Friday(ish) I’m in Love: City Quilts by Cherri House

I have to admit I was astounded to find City Quilts at my local library. They have a very small selection of quilting books and most of those are at least 10 years old so to find something so new and modern was a pleasant surprise. Honestly, if we weren’t watching our budget so tightly I would have bought this book since there are at least three quilts out of this book that I’d love to make.

My absolute favorite is called City Play-

I think it will make the most awesome kid’s quilt 🙂

I also really like City Green-

and City Lights-

I’m a huge fan of Cherri House and plan on making a couple of her other patterns that are available for purchase individually.

I’ve been collecting fabric for City News for a couple years now. Eventually I’m going to make an anniversary quilt for my sister and here husband like this one-

If you are interested in using solid fabrics more in your quilting I’m sure you will find some inspiration in City Quilts.

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A Story about Brown

Some colors I’ve loved all my life and some I love intensely for a short period of time, brown falls into the latter category. For about a year I loved brown, I started wearing brown clothes, I painted some of my furniture brown, and I bought LOTS of brown solid fabric to make a quilt for my brother. I bought 6 or 7 yards in fact and (you guessed it) never used it. By the time I was inspired to put fabric and thread together and make a quilt for my brother my love affair with brown had long since ended. So this giant chunk of brown fabric has sat in the back corner of my fabric shelves for years. I’ve pulled it out a couple times but always put it right back in favor of blue or gray or cream.

Then 2011 rolled around and my budget tightened up so I decided to use what I’ve got when it’s time to make a quilt. I figure even if I don’t love brown lots of people do including my sister in law. Which works out fabulously since she announced this past Thanksgiving that she is pregnant. If the baby is a girl she wants to decorate in pink and brown and if it is a boy blue and brown. I was going to wait until she found out the gender to get started but I couldn’t wait and whichever quilt isn’t given to her will be donated. So it works out for everyone 🙂

For the boy quilt I pulled out my Philadelphia Modern Quilt Quild Project Pure quilt. I had one charm pack and one yard of fabric of my choosing to make a quilt top. I didn’t really like how it came out, the fabric wasn’t my style and I felt limited in my choices since I was using precuts. On the other hand my husband loves it and it would be a quilt for his sister so I added a dark brown border and called it good. I like it better with the dark brown but I’m still not in love…

The back will be more of the dark brown solid which barely put a dent in my stash of the stuff…

I won’t be able to baste this until this weekend so I started cutting squares for the girl quilt. 240 3 inch squares to be exact.

I wish I had the rest of the fabric on hand since I was motivated to get started but my fabric stash has already been moved down to VA in anticipation of our move so I’ll have to wait until this weekend to get it and bring it back home.

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Stalled

So I started the year with every intention of finishing my works in progress before I started any new projects. I figured I would start from most complete to least complete and knocked two out and then I stalled….

(Sorry for the bad picture, I used my camera phone)

I knew I wanted to try free motion quilting in a sort of large graphic floral design. And I even like how it is coming out

But I’m not enjoying the process and I’m not motivated to work on it which means I haven’t worked on anything in weeks.

This past weekend I decided it was stupid to try and force myself to work on these projects in a particular order. So I rolled up that quilt and pulled out the blocks from my Single Girl Quilt and finished assembling the quilt top tonight. I haven’t decided on the back or the quilting design so I think this quilt top will go back into my “to be completed pile” but working on it renewed my creative spirit and I’m eager to get cracking on some other projects now!

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