Hot Air Balloons

My creative mojo has definitely left the building. I have several projects right now in different stages of un-done-ness. (Is that a word? Well, I'm making it a word.) I have a Christmas table runner that is cut, and needs to be pieced and quilted. I have Christmas panel I was going to make into a runner that needs to be quilted, and I promised my mom that I would try to do a table runner and two pillow sleeves for her birthday (which is near the end of February) but I should never have done that because now it feels like something I have to do, and sucks all the enjoyment of the project right out of it, and now I have zero motivation. I cut some material for the pillow sleeves, but that's as far as I have gotten. Also, I purchased a quilt kit from Quilt Taffy to make as a baby gift for a friend that is due in March. So, since there is not much happening at my lil homestead, other than that we have had 60-70mph chinook winds (it's been +7C lately) I decided to post pictures of my very first ever quilting project. I found the pattern at an on-line store called Snowflake Designs, and was originally looking for material for a Bug Jar quilt (which led me to her store). She also has kits for a really cute gumball design, as well as rag quilts, I Spy quilts, and many other easy projects. I found the pattern for the Hot Air Balloon quilt and purchased my own material. As a beginner I thought the pattern was fairly simple to follow, and I thought it turned out alright.

I love that I found light colored cloud material, to put around my "balloons". The balloons themselves I made using Moda Heart to Heart fat quarters that I purchased on e-bay a looooong time ago. If you do a search the material still comes up from various sellers.

I chose a light purple fabric for the sashing, and a soft purple (lilac if you will) flannel for the backing and binding. I thought this color brought out all the colors in the balloons rather nicely.

And this one is my favorite blocks, as I think this one looks most realistically like an actual hot air balloon. I tacked down the "ric-rac ropes" in the center of each, as I wasn't sure who this quilt was going to when I first made it, and thought little fingers would get hold of the ric rac if I didn't sew it down. I also found a really nice brown basket weave patterned material to use for the balloon basket.

So that is it! I know my basting and quilting skills have improved since I made this last summer, and I was going to give it to my niece for Christmas, but I forgot I had it to give to her and bought her something, so I have decided to keep it for myself, just to remind myself how far I've come and how much I've improved. I suppose this means I'm going to have to get motivation (I'll have to dig deep) to get creative again, as I think these are the last pictures I have of past projects for now. Or I'll have to leave the house more often so I have more to blog about!

One last thing, my book review for the last book I read is up on my reading blog, click on the image in the side bar to go to my other blog if you're interested!