Modern Quilt for a Sister

 I can finally share the project I've been working on most of December. This was a surprise for my sister for Christmas and since she's been known to lurk around this blog from time to time, I didn't want to tip my hand in any way.  And it worked. She was totally surprised and, I think, happy.

And well she should be. I only promised to make a quilt for her almost 2 years ago. We picked a bunch of the fabrics on this trip to Carmel in Feb of 2009.  She has been very patient while other projects have been finished, but hers had languished in a pile of scraps under my cutting table. (Although she hasn't been totally neglected - I did make this sunshine-y quilt for her toddler last winter.)

The pieced back.  I was wishing I had more of that big print (and frankly - I thought we bought more on that trip but it is no where to be found.) So I wanted to frame it on the back.  I used up the rest of the remnants from the City Girl collection as well.

The craziest part of finishing this quilt is that I actually quilted it myself.  In case you haven't figured this out already, I feel like the quilting part is my weakness when it comes to finishing a quilt. Usually I take my quilts to the lovely ladies where I work and they do a beautiful job for a very lovely price.  But this time I was determined to do it myself.  (I've been practicing more lately on the Halloween quilt and the Robot quilt.)

Because I have never attempted anything bigger than a baby quilt on my own machine (and I HEARTILY salute all of you who work magic with you machines on giant quilts!) I took this one to quilt on the long-arm machine. I am scared of free-motion quilting (actually, I've done it, but I think my FMQ skills are so stinky) so I went with the straight line look.  I was terrified of ruining the quilt and by the time I was finishing the machine and I were practically in a rumble, but by the time I bound the quilt and washed it, I was pretty dang pleased. In fact - I kind of love how the quilting looks in the solid brown on the back.  I'm tempted to try it again. One day. When I can make peace with that machine again.

I took these pictures on Christmas Day afternoon (sunny, no snow and in my shirt sleeves while my boys were running around in the driveway wearing ninja masks and head lamps that they got for Christmas) minutes after it came out of the dryer and before my extended family was going to show up at our house for a party. Whew! 

The weather today couldn't be more different: cold, wind, and SNOW. I have finally reached the point in my life where I could officially live with out snow.

Computer update: I am still limping a long a bit.  RIP old computer.  We got something new (yay!), but I don't have any of my files.  Hopefully today we can restore our old files to our new machine and I will be up and running at full speed again next week. Fingers crossed!