Monday Mystery with Poinsettias

The big news this week in quilt land is Bonnie Hunter's newest mystery, "Easy Street."  This is my first year playinig along, and so far I am right on track.  Of course, we're only at Step 1!

I'm quite pleased that I got all my first step completed and still kept up with quilting and binding for 30 Quilts in 60 Days.

Here they are, 192 four-patch units of grey and black-and-white:

Go here to see other mystery quilters progress.

"Easy Street" is not the only mystery chez Aunt Marti.  These past two years I've made a little book of the photos of all 52 quilts I've made that year.  This year when I got my book back from Snapfish, I realize I don't remember to whom I gave several of the quilts.  So the second mystery is, who got these quilts?

Quilt #1 is "Yellow Brick Road."  Every quilter's favorite "I need a quilt to give away TOMORROW" quilt, this was a "brown bag surprise" at Ruth's Stitchery.

Quilt #2 was another mystery.  Written by Deb Caffrey, I started this one at Quilt Colorado 2010:

A third "brown bag surprise" at Ruth's Stitchery, "Framed Squares."

"Over and Under" was the green monochrome quilt in 2011 from Patchwork Times:

Another monochrome quilt from 2011, I called this one "Mellow Yellow."

Actually, when I consider I've given away 42 quilts in the past two years -- it's not bad that I can't remember five of them!

DH abandoned the Broncos game to go to Dutch Heritage Gardens and look at the poinsettias with me yesterday.  Who knew there were that many colors of poinsettias?  Here are two of their newest varieties.  The first one is "Tinkerbell,"  just for you, Michelle  (who blogs at Just for the Piece of It):

I love the serrated leaves and bloom.

I can't remember the name of this one (really must remember to write these things down!), but it has the brightest red bloom: and mottled leaves:

I hope YOU remember to go here to complete my solid-fabric survey and comment to enter the giveaway.  The giveaway ends this Friday, November 30th (thanks, Jeannie!) at noon MST.  

From the desk of your

A Few Friday Finishes

Woo hoo!  I'm making progress toward my 30 quilts in 60 days!

I've got a pretty good system going:  QPC.  That stands for Quilt Piece Clean.  I set the kitchen timer for 23 minutes, Quilt (or load the long arm) for 23 minutes; Piece for 23 minutes (today it's Easy Street, Bonnie Hunter's newest mystery); then Clean for 23 minutes.  I'm decluttering the basement -- such fun.

Two of the three quilts I've quilted and bound this week are somewhat larger than the eight previous ones.  I'm trying to take advantage of a week with no commitments!

Since I had the time, I tried some more detailed quilting on this Schnibbles quilt, "Leap Year."  

The pattern called for 2" squares, but I used 2 1/2" from my Scrap Therapy collection.

I added this one to my "ready to hand off quilts" shelf.

I liked the look of the "back and forth" quilting in the borders so much, I decided to use it on "Flurry" by Kate Spain.  This lovely is going on my quilt rack for the holiday season:

Oops, it is too big for my quilt holder to handle!  I ventured into quilting poinsettias, since the fabric has a perfect flower to copy:

I joined the flowers with loop-de-loops and quilted the sashing with red thread in Angela Walter's "back and forth" design:

Then a real challenge, a UFO from 2011, "Night Stars."  This was a "Thangles" BOM project from Ruth's Stitchery several years ago.  It went in the UFO pile when I decided I hate using Thangles to make half-square triangles.

Chocolate Mousse' helped DH hold the quilt over the edge of the deck so I could photograph it! 

I love this fun backing!  I'm thinking I'll send this one to Ohio for my niece, whose bed is the only one in the house without an Aunt Marti quilt.

Linking up to "Thank Goodness It's Finished Friday" at Quilting by Moonlight.

And "Finish it Up Friday" at Crazy Mom Quilts.

Be sure to go to this post to take the survey on solid fabrics and enter my Blogiversary celebration giveaway!












From the desk of your

It's Finished Friday: 8/30

Can you believe I'm still on track to quilt and bind 30 quilts in 60 days?  My friend asked how I've stayed up to speed with My Little Sailor at home.  Umm -- I mostly quilted small quilts!

Here are my two latest:

Jelly Filled is from 2011,  made with a "Me and My Sister Designs" jelly roll, "Happy."

Couldn't resist the "Lady Diana" shot!

This one doesn't have a home as yet.  My plan is to fill a shelf with "ready to hand off" quilts, and this is the first one on the shelf!

Our kitten, Domino, loves to sit on DH's lap while he is watching news shows on TV.  She won't sit on bare legs, so I quilted and bound "Square Foot Gardening" for her.  All my cats have "food names," e.g. "Marmalade," "Chutney," and "Chocolate Mousse."  When we got Domino, I asked the neighbor girls what food name we could use for a black and white kitty that wasn't "Oreo."  Alyssa suggested "Domino," because dominos are black and white, and Dominos is our favorite pizza!

You can see the "philodendron leaves" quilting design I used.  "Square Foot Gardening" is my original design for Sunday is for Scraps.

Notice the blue suede shoes?  I put the label on the right side of this quilt, because DH was the first one to notice the typo on my labels:

Tomorrow is Front Range Modern Quilt Guild -- I'll be back next week with photos of our ornament exchange!

From the desk of your

We have a winner!

Who needs the Random Number Generator when you have the Aubry Number Generator?
"Aubry, please pick a number between one and 66."  "OK, 45."  (scroll, scroll,scroll, count, count,count.  Shoulda told her to pick either a high number or a low number.)

And the winner is:  Lori at adventures in fabric.  Here is what Lori said:

Lori Apr 4, 2012 02:47 PM

Congrats on the milestone! It's always exciting to see your blog grow!

Lori is a teacher who has been blogging less than one year, and sewing for less than two years -- and you should see the quilts she has made!  This girlie has a J.O.B. and could give me a run for the money in productivity.  Not only that, but she was featured on GenXQuilters "First Quilts on the First."  

In case you've forgotten, the prize is:

Congratulations, Lori!  Email your mailing address to me at AuntMarti at 52quilts dot com so I can send out your charm pack.  There may be one or two other little goodies I've collected, as well.

Also, because it just isn't a blog post without a photo, here is a picture of my "Backyard Springtime" row quilt.  It was a 2011 UFO that is promised to my BFF Jeannie for her niece's graduation quilt (see, Jeannie, I remember!).  I started it as a BOM from Stitchin' Heaven in Quitman Heaven.

Now I must get to work on my HST challenge triangles.  They won't trim themselves, you know!

Hello 2012!

Sorry I can't find any photos of the fireworks on Pikes Peak to show you -- a New Year's Eve tradition here in Colorado Springs.  A group of climbers called theAdAMan club climbs the mountain and sets off fireworks at midnight.  A glorious show which the high winds didn't cancel this year.

Now here's a fun way to start off the New Year.  Lily's Quilts is sponsoring a link up to see what other quilters made during 2011.  Click on that button at the bottom right and enjoy.  How fun is that?  And oh yeah:

Happy New Year 2012!

Part 3: 52 quilts in 2011

Part 3: 52 quilts in 2011, a set on Flickr.

Last set. I missed taking photos of two quilts, one of which I can't even remember. It was a brown bag surprise at Ruth's Stitchery. I think I gave it away before I got a photo of it! And I forgot to put Bouillabaisse on my calendar, so really, I pieced 52 in 2011!

Part 2: 52 quilts in 2011

Part 2: 52 quilts in 2011, a set on Flickr.

Second set of 24.