The Quilter on Osage Hill

In my first blog post I challenged myself to finish 5 kits by the end of the year. I bought all these kits in 2006-2007 and wanted to finish them up before starting many more projects. Around September I began to wonder if I would be able to meet my challenge, but I am happy to say I have finished all 5 tops!!! Of these, 2 are completely finished and 3 still need to be quilted.

Kit # 4 was actually just a jelly roll with a pattern for a quilt. This is the first jelly roll I ever bought and it came in the cutest little tin, see picture below:

I remember ordering this from the Fat Quarter Shop mainly because I thought the tin was so cute. I also really liked the fabrics in the jelly roll. The pattern is called Style of Grace; the fabric line is Shangri-La by 3 Sisters. Here are some of the jelly roll fabrics:

The pattern called for 2 accent fabrics and a background fabric. I was excited to find a use for the Inkwell fat quarters by Julie Rothermel as I have always loved these little prints. The pretty red floral fabric is Etchings by 3 Sisters. I also love my white tone on tone fabric with a pattern that reminds me of contour lines:

I really like the look of these blocks and the patterns they make.

Finally, I had to find a border fabric. Since these colors are a little more subdued than my usual I struggled a little bit finding a fabric for the borders in my stash. Kent kept saying it looked like a Christmas quilt so I pulled out my stash of Christmas fabrics and found the perfect blue border. I will use this for a Christmas quilt in future years once it is quilted.

This quilt is pretty large finishing at 80″ x 96″; I still need to find good backing and binding fabric for this top. Here’s a better look at the finished top:

My 5th kit is really just a charm pack with a pattern. It also came in a little tin; obviously I’m a sucker for that kind of thing.

The fabrics are from the Nell’s Flower Shop Collection by Blackbird Designs. I decided to do something different than the included pattern. I found a free pattern online for charm squares. I found a nice Kaye England fabric for borders, binding and backing and I was on my way. I completed this easy quilt in a weekend; quilting and all. I decided to go with straight lines in a diamond pattern. I thought it fit the quilt well. Here is the finished quilt:

The backing fabric I used is a Kaye England fabric. It is a blue paisley design. I have this same design in several different color ways. In fact, I used this same design in dark brown for the back for Kit #1. Here is a close up of the back.

I also found a layer cake from years ago when I was moving my stuff to my new quilting room. I saw an easy, free pattern for layer cakes on the Fat Quarter Shop called the Layer Cake Lemonade. I still need to find fabrics for backing and binding, but did get the top finished. Cute & very easy!

I am so excited to have met my challenge of finishing these tops. I must admit, though,  that I have still have many “works in progress”, a couple kits I bought more recently and some planned quilts that haven’t been started. But, I feel really good about finishing up these old kits that I  had in a drawer for so many years. Finishing is a GOOD feeling. My friend Jesse commented that my productivity must have improved by at least 50% with my new sewing room; we’ll see if that holds true.

I am going to try to get one of the unquilted tops done over Christmas break. 2 of the tops are pretty large so I am waiting to quilt them until I have a machine with a bigger throat. That is in the works. I have at least one other large top I am saving to quilt on my new quilting machine which will be very exciting!

I hope you all have a very, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! I am looking forward to a nice break and a lot of sewing over the Holidays!

  Sew long from the Quilter on Osage Hill!