Hands2Help Charity Quilts Completed!

Hello everyone! I hope the start to your month of June is going well. We just returned from a long vacation (totally awesome and I have some more posts on that coming up to share with you), but I had a lot of sewing to do right away.

I've completed both of my charity quilts that I pledged for the Hands2Help Charity Quilt Challenge. It was such fun putting these together. I completed the challenge with my mother. Together we made 6 quilts - 3 for each type of charity.

Here are the two fishy quilts I put together:

Obviously these are both very similar. The first one has more pink and purple in it, so I consider it to be more of a girl quilt. The second one has more blue and green in it, so I consider it to be more of a boy quilt. I hope the children who receive them will enjoy them. Maybe they'll even make a new friend by talking to the other kid that gets the same type of quilt.

I decided to donate both of mine to the Russian initiative of the Quilts Beyond Borders charity (my mother donated hers to the Ethiopian initiative). I have just a bare twinge of connection to Russia since I studied a couple semesters of the language while I was in college. I've never been there, but I hope to travel there some day!

For these quilts I had planned on doing an all over pebble/bubble quilting. I think that would have worked, but I changed my mind at the last second. I decided to do what I like to refer to as my "seaweed" quilting. It's loops with some free motion lines connecting them. I think it makes it look like the bubble type of seaweed that you sometimes see washed up on the shore.

This quilting went really fast - it only took me about 2 hours on each quilt to do the quilting - then another 45 or so minutes to do the binding. This was also the first time I had ever completed the binding totally by machine. It was sooooo fast that I'm debating doing it again. I'm just very fond of the way hand stitched binding looks that I'm sure I won't make the change completely. However, these should definitely stand up to multiple washes!

For the back of the quilt I chose a green stripe on each one. I felt that the front of the quilt was very child friendly and I didn't want the entire thing to just be for children. I'm hoping the children who receive these quilts keep them for a long time. If they do, they may not want everyone to see a bunch of rainbow fish all the time, so that's why I chose the more grown-up green stripe for the back. I still kept the binding as the rainbow colors so some of the quilt top will always show through. ;)

My second quilt is in the wash right now getting all crinkly ad nice. The first is completely ready to go and folded. I've got to get a box to send these off on Monday!

And, here's one more shot of my little cat Leia. She snuck in while I wasn't looking and decided to test out the second quilt right before I put the binding on. I think she approves! I do have some fish blocks left over, so maybe I'll have to make her and her sister Sasha a little kitty quilt to snuggle on. I have a feeling they'll still try out my quilts even if they have their own though! :)

So, hope you all are having a great weekend! If you want to check out the other quilts that were made for the challenge, please head to Sarah's blog at Confessions of a Fabric Addict and see the other linked up projects. Mine will be there too, toward the bottom, since I'm cutting it close to the wire! There are some really great quilts there, and if you weren't able to join in this year I think she'll have the challenge again next year. :) Happy quilting everyone!

While on Vacation... (Part 1)

Caution: Long and picture heavy post!

Hello everyone! I hope you all had a fantastic Memorial Day Weekend. My husband and I have been on vacation on a rather large road trip since last week Tuesday. I have been without cell or internet service for the past few days, so I thought tonight would be a good time to write a blog post. Currently we are in Seattle, Washington, but I should back up to our first stop along our Great Western Road Trip (as we fondly call it).

We packed up and left Madison, Wisconsin last Tuesday night and made our way to Sioux Falls, South Dakota. We were going to stop at Falls Park there, but it was completely blocked off by road construction. So, the only things we saw in Sioux Falls were a bunch of strip malls with tiny casinos in them.

From there we made our way to Mount Rushmore National Park. It was the first time that I had seen the monument, although my husband has seen it at least 3 times now. We only stopped for a little while at the park. It was very scenic going in and out of the park though, so we took quite a bit of time on a few scenic drives. We also stopped at Devil's Tower and Wall Drug on our way out of South Dakota. Then made our way to Billings, Montana.

That's a sarsaparilla in my hand... ;)

We then drove from Billings, Montana to Spokane, Washington. On the way we went through the Rocky Mountains. I felt like a little kid seeing snow for the first time while we went through the mountain pass. It was so cool to see snow on the trees. We had heard earlier that morning that they just opened up the last road/pass in Montana, so finally all of the roads were passable. Lucky for us since we didn't really plan in advance to even ask about that!

While in Spokane we walked along the river front to see the falls. Spokane also has a lot of sculptures along the river walk, so we took our picture in front of the large Radio Flyer. :)

From Spokane we made our way to the Sasquatch Music Festival. We did have a small diversion to Dry Falls which was amazing. If you're ever near Spokane, Washington you should stop there. The view is to die for and the drive to and away from Dry Falls is filled with stunning scenery and scenic turn-offs - just spectacular!

At the music festival, we camped outside at a beautiful gorge for 4 days while we listened to fantastic music. It was so much fun. We were a little cold since it got down into the lower 40s outside. I've never camped before when I could see my breath in the air! It only rained a little bit on one day for us while we were there. Unfortunately it was while we were waiting right up front at the stage for Cake to play. We got pretty soaked, but it dried out later that evening, so not too miserable. The concert Cake put on more than made up for it. Besides them we also saw Andrew Bird, Imagine Dragons, Mumford & Sons, Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros, and tons of other great bands. We had a blast!

Our little set up :)

View from the main stage - this picture doesn't do it justice!

We packed up the tent this morning and then made our way to Seattle, Washington. After a much-needed shower and short rest, we had a great lunch of crab cakes and crab chowder (yum!). Then we headed off to see some sights of Seattle. We went to the public library, the Smith Tower, (made a stop at the stadium the Seattle Seahawks play at for my husband), Pike Street Market, and the first Starbucks.

Of course we are from Wisconsin... :)

I tried to go to a quilt shop called Undercover Quilts, but they closed about 3 minutes before I got there. I'm hoping we might be able to go there tomorrow, but here are some pics of their windows outside:

An art quilt made of Puget Sound!!!

Loved the look of these fabrics, especially the sea creature one!

Tomorrow we're hoping to take a ferry somewhere (we haven't exactly narrowed down where yet), and then explore the place around the Space Needle for a bit (maybe) before making our way down the coast to Portland, Oregon. :) So - that's it from us for a while, hope you all are having a great week!

Charity Quilt Update

Hello everyone! I've had a couple of busy days trying to get my Hands2Help charity quilts finished up. I didn't manage to get mine quilted, but I did get my mom's quilted. :) Here's how they turned out:

The first two quilts are for the Happy Chemo charity. The first one was a cute frog and lady bug quilt. I stippled in the middle of the quilt and then did a loop pattern in the border. The second one was a fun and colorful quilt with butterflies and VW bugs. I stippled in the middle, then did hearts in the first border and loops in the outer border. They are both 45" square. 

This last quilt is for the Quilts Beyond Borders charity. It's another one with the fun and colorful butterfly and VW bug fabric. They wanted these heavily quilted so I stippled the whole thing. This one is 45" by 59" I think...

My mom is going to put the bindings on and ship these off herself. She already has the bindings put together, so I bet she'll have these in the mail next week! :)

In the mean time, I'm going on vacation for the next 2 weeks. We leave on Tuesday night and won't be back until June 4th. We're headed out west for the Sasquatch Music Festival in Washington. We're driving out from Madison, Wisconsin, so it will be a long road trip. We'll see Mt. Rushmore on the way along with some other rugged scenery. On the way back we're stopping in Seattle and Portland and then spending a couple of days in Yellowstone before coming home. I hope my husband doesn't get sick of me in the car! (We have some books on tape and good music so I think we'll be OK - just gotta find some hand stitching now...)

In some other news... My husband and I will actually be moving to Portland at the end of the summer! Our plan is to be out there at the beginning of August. That means I'll be kept very busy over the next couple months while I pack things up and figure out what I'll be selling, donating or packing. If you have any moving tips (or tips in moving cats across country!!!) please send them my way. I'm sure I'll keep you all posted with the trials, tribulations and triumphs of the process. Happy quilting everyone!