of her quilts are totally designed by me, and from no pattern. They come from an idea. . from Megan, her family, and me. . . and that idea is then transfered to fabric and a quilt. This one has been particularly interesting. . . Poppies and Daisies and signatures ; ) Since the quilts I make for Megan are small, wall-hanging size, I have the opportunity to really get in there and play with embellishment and thread painting. This go around, I might try to add a little Trapunto, Sharon Schamber style.

2) Jaime has requested another quilt from me. This time she wants a queen-sized charm quilt. Together we went to Joanns and picked out a bunch of fabrics and FQs for her quilt. (I told her since she didn't want to order from a quilt shop, that I would just have to quilt it to death due to the cheap nature of the fabrics.) I will be starting this quilt early next month. I'm hoping to use HER quilt, for my QAYG tutorial I have promised everyone.

UNTIL THEN! =cD

What's everyone working on?