Cherry Checkerboard Quilt and I learned a new trick!

Cherry Checkerboard

Cherry Checkerboard with Super Helper

 I started this quilt a LONG time ago with the leftovers from this quilt. It sat around as a quilt top for, oh, forever. I have a hard time quilting anything larger than a baby quilt on my Bernina. Some people can ram a king size bedspread through there, but I am not one of them, being as I am not double jointed and have only the standard two arms.

Last year my local quilt store got a long arm quilter and made it available for renting. For $15/hr you can happily quilt tents or king size bedspreads or even normal size quilts. I took a class for 2 hours and the next day I quilted TWO quilts in about 7 hours. It was actually really fun. I dislike the quilting step on my domestic machine and expected not to like it on the long-arm. WRONG! I loved it. I will definitely be doing this regularly from now on. They even change the bobbin for you- and supply the thread. It's a great deal.

 I did loopdy-loops on this quilt and am very happy with how it turned out. Next time I might get brave and do some flowers or feathers or something fancy. 

We are keeping this quilt and are already using it on the couch. 

(But we do fold it up and put it away when we're done. At least while it still has that new car smell.)

I am linking up with Lit and Laundry for Finish For Friday. Swing on over and see what other bloggy persons have been up to.

ETA- I just found a really cool new to me blog, amylouwho, with a Sew and Tell for Fridays. There are some really really cool quilts and sewing projects over HERE.

Cherry Quilt Escapades

The above is what I left on my "studio" (dining room) floor last night when I went to bed.

This is what the squares looked like this morning when I got up. Hmm... somekitty was busy last night. (Or somekitties?) Luckily, I had a helper:

I fix it! I fix it!"

And he did fix the "qwiuwt".
(Sort of.)
Some of them even face the same direction. Not too bad for a 2-yr. old.

Lukey was having a bad day yesterday. No nap + a very overstimulating Christmas party complete with tons of presents and desserts= cranky toddler. He was throwing us a little "fit" and while stomping his feet yelled "I HATE qwiuwts! I HATE qwuiwts!" (That must have been the very worst thing he could think of to say in this household- heehee!) He apparently thought better of it and likes them again. He is back to being little Mr. Sunshine today.

A lot of nice ladies gave me compliments on this quilt over at the B&W Challenge, so I thought I would blog about my progress on it. I have 48 of the appliqued cherry squares made, but am only using 30 of them in this quilt. (I have another one in mind for the "leftovers".) I made these cherries about 5 years ago and was into more "countryish" fabric then, but they will look scrappy in this quilt, so it should be ok.

Now I am making a sort of courthouse steps block out of them with red, green, black and white prints. I want it to look random and scrappy, so I am trying to only use a fabric 2 or 3 times in the quilt. The finished size of the inside block is 8", then I alternate between 1" and 2" strips (finished) around it.

So far I have 10 blocks made up and the strips for the next 5 are cut out. I am almost halfway done with this top! I am really enjoying this one because it goes pretty quickly (well, now that the cherries are appliqued) and also, because I love scrappy tops so I keep getting to pick out which fabric to use next.

This is a picture of the "recipe" for this one. I draw most of my quilts on graph paper and color them with colored pencils. I am sort of "retro" about that- most folks use some type of computer program to lay out their quilts and I have done that, but I prefer the coloring. Must be my inner child- :-P

So my for next entry I will post individual pictures of some of the blocks and a closeup of the cherries. Hopefully I will have 15 blocks made by then! I am not a super-fast quilter, as my little guys are pretty "active" (hyper) and take up a lot of my time. Oh, and there's this blog thing I have going now...