WIP Wednesday {3.30.2011}

Already Wednesday??!?  I can't believe its been almost 5 months that Lee has began hosting WIP Wednesday!  Onto this weeks work...

First off I just have to share my little secret I've been holding in since the beginning of DQS 10...My package went out over the weekend and my partner received it on Monday (holy fast, right??)  BUT I can finally share who I was making my doll quilt for...it was for Lee!!  Yes thats right, Lee.. the one and only Lee that hosts this linky party for everyone's WIPs each and every Wednesday!  Being a part of DQS was fun all on its own, but it was the icing on the cake to be making something for one of my bloggy friends.  Here is her post with pictures of the quilt in its new home, I must say, it looks quite happy nestled above Lee's sewing machine :)

Now, for real onto what I've been working on...

Completed Projects

 

Central Park Baby Quilt

I finished up the binding on my central park charm square quilt, and am so so pleased with the end result. I'm going to have to store this quilt away for a few months, as the baby is not due until this summer. But it'll be well worth the wait to see that little bundle of joy cuddled up on this quilt!

Scrappy Rainbow Quilt Top



With everyones input over the weekend to help me decide how to lay out these blocks, I was able to get my scrappy rainbow quilt top put together.  I am so happy with how this turned out, and can't help but smile looking at all those bright fun colors! 

March Quilting Bee Blocks

Ongoing Projects

p.s. i quilt postage stamp quilt along

I have this thing with unfinished projects.  I can't stand it.  This little buddy has been sitting in a stack on the corner of my sewing table for a few weeks now (ok more than a few weeks, but who's counting)...and its almost like it's taunting me.  I have about half the blocks put together, and a big mess of strips of 2 inch squares.  I feel like its glaring at me.  I've finally caved and picked this project back up.  I have vowed to work on this until at least the quilt top is complete.  Then I can stash it away work on quilting it up at a later date.  But I must get this bugger off my sewing table. 

Quilt tops awaiting quilting

Central Park baby quilt #1
Scrappy Rainbow Quilt

On Hold

Amy Butler sew along

This Weeks Stats

New Projects: 0
Completed Projects: 3
Ongoing Projects: 2

Be sure to head over to freshly pieced and check out all the awesome WIPs!!



scrappy quilt top

I'll be linking this post up to Canoe Ridge Creation's Sew Modern Monday, be sure to pop over and check out all the modern-ness!!



Thanks everyone for helping me decide that I really wasn't just being lazy in not wanting to add sashing!! I am one million percent happy with the outcome, and agree that the white bordering the blocks is enough to break up the blocks and give the eyes a bit of a rest. In looking at it now, I almost think adding the sashing would have diluted the colors too much.

This top measures 60 inches x 75 inches, and will make an excellent picnic blanket just in time for spring!

It was such a pretty yet windy day out side, that I was able to take some pretty fun and crazy "blowing in the air pictures." These ones almost remind me of stained glass.

in your opinion...

Sashing or no sashing??  I finished up the purple blocks this afternoon, and you ladies were 100% right, more color all the way!  Now I'm asking your expert opinions once again...I had been planning on doing sashing between the blocks all along, but seeing them like this, I kind of like the mass of color explosion...I'm torn, what say you wise quilty friends??

(Just as an aside, I guess it doesn't really matter, but in my mind this should be flipped so that it is longer than wider...this was the only way this  behemoth would fit on my extended design wall!  Just tilt your head to the left when looking, hehe)

March Bee Blocks

I'm cutting things a little close this month, I don't know where March went, but seeing as how its about over,  I needed to get my bee blocks done and out in the mail!



This block is for Lisa in the Simply Strings Bee.  She sent us along a bunch of scrap strips in blues and yellows and encouraged us to incorporate a few scraps of our own that were in the same color family. 

This block is for Corley in the Solids bee.  She requested that we make tree blocks to help "landscape" the house blocks that had been made for her in another bee.  Now, I've never made a tree block, and was a little stumped as to how to go about this...I decided on doing some applique with fusible web, and am happy with the outcome!

This block was made for Jessica in the Sew Fun bee.  She sent along some beautiful fabrics and requested that we make her our favorite pinwheel block.  I just love flying geese, and had been wanting to give this a try.  I had initally planned on making actual flying geese blocks, but the first tutorial I found from psiquilt used HSTs, so I went with it.  This picture really does not do the fabrics justice, they are much prettier in person!

Lastly, these are not blocks that I made, but I wanted to share the lovely blocks I have received so far in the 3 x 6 bee.

These blocks were made by:  1. windowshopmom 2. jenjohnston 3. oneblessedmama 4. bellsbellsjo 5. quiltedoma 6. 2mayboys 7. A Blond Quilts 8. AmieJ Designs 9. Sunnyauh 10. erika4303 11. techalum

I requested light greys, lime greens and lemon yellows, and am loving what I've received!  I have absolutely no idea what I am going to do with these (besides make a quilt, of course), but I'm going to continue with these colors for quarter 2, and see where it goes.  

Stay tuned for progress on my scrap quilt...  Seeing as how Mother Nature has decided to grace us with a tornado and hail storms earlier this week, and freezing temperatures throughout the weekend, my urge to be outside has disappeared!  This is hubby's weekend to work, and that means hours and hours of uninterupted sewing time :-)   

Central Park Baby Quilt

It's finished!  I just finished sewing the binding yesterday, and I am so so pleased with how it turned out.  Here it is all quilted and bound but not washed and crinkled yet.

...Please disregard the hazy blurb in the center of these pictures...my nice quilt picture taking camera had an unforutunate accidental run in with the rotary cutter, and now has a pretty little gash on the camera lens :-( 

It measures approximately 40 inches square, the perfect baby quilt size in my opinion.  I am just in love with these colors together!  I am seriously contemplating purchasing another fat quarter bundle of central park from my LQS, because I can think of so so many projects I would use this for.

I see a few more on point quilts in my future, and perhaps I will suck it up and do the math to make the setting triangles for the ends of the rows and save my self that mini headache again...

I used the brown cobblestone print from Central Park as the binding and I just love how well it plays with the rest of the fabrics and the white sashing.  Here's another little glimpse of my quilting, a nice all over stipple.  I just love how well this quilting crinkles up after washing and drying. 

Heres the back, which I almost like as much as the top!  I really like the simplicity of the single print with a pop of fun pieced goodness at the bottom.  I'm going to put this quilt away until the baby is born and hope that mom, dad and baby like it as much as I do! 

WIP Wednesday {3.23.2011}

I must admit, it has been a pretty slow sewing week, so this post will be pretty short.  It's finally decided to turn to spring in these parts, and with daylight savings time keeping it lighter in the evenings longer, I'm finding I want to spend more time outside/doing more active things and less time down in the sewing room!  I have a feeling that this will become more of a trend, but I'll certainly keep posting about what I do sew!

Onto this weeks WIP Wednesday...

Ongoing Projects 

Central Park Baby Quilt

I am thisclose to being finished with this quilt, and actually thought for a minute that I was headed toward a finish this evening, but instead I drug my butt to the gym for a spinning class and left the binding to be finished up tommorow.  Here's a sneak peek at the quilting, I contemplated straight line quilting this, but I just really wanted to do some FMQing.  I did an all over stipple in white thread and am pleased with the outcome.

Here's a close up of the quilting on the quilt back.  I only had one pesky little pucker on the quilt back, and after contemplating ripping out alot of stitching, I decided that its really not that noticable, and I'm just going to leave it.  I'm hoping to get the binding finished up, so there should be more to show soon!

Scrap Bin Quilt

In all honesty I haven't even touched this quilt since last week, but I did make a trip to my LQS and picked up a few fat quarters of some purple fabrics, as my stash is really lacking in the purple department, and the next project on my list is to get the rest of these blocks completed.  I know this is technically cheating, as every other fabric in this quilt was straight out of my scrap bin, but I rationalized that the newly purchased fabric would have eventually been used for something, and would therefor have scraps at some point!  I know, I know still "cheating" but I am 100% ok with it :)

Quilt tops awaiting quilting

Central Park baby quilt #1

On Hold

p.s. i quilt postage stamp quilt along quilt
Amy Butler sew along (I actually have a plan here!  My MQG is planning a shop hop on April 2nd, and I plan to get some new fun fabric to make a few of the bags, including the Cosmo bag.  Inspriation is what I need to get started here)

This Weeks Stats

New Projects: 0
Completed Projects: 0
Ongoing Projects: 5 (I'm including March Bee blocks here too!)

Be sure to pop over the Freshly Pieced and check out this weeks WIPs!



baby quilt top

While I wasn't able to participate in the Friday Night Sew In last night (hubby and I are in a bowling league with a bunch of neighbors...I feel like this makes me very old for some reason.  A bowling league?!?  Well I must say there are many beers consumed as well, and is all in all, a good time, but its every other Friday evening, and I just couldnt skip and let my team down-all 100 pins I typically knock down each game, ha!)  I digress.  Anyways, since I couldn't partake in FNSI, I snuck in some sewing time this afternoon and was able to finish putting together this baby quilt top. 

I am really happy with how these colors work together.  I think the blues I pulled from Hope Valley really add just a little extra punch of "boy" to this quilt.  I also can't get over how the simple act of tilting these charm squares on point and adding sashing really makes this quilt much more interesting to look at.

It was quite windy outside, so I only managed to snap a few pics outside, before heading inside to get one of the whole quilt top laid out flat.

When putting this quilt top together, I decided to forego cutting the setting triangles for the edges, and just used whole squares and then cut it down.  This of course did not work out exactly as well as I imagined, so don't look to closely at those edges!  I think the pattern and fabrics are busy enough that its not overly noticeable, but it did mean that my quilt top ended up a little smaller than I had planned.  Oh well, live and learn. 

This fabric find at my LQS gave me the extra push I needed to get this top finished up today.  Yes, Central Park yardage!  They only had a few prints (2 of the animal print and this brown cobblestone print) to purchase yardage of, and when I asked, was informed that they wouldnt be getting any more in.  That was a bummer, but I purchased a few yards of the animal print to use as the quilt back, and a few yards of the cobblestone print, I'm thinking for the binding. 

I'm itching to get the back put together and get this basted so I can do some free motion quilting!  It feels like its been forever since I've done it.  Stay tuned!

itty bitty

I was thinking up some ideas for a few extras to throw in with my DQS package, and I immediately thought of a pincusion, and then followed the idea to make a replica of a block in my DQS doll quilt.  After a few trips to various local pet stores looking for crushed walnut shells, no less in the lizzard section of the pet store, I struck gold at Petco with this and was off to the races!  I had never made a pincushion before, and I have to say they are such fun little projects that come together pretty quickly.

In scouring flickr for some other pincushion ideas, I came across these little adorable "pin toppers" and of course ideas started running through my head along the lines of "I could do that!"  I had also seen these made by Carol on her blog, and it fueled the fire to see what I could come up with.

I stopped at Michaels on my way home from work and for about $30 had all the supplies to try my hand and these little cuties.  I used Sculpey III clay, which I found very easy to work with, and baked quite nicely in the oven.

These little flowers were my favorite of day one's attempts, and by far the easiest to make.  I bought a little set of cutters which included this little flower and went to town.  I had used the longest pins I could find in the sewing section, which were 1 15/16" pins, which worked ok, but after doing a little more research, I decided to buy some coursage pins and chop the pearls off. 

Just an aside here...This scrappy pin cushion make look familiar...and thats because it used to be this.  Remember that little adorable yellow lab dog I have?  Well she decided that cherished favorite scrappy pillow looked like a really yummy chew toy, and she went to town on it.  I thought about trying to fix it, but I know I never will....sooo it's been repurposed!  I still have about 3/4 of the scrappyness left to cut up, perhaps more pincushions??

These were day #2's wares.  Much better than day #1 if I do say so myself!  No, I did not poke these into a baked potato, again referring to Carol's blog, rolled up foil balls make an excellent way to bake these puppies with out distorting the shapes!

Here's a few cupcakes (I was happy that they actually came out looking like cupcakes!)

and a little spring garden

and some juicy apples.  I used the longer coursage pins for this batch, and am much happier with the longer pin length, and they are a little sturdier.

Now what to do with all these little guys!  I'll be back down in my sewing room today getting a few of those WIPs completed, but this was a nice little crafty break! 

WIP Wednesday {3.16.2011}



It's been a very productive sewing week, with a good bit to show on a few projects!

Completed Projects

DQS 10



I finished up my Hope Valley Circles doll quilt for DQS 10!  I posted about it here.  We had a pretty quiet weekend around here, so I had the majority of both Saturday AND Sunday to do as I pleased (which means play in my sewing room!)  I really enjoyed working on this project, and picked up a few new skills along the way. 

Ongoing Projects

Scrap Bin Quilt

I finished up the color scrappy blocks for my scrappy quilt!  I was a little unsure of my choice of colors, but now seeing all the blocks together, I'm really liking it!  I'm not sure how I want to proceed from here...for some reason I'm just not all that fond of square quilts (aside from baby quilts that is), so I was thinking of making 4 more blocks and doing them in shades of greys/black prints to kind of neutralize the brightness.  Although as I'm looking at it, maybe I should just embrace the brightness and make 4 more blocks, but in colors I've already used?  What say you oh wise bloggy friends??

New Projects

Central Park Squared baby quilt



This is my boy version using mostly Central Park in the green/blue/orange color ways and the animal prints, with a few Hope Valley prints thrown in there as well.

This is the first time I've ever set charm squares on point, and I can't believe what a different look it gives the quilt!  I really like how these colors work together, so pretty and calming, yet "boyish" too. 

Quilt tops awaiting quilting

Central Park baby quilt #1

On Hold

p.s. i quilt postage stamp quilt along quilt
Amy Butler sew along

This Weeks Stats

New Projects: 1
Completed Projects: 1
Ongoing Projects: 5 (I'm including March Bee blocks here too!)

Be sure to head on over to Freshly Pieced to check out all the WIPs!



DQS 10 - Hope Valley Circles

It's finished!  I finished hand sewing the binding down this afternoon while catching up on my DVR, and I must say, that while I usually find hand sewing binding to be my least favorite part of the quilting process (hence why I usually machine sew my quilt bindings) I actually enjoyed spending this last little bit of time working on this quilt.

As for the binding, I used verykerryberry's single fold binding tutorial and I am really pleased with how it turned out.  I had used this tutoral for my Mug Rug in the Mug Rug Swap, and yet again this tutorial did not dissapoint.  I really like how the binding is nice and tight and not bulky at all.  This will certainly be my go to binding technique for smaller projects from here on out.

Here are a few close up pictures of the hand quilting.  I was a little unsure of how I'd like hand quilting in general but I must say, that I really enjoyed the actual quilting and love the extra layer of design that it adds to the quilt itself.  I would love to one day hand quilt a larger quilt...maybe one day.

As for the backing, I cut 5 1/2 inch charm squares using Hope Valley and put together a simple patchwork pieced back.

As for the label, I had some of that photo fabric iron on paper, so I printed out a little label with the DQS 10 logo and mine and my partners info and voila! 

I really enjoyed creating this quilt, and am so glad that I decided on this design as opposed to the others that I had floating around as possibilities, as it challenged me to try new things, and I really think that my partner will be uber pleased with it. 

Now off to decide on what goodies to include with it!



Stylish Blogger Award

Imagine my surprise this morning when I check my email and found an email from Kristen letting me know she had selected my blog as one of her choices to pass along the Stylish Blog Award!

Now I by no means consider myself particularly "stylish" but I am honored and flattered!  I've just spent oh the last hour or so checking out Kristen's blog, K*D Quilts, and she is amazing!  Her most recent wall hanging quilt has me wanting to add a project like this to my to do list.  Be sure to head over and check out what Kristen is up to.

Now onto the details of this cool blog award:

1. Thank and link back to the person who gave you the award.

2. Share seven things about yourself.

3. Award 6 recently discovered great bloggers.

4. Contact the bloggers and tell them about the award.

Hmmm...7 things about myself?? Lets see... 

1.  I love to read, and particularly books about nothing!  I love reading "beach reads" all year round :)  Aside from sewing and quilting, reading is a nice escape, my Nook is currently inundated right now by the J.D. Robb books, ah nothing like trashy romance and a little murder mystery all tied into one!

2.  I am mildly over obsessed about having my nails manicured weekly.  Usually I do them myself (and have gotten quite good if I don't say so myself!) but love to treat myself to a professional manicure every now and again.  I have an exclusive relationship with OPI polish, and, not gonna lie, its mostly because I LOVE the names of thier colors!  I believe right now my color is "Monsooner or Later".

3.  I'm a reality TV junkie.  Particularly shows on E! or Bravo.  Real Housewives of ____________, love it!  I certainly keep up with the Kardashians.   I will add into this category anything seen on HGTV as well, and try to pass myself off as an interior decorator/real estate expert/home staging expert to my husband as a result.  He just loves it. 

4.  I love ketchup but hate tomatoes, but love bananas and hate banana flavored things.

5.  I'm a south paw.  Not exactly sure where the left-handedness came from, as I'm the only one in my family who's a leftie!

6.  I've kissed the Blarney Stone.  My husband and I went Italy and Ireland for our honeymoon, and amidst the highlights of our trip, we visited Cork, Ireland and were granted the "gift of gab" by kissing the Blarney Stone. 

7.  I love grocery shopping.  While some find this weekly chore tedious and avoid it all all costs, I love it.  I could peruse those aisles for hours.  Of course this may just be an outlet of my love for shopping in general, but regardless, I love it.

Whew!  That was really hard to come up with that list!  I'd like to pass this award along to a few super fun blogs I've come across, that I thoroughly enjoy reading and immediately head to when I see they have something new posted!  I'm going to try and only mention blogs who I haven't seen have received this award...  Here goes:

1.  Elizabeth of Dont Call me Betsy.  She always has such fun projects going on, including her current Margaret's Hope Chest quilt which will be donated to a girl who's father is in prison.  Her Drunk Love blocks are looking so so pretty, and I'm sure Kayla will just love this quilt!

2. Mary of Piece Garden.  Now this is one sylish chica!  She made these fabulous run around jackets which she has featured on her blog right now.  So super cute, I admire her skill at garment making! 

3.  Megan of Canoe Ridge Creations.  Megan is the host of Sew Modern Monday, a fun linky party every Monday where fellow bloggers link up wit their modern creations!  She is always working on something fun and pretty, including these fabulous chic Kleenex cases, which I plan on making very very soon!

4.  Sara of SewSweetness.  Again, this is one super stylish sewer!  I am in awe of her skills to whip up the most amazing dresses and bags.  Yes, dresses, that can actually be worn!  I only hope to be able to one day complete the things she is able to create!

5.  Cindy of RoseRoom Quilts.  I've actually had the pleasure of meeting Cindy through our local Modern Quilt Guild, as she is the president, aside from being super nice, and she is one awesome quilter! 

6.  Lee of Freshly Pieced.  Lee is the host of WIP Wednesday, a weekly linky party to show off what WIPs you are working on!  I don't think I've seen one thing Lee has made that I wasn't drooling over!  One amoung many is her awesome Single Girl Quilt.  

Sorry if this is a duplicate for anyone, but I'd like to thank Kristen again for passing it along to me!