Quilt Reveal: Love and Happiness

I made a commission quilt and have delivered it, so now I can share it with you!

I told you that I was showing my mini book of quilts to everyone in the office who might be willing to look at it and my friend and coworker asked me to make her one. I bet you can figure out her name!  I normally don't do commission quilts, but she wanted one that I enjoyed making (The Earth Laughs in Flowers), so I said yes.

She then decided that she wanted one that was more customized and fit better with her available funds. I thought it was a little easier than the one she originally wanted, so it would be a little bit less time consuming. It has some repeat blocks, but not too many.

I wasn't keeping track of my time since I was charging her a flat price, but it took me a lot longer to make than I estimated. This quilt was fun to make, because it has the bright happy fabrics that I enjoy working with, and there is a variety of blocks that keep it from getting boring.

It uses batik and regular cotton fabrics. The blocks are all made with raw edge applique. I used some embroidery stitches around some of the hearts.

 I like the wording on the plaque to go with this quilt.

My family asked me if I wanted to go for a walk in this park. I had already been there earlier that day to deliver the quilt (I didn't get Debi's message that she wanted to postpone).  I came with the quilt and roped them into being the quilt holders and turned their innocent walk into a photo shoot.

Linked to:
UFO Busting
Off the Wall Friday 
Finished (or not) Friday

A Dozen Rails

I have finished the Love and Happiness quilt - quilting, binding, labeling, everything. I'll show it to you after it has been delivered.

This means the floodgates open and there are a million new quilts I want to start.  How about an alphabet quilt? Or a postage stamp quilt that Lynn and Wanda and a whole bunch of other people are making? Both of these use scraps which would be really helpful in reducing some of the scraps. And then there is the Seasons Crazy Mystery Quilt. That one can also use scraps, but would likely make a bigger mess. I have a couple of other quilts to finish before I can get to that one.

Yes, I do plan on starting all of those, but to keep the current quilts from grumbling too much, I thought I should work on them at least a little bit so they at least feel like the line is moving forwards instead of backwards for them.

Today, I sewed a dozen rail fence blocks. The stack has more than a dozen since I also pressed all the blocks that hadn't been pressed yet.

And since it has been two weeks since I posted a stitching update, here it is.

15 Minutes to Stitch: Week 27

I have been diligently working on the Love and Happiness quilt (formerly known as Purple Smiles). It took me much longer than anticipated, which I guess is normal. Since my last update, I put on the borders, I tried to keep the borders lightly quilted so that it would retain a soft hand, and then bound it by machine.

15 Minute sessions of stitching this month: 14 out of 14
15 Minute sessions of stitching this year: 144 out of 188 sessions

Success Rate: 77% Finally an upward trend!

Linked with:
15 Minutes to Stitch 
Friday Foto Fun I made more rail fence blocks, and the picture would look similar.
Off The Wall Friday

Love and Happiness

I told you last week I was working on a quilt for a friend. I called it Purple Smiles. Today, I am calling it Love and Happiness because of the smiles and hearts on it. It doesn't much matter what I call it, since I wasn't planning on naming the quilt for the label.


I am using the design couch instead of the design floor to avoid dog fur, although I did vacuum. This means I haven't been taking a lot of process photographs.

15 Minutes to Stitch: Week 25

I have been diligently working on this quilt. It is taking me much longer than anticipated, which I guess is normal. Since the photograph at the top of the blog, I have sewn all the rows together and have joined some of the rows as well. It looks really good to me. Hopefully it won't take too much longer to get the top done and quilted.

15 Minute sessions of stitching this month: 7 out of 7
15 Minute sessions of stitching this year: 130 out of 174 sessions

Success Rate: 75%

Purple Smiles Quilt

For my 15 Minutes a Day update, I am happy to report that I quilted the equivalent of 15 minutes every day this week. It all started with a Shutterfly offer for a free book.  I have ideas about books - a recipe book with my mother's recipes, a listing of all of my travel keychains along with the travel story, more genealogy studies about particular family members, the stories behind all of my quilts, etc., but these offers don't allow for that kind of time to thoroughly write anything,  and as usual I decided to participate at the last minute.


I decided to do what I do with my calendars, throw together all my quilt photos and put them in a book. This time, I limited myself to photos of finished quilts only, with no words or labels. It turned out pretty nicely. I think it is a good start to my quilt story book, and I was able to find photos of about half of my quilts in the short time I had available.

Anyway, I was showing my friend my photo book and she asked me to make her a quilt.  At first, she wanted  the Earth Laughs in Flowers quilt, but after I priced out the batik fabrics, fusible, etc., it was out of her price range, and she decided she would rather design her own quilt anyway.  So I've been working on the purple quilt.

She said she trusted me, and since I like purple, I have been able to make this quilt with a minimum of stress. If I make what pleases me, she should be sure to like it as well. At least right now, I have that confidence.

15 Minutes to Stitch: Week 24

Once again I did not keep track of my work, and I forgot to post last week, so I will say zero for last week. I worked solely on the Purple Smiles Quilt this week. I have 12 of the blocks done.  I'll show you photos next time. It is too dark to take photos now. The photos are of some of my bounty from Connecting Threads warehouse sale. I bought more, but I had put it away before I thought to take pictures. I had given myself a generous budget and I stayed under it.


15 Minute sessions of stitching this month: 7 out of 14
15 Minute sessions of stitching this year: 123 out of 167sessions

Success Rate: 74%

At this time last year, I was at 91%. I have a lot of catching up to do!

Linked with:
15 Minutes to Stitch with Kate at Life in Pieces