Potluck Squares Christmas Pillow

Crazy Mom Quilts posted a really cute pillow last week.  As luck would have it, I had picked up a charm pack of that line a few weeks ago at the LQS and had to try making my own version right away!

At first I tried to include black in the red & green color scheme, but I had a hard time with the layout and decided to omit the black.

I wasn’t feelin’ the love with the scrappy layout either.

So I ended up going with diagonals of the same fabric alternating red & green.  (I had a charm pack of Pezzy Prints I included too.)

I quilted the front of the pillow with straight lines about 3/8” apart with white Aurifil thread.  The binding I copied from my friend Svetlana’s Autumn Penny Patch Quilt.  They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right? 

The back is envelope style with 3 buttons to hold the closure in place.  I didn’t think through the buttons though, and need to add room for the bulk of the cushion insert next time by placing the buttonholes closer to the edge of the flap.  The back is just solid Kona ash.

I think it’s a nice addition to our growing pillow collection on our family room couch.  Can you tell a quilter lives here?

I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Dare to Dresden??? {Plus a Giveaway}

A special thanks to the head cheerleader Madame Samm and blog hop organizer Christine of Quilt Monster in my Closet for bringing a brand new Dresden blog hop to the online quilting world!

I’d never made a Dresden block before, but I have three under my belt now!  They each measure 17 inches across and are headed to Oklahoma tomorrow to meet their new “mama” from Stash Bee.

I used Darlene Zimmerman’s Easy Dresden ruler and it worked like a charm.  So let’s have a giveaway!  I have a happy surprise for one lucky blog-hopper today!  A charm pack of 25 Riley Blake small chevron prints!!!  Just leave any comment to be entered and you can get an extra entry for being a follower or becoming one.   The winner will be picked Sunday night.

Thanks for for visiting my blog today.  I hope you can take a few seconds and check out some of my recent blog posts and projects.  Be sure to stop at all the other blog hop stops on today’s schedule!

January 25^th, 2013

Gingersnap Quilts

Busy Bee Quilts

She Sews the Blues

Traveling Quilter

Grand Mama's Stories

Cherry Blossoms Quilting Studio

Sew at Home Mummy

The Slow Quilter

Pig Tales and Quilts

Annie Oak Design

Jane's Fabrics & Quilts

Tea Time Creations

Mo Broker My Creative Side

Just Let Me Quilt

Words and Stitches

Just Keep Swimming

Sew Many Yarns

Sowing Stitches

Jane's Quilting

My Patchwork Life

2muchfun

Pumpkin Patch Quilter

Quilt Monster in my Closet

This week’s finishes

I have two finishes for this week.  I finally put the binding on this quilt and blogged about it here.

And then I made a special little fishy mat for my daughters’ room.  They have an ant farm (which has lasted much, much longer than the 5-6 weeks as stipulated in the directions—more like 4 months now).  The deal was they could get a betta for their room after all the ants died.  It looks like that is never going to happen, so we went ahead with our fish plans.  (ps.  If you ever get an ant farm and the ants happen to be harvester ants which can bite/sting, tell your babysitter NOT to let the kids go to their room without supervision.)

I used just various fabrics from my stash.  The solids are quilter’s linen (not really linen) by Robert Kaufman.  I got a rainbow of colors from Fabric.com a few weeks ago and have been trying them out.   I didn’t measure it, but the finished dimensions are about a foot square.

I fmqed all over (because I still have not bought a new walking foot) and binded and backed it with el cheapo fabric from Joanns that I bought when I was first starting out sewing.  The quilting is done in light pink thread, but it pretty much just looks white against the top fabrics.  My oldest daughter wanted to know what all those squiggles are supposed to be.  She thinks they look kind of like coral, so I told her that’s what I was aiming for…lol!

We got a new fish on Wednesday, dubbed him “Feather Fin,” and he is doing well, enjoying his much more spacious home.

I am linking up to Crazy Mom Quilts today.

Flora Charm Quilt

Last week I finally put the binding on this quilt made with Lauren and Jessi Jung’s Flora.  I used two charm packs I bought at the LQS and supplemented what I needed with solids from my stash and the border fabric purchased at Hancock’s of Paducah during an online sale.   The finished size is 61 x 77 and the pattern came from the book Simply Charming by Moose on the Porch Quilts.  It is one of the first books I bought and think it’s so great for a beginner.  I’ve made 3 of the patterns in the book since I first started quilting.

I had a little trouble deciding on the binding.  The fabric I purchased online looked more greenish than yellow, and I wasn’t happy with the look.  So, I put the quilt in a pile in my sewing room for a week or two while I decided what to do.  I almost purchased the green lattice print from this collection since I have a thing for striped binding and the lattice is the closest thing to stripes in Flora (there are no polka dots either).  But my practical side won out and I ended up binding it with leftover fabric from the border.  I like!!!  And it was free!  The backing is a striped sheet from Target. 

My fmq is getting a lot better, and I completely machine-bound this quilt using Kaelin’s machine binding tutorial.  I have done it a couple of times, but this is the first time it’s turned out nearly perfect.  It literally took about an hour to make and attach all the binding.  How cool is that???

I really love Lauren and Jessi’s style and color choices.  I have a massive cache of “Hideaway” and I can’t wait until their new line “Birds and Berries” comes out.  Here is a preview courtesy of the Fat Quarter Shop.

I love how the colors are similar to the other collections, but I really am excited about the purple added to the mix.

I am linking up to Quilt Story today. 

WIP Wednesday—the lazy edition

I finished sewing the borders onto my Flora 9 Patch Charm Quilt last night, so the top is finished.

I love how it turned out, but somehow I don’t have enough Flora yardage for a pieced backing, and I really don’t have enough of anything to put with it except a white with peach polka dots.  I was feeling quite lazy about hunting around my stash and needed to get a couple items at Target.  $115 later, I came home with some groceries and a few things that aren’t necessities (a couple packs of Easter pencils, a new lamp for Esther’s bedroom) and I picked this up:

The yellows are a pretty good match, and for only $14.99 I couldn’t pass it up.  The Flora fabrics don’t have a stripe or a polka dot, so I think it will coordinate nicely and not look mis-matched.  This won’t be my first time using a sheet for a backing and it certainly makes the process a lot faster. 

I will be quilting this with fmq squiggles.  My walking foot stopped working about a month ago.  It will move forward a few stitches, but then the stitches get shorter and shorter until it stops advancing and just sews on top of itself which is a huge hassle for using the seam ripper.  It kept happening when I was quilting my Tangerine Tango cathedral windows by machine.  I was worried it was my machine, but all the other feet work fine.  I’ve looked into purchasing a new one, but it’s $50.  Not a big deal when I was working, but kind of an expense I’m going to put off for a little while.  So it’s FMQ only for the next few quilts.

I’m linking this post up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.

Flora Charm Packs

Our local quilt shop is relatively new—it’s only been in business about 2 years.  I shop there pretty regularly, but since it’s on the other side of town, I only go about once a month.  The stock is uber-traditional…think Thimbleberries or Minick and Simpson.  But every once in a while I get a happy surprise:

This past week there was a 25% off everything sale, and I saw some Flora charm packs and picked up two.  When I got them home and decided what to make, two charm packs wasn’t quite enough, so I cut up a few solid charms from my stash of solids from Connecting Threads.  I love them!  The orange was nearly a dead-on match.  It’s called “Carrot.”  The green, yellow, and turquoise were exact matches.  How thrilled I was!   The pattern is from a book called “Simply Charming Fun Fast Charm Pack Quilts.”  It has a handful of patterns and I’ve made several of them and it’s true—they are fun and fast!

I also picked up a pack of Carol Doak’s foundation paper.  The block for Stash Bee this month is a star for a quilt that will be donated to Quilts of Valor.  Last month’s Beejeeber’s theme was “Family Game Night.”  I called Chutes and Ladders but procrastinated until the very last minute.  Luckily there was an extra day in February and it went out in the mail on time!

The block was tedious to make and took a lot of time (some of it sewing with a kid on my lap because it really took a lot of time), but I am pretty pleased with the result.  There are 100 (some fussy cut) 1.5” blocks to make up the board, and then I raw edge appliqued the ladders and slides. 

This block was for Lindsay, who said she likes bright colors.  I aim to please!  When I was at the LQS, I picked up a few fat quarters of some modern-ish floral Maywood fabric, too, to send along with my bee blocks.  Who doesn’t like a little extra surprise?

In personal news, it was a scary week for baby Veronica.  Her bellybutton has never healed right and she is 15 months old.  It continues to get infected and the pediatrician referred us to a pediatric surgeon at Children’s Hospital who saw us the next day.  The good news is that her umbilical cord is not connected to her bladder or intestine, which happens sometimes, but the bad news is the doctor has no idea why it keeps happening.  Apparently this is a very rare occurrence that he has only seen two other times.  So, she may have to have surgery in the future, but at least not right away.  The good news is, while it is troublesome, it’s not cause for serious alarm. 

The sun has finally come out, and the kids are itching to get outside!

First Quilt Finish 2012

I finally got around to taking photos of the first UFO quilt I have completed this year.  You may recognize it from the Charmed Prints Quilt Along from December.  I finished the quilt top and had it basted, but I just didn’t get around to quilting it until the hecticness of the holidays wore off. 

Esther really liked the heart fabric I used in one of the featured blocks on the front, so I used the remainder to make a strip of hearts across the back and put two extra blocks on it, too.

I framed another one of my Spoonflower labels for the back.

This is the first time I’ve done “organic straight line quilting” and I am extremely pleased with how it turned out.  I used a mid-loft polyester batting which I pretty much detest, but it was pretty easy to do the straight line quilting without getting many tucks or wrinkles.

 

After washing and drying it, Esther and Veronica had a birthday party for their stuffed animals on it.

On account of trying straight line quilting for the first time, I am linking up to Happy Quilting’s Trying New Things Thursday.

Charmed Prints Quilt Top

Last night during the Friday Night Sew In I finished up the quilt top for the Charmed Prints Quilt Along.  I am really proud of this quilt top! 

It’s not perfect and has some visible errors—two of the pieced blocks on the end of a row were a little too big and points had to be cut off to accommodate the sashing.  But most importantly, I used stash fabrics to create this quilt (the backing and binding are yet to be completed):

• charm pack I won two years ago and forgot the name of
• polka dot sashing I bought on clearance from Connecting Threads
• floral “Whimsy” fabric for the border
• blue Heidi Grace (from Joanns) fabric for the binding
• Kona aqua solid for the backing

It is true that I ordered the butterfly and heart fabric from Fabric.com the week of Thanksgiving, but overall I did a good job using up fabrics from my stash.  And what’s most important is I think they look good together.  There are some projects that I’ve made that I’ve never shared on my blog because they are just…not blogworthy!  Using fabric from my stash is sometimes a real challenge for me because I like the look of all the prints from a collection and am usually less than satisfied with the outcome when I try to pull different fabrics together. 

The sashing is actually while with tiny aqua polka dots, which I like immensely!

Luckily, the quilt does not need to be completed until 12/20, so I’m going to be putting it away for now and working on a few Christmas gifts that I need to get done. 

Charmed Prints QAL

Do you start with fabric or start with a pattern first?  I definitely start with fabric!  In fact, you might say I have a little too much.  I joined the Japanese Charm Swap here on Gen X Quilters which was a lot of fun.  Then when a charm pack quilt along came up, I thought the pattern was unique and that I’d give it a go.  But then I got stuck.  I didn’t know what fabric to use (I didn’t feel inspired to use the Japanese charms), and I certainly didn’t want to buy any considering what the shelves in my office look like!

The quilt along started quite a while ago, but I only got my game on during the Thanksgiving holiday.  I’ve made all the “special” blocks for the pattern, a few extra in fact, and I did *ahem* place an emergency fabric order on Fabric.com on Wednesday—butterflies and hearts!-- so I have two more pieces coming my way that I am going to use for a few additional special blocks, but for the most part, all the hard work is done. 

It took a while for the inspiration to hit, but I started with two blocks, picking fabric from my stash and fussy cutting the centers before I got on a roll.  I just picked things I thought Esther (my middle daughter) would like, and then she helped pick out fabric she liked, too.  Her older sister Bea has gobs of quilts I’ve made for her, although she feels a little miffed whenever I’m working on something not for her!

The best news?  I was thinking I’d need to go through and cut a bunch of charms from my stash.  Then I remembered that when I first started reading blogs, I entered a giveaway and WON!!!  It was the first giveaway I’d ever entered, and I was a bit skeptical.  But then a package came in the mail containing two charm packs and a layer cake!  I still have one of the charm packs.  I’ve looked at it enough that the paper band holding it together is missing now, so I’m not sure of the name, but the colors are pretty and, more importantly, even though it’s not totally matchy-matchy with my special blocks, a little white sashing is going to make them look great together!!!!  My special blocks have some lavender in them, so I’ll need to augment the charms with a few purples, but other than that, I’m ready to go on to the next step, making the quilt top, the directions tba on Tuesday.

I’m linking this up to Love Affair With My Brother this week.

Mom on duty

Well, this past week was a bust.  Pretty much everyone has been sick at least once, if not twice, in the past two weeks including myself and my husband.  Bea even had to miss her school fieldtrip to the pumpkin patch.  Amazingly, I did manage to get these pillow covers made for Halloween.

Esther LOVES to decorate for Halloween, so on Thursday while Veronica took her nap, we made these out of a Moda Haunted Mansion charm pack I bought last year.  Here she is looking quite unwell while modeling the new covers.  We had several takes of this photo and this was the best shot…

 

These were easy to make.  I didn’t even quilt the fronts.  Since the edges of the charms are already pinked, I wasn’t too worried about unfinished seams.  Plus, the window for Halloween decor is kind of short, so I don’t see them getting washed too often. After sewing together the charms in a 3 x 3 square, I added orange or purple frames to make the front 16 x 16 and then sewed a contrasting envelope style back.  Super fast and easy!

 

I have some pieces cut out for a Halloween quilt, but realistically I won’t get it done until next Halloween:)  I was thinking of trying to swap some of my Halloween fabric leftovers.    Does anyone know a reputable site for swapping fabric? 

Another Top Done!

I am on a mission…next week Warm and White batting goes on sale at Joanns for 1/2 price and I’ve got my stackable 20% off coupon already printed and in my purse.  My mission:  to get as many quilt tops—and backs—finished as I can between now and next Monday so I can go buy batting to finish them up.  Batting takes up a lot of space and I don’t like storing it around.  My kids like to rip through it, make caves in it, jump all over it, too, so it’s really not safe to keep in the house.  With a sale like this, I want to be ready to optimize my money.
I think this is Love U (actually, maybe it’s Love Is in the Air) by Deb Strain.  I like the whimsical-ness and boldness/contrast of the colors in the prints.  This quilt top is made from the first ever charm pack I bought.  It was almost complete, and now it is!

I went into Joanns yesterday and found some cute polka dots. 

I go pretty much every Monday morning looking for those dang DS Quilt prints.  My store here has had the same 5 prints since May:(  Anyway, in my efforts to find more Picnics and Fairgrounds, I got some $4.99 polka dots straight from a fresh bolt.  I wasn’t sure about the navy blue at first, but now I wish I had gotten a little bit more so I could have enough to use as binding, too.  Guess I’ll get a little more next Monday!
Here’s a photo of the jams we have made this summer…it doesn’t include all of the different variations (strawberry-pineapple, strawberry-rhubarb, black raspberry blueberry, and triple berry), but it has all the basics:  blackberry, spiced tomato, peach, strawberry, and blueberry.

My friend Robyn, my cousin Summer, and I canned over 100 jars of peach jam on Saturday:
We used Trossbach peaches which are famous in southern Maryland for being the best.  My house smelled great, until I made fajitas for dinner last night.  Now it smells like a Mexican restaurant:)