Home Dec Projects

Blogger’s Quilt Festival Quilt

May 18, 2012 by Irelle Beatie · 12 Comments

It’s that time again – Amy Ellis at Amy’s Creative Side is hosting the Blogger’s Quilt Festival. This is an opportunity for bloggers all over the world to post photos of their quilts so we can all enjoy a virtual quilt show. Thanks to Amy!

My quilt for this Festival is my version of Facade. Rachel Griffith from P.S. I Quilt did a Build a Quilt Workshop online about 6 months ago. I used the workshop quilt as the center of my quilt. The blocks were made up of half square triangles and a rectangle to make a 4″x6″ block. I wanted to showcase the fabulous Heirloom collection by Joel Dewberry for Free Spirit Fabrics in my quilt rather than a more scrappy effect so I chose to combine HST’s of the same fabric so you see a larger block of each print.

Once the center was complete, I decided to make a larger version of the block to surround the center section using the larger blocks horizontally on the sides and vertically on the top and bottom. I added a couple of borders to complete the queen size quilt top.

Heirloom comes in three different colorways. (You can still get this fabulous collection here and here.) I used a combination of the Ruby and Sapphire Palettes in my quilt top. And then I used the remaining fat quarters from those two palettes to piece the back along with some tone on tone white.

I made pillow cases and pillow shams out of some of the Heirloom prints to complete my bed ensemble. Heidi Duryea from Rocky Mountain Quilting did the quilting for me. She does a wonderful job.

I am thrilled to have this beautiful quilt on my bed. I love this fabric collection and it makes my room bright and happy although I’m not typically a pink kind of girl.

Thanks for stopping by my blog. It’s been pretty quiet around here the last couple of months as I have been in the middle of a major move. Things have finally settled down so I hope to get back into a more regular routine of blogging my creative efforts. I hope you’ll check in again.

Thanks again to Amy for hosting the Bloggers Quilt Festival!

Irelle

Filed Under: Fat Quarter Patterns, Home Dec Projects, Quilts, Uncategorized

It’s Christmas once again in Santa Barbara

December 21, 2011 by Irelle Beatie · Leave a Comment

Christmas in southern California just doesn’t match all the pictures and images on greeting cards and holiday decorations. No snow so not much use for mittens; no snowmen; no winter wonderland but we enjoy the spirit of the holiday season just like the rest of the world. There is nothing like enjoying the annual holiday brunch on the deck under sunny skies with a group of friends. We all bundle up for the holiday light tour on the open air trolley because it might drop below 50 degrees before it’s over. We whine when daytime temperatures dip below 60 degrees despite the sunshine. Are we spoiled or what?

But despite the lack of traditional seasonal weather, most of us jump in with Christmas decorations. I will be spending the holidays with family in San Luis Obispo so my decor this holiday season was on the small side. In my very first blog post, I talked about changing out my livingroom decor for the seasons and I count Christmas as the fifth season. I start with the pillows in my window seat.

I added a topiary tree this year as I didn’t put up a “real” Christmas tree since I won’t be here for most of the holidays. The couch sports more pillows and my One Block Wonder Christmas quilt.

I made two One Block Wonder quilts from Fruitcake by Moda. If you have never tried this style of quilt, I encourage you to try it. I took a class but the book is well written and easy to follow. The possibilities are endless and I’m planning another one in my quilting future. It is a wonderful creative process and the results are amazing. Here are a few more views of my quilt.

I had so many blocks due to the 24″ repeat, I was able to make two throw size quilts. I used the blocks with blue in them for my mother’s quilt and used the green and tan blocks for mine. Mom and Petey enjoying her quilt

Here is a shot of the back of my quilt so you can see the fabric that I started with. I’m linking to Quiltstory – Fabric Tuesday!

And last but not least – here are a couple of shots of my granddaughter Janelle hanging the ornaments on her new Advent Calendar tree. See details on this post.

Wishing all of you an enjoyable, stress-free holiday season and a fabulous new year. Can’t wait to start those new quilt projects!

Thanks for checking in.

Irelle

Filed Under: Home Dec Projects, Quilts, Uncategorized

Charity Christmas stocking project

November 7, 2011 by Irelle Beatie · 1 Comment

Our guild, Coastal Quilters of Santa Barbara and Goleta, does community projects all year long. The last couple of years we have made Christmas stockings for some of the local charities. This year, the charity that is the recipient of our Christmas stockings is St. Vincents PATHS program which is a residential program for low income mothers and their children ages birth to 3 years. We are hoping to provide Christmas stockings for ALL of the children in that program. I made a few stockings at the Community Quilts work day in October and had two left that needed to be completed. Completing those two stockings gave me the inspiration to keep at it! Thursday I will be donating EIGHT stockings to our Community Quilt stocking project. I found a great tutorial on the FabricWorm website with a cuff which adds a great touch!

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Filed Under: Home Dec Projects, Uncategorized

Halloween sewing

October 22, 2011 by Irelle Beatie · 2 Comments

I have been busy doing some Halloween sewing for my grandchildren – Halloween Banners

And Halloween skirts for my granddaughters Janelle, Jaylen and Giuliana. I made these from 2 1/2″ strips that I cut from the leftover banner fabric.

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Filed Under: Baby & Children, Home Dec Projects Tagged With: costumes, Halloween

Banners, banners, banners….

October 4, 2011 by Irelle Beatie · 1 Comment

There are a number of tutorials out there in blog land that give you some great ideas on how to make banners. I know you can find them here & here or if you don’t want to do them yourself, there are oodles available on Etsy. My daughter-in-law has discovered Etsy but knows that her MIL can make most things that she sees for “free” so when she was planning my twin grandbabies first birthday party, she asked if I could make birthday banners to hang around the gazebo at the park on the big day.

Here is my simple way of making two sided banners – the tutorial photos are from the birthday banners and then I did the same for Halloween.

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Filed Under: Home Dec Projects

Crafty Weekend with my daughter

September 26, 2011 by Irelle Beatie · Leave a Comment

My daughter Tracey has just discovered Pinterest and had several projects in mind when I visited last weekend. Based on the number of pins we both have, we’ll be busy indefinitely…..

Here are the inspiration photos from Pinterest.

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Filed Under: Baby & Children, Home Dec Projects

Time for a change

September 13, 2011 by Irelle Beatie · 2 Comments

I love, love, love to change the colors and decor in my house. A few years ago, I decided to change the decor on a quarterly basis – Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall. Originally I used a rug as the inspiration for the color palette but now that I am quilting, I buy extra coordinating fabric when I make a new quilt so I can make the pillows to coordinate.

Even though this part of the country doesn’t have a true winter – just a little rain now and then, I still wanted to go bright with the Spring palette. I chose red and yellow because I found these fabulous pillow covers and rug at Pottery Barn and then made a red and yellow bargello quilt for the back of the couch.