Practicing My Curves

Confession: Curves scare me.

No, not the women-only gym (although that's kinda scary in a whole different way). I'm referring to curved piecing. There are so many beautiful blocks and quilts out there using curves, and I usually avoid them because I'm not confident in my ability to piece them.

Well I've decided that's silly and I just need to jump in there and do some curved piecing. Face your fear!



So here's the start of my quilt chock full o' curves. I figure baby quilts are the best place to try out new skills. Babies don't notice puckered seams, right? I'm pretty fussy with each of these little curves, and I'm definitely not breaking any sewing speed records, but I think they're turning out pretty good!

And I've got lots of patches cut for practice. By the time this quilt is finished, curves will fear ME!

Music Class Skirt

It's starting to feel a bit like fall here, and I love it! Definitely my favorite time of year. And the perfect time for a new corduroy skirt!



Way back on Mother's Day the kids & husband gave me the Oliver + S Music Class Skirt pattern and I just now got the chance to sew one up. As always, love those Oliver + S patterns! So many times I come across pattern directions that aren't clear, so I muddle through a step hoping it all works out in the end. But I never have that problem with Oliver + S patterns. Is there an O + S fan club? I would totally join.



The fabrics are two prints from the Happy Together corduroy collection by Timeless Treasures. And I actually remembered to check which way the corduroy felt smooth and rough before I cut out the pattern. The last time I worked with corduroy, I ended up having to re-cut a dress panel because I didn't think about the fabric nap. Look at me, learning from my past mistakes!



The best part of this skirt is the pleats on the side panels. And cute pockets!



It's great for running too!

BlockBase Sew Along (& Giveaway!)

Over at the ol' 9-5 I'm hosting a sew along to celebrate the re-release of BlockBase and I'd love if you'd pop over there and check it out!

BlockBase is an amazing block pattern resource (4300+ blocks!) and to get the sew along started, EQ is giving away 5 copies of the software! To enter, fill out the entry form here by Wednesday, September 19th, 9 am EST.

We start sewing October 1!

Tumbling

I have access to an AccuQuilt die cutter at work and I've used it several times to cut little stacks of patches like this:



But I had yet to turn these stacks into anything. This weekend I finally got around to sewing some of them together!



I previously mentioned these tumblers here and here. All the prints are from the Weekends collection by Erin McMorris. At first I was planning to only use prints in the lime colorway, but all the tumblers just seemed to melt together. Then I added the solid aqua tumblers and it helped, but I still wasn't quite happy with it. This time I added a few prints from the violet colorway and I think it's just right!

Now, I'm not sure how I'd like to finish this quilt. Do I add a border(s) or just bind it?



Here's another project I've been working on this summer. I had planned to have a finished project in time for the Festival of Hexagons, but I had my dates wrong and missed the deadline-- boo! At least there's no pressure to finish it now. ;)



We went on a couple of mini vacations this summer and these hexagons traveled along with me. I made "busy bags" of activities and games to keep the kids occupied in the backseat. The supplies to make these little hexagons were in my busy bag!