Double Irish Chain Quilt

I realize I have been on a bit of a craft binge lately. Previously I was all about recipes and food, so I guess I'm trying to make things even. I'm sure I'll have another tasty blog about food sometime soon. I'm bound to make my lasagna for one of these cold nights!

Anyway, I spent about 5 hours at the Wisconsin Quilt Expo with my mother yesterday. All of the quilts there were very well done. I suppose you don't make it to the judging wall/maze unless the preliminary jury thinks it's well done as well. So, I probably don't have a chance in getting mine in that show next year, but it has really inspired me to continue working on my quilt. Here are some pictures of my favorite quilts from the show:

This frog quilt was AMAZING! I'm pretty sure the tag said it was made out of recycled materials where the proceeds went to help save the rain forest. Regardless - even it if was made with un-ecofriendly material, it is sill GORGEOUS! I think this is made from all appliqued and pieced work - something I will probably never try, and definitely not on this scale! I can't believe this only won 3rd place!

Of course I loved the Badger quilt. There were many other Wisconsin themed quilts - from cities to sports, but this one was my favorite. I liked the song lyrics and football chants that were embroidered into it. Embroidery is probably something else I won't really do. I'd need a fancy-dancy sewing machine for that. Maybe someday...







This sunflower quilt was my pick for "Viewers Choice." I loved the detail work with the quilting patterns and also the diamond shapes on the border of the quilt. Apparently this technique is really easy and you just need a special ruler to cut the fabric - I think it's called the double diamond ruler? Sometime soon I'm going to make a tree skirt and a Christmas table runner that uses this technique. I would have bought the special ruler at the quilting show, but apparently every single booth sold out of it about mid-way through the second day. Oh well. That just gives me an excuse to go to a craft store later! :)


















So, all of this talk about quilts means I've got to show you a sneak peak of the one I'm working on. Here's the pattern for the pieces and colors I'll be using. The quilt uses black, light and dark green, light and dark blue, and light and dark turquoise. I'm making this for our bed and hopefully I'll have it done for us to use by Christmas - top quilting included.

 Here is the pattern for the quilting that will be on top. I haven't decided if I'm going to hand quilt it or machine quilt it yet. For hand quilting I can at least do that here myself. For machine quilting I would have to find somewhere that would let me use their long arm machine or top quilt it for me. We'll see what actually ends up happening.

And, here's a sneak peak of the top left corner of my quilt. I've got most of the pieces cut out, but I just couldn't resist putting things together to see what it would really look like. I really like the combination of colors and I think it will work well with the dark brown tones we have in our house.

So, I'll keep you posted on how this long-term project goes and any other little things I come up with. Happy crafting!