My Girls #1 - Meghan's Quilt

I consider myself a pretty lucky gal to have the group of girlfriends that I do. There are six of us all together and we make up quite a fun little group. Some I have known for years, and a few a little shorter, but they are all amazing pieces in my sometimes puzzling life. We have been through it all together; marriages and divorces, births and deaths, health scares and work triumphs. These girls stand by through and through. When thinking about how lucky I am, and how wonderful these ladies are, I decided it was time that each of them had a quilt. What better way than for each of their birthdays.



I refuse to edit this picture because we are all blessed with Supernatural eyes in this one!
Must have been the Voodoo magic at Tibby's New Orleans Cuisine! ;)
Only problem is we were missing Michelle! Next time....

 At least once a month the whole group gets together to have dinner, catch up, and for six of the months, celebrate a birthday. First up was Meghan. She is the 'newest member' to our little club, but it feels like she has been here all along (or should have been at least). A happy spirit and so funny, she lights up any room. After a few struggles this year I thought she needs a super cuddly quilt that would be all hers. The trick to that is that she has two growing boys, who like kids do, tend to claim things as their own. What better way to combat that than go for a totally girly quilt! After all, what little boy wants to be seen wrapped up in his moms purple blanket!


Finished Top

 I decided to do a Jelly Roll race quilt with these beautiful batik strips. If you don't know what a Jelly Roll race quilt is, there is a good tutorial here. I don't normally sew with Batiks and sometimes feel like too much design can be overwhelming with these beautiful rich colors, so I went with basic.

Finally somewhere to baste my quilts!

I am very lucky that last weekend my parents came up to visit us and brought me the family table! This table is older than me, and maybe my favorite piece of furniture ever. It has bounced between my parents and my sister and now it is finally mine! Not only are we excited to have somewhere to eat, but also somewhere for Zach to study and me to baste my quilts! Okay, getting off track here.

My quilt assistant Stash. He can find a new quilt top anywhere!

Still basting



New Machingers! Thanks Mom!

I should mention here that I started the basting the night before the birthday dinner. Oops. I'm a super procrastinator for sure, but this was more a matter of circumstance. Busy at work, family in town, etc. So with a time crunch on I started free motion quilting on Saturday early afternoon. I felt a little rushed knowing dinner was only hours away, but I actually think it helped! I didn't focus on it being perfect, and I think that made my motions a lot smoother. Amazing! I quilted it in about 2.5 - 3 hours (including snack and stretch breaks). I'm not sure if that is fast or slow as I really have nothing to compare it to, but it got the job done.

All squared up

Binding

I decided to go with the same bright blue as the backing for the binding. Bonus was that I already had a few feet of the perfect color and width started. I store all my bindings on empty spools and then place it on an extra spool holder next to the machine while I sew it on. It keeps it straight, not twisted, and helps with my lack of pinning. Not to mention I store all the leftover spools of binding together and once it looks like I have a pretty decent collection going, I use them all together on scrappy quilts. More on that later.

New table also great for pictures at night!

This shows the colors a little better than some of the other pictures.

I was able to finish an hour or so before dinner. Whew. Nothing like cutting it close! Tossed on a ribbon and out the door we ran. We celebrated with dinner at Tibby's New Orleans Kitchen in Winter Park. It was amazing! I'm currently not eating Gluten, but was able to work out an order with our very helpful server. I highly recommend it! There was great food, lots of laughter, and our usual good time. I never leave our girl's dinners in a bad mood, and wish they could happen more often.

Streeeeeetch Meg!

Meghan loved her quilt and recently redid her bedroom in purple! I had no idea! Lucky for me, and for her it all worked out. We decided a little impromptu photo shoot was in order.

Quilts are always a perfect fit.

So that's my latest finished project. I'm working on the next birthday quilt now, but will have to wait to post much more than that. She's on my facebook, instagram, here, etc. Makes it a lot harder to share what your working on when your friends are all in the know! She should be getting it this weekend though, so I will have new pictures for you next week!