Baby Quilt Weekend

Today's post is by Richard

For the holiday weekend Tanya and I have been cutting and sewing up some baby quilt tops.  I have finished six since the last one I showed you on Saturday.  I will show them in a minute, but first I wanted to announce the winner of the bowl and Fat Quarters from the giveaway that I started August 22, 2012

This is the prize in that giveaway.  On our blog I am not a big Random Number fan mostly because its well non exciting and truly not random enough.  In the past we have had Jared do our drawings.  The last drawing he gave us grief over having to do it so Tanya had the wise idea to allow Julia to help.  She  listed all the entry's into a bow (I might add the bowl was made by Tosha the same sister in law that made these bowl's) any way lets see who Julia Picked.

If you look closely you can see Julia had a lot of fun picking the number.  She actually picked 3 numbers so James my oldest son decided the one with the most slober on it won.

JLVerde said...16

How can you not love lizards? Most of them can lick their own eyes. And they can climb up flat surfaces with their "sticky" feet. And they eat bugs. And there's the whole "breakaway tail" thing some of them have going on. That's super sly right there.

I could go on. . .

August 23, 2012 5:37 AM 

The winner JLVerde has been notified by Tanya and when we get the address we will ship off her prize.

I am sure many of you have been wondering what I was thinking when I did my 3 giveaway's  with the 101 way's to enter.  I have to say sorry for making it so difficult to enter.  I was sitting here this morning dreading the idea of going though all of the entries and sorting them all out when my 17 year old son walked in and asked what I was doing. The brilliant plan to pawn off the task popped into my mind.  

Yes any 17 year old boy can be bought with a corn dog, fries, and a shake.  Every one can say thank you to James for sorting out the mess.  Sadly though I did not say when on the 3rd the contest will end.  So I have decided that the contest will end when I go to bed tonight around 10pm Mountain standard time so any of you that have not finished entering you have your chance.  I have a spread sheet with every ones name listed under the category they are entered into and will have one of the kids pick the names before bed (maybe make that 9pm lol) and will email out the 3 winners tonight.

Now for the quilts that I made up today (yes every one shake their heads and ask why I have made 6 new quilt tops today.  I have been slacking and I needed some new baby quilts.

The amazing thing is I have 5 quilts basted and ready to quilt this week while my wife Tanya is at work.  Sorry about the crappy pictures, but I was in a quilt making not picture taking mood today.

A fire and a new quilt top

Last night I got to do what I don't do often enough and that was I went camping.  Our ward (church group)  had a camp out up East Canyon and it was a lot of fun (between the rain storms). What I enjoy more then anything is to sit by the fire and eat food prepared in a dutch oven.

For my contribution to the meal I made some potatoes,  they went over well.  I used my 14 deep dutch oven (that is a big pot) and I was worried at first, as only a few ventured over to try them, but within a few minutes there was nothing left in the pot.

When I got back from camping today, I decided that I have not made enough simple quilts and I cut up 4 different colors groups of fabric.  Over the holiday weekend my plan is to make 3-4 baby quilts to put on my etsy store.  This above is a simple top consisting of 7 inch by 3 1/2 inch blocks sewed into rows.  Tanya was nice and has this quilt basted and ready for me to quilt.

I also got my block from my Australia block swap on Friday,  it is some pretty flying geese.

One last thing, my quilt is being voted on over at Quilting Gallery's weekly contest. The last I checked, I had only 9 votes and I am sadly never going to win.  Well unless all of you who see this post vote and get their friends to vote, please don't let me come in last.  Vote here  http://quiltinggallery.com/2012/08/31/vote-now-leaves-trees-flowers/  My quilt is my Dresden flower's and snake.

A Snake in the Garden

Today I would like to present my newest quilt "A Snake in the Garden". This quilt was created specifically for the http://www.slmqg.com/ contest EZ Dresden Challenge.  It is celebrating Darlene Zimmerman's 20th Anniversary designing quilting tools for EZ Quilting.  The linkup is September 1st - 6th with the winner being announced September 17th.

Did I mention prizes?  Oh yes there are lots of them.  Please go enter your own  quilts, I would hate to compete alone.

Before I talk more about this quilt, I want to first say that I am a member of the SLMQG (contest is open to all by the way).  I have attended the last 3 meetings and I have to say it's interesting going to a quilt guild and being the new guy.  I so far feel like the odd man out (Maybe that is because I am the only guy).  I am hoping that by doing my best in this contest, I can gain some respect with the gals in the guild. If not, well I am not going anywhere so I guess they will get used to me.
In making this quilt, I did not want to just make Dresden plates.  My assumption is that if I am in a modern quilt guild, I have to make it well more modern.  As I searched different quilts for ideas, I saw many snake like shapes and I knew that I wanted to do that.  But then again, I also wanted to have some traditional plates so that I could decide how I liked them and decide if I wanted to make them again.

I am happy to say that I enjoyed the process of making the plates a lot.  I used the ruler that I received from the guild that was given out as part of this contest.  The ruler was fun and easy to use.  The fabric that I chose for this quilt is from one of my favorite lines Reunion by Sweetwater for Moda Fabrics.  One thing you might find interesting (its a guy thing) when picking fabrics from this line I avoided the "Flower" fabrics in that line.  For the back ground of the the top I picked the light gray dots from that line and for the back I chose the large number print in multi color.  To make sure I came up with some great pictures, my wife Tanya and I took the quilt to the International Peace Gardens near my house for a photo shoot.

These posts here talk about the creation of this quilt

http://richardquilts.blogspot.com/2012/06/my-first-guild-meeting.html

http://richardquilts.blogspot.com/2012/08/dresden-fun.html

http://richardquilts.blogspot.com/2012/08/all-is-well-that-ends-well.html

http://richardquilts.blogspot.com/2012/08/i-aint-talking-you-cant-make-me-talk.html

http://richardquilts.blogspot.com/2012/08/i-need-good-name-any-one-have-good-idea.html

Link A Finish Friday #30

Posted by Richard

Link a finish Friday is when we here at Richard and Tanya Quilts let you show off what you have been working on this week.  We know that every one can not finish a quilt for every Friday, but every one can finish something to the point it is ready to show it off.

My finish that I am showing off this week is a HST baby quilt that I made out of Tanya's Twirl stash. This quilt is not finished yet, but it was to a point I showed it off.  In fact right now its in the sewing machine where I left it last night when Tanya got home and we started to watch Julia crawl.

The 2 most clicked quilts last week was Tanya's First Quilt and Lyn's Quiet Rebellion

Now it is your chance to show off what you have done.  The rules are simple.  Link something you have done.  Then visit 2-3 of the other quilts on the list and see what others are doing.  Please comment and share your support for our fellow quilters.

Oh and don't forget each link enters you into a drawing to win 2 FQ that I give out each month.

And the fun begins

Today's post by Richard.

To the victor goes the spoils or so Julia is telling us.  For those that have followed my blog for long you know that I started quilting because of Julia.  She is such an amazing little girl.  When she was born her little arm (right arm was hurt). We did not really talk about it because it worried us a lot and of course its a private matter.  She has a early intervention therapist that has been coming over to our house to help us learn what we could do to help her.  While yesterday they told us that they are going to do an evaluation and possibly kick her out of the program.

What? They don't want to help her any more? In the last week or so Julia has decided she can reach and grab any thing that is near.  As any good parent we try to keep things out of reach and we let her down on the ground as much as possible.  While sadly we now have a problem.

(if you are reading this in reader there is a video that you will want to watch)

Yes, Julia Dawn Healey is mobile.  Nothing is going to stand in the way of her getting to and eating all the paper in the house.  One thing I would like to point out is Julia turned 5 months old yesterday.  When I brought her home from the hospital the manual said

"Most babies learn to crawl between the ages of 7and 10 months"

Some one needs to let her know that she is breaking all the rules, now who has the manual for the advance speed kids? Needless to say I think her right arm is doing fine and ya its ok that she is getting booted from the program.