Briar Rose Quilt

Oh, swoon...I am so in love.

I was definitely late to the Heather Ross-obsession party, but I fell hard for the her latest line, Briar Rose...it has a lot of bees in it and y'all know I got a thing for bees and a cute little "Honeybee" to prove it (I am not kidding---"honeybee" is on her birth certificate...poor girl, someday she will sigh about her hippie parents).

Anyway, she had yet to get her "mom-made quilt" being number 4 and all.  My goal was to make one before her 3rd birthday, so I was so excited to be inspired to make this great and easy pattern designed by Rae of Made by Rae for Windham Fabrics.  You can download it for free here.

This fabric is still in stores, so if this beautiful and simple pattern inspires you to get sewing, like it did for me, then run out and get some!  I can guarantee it won't last for long!

Deadlines.

Let me start this post with a little background.  1) I LOVE deadlines.  Pretty much if I don't have a deadline, nothing gets done.  2) I am also a terrible procrastinator. Always have been, always will be.  3) After having four kids in quick succession, I have very bad sleep habits.

So...when the invitation to the Garrison Children's Education Fund "Spring Thaw" fundraiser arrived last week, I thought: "Oh, what a great opportunity to do something with those quilt blocks from sewing class last winter!!" Six of my sewing class students that worked on these blocks go to the school the auction benefits, so I thought making a quilt from these scrappy green blocks they made would be a nice addition.  

*Note: Most likely this photo was taken at about 2 a.m.

The morning after that late night, I got right to pinning...

Pinning led to a great fort diversion...

And dove into quilting:

A quick machine binding last night and, voila, a finished quilt for tonight's auction! (I am still kind of in shock myself).  

 Hopefully, the parents will think this turned out as great as I do!  This is a wonderful cooperative effort and I am so proud of all of my students!  Thank you Anna, Fiona, Evelyn, Caroline, Emerson, Ava and Natalie for your contributions to this quilt!!

Out with the Old

I made a commitment at the end of 2012 to get some of my UFO's off my table---not all, mind you, but at least a couple!  How about you? Did you make any similar year-end resolutions?  I managed to get two quilts done and delivered!  

One, handed off to my sister as a house-warming gift for her new home as she hosted her first Thanksgiving (this is an un-bound pic!)

This quilt came out of a really awesome improv workshop I did with Denyse Schmidt in early 2012.  You can find a link to Denyse's workshops here.

The back:

And the second, a long time coming, a queen sized quilt I had finished ages ago and never could bring myself to quilt.  This one was for my mother and I was terribly intimidated by quilting something this big by myself, so I finally resigned myself to the fact that it was better to send it out!  And, I am so glad I did!  It came out gorgeous, and in time for the holidays!

Tell me about your completions!

Photographing quilts

Boy, oh boy.  Photographing quilts is not easy.  No, sir.  Well now, it didn't help that it was 100 degrees today (no joke---in May, in New York---weird).  But I was under a self-imposed deadline to get some shots to my designer who is helping me with some quilt guild materials and trying to get some footage.

But, really.  You can imagine, in a house with four children 7 and under, there are not a whole lot of interior options for shooting.  And I couldn't find the dang clothespins which would have helped for getting quilts to hang on the fence.  Luckily, I had some hands to help fill in.

Then the dappled sunlight caused major lighting issues.

Then the quilts needed to be ironed.  Then certain people kept stepping on them. 

This was the best I came up with.  Still not great.  I will be working more on this.  Any advice welcome! Seriously.  No offense taken, I know they aren't great photos.