Summer Sewing 2021

My sewing has been limited for a large part of this year as I had been packing up house and moving across country. I’m slowly getting settled in and getting things organized. The first thing to get in working order was my sewing area and my fellow crafters out there know that it had to be.

I gave myself one project to keep me sane while going through all the stress that moving brings on. That project was a Temperature Quilt. I thought it would be great to see the split between the two areas of the country – one hot and humid and the other a bit more mild during those spring and summer months.

I gave myself 10 degree color ranges and am working with Alison Glass fabrics. Left is the daily low and Right is the daily high. I’ll also adding weather conditions to the mix.

• Yellow vertical stripe – Sunny
• Light Grey horizontal stripe – Cloudy
• Dark Grey diagonal stripe – Rainy
• White circle – Snowy

First Quarter of 2021

My plan gives room for 13 additional blocks that I will be calling Personal Events. If there was no big personal event then I would use the holiday for that month and add a single block for that.

Second Quarter of 2021

I have a month’s worth of temperature blocks to work on. But, I also did Block One of the Summer Sampler 2021 hosted by Lee Heinrich, Katie Blakesley, and Faith Jones. A friend that I saw in May needs a quilt for her living room and I mocked up this plan using her color theme of chambrays and greys with a touch of red.

Summer Sampler 2021 – Block One

The Finishing Instructions just got released so I’ve got a number of blocks to make to get to that point. I’ve got to dig some of my fabric out of boxes and get the fabric selection all worked out. I have a small selection but need more to round out the full color palette and get moved no on this project.

I’m also working on some Improv Piecing and I’m super excited about a quilt retreat that is coming up with a couple of fabulous instructors. I’ve got to pull fabric for that as well and I have a lot of notions and other stuff to locate in order to prepare for this retreat.

Lots of plans for the next few weeks and I cannot wait to share them all with you!

Random Roundup #22

I’ve been working on some quick little projects so I have a lot of little things to share.

Midibag:

I was preparing for a minor surgery and had quite a bit of nervous energy so I made a Midibag the day before which worked great for holding my clothes, phone, and wallet. I also got a few compliments from the nursing staff.I combined 3 mini charm packs – one Modern Background Ink and two Just a Speck by Jen Kingwell. The bag turned out so cute and was the perfect size! You iron the squares to the supplied interfacing and then fold and sew it together. The pattern contains interfacing for 2 bags. I need to decide on mini charms for the second bag. It’s a great little bag for art and craft fairs or the beach.

With the remaining squares, I was able to make this cute little pouch which is now with my sister-in-law. It worked beautifully for transporting a selection of Peppa Pig figures to my nephew.

Microwave Bowl Holders:

My brother’s family requested some of these bowl holders last year when they were here and I finally got around to making them as a housewarming gift. I use a great tutorial from Happy Hour Stitches.

Fabric Swap Box:

My guild is setting up a fabric birthday box swap and I needed a box to use to turn in my bought or ‘curated from stash’ fabric. The accessory box from The Container Store can hold 15 to 18 fat quarters depending on how you fold them. So I created a fabric name label to fit that box. I used my favorite fabrics for this one.The letters are from the Just My Type – lowercase pattern by Kristy of Quiet Play. I used headbands as the straps and sewed them into the binding and it worked beautifully.

Summer Sampler 2019:

I have been wanting to join in on the Summer Sampler that is hosted by Lee at Freshly Pieced, Katie at SwimBikeQuilt, and Faith of FreshLemonsQuilts but I was always preoccupied. This year the theme is Piecing Bootcamp and I love learning new techniques or improving my current techniques.There are two different finishing options but I just adore this curved layout. I’m planning on rainbowing this thing up and chose to use the Ombré Confetti Dots that I’ve been hoarding. I’m combining that with Tula Pink Fairy Dust and a grey Essex linen and it’s going to be epic!This Sampler Series starts tomorrow (May 20) with a block being released once a week. Here’s the link to sign up through Katie’s blog – Summer Sampler.

Stash Enhancement:

Alison Glass Holiday arrived and I cannot wait to get started on the quilt I designed last year. These fabrics will just pop!

I also received Alison Glass Sunprints Light. No plan for those but I just had to have them to fill in my low volumes.Lots more to share but I will pause here to take a breath and get some more sewing done!

Until next time- happy sewing!

Sugar Block Club 3.0

I’ve been working on finishing up some long standing works-in-progress.  One of those is from the Sugar Block Club 3.0 by Amy Gibson of Stitchery Dickory Dock.  I finished the top a short while back and just needed to baste and quilt it.  Well, lets check those two tasks off the list!  Done and done!My color palette was taken from the floral background fabric which included berry, moss, and teal.  I set the colors off with some low volumes from my stash.  I like how all the colors play so nicely together and look at those Mirror Dots shine!I used a wood grain like quilting motif inspired by the Gentle Curves section of the book Walk by Jacquie Gering.  I like her term of Forward Motion Quilting to describe using your walking foot and not having to stick to straight line quilting.  There are so many options available to those of us that do not yet have those free-motion quilting skills.The backing consists of what I had remaining of the floral and an additional pattern that I found in my stash that carried the theme forward.  I took an Instagram poll and the overall winner was the berry for the binding.  I was pretty close to out of any of the berry that I used in the quilt top but found this Rhoda Ruth fabric in my stash that was the perfect color to frame this beauty.I’ve got another old WIP awaiting some binding so back to it I go.

Happy Sewing!

Hello Old Friend

I pulled an old Work-in-Progress off my quilt rack.  It was hanging right behind my ironing board and I could see it everyday.  I’m glad it was there and I loved looking at it and kept thinking that I needed to keep working on the quilt top and finish it off.  That time came this week. It is the Wavelength quilt pattern by Lee Heinrich of Freshly Pieced.  I started it sometime last year and had gotten 3 rows around done.  I’m doing this in teals and aquamarines with some greens mixed in.  It’s going to be fabulous when it’s done.

I opened the box where I was keeping the fabric pull and the (already copied) paper-pieced patterns and found the most gorgeous collection of teal goodness! The box is in the order that I will piece the rows with the next row on top.  There will be about 4 patterns per row ending with the white/aquamarine pieces.  There are some great fabrics in here that I forgot I even had.  It’s just like I bought new fabric this week but without the cash leaving my wallet.  

Here’s where I was at this morning. The next row is where the mid-value teals will begin. Gryffin was helping me keep it secure on the floor.  It’s what cats do best. I was able to get some of the teals attached and I’m really happy with where this is going.  It is currently residing on the floor in my sewing room ready to be pieced together. 

In other news – I got some hexie piecing completed on my way home from my brother’s wedding.   I have a plan to use these in the Text Me Mini Quilt Swap but it’s not working out like I planned.  I think I will stew on it for a little bit and revisit in a week or two.  I may end up re-working it.

Speaking of the wedding – it was fantastic and I’m very happy to have such a sweet and wonderful lady added to our family. 

 

Wavelength in progress

I started my Wavelength quilt. I’m going to do dark teal/aqua on the inside and flow out to light aqua/white.

I printed out the 100 plus paper piecing patterns that I will need for the lap size design. I’ve got about 3 rows/columns complete. While working on those rows I have realized that I will not have enough fabric color variation to do the plan as I want. Though I LOVE what it looks like right now!

Darn – that means I will have to do some fabric shopping. Tell me it isn’t so. It’s just so burdensome exciting! :-). I have found that it is difficult to determine aqua/teal colors online. I found some fabrics on Etsy that I thought would work for the darker teals that I currently need. The color states teal or peacock and the photos showed a color that would flow well in this design. They were delivered today and are more of a green variety than teal and will not work as intended.

I still love these fabrics but they won’t work for the intended color flow of this quilt. But, you just can’t go wrong with some Bike Path, Urban Mod, Comma, Grand Hotel, Felicity, or Chicopee. There is a lot of yumminess in this bundle.

The 3 fabrics on the right, in this next photo, are already going to work in the quilt and were what I was trying to match. The values are just a little bit off.

I’m going to have to actually go to the store with some scraps to match up the colors better. I don’t think the online thing is going to work as well unless I decide to get more of the patterns/colors that I already have.

I’m excited to continue working on this. More progress to follow as long as I can get the fabric thing worked out. 🙂

Floral Pop!

Quite a while back I picked up this fabric yardage at Hobby Lobby. The main print just screamed my niece’s name so I got some coordinates and found my way to the cutting counter.

I had seen a pattern in Quick Quilts Magazine that would feature that focus fabric well and I placed the fabrics and pattern together in a safe spot to work on when I got a chance. There was no immediate deadline on this project, and still isn’t, so I have not been in a hurry to complete it. Lately, I’ve been working on a few BOMs (Block of the Month blocks), and did not have a big project to work on, when this project starting calling to me. I knew it would be stitched up rather quickly and that was what I needed this week. Finishing a quilt top gives me a great sense of accomplishment. That’s one of the reasons I have several tops done without getting the quilting completed – see previous post.
I started with cutting:

cut and ready to piece

Then I moved on to string piecing:

String piecing magic!

There were quite a few joins that were able to be done this way and it moved the process along at an enjoyable pace.
The pattern consists of 20 blocks – 10 each pieced with two separate patterns.

Those 14 1/2″ blocks then were pieced back and forth in rows. The finished top does not disappoint and looks as I envisioned with these fabrics. Here’s a little sample shot.

Pattern from Quick Quilts magazine April/May 2013 – Tribecca
Fabric –  Bright Devorppa Noir B24-DVN-P07 by Brother Sister Design Studio for Hobby Lobby, assorted dots, brushstrokes, flower print – all from Hobby Lobby
I found the perfect backing fabric at #thegreatfabricdestash on Instagram. XOXOXO, The Cat by Wendy Slotboom for In The Beginning fabrics.

A match made in Heaven…

Lucky Stars – still a Work in Progress

My day job is in Retail Accounting and most retailers perform inventory at the end of January. Needless to say, we have been extremely busy at work and it’s really digging into my sewing time. But, for the first weekend in about 2 months, I was off on Saturday! It was incredibly exciting!!
I spent the time sewing and indulging in #thegreatfabricdestash on Instagram. Let’s just say I have a couple packages heading my way. I really need to stop refreshing that feed.
This week, I received a couple more textie-like fabrics. I love this RIley Blake Lost & Found 2 print.

I also ordered these 2 Premier prints. They are a light weight Home Decor print. It was not what I was expecting but I can definitely make it work. Now, I’m thinking pillows and window shades. Hmmm, what to do, what to do?

My Saturday sewing consisted of more Lucky Stars BOM blocks from Don’t Call me Betsy. I am seriously loving these! I now have 6 total – three 12 1/2 inch and three 6 1/2 inch blocks. Here are the newest ones.

All together they look great!

Fabric Galore

There has not been much, okay any, progress made on the Halloween quilt for Mom. But, I have bunches of new fabric to show.
I bought some Charm Packs of Simply Style for a quilt top that I’m going to start soon. I don’t know when I’ll get to it but I can tell that I am about to start cutting.

I have these scraps left from the Bloom, Bloom, Pow QAL at Freshly Pieced. I’m planning on incorporating them into the backing but I keep changing my mind on exactly how I want to do that.

The fabric for my niece’s newest quilt just pops! And I love it:

And, I have newly acquired Giggles by Me & my Sister designs for Moda. I don’t know what I’m going to do with it but I love it!

I’ve completed my fabric pulls for the next blocks in the 2 Block of the Months that I am working on. The red/black/white combo is for the Sugar Block Club by Amy Gibson. And the purple/green/blue combo is for the Virtual Quilting Bee at Diary of a Quilter. They are both going to be really great in two completely different ways. I’ve already got some ideas on block placement for the VQB that, in my head, could be pretty cool looking.

Reaching the Finish Line

Okay, I’m in the home stretch on the Halloween quilt for my mom. I started piecing the backing by taking a rectangle of spider fabric and surrounding it with the backing fabric I found.

I then cut it in quarters and flipped it around a bit. I was a little constrained because of my unending use of directional fabric. I really need to tame that beast. Anyway, I ended up with this:

Which I did not like due to the swastika appearance. So, I did a little more improvisational piecing and added a few internal borders. I needed to add some dimension to each edge anyway. I like the way it turned out. It’s all sandwiched and pin basted and ready to quilt. Gryffin loves to help hold the fabric down while I take the pictures!

I also finished the top for the Christmas quilt I’m working on for the Craftsy Amy Gibson workshop. And I had enough fabric left over to make a sweet pillow. The fabric is Santa’s Workshop by Doodlebug Designs for Riley Blake.

So, I have quilting to do on the Halloween quilt and 3 more finished tops that need backing to be completed this fall to be ready for random gifts and then Christmas. That plate of mine never gets very clean. Oh well – always on to the next project and trying to decrease that WIP pile!

Change is in the Air

Well, the fabric choice of my border did not work out. Let’s just say that my seam ripper was put to work. It distracted the eye from the main fabric in the quilt. I still love this spider fabric and I will use it on the back. I’m thinking of some kind of modern pieced backing using that fabric and some of the scraps from the Costume Clubhouse line.

So I was able to finish the top with a halloweenish polka dot fabric that really sets off the blocks well. Time to piece together a backing. I found some really cute Halloween word fabric but it’s all glittery and I know, based on previous experience, that glitter comes off on my machine and everywhere else. So, I will most likely piece together the spider fabric, the polka dots, and remaining fabric from the Riley Blake bundle. I’ve yet to get started on that.

I’ve been working on a new Craftsy workshop taught by Amy Gibson of Stitchery Dickory Dock. It’s a basic pattern but I’ve already learned an easier way to piece some things together. I didn’t buy enough fabric so I’m waiting for another layer cake to arrive on my doorstep. I’m using Santa’s Workshop by Doodlebug Designs for Riley Blake.

Here’s a pic of it halfway sewn and laid out.