Family Tradition Quilt

For those of you finding your way here for the first time through Amy's Quilt Festival, welcome! The quilt I entered in the festival has a story and I wanted to share the reason I had to make it with y'all. We ranch in the southwestern desert and ranching is a way of life for us. Its not only what we do, but it is who we are and the kids have always been a part of everything we do.

I had to document our girl flanking calves.

She's been holding calves in the branding pen for a long time:

The kids learned the ropes at an early age

                            

And they learned well

They grew up in the saddle

And spent many a day learning the fundamentals of horsemanship

and of one ornery mule:

Teaching the kids the family business and working together as a family has been  one of the greatest blessings through the years:

                            

So when my friend, Shelly, of Prairie Moon Quilts, designed this quilt and shared it over at Riley Blake , I began rifling through my stash immediately:

                       
It was a given that I was going to make it. It could not be more perfect! I spent a bit of time getting the letters cut out for the applique during the NFR:

                          

I loved every minute I worked on it and I had a vision for what I thought might work for the quilting. I rarely take a quilt to Jackie with a vision. I hand them over to her and tell her to do as she pleases and every single time, she chooses the perfect design. However, this time I asked her about quilting a barbed wire pattern.

 I had a picture of the sashing in a quilt I had seen at a quilt show years ago that I showed to her and she sketched it out on a sticky note. She and her daughter, Sandy, who is a teacher, and a quilter,  worked up a plan together after we met and when I picked up the quilt a few weeks ago, I was so tickled with the outcome that I may have gotten a little teary eyed. Look at this fabulous quilted barbed wire!

 Sandy quilted the perfect design in the stars as well and the combination, just puts an already perfect quilt over the top.

                                            

I chose a denim blue I had in my stash for the backing and a red denim for the binding. The brown thread was the perfect choice and looks wonderful on the back too.

The quilt measures 70 x 80 and I'm over the moon about how it turned out:

And no quilt photo shoot is complete without a little wind in these parts:                                  

                               

Shelly, thank you for designing the perfect quilt for us!

I'm entering this quilt in Amy's Blogger's Quilt Festival. Its always such a great source of inspiration so pop on over there and enjoy the show. Thank you for stopping in for a visit and thank you for letting me share a little piece of our life at the end of the dirt road.

The Granny Square Quilt is DONE

If you're stopping by here from Amy's Blogger Quilt Festival...

                                               
Welcome to the end of the dirt road! I'm excited to share this quilt with y'all today. This quilt has been on my UFO list for a long time - 5 years to be exact. As soon as I saw it on the cover of the October 2010 issue of American Patchwork and Quilting I knew I had to make it. Scrappy quilts are always the ones that tug at my heart the hardest. This pattern is by Moda Lissa and I made my first block immediately.

I had only been quilting for a year and I had never worked with such tiny strips, but I was hooked.

Lots of stash building happened while stitching this quilt and I was elated with each and every block.

And the 1.25" strips just kept multiplying

This project kept being pushed back onto the back burner again and again, but every so often the strips would cry out that they had been neglected for far too long and more block making would commence:

                            

I finally finished piecing the blocks and got it stitched into a top and then it sat again.

                                        

The pieced border intimidated me, but I had already cut all the pieces and pieced strips and I loved the border.

                                                         


During one of my trips through Brady, I finally stumbled upon the perfect backing and at $3.50/yard, it was especially perfect:

                            

Then it was off to Jackie for a little quilting TLC and it was finally time for binding!

                            

It finished at 80 x 92" and those of you that know me, know that I wish I had made it bigger. I did make it bigger than the original pattern and at some point and time, there may be another one :)  Rest assured, in the 5 years since I started this quilt, I now have a large enough stash that I can sew the next one entirely from scraps. I love everything about this quilt...

And the Texas Hill Country:

 In the springtime:

Is an especially pretty spot to show it off:

Thank y'all so much for stopping by during the festival! I hope you'll stop in again. 

  

  

And thank you Amy for hosting this twice a year. Here's a link to all the inspiration! 

'Here Fishy Fishy' Baby Quilt Finished

It's time for Amy's Blogger's Quilt Festival and although ranch life has kept me away from the sewing machine lately, I have a quilt to add to the fun that I recently finished. Thank you, Amy, for giving us a place to gather and celebrate our love of quilting!

                                                

There will be lots of wonderful new blogs to discover and get ready for a slew of new inspiration as you browse through the wonderful quilts and read the stories behind them. Click HERE to be inspired!

If you popped in here via the festival, welcome to the end of the dirt road where quilting meets ranch life.

Every time I work on a baby quilt, I fall in love with it. These little fish were so much fun to applique. I've got a long way to go before I'm satisfied with my applique, but I just had to get over it and dive in or I'll never improve.

 Same goes for the quilting. I'm new to FMQ and I'm pretty tickled with it on this quilt. I didn't have one tuck or bobble on the backside although my stitch length seemed to vary and I'm thinking that had a lot to do with the fact that I wasn't able to keep a consistent speed. I need a cruise control on my machine. :)

                           

I stitched slowly on the applique, but I still had my thread sort of lose tension every so often. Not sure what causes that, but I'll play around with some practice pieces and see if I can get it all lined out. You can see it on the mouth of the little starfish here:

                    

I adore that little starfish with his wonky eyes. I straight line quilted the chevrons.

                               

 Boy, those little buggars gave me a run for my money, but in the end, things lined up ok. This pattern is from Heather Mulder Peterson's book: Little Quilts 4 Kids. Her directions are wonderful, but I just had to get my head on straight when piecing them in order to make the best use of the fabric. This is Heather's fabric line as well and I'm thinking I need to add some more of it to my stash.

Then I didn't have a clue as to how to quilt the background fabric so I kind of winged it and I am thrilled with it! It was fun and liberating although my shoulders were sore when I finished.

                                      

I backed it with a green that I had in my stash that matched perfectly and the fun multicolored chevron stripe print in the fabric line made a darling binding.

             

And I added this little label that I showed y'all the other day:

      

And here's the finished quilt for a very special little boy::

Isn't that a darling pattern?

This quilt measures 44" x 47",  and it's on its way to my awesome niece and her husband who had their first baby in July. Yes, I am late, but I was waiting on the release of this fabric. They are avid fishing fanatics so I knew I had to make this quilt, using Heather's darling fabric, for her sweet baby boy.