WIP Wednesday - 4/23/13

This week I've been working on finishing up my quilt for the BlockBase Sew Along.



The top is a bit busy, but all those bright colors just make me so happy! My blocks are two different sizes- 10" and 5". Sewing the blocks at different sizes makes a sampler-type quilt a bit more fun to work on. And it can give you more interesting options for the final layout too!

Here's my favorite block from the bunch:



I'll be starting a new sew along over on the Do You EQ blog next week called the EQ7 Summer Drawing Series. If you have EQ7, and are interested in drawing your own blocks, I'd love for you to join us!

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!

WIP Wednesday - 2/13/13

I'll start with a finish:



If you click over to my post from yesterday, you can download the foundation pattern for the arrow block!

And now for the in-progress:

I'm still chugging along on my Modern Meadow HST quilt, but trimming all those squares can get tedious. So, as a little distraction, I pulled out some of the scraps and started piecing. The strips are 6" long, but none were more than 1.5" wide. I'm thinking of cutting this into strips and making some sort of pillow with the same neutral fabric used in the quilt.



Am I a hoarder for keeping such small scraps in the first place? How small is too small too keep? Seriously, I'm like a twitch away from being on a TLC show.

I've also pieced my little spools together. And I've got a project in mind for them too- Noodlehead's Open Wide Zippered Pouch.

WIP Wednesday - 1/30/13

I've made a couple more arrow blocks.



But now I'm not quite sure what to do with them. The layout I had in my head seems a bit boring now. Kinda wish I had used some varying shades and/or patterns of grey for the background of the blocks. May have to sit on these a bit until inspiration strikes.

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Just for fun, I made a couple of little spool blocks yesterday. Aren't they just the cutest?!



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I finally committed to a layout for my Modern Meadow HST quilt and it feels so good to actually be sewing these blocks together!



I decided to go with layout #2 (of the three that I posted last week). I had a few more blocks in reserve, so I added blocks to the right and bottom to make the X more off-center. Now that I've sewn about half the rows together, I've really got the motivation to finish this quilt!

WIP Wednesday - 1/23/13

I've had the idea of an arrow quilt block rattling around in my head for a bit. Yesterday I sat down and drew out a few different versions. AND I managed to stitch one up too.



I'm thinking of making a few arrows in different shades of pink for a Valentines mini quilt.

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In other work-in-progress news, I've decided my next "big" quilt project will be to finally finish my Modern Meadow HST quilt. However, I'm still not totally sure which layout I should choose:

#1


#2


#3


I looked at the dates on these photos and they were taken almost two years ago. Sheesh am I indecisive. Luckily, I still love these fabrics! I think I'm leaning toward layout 2, but what do you think?

Back in the Knitting Saddle

It's been way too long since I've had the knitting needles out, so in this post-Christmas lull I've cast on.


Sophia Cowl by Green Bee Design

And just in time for the knitting bug to bite again, I see there's a Downton Abbey Knit Along! Um, yes please!

WIP Wednesday - 11/28/12

Done:
A cozy little flannel & minky quilt I posted about yesterday.



In Progress:
It's Christmas Gift Crunch Time! I'm going to have to be more selective about what I share here, but I think I won't spoil any surprises by sharing these two gifts I'm working:



This hummingbird paper pieced block was inspired by a post I saw on the Sew, Mama, Sew! blog a while back. I downloaded the free origami font mentioned in the post and used it to trace my pattern in EQ7.



The SMS post uses a freezer paper method of paper piecing, which I've never done. I just printed out my pattern and used the regular ol' sew-on-the-lines, through-the-paper, method (that's the official name of the technique, right?).



And here's a little cross stitch gift I started this past weekend. I always underestimate the time it will take to finish a cross stitch project. I look at a pattern and say to myself "that looks fast and simple!" and then about halfway through, I'm all "Why am I only half finished?!?".

WIP Wednesday - 11/14/12

Done:
My Weekends tumbler quilt! I'll be writing about it soon.



And to celebrate corduroy day, I made a sunglasses case.



In Progress:
I've had battling baby quilts up on my design wall for a couple of weeks.



I couldn't decide which one I wanted to finish for an expecting friend. She ended up having her baby a week early, so the pressure was on. This weekend I started a brand new baby quilt, and I'm almost done quilting it!



It has minky on the back and feels soooo cozy. It's gonna be hard to give this one up. But it is baby-sized so if I used this quilt, it would only keep a third of me cozy.

Future Projects?
I was at Target last night and saw this cute plate:



And now I want to make a quilt inspired by it. Will this actually materialize? Odds aren't good, as the number of things I want to make and the actual time I have to make all these things don't match up. But here's hoping!

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Giveaway!
I posted a little giveaway yesterday to celebrate my 100th post, so please hop over and leave a comment to enter!

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!

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!

That Pesky Four

Although I haven't posted about it for a while, I'm still chugging along on this quilt. Now that I've gone back to see when I posted those first blocks, I realize I've really been dragging my feet on this quilt! The event it's meant to celebrate was a few weeks ago, but I won't see the recipients for another week and a half so that's my justification! I'll give details about the recipients and what all these seemingly random blocks are about when it's finished.



Obviously, since I first started working on this quilt back in May, it's been up on my design wall for quite a while. I finished this 40 block and noticed at the time that the ascender of the 4 didn't match up quite right, but I told myself to move on and no one would ever notice the bad match except for me. Fast forward a few weeks and that 4 had become my nemesis. Every time I added a new element to the design wall, I could see the 4 mocking me. But I was worried that I wouldn't be able to extricate the four without messing up the entire block and having to start all over. I finally asked for advice from the ladies in my quilt group-- should I let it go, or try to fix it? It was kind of a split decision but, in my mind, the people who spoke loudest to me were the ones who said I should fix it because it would forever drive me crazy. I figure they were the loudest to me, because that's what I really wanted to do. I just needed to hear someone else say it. :)



So here's the new 4 with much better matching seams. Now comes the hard part of taking out the old 4 and putting in the new. I'm a little nervous....



And here are the last of the paper pieced blocks I needed to make. These will be part of the border. I'm hoping to finish up the top this weekend, and then quilt next week!

More Paper Piecing- Pansy Edition

I mentioned a few days ago that I've been in a paper piecing mood so I have another pp block to show off. The pattern is designed by Regina Grewe and it can be found on My EQ Boutique (a very cool way to buy patterns and then print them at any size!).



It's always fun to see a complicated block like this come together. Putting all those paper pieced sections together can get confusing. The fact that I was using all neutral fabrics made it even more challenging! I was crossing my fingers that it all came together correctly, and that I had used neutral shades that differed enough to keep the flower visible.



This block is the start of a new quilt I have planned. It's a gift and each of the pp blocks has a meaning for the recipients. I hope they like it when it's all finished!

WIP Wednesday - 5/16/12

I'm getting so close to finishing my rose star quilt!



Just need to fill in a few more patches around the edges. It's tempting to keep making more blocks and adding to it, but I need to get one project checked off my "unfinished" list. I'm planning to hand quilt it, so it's still going to be a while until this little quilt is done. Do you think it needs a small border around the edge, or should I just bind it?

The warm weather and spring activities has made it more difficult to find time to sit down and sew, but I did finish this pp block from Fat Quarterly the other day.



I still need to embroider a little balloon string for the girl to hold. I think it will make a nice mini quilt to hang in my daughter's room!

Linking up to Freshly Pieced's WIP Wednesday Linkup!

WIP Wednesday - 3/14/12

It's been a few weeks since I last wrote a WIP post, so here's what I've been up to!

Rose Star Quilt



It may not look much different from the last time I showed this quilt, but I swear there's been some progress! There are soooo many little seams to stitch up between these blocks. Oh, and the fact that I'm doing it by hand makes it slow going.

K's Birthday Dress

I've cut out all the pattern pieces and the sewing has begun. Here's the bodice, with ties attached, and the sleeves.



Threading the 1/4" elastic through those little sleeves took every ounce of patience I had. I stitched a thick thread to one end of the elastic and then used an extra long needle to pull it through the tiny casing. On the second sleeve my thread broke twice as I was pulling it through- frustrating! And I can look forward to this frustrating process again as I have to use the same elastic around the entire neckline. I may need a glass of wine first.



Postage Stamp Quilt

A few days ago I saw this post on Oh, Fransson! and really wanted to try out Elizabeth's technique of using fusible interfacing for piecing small patches. So I've started cutting out little squares!



I plan to make a little doll quilt with these squares and use it as a birthday gift for K.

Linking up to Freshly Pieced's WIP Wednesday Linkup!