Britney's Monkey Quilt

Brittney loves Monkeys so I decided her quilt needed a monkey fabric. After finding some cute fabric with Monkeys, I started in on a quilt for her. Britt was the only one of the kids and grandkids that didn't have a quilt of her own. I managed to get her quilt top done by Christmas, but it still wasn't backed or quilted. This is a pattern from quiltville.com called Smokey Mountain Stars.

Once it was done I realized I need to focus more on the value of the colors. You can just make out the Pink and Green stars while the Blue stars stand out really well. Up close you don't get that, so I'm hoping she likes it anyway.

Since I had limited amounts of fabric left over for the backing, I decided to do the diagonal seam backing that makes the best use of the fabric - without one long seam down the center. I also had some little triangles left over from making the stars in the front, so I chained them together to make a band through the backing and another band of trim on the pillow.

This was the first time I'd done the no seam pillow. Once I figured it out - it worked like magic. Britt seemed happy with the finished product. I didn't realize she had a king sized pillow so I ended up adding more length to the pillow case. It was completed and to her in March of 2009.

Brian's Carpenter's Quilt

I found some great material to make a quilt for Brian.
It was only $3.00 a yard so I got all they had left - 5 yards. I then got 1 yard each of 3 coordinating prints. The top red, the gray and the gold. After I got home I realized I probably should have gotten more of the coordinating fabrics, but decided to try to do what I could with what I had.

I made a few blocks of the Disappearing 9-patch then started wondering if I should really use the gray fabric that I got or another red that I had in my stash. I asked some great quilters at the HGTV quilting forum and the decision was made
to stay with the gray.

Here I am playing around with some layouts. I didn't realize there were so many ways to set this one block. You can see I'm still playing around with that second red here. I do seem to like the figure 8 pattern that is on the left. Let me see what else I can do with that.

Ah... I seem to gravitate toward the left side of this. I'm not sure what happened to the right - I guess I had some blocks turned the wrong way and didn't realize it before I took the picture.

I had enough of the gray and red that I'd bought with the focal fabric to make a decent sized 'snuggle quilt' for Brian.

This is progress along the way. I still have the top 2 rows (and one loner) to split and re-sew. I like how it's coming along. While the whole process is simple, it got a bit tedious with trying to keep the seams matched just right, trimming and squaring up each step of the way, etc....

I still had just enough of the gold fabric to add a border frame around the whole thing.

Then it was decision time. I had enough of the focus fabric to either back the quilt, OR add another border to finish off the top. After seeing the focus fabric layed under the corner of the quilt, the decision was made. It was again confirmed by the great quilters at the HGTV board.

I have a 5 inch border sewn on and the top is done just as you see it to the left. Now all I have to do is get it quilted. I still don't know if I'm going to try doing the quilting myself, or have someone else do it.