Quilt for baby #5

This is my latest quilt. I'd started piecing it for our queen-sized bed but soon realized it would have taken me until my level of tennis was that of Steffi Graf, so I created it for Yosef's and Rachel's and Mordechai's and Yisroel's sister, due at the end of April. The border - flying geese - takes quite a while to make and one day I'll be able to make it perfect! Regardless, I'm really happy with the outcome. So, I pieced it and a quilter friend has a long-arm quilt machine and she quilted it.

New Baby, new quilt: Yisroel Fenster

So very happy! Yisroel Fenster, born March 15, 2010, healthy and handsome. Plus, of course, a new quilt for him. Yisroel now joins Yosef, Rachel, and Mordechai into the arms of Eric and Lili - they are very lucky kids to have such extraordinary parents. You can discern I'm a proud Savta (Grandma in Hebrew). Mordechai can't say Savta, but I like what he CAN say: Tata!

DOTTY'S now hanging properly on the wall

DOTTY is now properly hanging and I can't stop looking at it. I'm currently reading through a quilting book by Freddy Moran, who makes quilts that I absolutely adore and she says never make a quilt for yourself that you won't want to look at all the time. Well, I've done that with this quilt.

Jamie's HORSEY quilt

This is Jamie's now finished Horsey Quilt. The top pic is the back of it. It's queen-sized, so I had it professionally quilted. She loves it and I'm so very glad!

My African Houses

This was my first paper-piecing class - oh, around Sept. '08. This piece is finished and I'm not sure if I'll quilt it or just set it on a frame and hang it as is. I like it a lot!

Crazy Curves

This was actually my first quilting class - and a difficult one for me. Those curves were tough! I used all batiks and I'm happy with the result. This is about 2 years old.

Jan. 17th - Here's the Slide Show

Slide Show of My Quilts

Above is a slide show of my quilts. I'm so excited! I found a site called slide.com on another blog - I follow several quilt/art blogs - and followed the instructions. Neat, eh?

Completely Dotty - new project

Here's a pic of my new project, called "Completely Dotty" because every single piece of fabric has dots! I'm taking an 8-week class at my wonderful quilt shop in Newbury Park....the instructor is truly inspirational, funny, understanding, you name it, she's got it good. I completed eight units today in the first class....each quarter circle is a unit. This quilt is paper-pieced, so there's few, if any, errors. Easy, really. And the finished product.....well, gorgeous! So these two pics show the complete quilt and my progress as of today.

We don't really have room on our walls for the full-sized quilt, so I'm thinking of making it 1/2 sized and the other half as a gift. Any takers? :)

Ciao for now................................

12-12-08 Pillows and our pretty kitchen

I appliqued two pillow covers for Family Fenster in Israel to replace the ones that good old time and kids have demolished. I'm going there on the 16th and it'll be a JOY to see the family, since it's been since July, when Mordechai entered the world.

These are pretty much my first attempt at using fusible web, then machine applique to make pillow covers. Lili likes mauve (maroon? wine? dark red?) and deep blue and flowers, so I just had to include some green too! I hope she likes them.

Here's also a pic of our newly-painted kitchen cabinets, black on the bottom, white on the top, new pulls. We're loving the look.

Nov. 2008 Two more quilts

Here are two more quilts I made about 6 months ago. The blue one was for little Mordechai and the pink one for Dave & Isla's little Lilly.

Nov. 2008 Courtney's Quilt

I have not been keeping up with this blog until today, so this is catch-up time. This is a picture of a Dick and Jane quilt I made for Courtney about 8 months ago. This was a really steep learning curve and I made so many mistakes, I had to buy extra fabric to correct them. I had it professionally quilted but now I wish I hadn't because it was too heavily quilted, which made it rather too stiff. On the other hand, with repeated washings, it should soften nicely and Jamie tells me Courtney cuddles with it all the time.........and that's the important goal.

Those are Stan's legs peeking out from the bottom!

Nov. 2008 Triangle Quilt

I purchased a kit to make this quilt. It came with pre-selected fabrics and instructions, but I didn't enjoy some of the chosen fabrics, so I substituted some of them. I learned so much about how to join triangles so that I'd have the necessary 1/4 inch seam allowance to stitch them together.

I really love this quilt and it is gracing our dining room wall. There's a reflection in the dining room mirror....which only doubles the joy!

We'll look upon it with pleasure for many years to come.

Devon's Quilt posted 2/28/08

I've finished this quilt for grandson Devon and I think it turned out quite jazzy. I love color and I love quilts that incorporate the color black, so this has it all. I didn't use a pattern - I just decided that each block would be approximately 5" by 5". This is called a scrappy quilt because I used so very many different fabrics.

I hope he loves it. My next project is making a Dick and Jane quilt for Courtney, who'll be four in July. This one will follow a pattern and since I've never done that before, I'm a little apprehensive. Making up my own scrappy quilts is easy; I don't know about following a pattern!

Sun. Dec. 2, 2007

This is working? I'm new to this blog site and trying out all sorts of options.

The first photo is a flannel rag quilt for Yosef. The 2nd, for Rachel, is kinda special. I ordered the 30 center blocks from a site on Ebay, then designed the quilt around them. I didn't use any pattern, thus this is my ORIGINAL creation and I'm pleased as, well, the proverbial punch.

I like COLOR!

The kids will get their cuddlies when I visit Israel from Dec. 9 thru Dec. 25.

Ciao for now...

11/13/08 New Quilt Top

This is the new quilt top I've finished. Now comes the grunt work!