Mercy Border Quilt Finished

Our first year of PQA, we did our Mercy Border Quilt project.

Basically, each person made a center square and then we swapped each month and a new border was added to it.  Our quilt was growing at the "mercy" of whoever was putting on the next border.

It was actually very fun and we saw some amazing borders.

Well, this is mine.  I started with a Circle of Geese block in the center and this is how it grew.

 I wanted it to grow into a rectangle, so half way through the year I added the two mini Circle of Geese strips to each end, and it continued to grow...

 It ended up being just barely smaller than a king size!!

Much bigger than I intended but it has a great drape on the sides of my bed.

I love the colors too.

What a fun project that was!!

Black, White and Blue All Over

It doesn't happen nearly often enough.

I have finished a quilt!!

 This one started as the block swap we did last year in PQA.

I chose the block pattern and the color scheme.

Then, each month someone else in the group would make me a block to add to the collection.

That gave me 12 and then I made 12 more so I could have a bigger quilt.

 It ended up measuring about 68 x 92.

Big enough for one of the kid's beds.

I'm a kinda sucker for secondary patterns and this one has some great patterns.

I quilted it myself with the new walking foot my husband gave me for my birthday.

(He's so great about knowing exactly what a girl needs - could have something to do with the running wish list I have....)  ;)

Happy Stitching!

Karyli

Made it in March

Here we go with March's accomplishments. 

These are the last three Mosaic blocks to make a collection of twelve.  Next month I hope to put them all together into some kind of quilt top.  They are all so different it's hard to see how they might come together in harmony... or maybe chaos. 

This is the last of the Sailboats that I had to do to make up for those missed in the swap last year.  Now I have 12 of these beauties.  They will not be made into a top yet though.  I am going to use the blocks from this years BSA collection to add to it so you'll have to wait until next year to see it all together.

I did two more of the 4-Patch Ladders to add to my PQA collection too.

This is the block I made for our PQA swap.  This one is for Shannon and although it looks simple, it is going to make an amazing quilt. She laid out what she has collected so far for us at our last meeting and all the oranges and reds make some pretty neat interlocking squares.

This one I made for Linda B. from BSA.  She asked for a log cabin with blue, purple and green on one side and creams on the other.  I had some fun with it.  I hope she liked it.

This is the block that Linda B. sent me.  This is one of the new collection that will go with the sailboats. I'm excited for them.  It looks great, huh.

 For the Inchy Hexagon Flower Swap, I made these for Kris Y.  She asked for dots.  I had fun getting to know her a bit.  She lives in that same town where I was born.  Kinda neat to meet people from all over the world.  Makes the world seem a bit smaller.

Unfortunately, I didn't receive any flowers from my sending-partner in March so I have don't have those to share but I did make some of my own color preference for myself.  One is already to be added to my growing garden.

 Ta Da!

Making progress a little bit at a time! 

February's Work

I know I'm quite behind but, oh, the computer has given me fits....

So here is my February accomplishments:

This one I'm calling Botany and I got ten more of those wonky diamonds done.

On the strip quilt, I've added 10 more blocks and 12 more little nine-patches.

 Four pretty flamingos join the animal collection.

 These are so fun, huh!  I just painted the legs like I did for the lions last time.

 This one I'm calling the India quilt.  So far, I'm just drawing sketches and getting some ideas together.  Stay tuned to see this elephant in color later.

 These are Mosaic blocks.  I started them in a swap about a year ago and then the swap was disbanded so I'm going ahead with them on my own.

 Here is one more sailboat to add to that collection.  This one was fun because it is my first wonky boat and I made the little yellow flag 3D so it stands out from the block.

Next, on to my swaps:

For PQA, I made for myself two of the 4-patch ladders for my own quilt to go with those that the other ladies are making for me.

 And this block I made for Nicole.  She is going to have a beautiful quilt.

For Block Swap Adventure:

I made this one for Helen K. in England.  She wanted a star in yellow and gray.

And this is the one she made and sent to me. (Crazy that we made the same block.)  This one will go with the sailboats.  I think it's great!

For the Inchy Hexagon Flower Swap:

I made these for Joke R. in the Netherlands.

 And these I received from Lori J. in Tennessee.  My black-eyed-susan quilt is really growing.  I'll have to share my progress on it later.

Phew!  Is that enough?  How good it feels to really get some things done - a little on lots of different projects.

A Gaggle of Goslings and other such PQA excitement...

Catch-up time.

Here's some of my summertime adventures with PQA.

(For more on what's going on and some of the other quilts, click the Parma Quilters Anonymous button on my sidebar.)

For May, I had Dawnel's cute baby boy quilt.  This is how I received it:

She painted the scene on the center block.  If you look close enough, you'll notice that the moon's hat is striped blue and white with black outlines.  I wanted to use that in the border I added.

 Here's a closer look.  All of the borders are fantastic.  I love it!

 I mitered those striped corners and they looked sharp!

 For June, since we are half way through the year, we decided to get our own back and add to it what we felt it might need to help it through the rest of the year.  I was excited about this because I had big plans for mine.

I cursed myself...

This is how I received it.

I did a 12" circle of flying geese for the center.

 I really wanted to use the circle of geese again somehow but I wasn't sure how.

I made miniatures!

I copied the pattern at 50% and made them into 6" squares...

Lots and Lots of  mini geese - goslings...

Dizzy Goslings!

 I won't go into detail about the hours spend and all the tiny pieces of fabric.... I was quite dizzy when I was through.

 And, here's how I added them to the quilt.  I wanted to elongate it some so it would be more usable for the kid's beds.

 I like it so much I'm giddy!

What Fun!

Come back later on and I'll show you the others I did this summer.

Ticker Tape Parade and Hot Air Balloons

At our PQA meeting this month we revealed and exchanged our Mercy Border Blocks again.  It is always so much fun.  It's like Christmas.  We get to see the new borders that everyone has added to the blocks and we get so excited. There's always lots of ooh-ing and aahh-ing and some squealing too.  It's really pretty silly.

Anyway, this time I got Shannon's block to add to.  This is how I received it:

She started with a Ticker Tape center.  Rainbow colors on a white background.  She did a great job on it and then the borders that were already added were great too.

I added a Ticker Tape border!  Yeah, crazy!  I know!  A lot of work... but I really liked how it turned out and I think Shannon did too.

If you want to see the rest of our gorgeous growing quilts, you can go to the Parma Quilters Anonymous blog.  They are all amazing.

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One of my favorite blogs to visit is Quilted Delights.  Leah is quite a fabric artist and does wonderful work.  She makes some amazing fabric postcards and I have perused through her creations more than once.  I wanted to give it a try.

This is what I came up with for a first time:

I stitched along each cloud with silver thread but the picture doesn't show it.  I really like how it turned out.  I may have to try some more.  In fact,  I thought I'd do a smaller version so it would easier to share with friends.

This is what I came up with:

Book Marks

Cute, huh!

Don't you wish you were my swap partner this month.

Well, until next time...

Always look for silver linings.

PQA Mercy Border Block - March

At our previous PQA meeting, I came home with this amazing block.  My mission: to add another border to it and then trade it at the next meeting.

  I think it's pretty stunning already.

Here's what I did with it:

I wasn't able to go to the meeting because I was home with the flu but I hear they had a grand time.  I love how the block turned out.  I hope Nicole is liking it too.

My own block is ever growing and changing too.  Here's the latest:

(Photos courtesy of Parma Quilters Anonymous)

Border Block

It's time again for our Parma Quilter's Anonymous meeting and I can hardly wait.  We'll get to reveal the first border we've added to our Mercy Border Block Quilt.  I received Gaylene's center and this is what it looked like when I received it.  She wanted a Breast Cancer Awareness theme and even provided some scraps of fabric to go with it. (Good thing!)

I decided to finish those little yellow stars in each corner.  It wasn't as easy as I thought but we got it worked out.

Here is the finished block:

Ready to pass on to the next lucky quilter!

That was fun!