Finished Quilt Top

My husband was on travel for work the past week.  It was quite an experience taking care of three kids ages 5, 2, and 7 months singlehandedly for a week.  On the last night, after returning from the pool, I gave the kids a bath and was mentally patting myself on the back for being the most  awesomest mom in the world—all three kids had had a bath every day since my husband left, when my eyes rested on the toothpaste sitting on the sink counter.  I couldn’t remember the last time they had brushed their teeth—2 days ago?  3?  Oh well, I did a pretty good job!
I didn’t get any sewing done last week (or much sleep for that matter—thanks, Esther), but last night I finished up my sister-in-law’s quilt top and I think it turned out quite nicely.  I can’t find my measuring tape anywhere since my kids spirit them away every time they see it to play doctor, but I estimate it finishes around 60” x 68”, the perfect size for a couch quilt.  I am going to piece the back and have 3 or 4 blocks left over to include in the back, but I can’t get started on that until I find those leftover blocks.  I guess I need to straighten up my sewing room!

I love the way the quilt came out, and what I love even more is that every single fabric came from my stash except the 4 fat quarters of knitting-themed fabric I bought as the focal point for the quilt.  I think I might use solid black for the binding. 
Up next:  I have 2 more UFOs to get out of the way that are close to completion and then I’m going to get started on Crazy Mom Quilt’s star quilt from the MBS new book Fun Fresh Treats.  I ordered that book and the Farmer’s Wife book 2 weeks ago and have been ogling them every time I nurse my baby (which is still a couple of times a day, so I get to look at them a lot)!). 

FNSI Photos

Well I didn’t get much accomplished on Friday night or this weekend at all for that matter.  #1 daughter didn’t go to bed until 9:15 on Friday night, and Mr. BBQ had to work Saturday.  I haven’t had a chance to work on my sil’s sheep quilt yet, but I did finish up my blocks for the EQ July block challenge.  After making my first block (and it turned out horribly), I ended up making 4 more:

None are by any means perfect, but I certainly improved with practice.  My favorite is this one:

It was good practice making these since my Farmer’s Wife book arrived this past Tuesday.  Without making my Block Swap Adventure blocks and doing the EQ challenges, I probably would quit making the FW blocks after my first disappointment, but remaking these blocks a couple of times has given me experience piecing a bunch of triangles—something I hadn’t done before.

 

FNSI

I’m doing the Friday Night Sew-In that I saw on Donna’s Lavender Nest:

http://handmadebyheidi.blogspot.com/2011/07/friday-night-sew-in-signup-is-finally.html

You can sign up by clicking on the link.  Tomorrow I’ll post photos of what I got done.  My plan is to finish the quilt top for my sil Robin and make my EQ contest block (I’ve made 2 so far, but neither is worthy of entry into the contest).

My husband will be bathing and putting the kids to bed tonight, and that alone is worth signing up:)

Block Swap Basket

I’ve been participating in the Block Swap Adventure for 2 months now.  So far, it’s been tons of fun for me—I have done two blocks that I probably never would have ventured to make for myself.  The first was extremely difficult for me and involved lots of triangles and matching up seams.  This last one was a lot more my ability level.  My partner, Sunni (also from Maryland), requested any kind of basket block.  It didn’t even need to be on point or on a specific background color.  Her only specification was no bright colors.  Color choice is a bit subjective, so I hope I hit the mark for subdued or muted colors.

My daughter Bea and I had a blast picking out fabrics and she even helped trace the flowers.  We used templates from Eleanor Burns’s Magic Vine book, which I highly recommend.  Her directions are always so clear and each flower has a little story behind it.  At first I thought I’d make yo-yos with the makers I bought but never used, but after a long car trip perusing the Magic Vine book, I decided to do applique.

I ended up doing a machine blanket stitch around the basket and then I used a pretty dense zig-zag around all the flower parts.  I am hesitant to use a satin stitch because I’ve have had problems with my machine getting stuck in places and making a huge thread ball.  I own a Janome 6600 and really love it, except for this fact.  I don’t have any other problems doing anything, and it’s probably user error anyway:)  I tried out the clasp stitch to make the center of this flower.

We had such a good time that Bea made her own flower block:

And, I’d been dying to use my 20% off Joanns coupon that came to my email inbox on Friday morning.  I didn’t really have any reason to go to Joanns, but when I ran out of blue thread and also needed a green and orange, I just had to go.  Baby Veronica helped me do my shopping and I ended up almost breaking the bank when I checked out.  All the home decor weight fabric was on sale for $7 a yard, so I got a couple to make my girls library bags.  I saw a cute library tote on someone’s blog recently and thought I’d make one for each of them.  I got some fusible fleece which I’ve never used before, but I’m going to try it as interfacing for these bags.  I also got lining fabric I will use to make an outside pocket for their library card and put their initial on it.  At least that’s the plan…

Sashing Dilemma

I am in the process of making a quilt for my sister-in-law who has graciously kept my daughters fashionable in knitted hats, blankets, and legwarmers for ballet over the past five years.  Every time we go somewhere sporting one of her creations we get so many compliments, and when I saw some fat quarters celebrating her pasttime, I thought it was a sign that I needed to repay her generosity.  This is the first time I've ever used a true "novelty" fabric to make something.  I wasn't sure exactly what I wanted to do, but I like Crazy Mom Quilts Flea Market Fancy  quilt for inspiration.  (Funny story...she made this quilt back in '08, about two years before I started reading blogs or really knowing much about quilting.  I swear I thought the reason she called the quilt "Flea Market Fancy" was because she had bought all the fabric at flea markets--which was quite impressive to me.  This was long before I realized there was something called a local quilt shop and that not all fabric came from Joanns!).   

Veronica helped lay everything out.  I have changed the layout about 20 times since I took this picture!

 Anyway, all the blocks featuring knitting had to be fussy cut out, so I spent my mornings before the kids got up this past week cutting out all the pieces.  Then #1 #3 baby took a four hour nap today and I was able to piece everything together.

Mickey also offered his assistance.  He has an eye for style! 

Here's a close-up of the novelty fabric.  Very cute!  Although, my husband thinks it's canibalistic in a sense.

Dilemma:  I used a cream Aunt Grace with red dots as some of the frames around the blocks.  Can I use white sashing and still have the block "pop" out to be noticeable?  There is also a block with gray and white stripe around it.  In Amanda Jean's quilt, all the frames really contrast with the white.  I am thinking I need to get out my seam ripper and replace those frames.  Any ideas to fix this problem without redoing those blocks?  I am open to any design really.  I was thinking of instead of adding sashing all the way around each block to instead join the five blocks, then put white sashing above and below only, and then add a white border around the entire thing.  Or, if I used white sashing, quilting the heck out of it and then just lightly quilting each of the blocks with just outlining. 

This is the light gray Lecien stripe.  I'm not sure if it will show up enough if I use white sashing.

Any advice???

***I think I am going to frame each lighter block in solid black, and each darker frame in white, alternating black, white, black, white in each row.  On my final layout, it looks like they alternate anyway.  What do you think?***

Electric Quilt July Block

My lovely husband gave me EQ7 for Mother's Day.  Learning to use it has been challenging.  When I read reviews of it, a few people mentioned it was difficult to learn to use, but they hadn't bothered to do the online lessons or read the manual.  Hmmmmm...that sounds oddly familiar now.  I have read the manual cursorily (is that a word?), but I haven't devoted enough time to be able to say I've designed anything on it yet.  The Electric Quilt company has a contest each month making a block from the EQ7 library.  I intended to make June's block, but didn't get around to it. I did get around, however, to the LQS and purchase a few fat quarters from the Bliss and Fandango lines that coordinate nicely.  I decided to use the Bliss polka dots for this month's challenge:

Those four triangles are actually the pink dots.  But when I saw it on my camera screen, the pinks really blended and made the star unnoticeable.  I decided to cut blue triangles so the star in the middle is more prominent (it is July, after all).  So here are the pieces:

I think I"m pretty happy with the colors. The star really pops out now.   Hopefully I'll get a chance to sew it all together tonight after the kids go to bed.

I also went ahead and made that Tulip Ladyfingers block into a pillow.  I quilted the block (and didn't even think to add borders before I had cut and basted the batting and backing...then I realized this was going to be a pretty small pillow). 

I used Riley Blake Quite Contrary red dots on the back (it's actually kind of pinkish).  The pillow is really cute and would look nice on a little girl's bed.  No one here has taken a liking to it, though.  It measures a small 12x12 and I made a pillow insert.  It's got an envelope style back for washing.  Hopefully it will find a home soon:)