Fighting the Winter Blues...

...with bright, pretty fabrics!



This ridiculously cold winter has been a tad soul-crushing. Maybe I'm being over-dramatic, but I've never dreamed of moving south more than I have in the last month. So something happy and bright was in order! I grabbed some of my favorite fabrics and made a Sprocket Pillow using Cluck Cluck Sew's tutorial.



Fabrics are from Kate Spain's Terrain collection and they just make me happy to look at them. I'm a *bit* of a Kate Spain fan (see my two favorite Christmas quilts here and here!).





Okay, so maybe I've even got a Kate Spain nail file. :)



And on the back...



And in other pretty fabric news, I visited my local quilt shop this weekend and made a few purchases (yay for Christmas gift certificates!)...



I was looking for fabric for K's birthday dress and couldn't decide between these two prints, so I got them both! And, yes, that bottom fab is another Kate Spain fabric. Her birthday isn't until March, but last year I was still sewing buttons on her dress an hour before the party, so I'm trying to think ahead!

Modern Meadow Pillow

When I saw the announcement for the Modern Mini Challenge a couple of weeks ago, it was just the motivation I needed to finish my Modern Meadow pillow!



I decided to take some photos sans pillow because you can see the quilting better when it's not stuffed. And the quilting is my favorite part of this pillow! I just love the texture all these straight lines create.

The quilting plan for this quilt evolved over time. A couple months ago, it looked like this:



It started with vertical lines in the pieced sections, but I wasn't quite happy with it because I was going for wonky uneven spacing between the lines, but it just looked sloppy (to me anyway). I soldiered on though. I stitched the angles in the negative spaces on the sides, which I loved the look of. But then the project sat for a looong time and I didn't know where to go next.

The "wonky" lines continued to bother me, so I bit the bullet and pulled out the seam ripper a few days ago. This gave me the opportunity to continue the angles into the pieced panel and I love the results!



And here it is with the pillow. While working on this project, I always pictured it vertically but with the pillow insert I'm thinking it might work better with the strips running horizontally. What do think- portrait or landscape pillow?



Check out all the wonderful mini entries over at Ellison Lane!

WIP Wednesday - 2/27/13

I've turned these leftover strips:



Into this quilted pillow cover (in progress, obviously):



I quilted vertical lines on the pieced strips and then some angles in the negative space on the sides. Now I have to decide if this is enough, or if I want to continue those angles to fill all the negative space. What do you think- leave it or add more?



And, in keeping with tradition, I plan to make a birthday dress for K. I had been browsing around for a dress pattern when I stumbled upon this Paper Fan Dress. It's a (free!) pattern from Anna Maria Horner and I just love the pleating details.



I started cutting the pieces yesterday and am anxious to start sewing! It was pretty gray and dreary when I took this photo, so the color isn't very accurate, but I swear these fabrics look good together!