Literally Pulled From the Scrap Heap

I think I mentioned a while back that I was forced to go through my scrap basket while making up a bee block.  I found this quilt top buried in there -- yes, an entire quit top!  I had started the top to gift to a friend's baby boy.  As I went along, the colors and pattern were not doing it for me, so I set it aside.

So this week, I attached the border and then started the quilting process.  I had a lot of fun with the quilting, and was pushing to finish it today, but life got in the way.  As you can see, I still have a lot of thread ends to snip, and the binding to do still.  I love how the quilting pattern turned out on the back.

Oh, and the baby is now well into boyhood.



If you haven't done so already, go visit Erin at Sew at Home Mummy. She has a wonderful tutorial posted as part of the Dare to Dresden blog hop.  AND, if you comment on her post, you may be the lucky recipient of this fat quarter bundle -- good luck!

Stash Bee - December 2012

These blocks are for Jackie, a fellow Oregonian, and December's Queen Bee.  When I saw Jackie's post about her tutorial for these blocks, my reaction was "Phew, back in familiar territory."  The last two months the Stash Bee blocks called for paper piecing and applique, respectively, which were completely unfamiliar territory for me.

The block is called Arkansas Crossroads and were delightful to make. The funnest part was picking out the fabrics.  Jackie wanted the blocks to be completely scrappy, so there are no fabric repeats.

Now I'm off to cruise WiP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced!

Stash Bee - Belated October Blocks

Rachelle, the Queen Bee for October, requested these neat paper-pieced bookshelf blocks.  I completed and mailed these first three blocks to Rachelle on time:

This one is my favorite -- I like the look of the stacked books and the one leaning to one side.

Paper piecing is not one of my strengths, so these were kinda challenging for me.  There was some ripping out of seams and cursing, especially with this one:

This is a picture frame on top of a stack of books.  Pretty clever, huh?

In addition to Kona black (each Queen Bee can specify up to two solids for her block), I used some more of my Just Wing It layer cake.  I think the colors from this collection contrasted nicely with the black.



As I was saying, I cruised along happily with the first three.  Then Halloween came, and I got slammed -- between costumes and work, I didn't get any sewing done until today.  So, today while the boys were out of school for a teacher in-service day, I finished off this last one and dropped it in the mail:

 

Phew.  I really did have a lot of fun making these blocks.  That's what is nice about belonging to Stash Bee -- there's a variety of ideas and techniques that I would have never come up on my own or thought to try.

Here they are in a row, to give you an idea of how it all goes together.  Unfortunately, because I was late with the fourth block, I don't have a picture of all ot them together.  Boo.

WIP Wednesday - Of Bindings, Bee Blocks, and More

Is it nerdy to gush about FMQ goddess Angela Walters and how awesome she is?   Her book, Free-Motion Quilting with Angela Walters, was the source of inspiration for the quilting on my Giant Vintage Modern Churndash Quilt.



Angela's philosophy struck well with me -- it seemed to be that you should go with the organic rhythm of the quilting and not stress so much about reaching perfection.  Despite repeating that mantra to myself, I did experience moments when I despaired that I could ever make a circle -- it's actually kinda tough to make a round circle.  At times, my circles/swirls felt more like squares with rounded corners.



Nevertheless, Angela was right.  At the end of the day, after I trimmed the excess backing and batting, I was immensely pleased with how this quilt turned out.

All this quilt needs now is the binding.  I was thinking that I would send it to my cousin who lives in Berlin, as a thank you gift for hosting us this summer.  I have to admit, however, that I'm so loving this top right now that it might be difficult to part with it.

I will post the finished quilt with binding later this week, hopefully.  I chose a cream and red striped binding WITH POLKA DOTS.  How awesome is that, stripes and polka dots in one print?  Pure genius, I think.

The next piece of news I have is that I finally joined a sewing bee, called the Stash Bee!  This is my first foray into any type of sewing bee.  This one happens to be virtual and seems to be relatively low key.  Each person is assigned a month where they are "Queen Bee."  The Queen Bee posts a tutorial of a block she wants the rest of the hive (20 participants in each hive) to make for her, using personal stash fabric.

This block is for Anneliese, who lives in Galway, Ireland. You can find her tutorial for this block called "converging corners" here.  The fabric is from a collection called "Just Wing It," by MoMa for Moda Fabrics.  Although the block looks relatively simple, it can be a little tricky.  I wasted some fabric and did some ripping until I finally figured out the dimensions.



Finally, here is my latest crush. This is Chicopee, by Denyse Schmidt. I love the mixture of modern and retro that is evoked by the prints and colors in this collection. You can get the entire collection (26 prints, 2 colorways) here.

I'm linking up to these blogs today! Have fun sewing, everyone!
 

Blogger's Block-of-the-Month and More Swoon (Second Edition)

I thought I'd try this quilt-along.  It looks much more my speed, only one block per month.  So here is my first block, designed by Sherry McConnell of A Quilting Life:

Blogger's BOM - Block 1

I'm using a layer cake, Just Wing It, by MoMo for Moda.  This was a very simple block that I whipped up pretty quickly, and I think the fabrics will work quite well.

Last, a couple of more Swoon blocks -- I'm up to six now:

Swoon - Block 5

Swoon - Block 6