Criss-Crossed Quilt

Criss-Crossed is the name of my latest finish.  It was made with an assortment of pink, plum, and golden fabrics.  Many prints are Denyse Schmidt of course!  Others are Lori Holt Daisy Cottage, some Thomas Knauer, Joel Dewberry, and even fabric designed by fellow DCMQG member Jessie Aller for In the Beginning.  All of the fabrics including the backing and two shades of gray are from my stash!!!  How often can a quilter say that?  The binding was purchased online and luckily it coordinates beautifully.

The back is an Anna Maria Horner roses print from her Innocent Crush collection and a gray, yellow, ivory Midwest Modern print by Amy Butler.  Pieced backs are definitely my favorite!

This is the first quilt I quilted on the new long arm.  It was an experience.  I had some issues with the edges of the quilt and a few times I had to unpick a lot of quilting.  But overall I was pretty pleased with how the final quilt turned out despite all the extra handling during quilting.  A final trim and the binding hid any imperfections.

Normally I don’t wash any quilts before gifting, but this time I ran the quilt through the washer and dryer just to make sure everything held together, which it did! 

Who can resist a big-eyed bunny?  Not my daughter!

Have a great week!  Linking up to Fort Worth Fabric Studio and Crazy Mom Quilts.

A bright and early Christmas

We got up awfully early this morning.  Even the kids were a little sleepy-eyed, but nothing was going to stop them from getting out of bed at the crack of dawn.  Notice it’s still dark outside!

Santa was good to everyone and we spent the entire day hanging out with family and playing with new toys. 

I started a new quilt a few days ago.  Someone at my husband’s work is having a baby girl in January, and I wanted to make them a quilt of course.  The baby’s room is yellow, so I started pulling fabric and gravitated toward some Denyse Schmidt and added pink, magenta, and gray.  The colors look so vibrant together.   Are they warms?  Are they cools?  I have no idea, but whoever said to pick colors that don’t exactly match is so right.  It took me a few years to understand, but I think I’m getting better at this picking fabric thing!

Originally I planned to make a quilt with a star pattern, but after cutting some squares I decided to go another direction and make a wonky crosses quilt.  It started out like this.

And then it became this.

Now I just need to get some sleep so I can do some math and figure out measurements for the setting triangles. 

I hope your Christmas was merry and bright, and that Santa brought you everything on your wish list!

Overindulgence of the best kind

No, I’m not talking about Jamaican Me Crazy at Bruster’s Ice Cream.   The mail lady just dropped off three parcels for me!

The yellow in the upper left is for a Rainbow Charm swap I joined, and I just joined another one but haven’t gotten my color assignment yet.  The fabrics are Half Moon Modern and I already used a charm pack of them to make something, but I can’t remember what!!!

The fanned out fabric is a fat quarter pack of “Hello Pilgrim” by Lizzy House.  And the yellow in the upper right corner is a cute coffee cup print (although I only drink tea so I like to think of it as teacups) and I think the other is called Metro circles.  I was on a yellow kick after searching for yellow fabric for the charm swap.  And I got a yard of Kona melon pink.  It coordinates really well with Ruby.

The Walk in the Woods fat quarters are to round out the fabrics for a quilt I am in the process of making.

The pattern is called Twirling Around and it’s designed by Melissa of Sew BitterSweet Designs.  Double the purchase price is being donated to a charity that helps mothers in Haiti.  When I saw that, I had to buy the pattern!  I am using a Little Apples charm pack, a Walk in the Woods charm pack, and some scraps I bought on Etsy of Sherbet Pips.  I just love the colors!

This quilt top is going together amazingly fast.  I got myself organized and have chain pieced everything, which I have never done before.  I’m not sure why I waited this long.  Wow does it work!!!  So that is my new thing I have tried this week. 

And then this arrived today too.

I’m not exactly sure why I bought them, if just to have a piece of quilting history.  When I first started reading blogs regularly, I saw the “Flea Market Fancy” quilt on Crazy Mom Quilts and really thought the fabrics came from flea markets.  I had no idea there were “lines” of fabric out there!!! 

So, would it be heresy to mix these fabrics with my all time favorite fabrics, Alexander Henry’s “Farmdale?”

Don’t they look good together?????!!!!!  What kills me is that my Joanns sold all the Farmdale floral prints for a long time and I never bought any.  Instead I paid about twice as much for them months later.

Finally I picked up this pattern for a new pincushion. 

My green tomato pincushion has never turned up.  I did, however, find a tap shoe filled with pins in the drawer of the bedside table in our guest bedroom.  How did that happen?  Esther is my best guess.

I can’t wait to make this turtle!  If it turns out nicely I plan to make this as part of my “Pay It Forward” debt (lol).

My sewing room is almost completely reorganized and painted.  It will probably be another month until it is ship-shape and I’ve painted the ceiling.  All the walls save for a little alcove are painted, my desks are put back,  my stash is in its place, and my machines are plugged in, so I am ready to go for the Friday Night Sew In.

Bea has been home sick for the past 3 days, so I haven’t been able to get out and buy any white thread to quilt my Flora charm quilt.  Now that we skipped completely over spring and it’s summer in full swing here in southern Maryland, I won’t be needing that quilt anytime soon anyway.  My plan is to finish up all the blocks for my Aneela Hoey fabrics quilt and do my two bee blocks.  I’ve been talking up “movie night with dad” all day to get the kids excited about spending tomorrow night out of my hair.  How about you?

I’m linking this post up to Trying New Things Thursday.  Melissa has a great tutorial on making lazy HSTs, which came just in the nick of time because one of my bee blocks requires an awful lot of them, and I love to be lazy!!!