Nacho Mama's Quilt

I don’t know about you, but I love placemats.  I use them every day.  In fact, I use placemats and a tablecloth most days.  There is just something that feels wrong about putting a plate and silverware directly on the table.  Do I have issues?

And we all know about my scrap problem.  Well, I’m so over making scrap quilts for a while (I was going to tag posts of my three recent scraps quilts, but I realized I haven’t blogged about them yet.  Fail!).  Which is one reason I started making prayer flags.  And then I decided to whip up these placemats.  And oh, this was fun!

I just chopped up a bunch of scraps into 2 1/2 inch squares.  I used pretty much anything except red.  I heard that when making a scrap quilt, you should eliminate a color or two so that everything will go look slightly intentional.  Or maybe I dreamed it.  Anyway, I didn’t use red (and instead opted for a red bowl in the center of the table).

I grabbed spools of thread and quilted each placemat with a different color of thread.  You know, it helps me justify my obsessive need to buy more.

And then I used my serger to finish the edge because I’m a lazy ass.  I am pretending that this is temporary until I get a real binding on there, but let’s be honest.  This is the way it is.

I’m tempted to cut up all my scraps into 2 1/2 inch squares now.  How about you?

Our family moved to San Antonio 5 years ago, a town where we knew no one and knew very little about the city.  It has taken us a while to figure out the town and decide where exactly we needed to be.  And we are proud to say we are finally buying a house after five grueling years of exploring and searching for our place.

This new home and new community brings new hope and promise for Nacho Family, so to honor this moment, I made a prayer flag.

I hope this home will be filled with love.  That’s really a given since the love is with us now… but do you ever want to hit the pause button in life because everything is so perfect and you never want it to change?  That’s right now for us.

I hope we will be blessed with good neighbors.  Neighbors who won’t mind when there are kick ball games in the cul de sac and will want to pull up a lawn chair and watch or even join in.

I hope I’ll have the garden I’ve been waiting years to create– with fertile soil enriched from my own black-gold compost.  Fresh flowers cut from my own garden.  Vegetables from the garden to nourish our bodies.

I wish for prosperity so that we can afford all my big plans.  The plantation shutters.  The hand-scraped wood floors.  The granite.  All in due time, of course.

And most importantly, healthy lives.  Without our health, the rest is pretty hard to achieve.

So, as soon as we close on the house, I’ll hang this prayer flag on my fence and let the wind carry my prayers and hopes until it is time for new ones.

If you are interested in making your own prayer flag, this is the tutorial I used.

With QuiltCon being just around the corner, I thought I’d introduce myself. I already posted this on Instagram, so hopefully this isn’t redundant for any of you:-)

So, I’m Danielle Wilkes of Nacho Mama’s Quilt.  (daniellewilkes on IG)

5 things you don’t know about me:

1.) I would love to cook a meal for you. If I could spend a day doing anything I want, i’d be cooking or quilting, two things I do practically every single day.

2.). I never thought I’d get married, but I did, and I also never knew I could be this happy, but I am.

3.)I am an only child, which is probably why I am a natural leader. I am not good at doing things your way– I want to be the one to organize, plan, delegate, and execute ideas. This is definitely a double-edged sword because apparently the world does not revolve around me. So they say.

That’s a 40 (but backwards) on my tiara. Okay, well in real life it isn’t backwards if that makes it better.

4.)Life really does get better at 40. It’s like I woke up a new person on my last birthday, and now, I wouldn’t go back to the other side of the hill for anything.

5.) I have damn near been a paid member of Weight Watchers since about 1988. It’s not their fault I have still have rounded edges, though. It’s all mine.

You know I’m a total whore when it comes to Tula Pink fabric.  So I had this old layer cake and jelly roll of Nest.  You know, back when she was with Moda.  Yes, right?  I can’t believe she was ever with Moda either.

And I never ever get time to sew for myself (okay, I say that, but my blog might look like that’s a big ol’ fib.  Actually, most of these quilts are for clients and/or shop samples.), and I was hooked on Breaking Bad on Netflix, and I had to finish the series.  I had already made a couple quilt tops, and I wanted more tv time… so I needed one more project.  So here it is using this tutorial.

Another quickie made in November 2012 for my LQS.  The bunting was leftover fabric from a Kate Spain layer cake project.And then in my quest to not have any new scraps, I threw together a pillow.  Seriously, there’s more fabric in a layer cake than just a little.

My guild had a workday and put together the challenge blocks that we were sent.  People from all over the country made these blocks, and we put them together into a quilt.  My guild let me quit it, and boy did I have fun.

I had just received a thread order and really went to town embellishing those feathers using Patsy Thompson‘s hyperquilting technique.  The neon is my latest favorite thread.  (This is not a sponsored post.  Superior has never sent me anything free– this is just me telling you how much I love their products!)

This quilt will hang at QuiltCon and will then go to Austin Children’s shelter.  There will be 47 quilts in this series for the 47 beds.  Soon you’ll see our other quilt, which I also quilted.